or if deep down they believe in the gender roles too but recognize that those roles make some people miserable and therefore some form of escape must be offered (for those specific individuals, while leaving the larger social framework intact).
I think maybe it's not quite about "believing" in gender roles. I think many people see an attraction to being masculine or feminine (or sometimes both) as innate in some way. I think that's most people's experience of how they feel themselves. Probably the better thinkers realise that what is seen as masculine or feminine is somewhat variable, while others may see them as more fixed. I'm not sure they aren't right, or partly right, about people feeling an attraction or affinity, or a desire to express their sex roles in a cultural context.
I think there is a connection with the way some of the parents are also ver into gender neutral clothing etc for kids. They have accepted the idea that it is really really important to let the kids be themselves, and express their inner feelings, through their clothing. So they need to wait for that to come out before imposing it, and asking someone to say, wear a dress when they don't like dresses is a sort of violence against their individual personality - not just wearing some clothes that wouldn't be your choice. It's like style or being a tomboy or wanting to wear sparkles is a necessary expression of someone's inner being.
FWIW I think feminists who think cultural expressions of gender or sexual expression can ever be done away with are barking up the wrong tree, and it's something I've thought about a lot. I think that's also the view of a lot of regular people in a fairly "common sense' sort of way too, though. They don't consider that it's realistic to talk about us all dressing and living as if our sex only matters to us when it comes to things directly related to having sex or babies.