To think the phrase “tomboy” is outdated?

[weathersweater]

So a girl who doesn’t like wearing dresses, or the colour pink and likes playing football - why can’t she not just be a girl who likes xyz?

Why do we need to categorise likes and interests with having a certain gender attached to them?

I was a tomboy, never felt it was derogative or a ‘gender’, it was me, a girl, who liked climbing trees, making campfires, outdoors, muddy, physical stuff. Hated anything to do with hairbrushing, nail painting, dolls. I’m the same today.

I am just me, a female person, woman, and don’t need another descriptor, but then why do we have ‘girly girly’ etc?

This is it though. Now if a girl is a tomboy the immediate conclusion is that she is trans and put on that pathway.

Still a tomboy, and I am 67! I prefer outdoors to indoors, jeans to skirts and like boats better than handbags. But I can still love pretty and visual, as well as engineering.

@belladonna22 I know if one young person that wanted to be a boy and made many changes to her appearance etc. Its a good few years later and she has admitted she never wanted to be a boy but would never be as beautiful as her sister so decided she wanted to be a boy and now she can't find her way back to being a girl

Rather Tomboy than deciding she's an actual boy! Nothing wrong with a tomboy or being called it.

I like the term. When I was a child it was applied to me, and it gave me a sense that i was occupying a legit, accepted, respected space: ie a girl who didn't conform to feminine gender stereoptypes. It wasn't used with hostility, or with any sense that I shouldn't be that way. It was just descriptive and it felt validating.

I know that we shouldn't need such a term (and I don't often hear it nowadays), but in fact girls are under such severe pressure to either conform to feminine stereotypes or buy into the idea that non-conformity equals 'trans' that I wish the term would make a comeback - perhaps as a staging post towards the ultimate goal of just letting girls be girls .

We had so many less pressures growing up as girls in the 80s than girls do now.

Back then being a tom boy was considered quite cool. Now if girls don't conform with gender stereotypes they are told they might not be girls at all.

Gender ideology has a lot to answer for. Tom boys weren't encouraged to have radical mastectomies or to modify their bodies. Many of us went on to have children which some of this generation's girls are being denied in the name of so called 'progress'.

Tomboy isn’t a word I’d use though I would say girlie girl.

Also it used to be accepted that girls may or may not grow out of being a tomboy. It was not something you were committed to for life.
I don't mind the term personally.

@GoodOldEmmaNess , yes! I agree wholeheartedly. I knew that I didn't want to be a help meet woman before I was 10, and that I wanted to be me, and female and decisive. And probably to work in an area that wasn't gendered.

@belladonna22 oh piss off. I'm about as anti-DM as you can get and totally fine with adults who choose to dress and present as however they like. As a teacher, I have a massive problem with teens who are going through all the usual struggles with growing up and who they "are" and deciding that maybe all of that will go away if they transition. A MtF pupil is bloody miserable, has no friends, doesn't participate in sport and takes no joy in her new identity. The other kids have no idea how to relate to her and are petrified of saying the wrong thing and being labelled transphobic.
I agree with the op that ideally there shouldn't be signifiers of "boy things" and "girl things" that result in tomboy or girly girl labels but we've disappeared so far up our own arses that we are causing immense trauma and confusion and long lasting damage to many young people who actually need some grown up logic, biology and common sense applied.

My daughter is always asked if she’s trans as she has short hair, is very sporty and looks fairly androgynous. She just doesn’t like long hair. It’s almost more common in school now to be trans than just liking short hair.

I don't like the word, it cements that some things are for boys, even when so many girls like them.

Have posters considered the male equivalent of tomboy- ie words applied to boys who like “girl things”? Probably wouldn’t want your son called those words. Then reflect on why it’s kind of cool for girls to like “boy things” but not vice versa. Then you realise what the issue with tomboy is- it reinforces the idea that there are girl things and boy things and society thinks that the boy things are better, as this thread has demonstrated quite well.

I think that if a young person is truly gender fluid and undecided, it is probably very difficult. My DS had a sexual relationship for a year with a non-binary natal female which ended with them deciding on microdosing testosterone. Neither was a teenager, both 20s.

It's literally insanity because it's patently not true.
I work to support all schools in our local authority- 300-ish schools. I work with them around inclusive practice, including inclusion of LGBTQ+ pupils. We have many pupils who identify with a sex other than the one they were born as. Many are non-binary or gender fluid, some are trans and have changed their name and pronouns. Schools and the local CAMHS very much work together to advocate a watch and wait model, supported by our local LGBTQ+ youth service. Adults never suggest they change their gender, no adults in education or health are encouraging pupils to seek surgery. In the whole county I have never come across a child who is taking puberty blockers. In my conversations with every school safeguarding lead none have ever identified a pupil who they are aware is taking blockers.
Teenagers experiment, let them be teenagers. No one is telling boys who like ballet or ballroom, or paints their nails that they are a girl. No one is telling girls who play football or wear short hair that they are a boy.

I think it’s really regressive and outdated. If you don’t subscribe to bullshit gender stereotyping then there’s no need to have a word to describe girls who like “boy things” because there are no “boy things”. This is a current topic of conversation in our house as a relative called DD a tomboy last week and she was genuinely baffled when I explained what it meant. Obviously she has noticed that at some of her hobbies it’s mostly boys who attend or that it’s mostly boys who like XYZ at school, but she couldn’t understand why someone would find it the least bit remarkable that she also likes some of these things. I was particularly eye-rolly about it because actually DD has a vast range of interests, some very stereotypically "girly" and some more stereotypically associated with boys. So the fact that this relative has got her pigeon holed as a tomboy would seem to indicate that any departure from gender stereotypes whatsoever is something to be remarked upon. Really outdated attitude.

No one is telling girls who play football or wear short hair that they are a boy.

I am very sorry but you may not be but some are.

I have had direct experience of CAMHS trying to explore gender with my autistic daughter who keeps her hair short and wears 'boys' clothes for sensory reasons.

There is a reason that there is a social contagion of children, often autistic, identifying as trans. They are getting their ideas from somewhere. To suggest otherwise is nonsense.

There are even gender books available.

It is grooming in plain sight.

Totally agree with this.

How awful.

What a shame that that young girl felt the need to modify her body.

Much better than NB crap

How about 'girl'?

What's the need to make a point of them being a 'girl who's into boy things'? It just entrenches the idea that there are girl things and boy things, rather than just things that different people enjoy.

Well my son loves all things pink, just like his mother and I don't see anything wrong with that.

What's wrong with it? I've always considered myself a tomboy, I think its still a useful term for a slightly masculine female who doesn't aspire to be feminine, and maybe enjoys stuff that's stereotypically masculine and / or who prefers male company but in a platonic sense. But I am quite old haha...language does change over time.

@lifeturnsonadime , not totally sure I agree. Both parties were over 20. They got on and were interested in the same things. Family and babies were never part of their plan. One party decided solo that their plan was to go further to transition sex, and the other partner declined to go along. Both are creative artists, and they decided to end the relationship reasonably peacefully because each respected the other's standpoint and there really wasn't a compromise midway point.