I've been snooping around (sorry) and a lot of people say things like:

"I've always known I was a girl because I played with Barbies as a kid",
"I always preferred wearing t-shirts and jeans to dresses".

While I know I am a girl, and I do find comfort in dressing appropriately, I don't quite get these things.

I played with Puppy in my Pockets as a kid, but also with Action Men, and enjoyed it. I used to play with my sister's barbies about as much as I played with my Hot Wheels. I'm sure there are "GG's" who played with GI Joes and grew up to still be girls.

Do the toys you play with and the things you do really impact on what gender you feel you are?

My knowledge of my gender comes from inside, not from what I do physically. Though people have always said I act feminine / camp. I have never noticed. Perhaps I am wrong and different genders do act obsurdly different.

But I've always found taking things such as the toys you preferred as a child to be somehow turning gender into something it's not - I guess society's role of gender.

I can of course see how "conforming" to society's view of a gender would help transitioning though. It also does make you feel good about yourself to be sortof acting as your gender would "normally" act.

I'd note it is however helpful in getting free toys - I won a puppy in my pocket hotel worth a fair bob and attribute it to likely being the only "male" to enter the competition!

I agree with you, while I did play with my sister's toys or vivid memories of playing with her beauty and the beast play set... I also played with army men, and ran around outside with toy guns.

I was a bit all over the place with my interests as a kid and what I decided to play with or who to play with and what we did. I could hangout with my sister and my cousin or female friends and play house or whatever but I would also hangout with my male friends and play with action figures or have wrestling matches. Seemingly I suppose I appeared to be a normal boy but it is my internal struggles I remember most and not the outward signs I showed to maybe hint I was trans.

I've wondered that too my absence of some of those behaviours actually was one of the internal arguments against me begin trans for awhile,
I don't need to be a stereotype. My interests are what they are those don't change really I mean I'm willing to try new things that I was prevented from before, and if I like them yay a new likes if I don't that's fine it dosen't immediately make my feelings about my body and how I want to be socially invalid. I don't like make-up much... It's not a problem!

As for the toys I played with as a kid? My play-pal was my little sister and was close to her when we were young and played with her alot. Toys were our actors *shrug* I wasn't prevented from playing with either.

It's not important whether you did "typical" things as a kid or not but is you did why were you doing it? Did you think you were gender XorY? did you want to be gender XorY? And with me I can't say I did before age 10-11

I don't think toys say much about yr gender identity at all.  As a child, I wasn't told I had to play with girl toys only, so I had a big mixture.  I wasn't into things that were pink, or involved makeup, or dolls, but I did like My Little Ponies, Littlest Pet Shop, Sylvanian Families etc. I also liked Ninja Turtles (my main thing), Transformers, cap guns and He Man.  I had some Barbies, but they were hand me downs from my gay boy cousin in Germany, so ha!

You always hear of little boys wanting to play with their sister's toys or whatever, but it doesn't make them trans.  It's just that people tell them they shouldn't want to play with that stuff.  If I'd been raised as a boy and told that, I might've not been into Sylvanians..who knows.  And plenty of girls play with GI Joes and don't turn out to be ftm. I hate it when there's big double standards for trans people.  Like you can't be a boy because you once had a tea party, or you can't be a girl because you built a fort.

DUMB!

The only reason I liked girls' toys better was a simple one: I liked playing with girls better than I did playing with boys. I simply didn't really connect with boys. But I learned my hard lesson at a young age, as did a lot of us: You play the hand you're dealt. It's only years later that I realized the hand I was dealt rather sucks, but it's not too late to ask for a mulligan.

Quote from: My Name Is Ellie on June 23, 2010, 06:58:37 PM
I'd note it is however helpful in getting free toys - I won a puppy in my pocket hotel worth a fair bob and attribute it to likely being the only "male" to enter the competition!

I know this is off-topic, but what on earth is "puppy in my pocket"?   I assume it doesn't have anything to do with playing with your male bits, but that's the only thing that comes to mind.  Sorry.

Quote from: Dryad on June 23, 2010, 07:56:37 PM
The only reason I liked girls' toys better was a simple one: I liked playing with girls better than I did playing with boys. I simply didn't really connect with boys. But I learned my hard lesson at a young age, as did a lot of us: You play the hand you're dealt. It's only years later that I realized the hand I was dealt rather sucks, but it's not too late to ask for a mulligan.

+1

- Kate

AWESOME.  I still get the song in my head.

Oh and my personal favourite:

  Thanks.  I guess I spent too many years in the wrong company.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled thread...

- Kate

I don't think toys are really an indicator.

I played with lots of stuffed animals and an Easy Bake Oven and then I would play with little dinosaurs and with my WWF/E figurines and wrestle. I also had a Polly Pocket, and I was devastate when I lost Polly. I still have a bunch of stuffed animals lying around because I love them.  I didn't discriminate when it came to toys.  But I also identify as a very feminine male, so I don't really know.

If toys are a sign of gender, then my cousin might wind up coming out as MtF.  Or, he's just a boy who also doesn't discriminate against toys.

There is a subtle difference between gender and gender identity.  I think the reason people often confuse them is because that label in particular is a bit of a misnomer, in my opinion.  I believe gender identity relates to sex, not gender and although "sex identity" doesn't sound very nice, I think it would be technically a more accurate term, etymologically speaking at least, in describing the issue I personally am dealing with.

I always felt like I was a girl, not like I wanted to act like one.  Yes, I wanted to be seen as a girl and treated as such, but the egg came before the chicken in this case.  Whatever mechanism in my brain that controls gender identity was screaming out "YOU'RE A GIRL!!!" and anything that reminded me that my reality didn't match that notion made me feel horrible, to the point that I eventually was forced to remove those things from my life in order to stay sane.  Ironically, I think I would be a lot more comfortable participating in typically masculine activities if I had been born with a girl's body.  That inner voice just got so mad and fed up with my male reality that over time it finally just flat rejected masculine activities.

I am honestly hoping, after I make it through this transition, that one day I'll be able to revisit certain things and find enjoyment in them once again.  Especially things I used to be good at, like certain sports, for instance.  It's fun to be good at things, after all, isn't it?

One thing I have realized going through this transition is the changes I've made in my life related to roles and expression, i.e. gender, have barely scratched the surface of my dysphoria when compared to how dramatically the changes I've made related to my body and the chemicals therein, i.e. sex, have.

So the short version of my answer is, while I think they often correlate, I don't think masculine/feminine proclivities are directly connected with male/female gender identities.  A "boy" you may see happily playing with boy toys may indeed still be thinking he's really a girl.

Don't think it really makes much of a difference. Doesn't necessarily mean anything, people want it to but it doesn't. My favorite color has always been blue, that's not why I think I'm a guy. Only if you believe yourself to be whatever gender you are and therefore, try to do what it expected of that gender. But not all children are that aware.

Quote from: Shang on June 23, 2010, 11:24:19 PM
But I also identify as a very feminine male, so I don't really know.

This is kind of the proof that gender and gender identity are two different (though maybe often related) things.  Flaming gay guys still identify as male and butch lesbians still identify as female after all.  Both of them have interests and personas that are gendered opposite of their sex.

Quote from: Jen on June 24, 2010, 12:51:21 AM
This is kind of the proof that gender and gender identity are two different (though maybe often related) things.  Flaming gay guys still identify as male and butch lesbians still identify as female, after all.

Exactly! It's funny because I'm scared of what one of my friends, who is a butch lesbian from the country, will think of my transition - like maybe she'll be like, how can you identify as male, I'm more masculine than you are.  But I'm an art school guy! None of the cis guys at my school would be as tough as her.  In fact, I'm more "masculine" than a lot of them myself. It pays not to over think this stuff sometimes.

I think whatever you do physically, what kinds of toys u play with, what your interests are, does not really determine your gender. They're just things that you like to do regardless of your gender. It's your mind what makes you're a male or a female.
I mean, toys are toys, all kids love toys of all kinds. It's just the society puts a "law" that makes kids go, "Hey I cant play with those I'm a boy/girl." Because some adults would say that to them too. Stereotyping. And to those kids who will just play any toys regardless of their gender, are those who didnt grew up in such close-minded environment. They are allowed to do whatever they want without any discrimination.
If they really are a boy or a girl, they will know from the inside. It's how u feel about urself, how u think, how ur mind works.

That's just my opinion. 

I raised two very masculine boys...they are 16 and 18 now. Both of them played with dolls and other feminine associated toys and also male associated toys and neither one of them are either trans or gay..My oldest, carried a puppy dog around with him for years. Some kids even tried to make fun of him and his answer is "So?" He never did let it bother him and he still has it to this day. I never forced them to play with gender specific toys, thought it was moronic...and they are very well adjusted young men now..well as well adjusted as a 16 and 18 yr old can be anyway.

I think Jens point of gender and gender identity is an accurate one, at least to me anyway. I think the problem with toys and interests is nothing to do with gender myself, its more social expectations of gender. Im sure alot of people have denied themselves certain things they wanted because it felt they were drifting away from what their internal gender might be expected do/ act like.
The truth is that your allowed to do whatever you want with your interests. Sure your body and social position might not be fitting a sterotype, (and I hate sterotypes) but that doesnt make anyone more or less male or female. I have quite an androgynous personality but I know for sure what gender I am, no matter what others see.

I agree, at least for me.  I have some male interests and some female interests, but socially and psychologically I am female.  And now that I'm socially female, I fit into the world better despite any male interests that I may have.

- Kate

I used to love playing with my sister's Barbies. I wouldnt dress them up a or make Barbie go to the salon for her hair done. I used to put her in the Barbie caravan and drive her off cliffs. That actually sounds like I was quite a disturbed child lol. I played with both unisex toys but I knew that I was a boy.

My Barbies had loads of sex. The real Barbies were mean to the German version of Barbie. They usually ripped each others clothes off.

Also I really liked chewing on Barbie feet.