Questioning my gender...

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Ever since I was little I never felt like a girl. I used to say I was a boy, I dressed like a boy, I made up names for myself. I got along with boys better, but also had female friends. One of my female friends is just like me, but I'm not sure she's trans. We both talked about how cool it would be if we were guys though, we would occasionally talk about it from 3rd to maybe 5th grade. At 6th, I started dressing more feminine because I was a target of bullying and got the crap beaten out of me. At my friends house, I felt like myself. Both me and my friend haven't really talked about wanting to be guys in years, but we still act like guys around each other. She doesn't know I still feel like a boy. I have no idea if she does either. My mum found out on her own that I think I might be a boy. She's paranoid I might end up like the only transman my age she knows, who's EXTREMELY suicidal. She also thinks I'd buy testosterone off ebay or something. I'm not extremely suicidal about this, I mean it bothers me, yeah, but I don't want to end up like that one transman my age.
My mum told my grandma, who literally called me just to tell me not to get a penis! She also said both her and my mum noticed I wasn't a girl when I was just 9 months old, but she doesn't think I'm a boy either. I don't know, I mean I never really came out about this, and I don't want to come out until I know for sure. I think I'm only going to come out when I'm around 18 though. What should I do, I mean how do I tell for sure?

This must be pretty hard, aspiemusician. I went through something similar (although it was more my sexuality than my gender identity) last year and I went frickin' crazy.

I don't exactly know how to tell for sure, because I'm not experiencing the same thing as you. What is it like to feel like you're the wrong gender? Do you feel that some of your personality traits more closely resemble that of a male than a female? If so, how?

This is pretty much the same thing I said in the FTM thread, but I think the best thing you could do if you want to find out whether you are trans or not is to explore it through non permanent means. For example,

Try cutting your hair, binding, and dressing in male clothes. You would not believe how excited I was when I wore my first suit. Find an LGBT organization either in your community or in your school. They're usually good about respecting gender identities. Tell them you're questioning and ask them to call you 'he' and by a male name. See how that feels.

There's no guarantee that you'd end up like the other transman that you know. Every transperson is different. I have support and people to talk to, I'm transitioning, and I've never been happier.

And if you try some of this stuff and decide that you can't really give up being a girl, either, you could be genderqueer, or bi-gender. Bi-gender people feel that in certain circumstances they are male and certain circumstances they are female. There's nothing wrong with wanting to present as a girl sometimes and a boy sometimes.

But before you consider anything permanent like hormones (which you should not buy yourself, it's very easy to mess up your health if you use hormones without being monitored by a doctor), try out being a guy in smaller steps and see how it feels.

Just like he said. You don't have to pick one or the other. Remember, you are who you are, even if you don't know exactly who that is. Goodness knows I still don't