Anyone a lifelong feminist who wasn't a tomboy?

[HarpyValley]

This is something I increasingly muse on, as I see dozens of posts from women here who say "I could so easily have been trans" as they describe a tomboy-ish childhood.

I never really thought of myself as a tomboy. I was lucky enough to be a child in the 70s when it was - or seemed, perhaps with rose-tinted spectacles of nostalgia - perfectly normal to wear trousers and play with my toy garage one day, then a dress and play with Tiny Tears or Sindy the next. The most unease I remember having about my body at that time was that it didn't develop quickly enough compared to my friends; I was a skinny ironing board of a child well up to 14/15. I didn't have lots of friends but those I did have tended to be female rather than male. Physically I was quite risk-averse and not up for the more rough-and-tumble male-driven games. As a horse-mad child I went through phases of playing as a horse (and also a rabbit, after I read Watership Down 😄), but never actually believed I was one.

This isn't to say my childhood was idyllic and problem-free: my dad was an abusive alcoholic with a hair-trigger temper, I was bullied all the way through school, we didn't have much money. But I did grow up with the belief that I could do any job I wanted, that I should earn my own money and be independent. I knew from a very early age that I didn't want children, didn't want to play a maternal role. Then in my late teens, around Sixth Form age, I discovered feminism and never left it. I read The Women's Room, devoured Virago books, discovered Angela Carter and Margaret Atwood and Germaine Greer...I was, have always been and still am happy to declare myself a feminist, even when the word has attracted negative connotations in some people's eyes.

I've never wanted to be a boy or a man, even when exposed to sexism, sexual assault (thankfully comparatively minor) or any other sex-based discrimination. I don't think I would have been ripe to be trans as a child or teen. But I'm not 'cis'. I don't have a gender identity. I'm just me. I have always been me, and that me has always been female, regardless of any insecurities about my body I've had at various times of my life.

Can anyone else here relate?

I was a bit of everything, as I expect most people are actually. I loved pink, I loved ballet, I also loved climbing trees and playing football...

As a teen I loved getting dressed up in little dresses and heels and make up. I also loved adventure sports like caving and windsurfing and rock climbing.

I wasn’t a tomboy as such - just wanted to be able to do or have access to all the things boys could! As an example I refused to do needlework in school and campaigned successfully to do 3D design (go me at 12!).

I wasn't a tomboy. However my mother had some werid ideas and didn't let me have traditional girl things like long hair and dresses or dolls, she considered those unfeminist.

I took a lot from 90s feminism. I could be a beer drinking, sci fi loving, mini dress and high heel wearing girl and that was fine.

I wasn't a tomboy. My parents actually discouraged some traditionally girly things like long hair, dresses etc which of course only made me want them more...I've had waist length hair pretty much from the point I got bodily autonomy in my early teens to now aged 37! But it was just the same with things like ear piercing etc, a desire to assert my individuality. I think if I'd been a boy I probably would have found ways to rebel too.

Mindset wise I don't consider myself a sterotypically feminine person, I'm not remotely maternal (don't have and don't want kids, although I massively care about reproductive justice and injustices arising from women being the childbearing sex).

I don't buy into the whole femme vs masc thing really. I probably appear fairly feminine (helped in large part by actually being female) but I have days when I'm wearing joggers and a band t shirt and my husband's deodorant 😀 a certain type of person would probably take this as proof of non binary identity rather than it just being more practical than the prairie dresses I also sometimes wear.