thing is, with gender stereotypes, like how being 'emotional' is seen as feminine, you kinda have to be careful a bit I guess, like, I am seen as a very 'emotional' person (i am actually mentally disabled, and such but let's not get into that!!), but am generally quite a guy, and fulfill all stereotypical male roles, from physical labour and whatnot, and my interests are all quite male-y. Yet one of the girls I live with, follows very traditional 'masculine' features, in how boisterous she is etc etc.

Gender roles are kinda, while we feel like we're somehow LIBERATED and more ADULT about it all, everything falls into the same stereotyupes. On BBC Iplayer right now, there's a documentary 'sex and the sitcom', which tries to place sexuality and gender roles in context to sitcoms and british culture, which is worth a watch, if anything to see how shit and backwards 'on the buses' is (RANDOM NOTE: because of how it was filled with innuendo, but no actual confirmed sexuality outside of winks and 'oooh errr', my counsellor(who is also a songwriter/singer) made a song about on the buses, and how Reg Varney is gay, but is sooo in the closet that he makes these patronising remarks to hide his inner desires. It's pretty cool, like in his mind, Reg runs through a number of scenarios about the female passengers, and one of which is that they are guys in drag, and so he wants to fuck them)

Speaking of gender roles in media, I have talked about this book before but there is a book called Takarazuka: Sexual Politics and Popular Culture in Modern Japan about the all-female Takarazuka theater in Japan.  It's a really interesting read even if you don't know much about or don't care much about the theater because it's more about how the theater is a reflection on Japan's attitudes towards gender.  Like there's this big thing about how Takarazuka appeals to a lot of homosexuals in Japan because it basically gives them an out.  Men can be attracted to the actors as men but they have the excuse "oh but they're really women".  Women can be attracted to them as women and go "oh but they're disguised as men".  It's even got a chapter on why dickgirls are a THING in Japan and why such a thing would come about (FINALLY THIS MYSTERY SOLVED).  There's also plenty of stuff about what we're talking about as far as gender roles in society go.  If you're interested in gender roles like this I'd recommend it, it's not too long of a book and it's pretty interesting stuff.

hey peeps. like, Swordfish, i also have much personal stuff to contribute to this discussion!

first off let me just remind you all that i am no longer the prejudiced little girl in denial that i used to be. i am still much the same-- i mean, i didn't just "grow up" and suddenly change every belief i've ever had. like, i'm still a Christian, for example, but i have made my faith my own. so to those who thought i was still the same as i was when i first started posting on GW (at age SIX, ffff): uhh, don't be surprised at all the stuff i'm about to say. (i've talked about this stuff in IRC before but imma post it here now)

so yeah. i am almost 17 nowadays, and i have become involved in the LGBT community within the last 2 years or so. it started when i became best friends with 2 people from my art class, one of whom was a transgender girl (physically male), and the other was a pansexual girl. they were dating at the time that i first met them. long story short, they changed my life.

nowadays i identify as a pansexual polyamorous genderqueer. i'm pretty set with this label. i used to be totally in denial of everything relating to this stuff, but now i'm open and happy. but yeah, i don't believe in the gender binary, and i don't like things that distinguish by sex or gender. i am pretty androgynous. i don't really think of myself as either a guy or a girl; i am fine with either. i prefer the pronoun "they" to any other, even when referring to a singular person. and i am pansexual, so i am pretty much gender-blind. i don't consider gender when developing a romantic interest in someone. i have a slight physical preference for guys though, but maybe that is just because that's what i've had more experience with :P currently i have an awesome girlfriend though, who i've been with for just over a month. :3 but yeahh. gender roles are silly, and i encourage their defiance~

i'll explain more about my views later if i feel like it, or if anyone else has questions or something.

quotin' for posterity.

seriously though, were you really 6 when you starting posting on GW? that seems so nuts. i mean i was like ... 11 or 12 when I first started lurking, but 6? damn. this site has probably fucked you up so hard hahahaha

gw babysat when mommy wouldnt

pansexual polyamorous genderqueer

a lot of this stuff is just really NUTS. categories and stuff i mean. i spend way more of my day eating and sleeping than i do having sex or doing anything that requires a gender division. though ruining this thought, i suppose some people do define themselves by what they eat too (vegetarians, lesbians)

you're only 17 anyway mkk, you should prob work more on finishing high school and finishing puberty than picking handfuls of adjectives to describe what you're essentially saying is an indescribable gender and sexual alignment

I don't think the genitalia is really the issue, frisky. a lot of times teenage experimentation is more cranial and emotional and doesn't include sex.

yeah i understand that "everyone is bisexual in high school" idea; i have the same perception of that as you guys. teenage experimentation etc etc... but i'm definitely not like that! i'm not just one of those slutty chicks who is just greedy for sex or something. you guys can go ahead and think whatever you want, but i'm just saying that i like both guys and girls and i have felt that way for many years, but that i only accepted it all within the past couple years. i'm not even much for experimenting. i'm not just going to parties and getting drunk and making out with girls and being like "ohmigawd i think i'm bi!" xP

earlchip is right in saying that the sexuality stuff is not about sex. it's more of a mental thing-- i have only recently come to accept myself. i had crushes on my female best friends in middle school and i hated myself for it. i hated myself for lusting throughts of all kinds. but then i grew up and realized that the Bible is not about encouraging self-hatred and bigotry, and i changed my outlook on a lot of things. so now i am comfortable being both Christian and pansexual.

so it is an emotional issue, not just physical. i mean yeah, i've had some "experiences", but only with 3 people ever, who i had been in committed relationships with. as mentioned earlier: i have dated one guy (for almost 2 years), a transgender girl (MtF), and a feminine girl. those were the only people i've ever had any sort of real relationship with, and the variety in sex/gender was not simple curiosity. i'm pansexual-- i like people for their personalities. i really don't care at all about anything else until AFTER i already like them. knowing their gender or sex are just things that are part of the "getting to know them" process-- it's like, okay they have 2 brothers, their parents are divorced, they have a penis, they love art, they identify as female, they have a really cute puppy, etc... sooo maybe that explains things a little better. i am pansexual because i have realized that i just like people for who they are and not for what sort of vessel they interact with the world through. i definitely can enjoy the physical things too, though-- and strictly sexually, i do have a slight preference for male-bodied individuals. but emotionally i have had greater success with females. but hey, i'm open to everything with everyone-- that's not to say that i am promiscuous though; not in the slightest. i make good choices.

you're only 17 anyway mkk, you should prob work more on finishing high school and finishing puberty than picking handfuls of adjectives to describe what you're essentially saying is an indescribable gender and sexual alignment

i'm still 16 currently but yeah. what makes you think that stuff? i am currently doing awesome in high school. i am in 5 Advanced Placement classes and i'm studying college-level material in a very good school district. i love learning and i have very ambitious plans for the future. my cumulative GPA average for all of high school is a 3.95 and rising. i'm in my junior year and i just finished all my standardized testing and i'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of my score reports. fyi i went through puberty long ago; a lot of girls tend to be done with that by age 13 or so. guys are the ones that don't finish developing until their late teens or early twenties. i'm growing up fast and within a year, i will hopefully be living on my own and attending a good university.

i'm not just randomly picking labels or something. i'm just really happy that i learned to accept my own feelings and urges and not be so freakin repressed. i'm enjoy being active in the LGBT community these days and it's not wasting my time or anything like that. so i would appreciate if you would not assume things, nor perceive my choices and natural predispositions as arbitrary adolescent frivolities :\

i like to identify as genderqueer. that simply means that i do not identify strongly as either male or female and i think gender is kinda just BS anyway.
story time: i grew up being very masculine, a "tomboy"-- honestly, i considered myself to be a boy. i had no idea what any sort of gender issues were. i knew that boys and girls had different private parts but i still knew inside my head that i wanted people to call me a boy. when i was only 7 years old, that's the kind of stuff i thought. all my friends were boys and we did normal guy things like playing videogames and basketball and talking about girls. i dressed in all guys' clothes. i really consider myself to have been a little boy. i was homeschooled for several years around that time, so i had no peers to shape my gender identity. when i went back to school in 5th grade, age 10, i had a rude awakening-- i got bullied really badly for being an ugly and weird girl, and when i insisted that i was just "one of the guys", i got beat up by the very guys who had been my closest friends. i was an aggressive little boy so i ended up slamming a locker on my ex-best-friend's hand and breaking 2 of his fingers but hah that's another story and i ended up getting anger management therapy so that was all resolved. anyways i was a guy until age 12, when i started caring about what other people thought of me and i got sick of being bullied. so i started being more girly, and i started making friends, and life got a bit better.
anyways that was a lame background story but yeah i have always had "gender issues". i identify as genderqueer because it means that some days i feel like a girl and some days i feel like a guy. my gender EXPRESSION is largely feminine but that doesn't mean anything. on the inside, i don't care about gender and i don't really see myself as having just one; i'm both.

polyamorous just means that i believe that humans are not monogamous and they shouldn't try to be. i believe that it's possible to be in love with multiple people at the same time. polyamory doesn't really have to affect my relationships though; it's not a CORE thing about me. it simply means that i am very open in my relationships-- i would never get mad at a significant other for cheating on me. i tell people i'm polyamorous just so they know that i don't care if they like other people at the same time that they like me. that doesn't mean i am okay with them just fooling around with a ton of people-- that's what distinguished polyamory from just "open relationships". all i know is that i was in love with 3 different people at the same time and so we all dated each other, and it lasted for about a year. those were good relationships. we were all polyamorous; i wouldn't be poly unless my SO was also poly or was okay with it, because i don't want to be perceived as a "cheater". anyways its not a big deal it's more of a philosophy than anything else but yeah.

i am very happy with being pansexual polyamorous genderqueer and i have legitimate reasons for choosing those terms, because they describe my feelings and beliefs very well :> it's not just a matter of wanting to identify as something or being experimental. i'm simply putting words towards describing the way that i have always been. so... that's me.

oh oh oh AND, a thought on gender roles:
i also dated this one guy for about a month earlier this year but it was a very un-serious relationship and we never did anything and we were just a very awkward match. it was hardly a relationship :P but anyways it made me realize how much i haaaatte traditional gender roles and social rules. he was an incredibly normal guy. and being with him, i realized how stupid it was that he would always hold the door open for me and pull out my chair for me and let me go first and things like that, simply because i was "the girl" in the relationship. i basically told him in the very beginning, "please don't treat me like a girl; let's just hang out and play videogames and be bros a'ight?", but uhhh i guess he didn't understand. it was sorta sickening going out on a quadruple date with him and his friends, getting a table for 8 at a restaurant and all. it was just sooo traditional and while the other girls may have found it charming or chivalrous or something, i just felt suffocated and restrained. i wasn't comfortable talking about anything that wasn't normal for girls to say. anytime i mentioned something un-ladylike i got awkward looks from everyone, including my then-boyfriend. adskgakglj it was just really weird. i hate having guys treat me like a weak little lady. >_<;

blahh that post was a lot longer than i had planned for it to be! imma just, uh, leave this here now...

some of you are fucking dicks and should be ashamed of yourselves

don't be timid marmot. name some names.

i'm not just randomly picking labels or something. i'm just really happy that i learned to accept my own feelings and urges and not be so freakin repressed. i'm enjoy being active in the LGBT community these days and it's not wasting my time or anything like that. so i would appreciate if you would not assume things, nor perceive my choices and natural predispositions as arbitrary adolescent frivolities :\

having thoroughly thought all this out doesn't change anything, so don't act indignant. no matter what age you are you're pretty much at the mercy of your body chemistry. this is particularly apparent in teens, when your chemistry is abruptly changing and you've got to find some way of dealing with it. the three girls I mentioned weren't exactly frivolous in handling their sexuality, either; only one was the type to kiss girls at parties, and afaik she's the only one who still goes either way. another went lesbian furry and the other preferred ultra-effeminate (but not trans) men, sometimes going for fancy girls too. these two are both straight now, like nothing ever happened. so don't worry about it too much, it's fine as long as it's doing something positive for you. and I guess it doesn't hurt to try and get a handle on something that might be sticking with you for the rest of your life but at the same time it's important to understand that people change and all this might not seem so important a few years down the road