I just took part in the U.S. Trans Survey (which I suggest anybody else who's trans or gender-nonconforming do: http://www.ustranssurvey.org/) and at the end they asked if I would be willing to share my story. Since it felt like a pretty good story, I thought I'd put it here, too, on the off chance it would help someone else struggling with their gender identity.

When I was a little kid I thought there were only two options for gender. As I got older, my parents had some friends who were trans, and I thought, "fine, they're supposed to be the other gender." I don't think I ever really identified with one gender or the other, though. I was assigned female at birth so that's the group I was put in at school, but my parents did a pretty good job (as best as they could) to allow me to be myself and not force femininity on me. They let me wear bright colors and blues (my favorite color) and never made me wear pink or dresses if I didn't want to.

As I grew up, especially in middle and high school, I hung out with girls because I related to them on an intellectual level rather than gender. They were just more mature. I started wearing a suit to school formals in high school and that felt better than a dress to me, though dresses were still fun. I've never been into makeup so I experimented a little but didn't get into it.

In college I attended a conference for LGBT students (MBLGTACC) and discovered a term for people who didn't fit into the gender binary. At the time I was in a long-distance relationship with a trans guy, so I started to play around with the concept. At some point my mom found out (I don't remember whether I told her or not), and she's been trying to educate herself on the subject, which I really appreciate. She doesn't use my preferred pronouns, though, even though I've corrected her a few times. I don't know if my dad knows or not. My birth name is female but since I was little it's been shortened to a fairly gender-neutral nickname most of the time--verbally it could be male or female, and if written you just need to add an E to the end to make it a man's name. This has helped me considerably with my self image.