Were you a 'tom boy' growing up?

[LeslieKnopefan]

I grew up in the 80s / 90s and was a complete tom boy, I hated wearing dresses - in fact the only pictures of me wearing them growing up was at weddings wear I look miserable!

I loved football, watched it obsessively and played it in the garden and for a while played for a team but that wasn't very easy as there wasn't many about.

It wasn't easy, boys didnt want me to play football with them and from the age of about 13 playing sport wasnt cool for girls so I gave most of it up to fit in.

But, no one questioned if I was a girl, of course I was and now as an adult I am very happy to be a woman, even if I prefer the company of men and still hardly wear a dress or makeup and love sport.

Is it easier for girls to be tomboys (for a better word!) now? There does seem to be more sports but I am very worried that if I was a teen now I would think I was in the wrong body or have other people say that to me?

I wanted to be a boy. I pretended to be a boy and loved it if people mistook me for a boy. I even chose a name. The only time I wore dresses/skirts was for weddings or school (girls weren't allowed to wear trousers back them)

I played with Lego, action men, loved Star Wars, The A Team, BMXing, building camps etc. I really wanted to join scouts but they didn't let girls. Guides was too "sissy" for me, even though I really had no idea what they did (sewing & cooking in my mind)

My periods started at 10, my breasts grew very quickly. I hated it.

If someone had said to me, you can bind your breasts, you can take these puberty blockers to stop periods, I would have absolutely jumped at the chance! Most definitely.

As I became a teenager I became happier about being a girl, I fancied boys. I still hated my breasts though as they were too big and people would comment and stare. I hid them under men's tops.

I'm definitely a woman, the kids I gave birth to prove that, the breasts I fed them with prove that. The blood that pours out of me every fricking month proves that.

It's horrific to think if I was a kid now I'd probably be transed.

I've never been happy with my body, but I accept that it's my body now. A woman's body. And I am a woman.

I'm so glad my parents just let me be me.

And my brother. For although he liked the same stuff as me he also loved My Little Pony and Care Bears! Shocker! So he was obviously a girl.

Yes I was. When I was very young, wearing skirt was very much normal (and part of compulsory school uniform. Gradually I wore trousers more and more as I was allowed to do so. My hero was George in Famous Five and I too wanted to be “as good as a boy” which makes me cringe now, but I didn’t question it at all at the time. I asked my parents to call me by a boys name now and then. My mother refused and that was that, so it obviously wasn’t a big deal to me. I was fortunate though to grow up with parents who firmly believed in equality and that women could whatever they wanted to be.

My daughter has refused to wear clothes aimed at women since she was two years old. I fought for her against her father when he felt there were occasions when she ought to. She is happy to be a woman and has never expressed any wish to be otherwise.

I was a tom boy, I idolised ( and feared but there's another thread for another day ) my dad and I wanted to be just like him. We did alot of camping, hiking and general out doorsy type activities which I loved and we also watched alot of sport. Until the age of around 10 I spent my summer's topless in shorts because that's how my dad dressed and why shouldn't I take my shirt off if i was hot, all the boys did? My mum has even told me I went through a phase of trying to wee standing up over the toilet . As an adult I'm still fairly GNC i rarely wear make up, dresses or high heels. Thankgod I'm not a child now, I'm sure I would be transed.

Not really as a child. Long hair, ballet, liked dresses sometimes, but not for playing.

But as a teenager I railed against expectations of girls. Wanted to be the best in science and maths. The only girl to choose Craft, design and technology with all the boys instead of 'textiles' and home economics with all the girls.

I wanted a foot in both camps. To perform femininity when I fancied it, but to have the same choices and be respected like the boys.

I think I also wanted (although I wouldn't have admitted it) to be seen as a 'special kind of girl', the one who stood out from the pack, who could change a tyre and use a hammer drill, but was still fanciable (I wasn't).

This was exactly me as well. I think nowadays Barrack and I would be labelled "gender queer"

Not really, I did like wearing dresses and pretty girly things, but I also liked climbing trees and playing sports that were associated with boys. As a teenager I was a classic nerd, and was one of the first kids in my class to have a games console, a computer, to learn to program games, etc. But nobody called me a tom boy because I 'looked' girly.

Another tomboy here. Used to be mistaken for a boy. Just liked doing the things usually associated with boys.

Seemed that life was more exciting for boys and they didn't get fussed around and over protected like girls were. It really cramps your style.

Grew up 100% heterosexual, married, children. But am still a tomboy and I am in my 70s now!

God help everyone (nearly) on this thread had we been kids today. Mermaids and their fellow travellers would be beating our doors down to get at us and infect us with their bile and ignorance.

I was definitely a tomboy growing up and still am if I'm honest.
I do think it is easier for us these days growing up as tomboys as i could play football with the boys, i never wore dresses(still don't unless I'm at weddings) i shaved the sides of my head and just had hair on top(been my hairstyle ever since)
I've never really been questioned or abused for it (however i was home educated and have only been to college so i can't say for sure) but in my experience of the modern times I've not had any problems x

Growing up, 'tomboy' was used more to refer to girls who liked a lot of sports and were physically tough and active so that definitely wasn't me as I was a 'weakling' to use the phrase of my tomboy best friend at the time .

I did wear boyish clothes once I had the chance to pick my own clothes out. I remember one time going shopping for new clothes with my mother and picking out what I thought were practical but smart-looking blue cords with a grey-and-blue jumper - only to see a boy wearing the exact same clothes as me at Mass on Sunday a few weeks later! I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me - but more for him than me because I knew even then that he would be teased more for wearing the same clothes as a girl than I would for wearing boys clothes. Just that incident alone would have had me co-opted into a TRA brainwashing programme these days, I'm sure.

All the girls I knew growing up were like me though - we rode our bikes around, climbed trees and played the A-team or Robin Hood (none of us ever wanted to be boring Maid Marion). Girls who were 'girly' and wore dresses and had long hair were the exception to the rule. I was growing up in rural Ireland though so that might have been part of that. In a more urban setting, girliness might have been more approved of. A lot of the girls I knew were growing up on farms so there was no room for girly stuff.

At 10, I remember it did make me mad that girls couldn't become priests as grown-ups so if someone had offered me the chance to transition to growing up as a man instead of as a woman so I could become a priest, I might have jumped at the chance!

Yes rather unflattering short back and sides hair cut, lived in shorts and tea shirts (cloth kits unisex styles) used to do 'tree wees ' , often got mistaken for a boy and my dad actively encouraged me to always go things like football and fencing (?) extracurricular activitieswise.
Saying that girl across the road was very tomboyish and still really sporty but getting a bit more feminine now she's mid teenage I think there are still lots of tomboys but fashion trends generally mean majority of girls have long hair etc whereas thirty years ago short hair was pretty standard for girls so wasn't such a big deal also shops etc far less stereotyped

i didnt wear dresses, and I liked climbing trees, making dens, catching frogs etc as well as playing dolls and teddies

I was never called a tom boy.

Horse crazy tomboy whose girl gang could outclimb any boy in the neighborhood growing up in the fifties. Adults laughed off girls being tomboys reassuring themselves that we would outgrow it when we reached puberty. Most of us didn't outgrow it though. We remembered every time we were told 'girls can't', and we did not like it one bit.
In the postwar years there was a lot of pressure on adult women to work if they must but focus on being a homemaker as the priority. This did not go unnoticed by the daughters of the Rosie the riveters, like me. My mum bucked rivets in the war years, and my name is Rose.

I was a tomboy, looked like a boy, wanted to be a boy. My parents would have transed me in a heartbeat and I would have gone along with it, not knowing any better.
It wasn't until I was an adult (and left home) that I realised I actually liked being a woman.

Yes I used to refuse to wear skirts and instead wear boys jeans and my dads giant tshirts. I painted my room black listened to angry male rock music.
It was confusing though because I got bullied and as part of that constantly accused of being a lesbian. So much so that I began to believe it and tried to have a relationship with a female friend. Realised I wasnt actually a lesbian although I cared about her a lot. Was terrified of the concept of childbirth and marriage and anything like that. Did not understand feeling any physical attraction to anyone.

Fast forward and Im married to a man who I find ridiculously attractive, a housewife and pregnant with my second child and could not be more traditionally feminine in appearance. To my surprise I have ended up really enjoying all this stuff.... Not sure how or why that all happened!!

When I look back I think a lot of my confusion had to do with fear. I do think theres some truth in masculinity being thought of as the 'normal' state of being and so what being female means can be a confusing to you as you start to hit puberty. I mean everything seemed to be focused on how men see women and not the experience of being a woman. Meaning that I ended up feeling quite alienated by the concept of femininity because I didnt think I looked or felt like what men apparently wanted. If you see what I mean? I used to look at fashion magasines and think 'well im nothing like that am I?' and so became quite disconnected with what I thought being female was about. I just wanted to be a person. And I felt out of control of my body because id just been getting on with my life and then I got all this pain and blood and threat of having to push a living being out of me!! And no one really was speaking about that openly at the time. It was all a bit hush hush or so it seemed. I remember being very uptight about even mentioning my period for example and never heard other girls talking about theirs.

As I grew up I realised what a facade all that male gaze shit is and how it has nothing to do with the experience of being female and that I very much could still be a 'person' and a woman and even enjoy traditionally girly stuff in any way I wanted. That to me now its just a bit of fun.... and I used to be so suspicious of anything girly like it would somehow steal my soul or something lol

I think actually as I grew up to give less of a shit about how people saw me and what I represented then I could express my traditionally feminine side more. I also became more confident in and learnt about my body more. But it took time.

No, not in the slightest. I was always a very girly girl. I had long hair, loved wearing dresses and skirts. As a teenager I loved the Laura Ashley bucolic milk maid look and hippy dippy Indian cotton dresses, long skirts and loads of silver jewellery and shawls. Wasn't allowed make up at school but out of school wore loads of dark, smokey eye make up and kohl. I occasionally wore Levi jeans but only if they were as tight as possible (men's waist 26 and almost certainly the only unisex clothing I ever owned)

I hated sport. I did cycle but it was simply a means of transport. I grew up on a farm surrounded by trees- the appeal of climbing them was limited.

The only non girly thing about me as a teenager related to music. I loathed teeny stuff like David Cassidy and the Osmonds and Jackie magazine and just about everything in the UK singles chart.

In the early days of feminism (1960s and 70s, I was a Spare Rib subscriber) we used the phrase "second class citizens".

I was a tomboy. I did lots of sports, tree climbing, always wore trousers etc. My favourite colour was (and still is) blue. I was never into football though. I liked netball, gym, running & horses. I think it wad easier in the 1980s. I don't ever remember pink being the thing for girls or anything really girly. I never wanted to be a bit tho. I think I wanted to be like a boy.

Boy not bit

Very much so. I was never interested in dolls and ‘girly stuff’ at all. I was sporty and geeky and preferred jeans to dresses.

I was good at science subjects and was the only girl in my year to do physics A level. The class comprised 8 lads, one male teacher and me. When outnumbered to that extent, you have to become one of the boys....

I wasn't a tomboy but I couldn't perform femininity, although i tried, so I could fit in. My attempts looking back were laughable. I probably would have been sucked right in to trans ideology, although i'm instinctively a practising radical feminist from before being aware of the theoretical distinctions.

I have three brothers, I had no idea the world thought I was a lesser person than them until I left home at 16. I knew I was not.

I work in a NGO.
The Regional Director for West Africa rocks up for a meetings in the UK in beautiful robes, a dress for all intents and purposes. This man, a man changing the landscape in Africa for women and girls, in his normal clothes. Real men in Africa let the wind flow around their bollocks in their clothes of choice without any need to colonise the women's toilets.

Mouthandtrousers I love that description of your colleague. He sounds marvellous!

I was a fairly typical girl growing up in the 80s and 90s. I had dance and piano lessons and went to Brownies and ‘Speech and Drama’ lessons (but was undoubtedly steered towards these activities by my parents- not that I minded; I enjoyed them luckily!)

My DD is 12 and more ‘gender neutral’ than I was. Actually, she was excessively girly up until the age of about 8 or so (princesses, Disney costumes, dolls etc). For years she refused to wear trousers.

Now she has gone the other way. She wears her hair very short and lives in leggings, hoodies and trainers. She loves anime and manga, and is currently very interested in all things Korean. Some of the web stuff she likes has been linked (on MN and elsewhere) to the alleged ‘recruiting’ of vulnerable/gender neutral youngsters into trans culture and activism.

Recently, DD told me she thinks she’s attracted to both sexes. She also mentioned that she had been reading a bit about transgender. She didn’t express any desire or interest in being trans, but just in case, I made my feelings very plain along the lines of: you have a female body which will always be female. You can wear/do/date what/whoever you like. I will always love and accept you, but would find it very difficult to be asked to pretend you were something you are not.

Growing up in the 80s, my mum never really pushed gender stereotypes onto us, and I think things weren't as gendered back then. Lego was for everyone and not all girls toys were pink, clothes in general were more neutral

I was described as a tom boy, but really I think I was just pretty balanced, i had my big yellow AA car, a tool kit, matchbox cars, dinosaurs, my playmobile garage etc, but I also loved She Ra and My Little Pony. I do remember my mum warning me one Christmas Eve that my nan had gotten me a doll and pushchair for Christmas though. She knew it wasn't something I'd want, so wanted to prep me so I could still be polite when I opened it!

I used to get those warnings about non horse related gifts. I spent the early years wanting to be a horse and this gives me chills when I think what they might be doing to little girls like me these days.