Explanation Letter

I've been trying to write a letter to my girlfriend to explain how I feel in regards to my gender. She's been trying to be as accepting as she can, but I don't feel that she really understands how it feels for me. I just want to get some feedback on how it sounds before I give it to her.

Imagine that for your entire life, you wore shoes that were a size or two too small. You didn't
know that they were too small, so you thought everyone's shoes hurt and pinched their feet as much
as yours did. Then one day you wore somebody else's shoes for a little bit and found that they fit
you a lot better. But you didn't say anything because, well, your shoes aren't like that. But
every now and then you would go and put someone else's shoes on for a little bit, and just revel in
the fact that they don't hurt as much as your shoes do.

Then one day, you're talking to someone you trust, or reading something, and you get told that
your shoes aren't meant to hurt you, that they shouldn't be pinching your feet, that how you feel
when you wear someone else's shoes, is how you're actually meant to feel. But when you try to talk
to other people, you get told that 'well, you've worn those shoes all your life. If you they
really hurt that much, wouldn't you have said something by now?'

You try to tell them that you didn't know that shoes could actually be comfortable, that things
could be different. But it just gets shrugged off as you don't get what you're talking about. You
just need to push through it.

And so you just put a lid on things and keep putting on the slightly too small shoes and going on
with your life. But every time you put on those shoes, you think about how it felt to wear shoes
that fit. And so you start to resent needing to put on your own shoes. And each time you put them
on, it gets harder and harder to force yourself to.

And then someone tells you 'well, why not just change shoes?' And you sit and stare at ehm for a
few minutes, because it seems /so/ obvious, that you can't believe you didn't even consider it at
all. But when you try to talk to people about changing shoes, all you get is disdain or dismissal.
And even with those who understand, they still find it difficult to accept that you need to, for
your own health and well being.

For me, my gender is like those too small shoes. That for twenty six odd years, I didn't realize
that it didn't fit me. I just kept forcing it on and enduring the discomfort. I knew that there
was such a thing as transgender, but 'there was no way that could be me'.
But lately talking things through with my counsellor, and other people who have and are going
through the same thing, looking back at my life with new knowledge and insight, and it just looks
all to incredibly obvious.