'Tomboys' in 2025

I was discussing this with my 14yo earlier. Apparently Tomboy is just a clothing style now.... NB is rejecting being a girl. But we agreed that is pretty much the same thing.

It's got a lot more binary which is such a shame. It is damaging to make people feel like they are wrong if they don't fit into narrow gender definitions. If boys are not "masculine" enough and girls not "girly" enough they are made to feel like they don't belong in that category.
Toys and clothes didn't used to be colour coded according to gender, I presume that is down to capitalism.
Hopefully the tide will turn and the boundaries will be blurred again and less binary

100% agree OP! Genuinely believe that many who identify as non-binary are actually what we would think of as ‘tomboy’ - labels aside - what really worried me is that girls and women who would have previously just thought ‘I’m a bit of a tomboy’ are now being encouraged and in some instances pressured into questioning their gender and to change gender. The ‘over-labelling’ and ‘gender-fluidity’ concept I think actually narrows the idea that a woman can be whatever she wants including heterosexual, climbing trees, skateboarding etc - why should you be male, trans, gender fluid etc. and adopt a different persona to enjoy other things. Gender vs. Sexuality get mixed up. The term ‘tomboy’ allows a girl and woman to be whatever she wants to be without comment on her sexuality

I have a daughter who in my childhood would have been described as a tomboy but now she’s just a girl (who likes the same things tomboys did when I was younger) and my other daughter is also just a girl (who likes make up and nail varnish etc). Perhaps it’s to come or maybe now tomboys come under the category or girl and non binary is slightly more nuanced.

If I was at school now, I’m sure that somebody would have pushed gender labels onto me.

Ugh, the whole non-binary thing is infuriating. There have been tomboys forever. This fad of needing a special label for normal behaviours is really worrying, not conforming to stereotypes does not mean you’re not female.

You can have a vagina and uterus, wear dungarees and have short hair, and still be a woman. I honestly despair of the current younger generations.

It’s really worrying.

I was a “tomboy” and am very much a woman, and at times a reasonable “feminine” one some days but I still have a lot of less female heavy interests.

its sad but I’m actually a bit relieved that my daughter isn’t like I was - that she’s into Barbie and dancing and unicorns (as well as being outside, Lego etc) as I would have really worried that she would be pushed / brainwashed (not by me!!!) into thinking she wasn’t a girl if she didn’t like these “girly” things. I wish I could transport her back to the 1980s when kids could just be kids

Couldn’t agree more. Stereotypical Tom boy and still am at 47 love the odd dressing up day for a special occasion, a pretty dress and a nice spa day every so often.

Pretty sure nobody realised I was female until I was 16 and grew a pair of boobs.
hate to think what would happen to me today.

always joke with the parents they were clearly trend setters bringing up a non binary child before that was even a thing.

And yes, I change tyres and do all the diy around the house as the bloke is useless, although he’s brilliant at Ironing 😁

Young people are completely obsessed with labels and sadly too many have parents boarded the trans train and told them that if they didn’t subscribe to a total gender stereotype then they must be “different” - so different in fact that it needs a special label that’s part of a special group.

I was VERY much a tomboy (almost 40 now) as a child. Having 2 older brothers close in age that I adored made me want to have short hair, wear boys clothes and like “boy” things like football and wrestling. Nothing pink and no Dollie’s ever crossed the threshold of my house.

It TERRIFIES me to think that, in another age with another type of parent, I’d have been told I was in fact a boy, and that a certain type of parent would take me to the doctor for life altering medication. Utterly terrifying.

People need to be told that gender is just a synonym for personality, and that non binary is just an abstract concept and another of saying “Doesn’t fit perfectly to stereotypes”. Surely we are ALL non binary - I’ve never met a girl/women who wasn’t a little bit boyish/masculine in their tastes and never met a boy/man who is completely blokey.

The labels are dangerous and they tell people they are special when they’re just normal. I feel sorry for these young people who’ve been sold a lie en masse and I look forward to the day of class action lawsuits against the absolute scum who have peddled this nonsense to them.