So there's this person in my village that may be trans...

[akitokitoast]

Basically, my mother and brother keep seeing a FAAB person at school that they think may be FTM but not realise it themself? Their reasoning is that she looks butch but in a different way to how lesbians sometimes do, that she looks sad all the time, that she hunches over in the moob-hiding way we all know, and that there's 'just something about her'. Having not seen her myself, I can't evaluate that myself with transdar or something.

If she is trans, I want to help her, I want to get to know her. (him?)

What should I do?

[Wolfsnake]

Say hi. Introduce yourself as your real gender, and see how things go from there.

[wheat thins are delicious]

Don't do anything.  If you genially want to be this person's friend, then go for it, but don't try to be friendly to them so you can try to "help them figure out their gender" or anything misguided like that, because you don't know them that way, they could just be a butch woman, non-binary, gender-queer, non-conforming, anything really.  It's rude and presumptuous if you try to get them to out themselves when they are not really in.

[Felix]

I'm not going to offer ideas or advice on this, but I'll tell you my experience.

I was in the closet for thirty years. Part of that time I was even in a kind of denial. People occasionally tried to point out (either kindly or unkindly) that I didn't act like a girl and didn't seem happy to be a girl. I was at times offered support and told that I whatever I am is okay. I was usually annoyed, confused, or oblivious to these kinds of statements. I didn't feel that other people had the right to tell me how they felt about my clothes and stuff. Plus the occasional nice or neutral person was being judged against the abuse that I usually got from people who brought up gender or sexuality with me.

But then, I didn't know the word "transsexual" and I didn't know I wasn't alone in being one. When I thought about my gender, it was with despair. I thought I couldn't change anything. But now I know I can change my body (somewhat), my name, and my place in society. I wish there had been a way for me to learn that when I was younger.

[HarryP]

Just smile and be friendly. Maybe this person has a discomfort with their body for some other reason, like simply being embarrassed to have big boobs or something. However, one practical thing you could really do to help this person, would be to make sure your school has good LGBT anti-bullying policies etc, so they could go and talk to someone if they did need to talk through any trans issues

[anibioman]

i think we might live in the same town because there is someone exactly like that in my town who i know personally and i know isnt a lesbian because they 'like cock' as they have said themselves.

i dont think you should do anything because making them confront something there not ready to deal with may make them repress their identity even more. or they might not be trans at all.

[wheat thins are delicious]

I feel masculine in my own ways.  But the problem with masculinity/femininity is that once I asserted myself as a man anything I did was scrutinized as being not masculine enough, even ridiculous things.  Recently I missed two days at work due to my back.  I have a bad back and had spent the week on the couch in agony.  When I came back I still wasn't 100%, so when my supervisor asked me to go push carts I told her I couldn't because my back was still bothering me.  "you sposed to be a man, men fight through the pain" was the response I got.  Like yes, I should def go further injure myself so that I will have to miss more work so that I can be seen as a man. 

[Sage]

When I came back I still wasn't 100%, so when my supervisor asked me to go push carts I told her I couldn't because my back was still bothering me.  "you sposed to be a man, men fight through the pain" was the response I got.

What a completely insensitive thing for a person to say!    I'm sorry, but your supervisor was being just plain rude, regardless of how you identify as far as gender goes; that was way out of line.

[Felix]

Andy, that's really not cool. I'm sorry you're in a work environment where a supervisor feels they have the right to speak to you like that.