How gender non conforming were you as a child?

I feel like I was forced to be gender non-comforming.
My parents couldn't afford things like princess dresses and stuff "regular" girls wore, most of my clothes were hand-me-downs from other people's boys that my mum had gotten for free, and she cut my hair short several times because I couldn't brush it well enough and it got all tangled. So... I was often mistaken for a boy, though that could also have been because I was tall an skinny and played with things like pokemon and legoes.

I did play a little with barbies and dolls, but again, my parents couldn't afford that much of it, and legoes, cars and pokemon things were both cheaper and more interesting. Plus most of my friends were boys.
So... I was pretty non-comforming, I think.
I sometimes wonder if my parents had had the money, would I maybe have turned out a different person?

 

By 'gender non-conformity' I'm assuming you mean traditional gender roles? Like how I didn't like playing Barbies or house, but loved cars and superheroes? In that sense, I definitely fit that 40%.

 

Yes, I was based on gender roles. I refused to wear dresses until I was about 6, and only wore dresses after that when I dressed up as a princess, and I usually would dress my brother up too.

I played with barbies, but I had no boy barbies so they were all gay. Obviously, at the ripe old age of 7 or 8 I had no grasp of the concept of sexuality. But my girl barbies got married and I didn't bat an eyelid...

I also had a huge collection of Lego and stuff, and I used to make worm houses and keep tubs of spiders and woodlice, and raise caterpillars into butterflies and stuff. So yeah, I guess going by traditional gender roles, I've always been a bit odd.

 

Come to think of it, i cross dressed, helped my mom in the kitchen mostly, had handbags and dolls, played games with girls a lot. I used to apply nail polish and make up. My mom taught me that applying lipstick before bed reduced the chance of getting chapped lips all day. Gay people seemed quite okay to me. didnt know what all the fuss was about.

 

I didn't conform much at all as a child until one of my relatives poked fun at me 'dressing like a boy' when I was about seven.

After that I conformed (at least clothing wise) until I was about fifteen/sixteen.
But even before then I thought dolls and such were boring and had no clue what to do with them, I preferred video games, cars, legos, etc. My sister got a doll house once and I ended up trying to just run the small plastic people over with a toy van laughing as I did so.
That was fun.

 

I was the biggest girly-girl ever. I even wore dresses in the winter.

I loved it though. Nobody forced me.

 

Not much, except for clothes. I refused to wear dresses or skirts when I was in kindergarten. I just wasn't into really girly accessories or clothing in general. I don't exactly think of it as gender non conforming though, because I still dressed feminine, just not girly. I guess it's just personal preference o:

 

Looking back on my toddler/little child years, I was a very rebellious little girl. I refused to wear girly things at all costs and drove my mother insane. With friends, they always wanted to play things like house and I would be like "NOOO LET'S PLAY HIDE AND SEEK". I went to a friend's birthday party and I was forced to get my hair done and I remember ripping it out the second I got home. The only thing I can remember that would be considered girly is that I loved playing with Barbies, Polly Pockets, Littlest Pet Shop, etc. I also loved playing with Hot Wheels and Transformers as well. (Toys were just awesome.) I actually remember wanting to go to the Boys' Toy section in a Walmart when I was eight because I really wanted a toy there. I was with my mom and wanted to ask her if I could but I ended up backing out because I was too nervous and I thought I would get weird looks in the Boys' section. Looking back on it, I wish today-me could have popped up and encouraged that kid to get that toy.

 

From birth until about 8, I did what I wanted.

From 8 until about 12, is when things started cementing. I still did what I wanted, but I was more mindful of how others responded to what I did. If I had known for sure about the being transgender back then, I probably would have embraced it more, making it easier nowadays.

From 12 until 18, I did what was beneficial or comfortable.

I wasn't totally male or revealingly female. I was whatever worked best for me, with a lean towards masculinity. So, I was somewhat rebellious.

 

I read somewhere that gender nonconforming equates to about 65% to 75% LGBT, but I don't have time to look for that link right now.

Mostly, I'd say it was a lack of interest in certain typical things on my part. Also, I did not have an interest in things the opposite sex might like nor trying to amend my appearance to look less male. I've had roughly equal numbers of male and female friends, and that percentage can vary. Friendships have been based on a mental connection rather than gender. I can put together my own wardrobe and I like clothing that reflects good taste at a good price. Some guys just don't care. In a way, they can afford not to because good looking guys can walk into a store looking like they just rolled out of bed and still be considered hot. Women are judged for going to the supermarket to pick up some groceries with their hair askew or not having applied make up.

They say that kids are getting more slack for being less conforming to gender roles these days. I wonder if that's true. I still hear and read a lot about bullying. Ideally, things would have become more relaxed.

I wanted to add that people can be verbally or emotionally abusive to those who do not conform to gender norms, even if it's by an absence of interest or participation ... even today.

 

I was a hardcore tomboy. I'd beat all the boys at just about anything. Loved playing football, baseball, basketball... most of my friends were boys because I had way more in common with them than with girls. If you looked at our xmas tree, you would think my mom had a son and a daughter vs two daughters. I looked very much like a boy. My teachers would give my mom crap about it. "why do you let her wear her hair so short?" and my mom would say ''because that's the way she likes it'' ha. I do believe I was treated differently and I'm sure my mom had sheltered me from a lot of it.

It was significant enough that when I was 12, the school counselor asked me if I felt like a boy trapped in a girl's body. To this day I feel like that was completely inappropriate. My mom had no idea they did that either.

I got mistaken for a boy SO many times growing up before I hit puberty. I grew out of it a little bit. I'm still a tomboy. I am not a girlie girl. I do love that I am a woman and it's obvious that I am one. I remember when I came out to my mom and sister. Their response was more like ''Yeah, we figured.'' lol

 

Hmm... well I played quite a bit with boy toys with my brothers so I guess I was slightly gender non conforming but I did love disney princesses! Fairly girly really, mainly liked being seen as cute. :eusa_ange

 

I was very feminine in elementary school. Then I went to junior high and became all hardened. I started getting in fights and not acting like a girly girl. None of this was related to what I was "supposed" to be. I was always doing my own thing.

 

I would dress up in my sisters dresses and played with her barbies on occasion, and my favourite film was the barbie mermaid film. Enough said.

 

I:
Called chapstick lipstick and said I put on lipstick until I was ~5
Want(ed) long fingernails that I could paint
Hated it when my voice started to change
Hated all the sexist stuff at school
Did not understand getting hair cuts, I did not know it was so it would get shorter, I thought it was just something that had to be done until I was ~5, so I thought just do something to make my hair stop growing so no more haircuts, then get extensions or a wig
My grandma collect(ed) dolls, and used any and every excuse to get one (half are my uncle's because my Mom and aunt cried when they got dolls), one was supposed to be for me, and I played with it, and then it immediately got put too high (permanent storage)

Depending how you view it, I was/am a lot or not at all

 

I was pretty balanced between masculine and feminine as a kid, and I would say I'm the same now, though leaning more feminine. Like a lot of kids I never wanted to get dressed up. I found barbies totally dull, but I did like other "girly" toys like stuffed animals (still do!). At the same time I played with a lot of my brothers' toys with them, like cars, marble runs, and legos. In my younger teens I probably appeared more masculine because I was uncomfortable with myself and my body, so I always wore oversized t-shirts and pants and resisted anything feminine like makeup or painting my nails. I still don't do makeup and such, but I do enjoy dressing up in dresses or skirts from time to time.

 

I can't say I was gender non-conforming but I certainly wasn't conforming either. I dressed in whatever I wanted to dress in, my hair was generally short through secondary school. Never had a Barbie and no real interest in dolls, but we didn't have much money so I didn't have that many toys anyway. I was just myself and if I wasn't like everyone else, that was good. I never felt the need to dress up for the boys and rarely wore makeup, still rarely wear makeup. And I never understood why so many of the girls I went to school with spent Monday morning telling us about which boy(s) they had slept with that weekend. I didn't see the attraction.
Lol. I was very naive. Now I can look back at myself and see it, but I certainly didn't then. I had a boyfriend, but boys in general weren't that interesting, except as friends. I didn't see what all the fuss was .

 

My finest moment was throwing a tantrum when I was about four when I was in daycare. It was around Easter and we had some craft to do, and I remember throwing a fit over it being a binary gendered project (pink is for girls, blue is for boys) and it was ridiculous. I don't remember the outcome, but it wasn't a pretty sight.

I didn't like traditionally feminine things, but at the same time, I wasn't traditionally masculine or what you'd think a boy would do. A simple way to put it was that I saw myself as a boy, but not one that was hyper masculine (despite rejecting things that were traditionally feminine most of the time; like dolls, makeup, and dresses); being terrified of bugs (with the exception of a select few) and not being a fan of dirt, sports, or "risky" games that I could easily get hurt in.

It's hard to say that I was a tomboy, since I knew I was a boy and I saw the term as something for masculine girls.