Growing up with two older brothers, I’ve always been exposed to more “masculine” toys: dinosaurs, hotrods, and teenage mutant ninja turtle figurines. However, despite the plethora of these various toys that were available to me, I still begged my mom for the latest and greatest Barbie doll or stuffed animal every time we went to the supermarket. I was the epitome of femininity; when my parents encouraged me to play softball, I refused because I wanted to be a cheerleader instead and wear pretty uniforms that sparkled. My parents never encouraged me to be anything but myself, but my friends, on the other hand, significantly impacted my ideas of what was acceptable and cool. As I entered my teenage years, it was no longer considered cool to be super girly in school, so I lost a lot of my “girly” interests: I stored away all of my Barbie dolls, repainted my favorite pink colored room to green, and took up a co-ed sport—tennis. However, throughout high school, I became more comfortable with myself and started following my own interests; I can no longer deny that pink is one of my favorite colors or that I still have cute stuffed animals on my bed. Now, I wouldn't consider myself to be extremely feminine as I would've described myself to be in my childhood days, but I definitely have feminine characteristics—it’s just who I am.
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Wow. We had a very similar experience. I grew up with two older sisters and was exposed to much more "feminine" toys because they were all readily available. Even though I have played with my share of barbies and other "feminine" dolls, the kids at my elementary school years are what made me attribute gender to various toys. (Barbie=girls, Tonka Trucks= boys). Although there was the pressure of being made fun of by classmates, I feel (and I think this is similar to your experience) we had our own self-fulfilling prophecy, where we threw aside the stereotypes and became comfortable with doing things regardless of whether they were deemed too "girly" or to "masculine." We both transformed into our masculine/feminine selves just because it is who we are.
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