I’m a Tomboy and proud of it! All my sisters are not girly-girl but they are not tomboys either, I like playing sports a ton. and Unlike my sisters I always wear hockey skates like my brother.
I like playing with boys because I like the same things they do, but I don’t always feel like I fit in, I often can kinda “get in” because my brothers is only a year older so I play with him and together we make friends-boys. I hate waring dresses and skirts and only wear them to Church to please my mom. Though my mom doesn’t really see me as a “tomboy” she is always trying to make me do stuff with my hair and buy what I call girly cloths. I wear my hair shorter then my sisters because it’s thin and my mom thinks it’s cute, I hate “cute” I only ware it short because I like it cause its out of the way and is more boyish. I’d rather be a boy, I help out as much as my brother-maybe even more on our farm. All of us girls help our dad insulate barns build sheds, roof houses etc.. I love doing that kind of thing and I love it when people mistaken me as a boy, the truth is I think of myse as a boy.
Alot of people think I’m like this cause I’m homeschooled and don’t relate it with tomboy. I hate watching girly girls giggle and prance about it’s sickening! I wear all my brothers hand me downs and where polo t-shirts when I can. in the summer I even convinced my mom to let me where a boys shirt to church. I like them waay better!
I love Basketball and skateboarding and animals. Cooking is ok too (i don’t see it as a girly thing because my dad is the one who taught me most of my cooking skills-which is alot)
So even now at 14 I’d still rather be a boy, I never wear make-up don’t even own it. the girly-ish thing I have is probably my cat! because she acts like a princess-I love her emensly! the only thing is because I am a tomboy (don’t get me wrong, its a ton better then being a girl-girly) I can’t fit in, and now that I’m older even boys don’t except me anymore as a friend!
Filed under: Adult Tomboy, Queer, Tomboy, Tomboy Fashion, Tomboy Hobbies
When I was a young kid, I was never allowed to cut my hair, and I was forced into scratchy, frilly dresses on even semi formal occasions. Ugh. I loved boy’s clothes, skateboarding, getting muddy and hot wheels. I drew only boys and always wanted to be the boy character. I never played house. I wrestled boys and traded Pokemon cards.
These things are usually “grown out of” and a “phase”. Wrong! The hardest part of my life is that I am still a tomboy at 18! Perhaps I would have grown out of it by now if my family hadn’t given me such a hard time and restricted my clothing. Probably not though. I’m pretty sure this is me.
I’m still living my tomboy story. I’m a lanky, skinny 18 year old with short brown hair and a cute but androgynous face. I have not grown much since age 12 besides upwards, so I don’t need to accommodate curves or a feminine body and often wear sneakers, boy’s socks, jeans or shorts and skater/graphic shirts. My mom worries people will think I’m gay, and some people have. If they don’t know I’m a girl though, from my voice and appearance they assume I’m a boy around 15. Do I care? Nope!
When I’m not at school, I play video games, rollarblade, ride bikes, skateboard, play basketball, read books/comics and make cosplays. I eat whenever I want and keep up a fast metabolism; I don’t care about dieting. I have three best friends and two are guys. We have sleepovers and make crazy looking pizzas and watch movies and eat candy! And I’m not gay! I just don’t want to date. I like to have fun and I’m more boy than girl, which is what being a tomboy is about. I’m probably the biggest tomboy you’ll ever know at my age!
I think I was going for something like this.
I was 11 years old, and I came home with the bus and it was really cold and snowy outside. So I would go inside and put on a thick, flannel lumberjack shirt, and tuck it into my jeans. Then I would take this fake cigarette that I had made from rolled up paper, and I would go in the garage and use all of the tools and just paint wood- just random pieces of wood that I would chop up and file and play with the tools and I would pretend that I was smoking and listen to the radio.
As a kid I didn’t even understand the whole tomboy thing. I mean, I got called that by my uncles and my aunts and all, but I was the only girl. I have 23 first cousins and I am 1 of 2 girls and the other one is so much older than me that I didn’t know her. It never occurred to me that I couldn’t just be whatever I wanted so I was always playing around and it only really became a problem when I got older- like middle school age when all the other people, all the other girls were wearing makeup and dresses and carrying purses and I still had my wallet in my back pocket. I remember my 8th grade teacher- she was like “So, Brandi (it was for some special event), you’re gonna fix yourself up?”.
I was just like “well… I’m dressed.” It was bad. I actually did end up wearing makeup and feeling really uncomfortable the whole time.
So really, it isn’t necessarily that I have a tomboy story- It’s more just that it’s how I lived, and it only became a problem later on. When you’re little it’s more or less the same. It’s whatever. I used to run out in my brother’s shorts and my rubber boots, without a shirt on- just running around the yard. It didn’t occur to me that you couldn’t do that as a girl. No one ever really cared what I did until I got older and then I wasn’t like wearing dresses (and I still don’t. I look super awkward and am really uncomfortable in a dress.) It was just my life. Your lingo- “Tomboy Stories”- my whole life is a tomboy story.
But this really weird thing that happened in middle school- I guess that’s really when you solidify who you are and you start the whole dating thing that it sort of became an issue. So there were 2 or 3 years that became really hard, because I wasn’t girly enough. But then when I got into high school and no more fucks were given it wasn’t really a problem because everyone was just like “oh yeah, that’s just Brandi”. And there were other people- other girls who played sports, and I played sports so it was more ok, and it became even more ok when I got more ok with it. I think playing sports and being smart and all helped. Though honestly, I was already set apart from my the rest of my class… because I wasn’t pregnant (that really helps). And the fact that I didn’t want to go out every single night to go to so-and-so’s house and sit on the back of their truck and drink beer all the time. That also set me apart. I wouldn’t say that I was cast out, but I was set apart anyway for reasons. Being a tomboy is probably one of them. But probably not as important as me not dating any guys in high school… and me hitting on my cousin’s girlfriend.
Some early tomboy moments:
The first (of many) elementary school visits to the principal is triggered by a bag of marbles coming open and spilling onto the floor from my 1st grade desk.
Praying for below 32 degree weather so girls could wear PANTS to school.
Buying GI Joes and accoutrement with my weekly allowance, at the PX on Saturdays.
Scripting a romance between my cowboy and Indian dolls and somehow knowing I would be better off not telling anyone about it.
Playing mumbly-peg with my pocketknife.
Having my teenage brothers show me off to their friends because I could kick a football higher and further than they could. (That was fun!)
My mom was sick for awhile when I was about 8, maybe 9 – I think she had a really difficult menopause and was being treated for depression; don’t know why, but I find that an interesting contrast to thinking about my childhood tomboy awareness – anyway, my dad took me shopping for new tennis shoes in our little town’s shoestore, on Main Street. He insisted I get a pair of boy’s running shoes. This was 1968 or 1969; girls and boys tennis shoes weren’t as androgynous as they are now, in fact no one had running shoes, so these were particularly male. We all could wear Converse, or Keds, but these were different. I had already figured out that I didn’t fit the mold for little girls, and I resisted these mightily, knowing that they’d brand me as weird and I’d have nothing but trouble at school. Once my mom came home, she took me out for new ones, but those few weeks were spent finding reasons to avoid wearing those shoes. I have never figured out why my Dad did that. He’d raised two girls already, one of them a very girly girl, and the other kind of an egghead, but still femme. I must have confused him.
I remember feeling I’d found a friend when I first read Harriet the Spy. I saw myself in her hoodie, tennis shoes and tools. And her notebook.
I remember that in grade school/middle school, girls wore jumpers or skirts and blouses. Up until 5th grade I think I pretty much wore shorts even though my mom bought those ugly jumpers. I only even wore the jumpers, or later, the skirts because my mom had bought them and I felt pressure to wear them simply because at some point, every other girl had stopped wearing shorts and wore skirts every single day.
I’ll first start with me.
As a kid, dresses and baby dolls never really interested me. The color pink? No thank you.
I loved science, dinosaurs, books, mechanical things, and dirt. Lots of dirt.
I remember wanting to play G.I. Joe with the boys in my kindergarten class and being told no unless I beat them to the playset.
One day I finally did it and then got told that it still wasn’t ok. I got a note sent home from school that day because I was “sulking” away from the other students and not playing with the girls.
Think of it more trying to figure out how to beat those turkeys at their own game.
6th grade was the first time I really remember being bullied for being a tomboy and for my academic focus.
I suspect it happened before, but I had a male cousin at my elementary school in the same grade that made sure it didn’t get to me. We learned later that he was suspended from school for taking down the school bully on my behalf. Back to 6th grade. We had a teacher that loved projects and our project was to dress from a character in a book. I picked Captain Nemo from 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea as I had recently began reading it. That day was the day I was called Homo for the first time. It was “Captain Homo” to be exact. At the time, I didn’t even know what that meant, but it cut me to the core. The clique that person was in tormented me through the rest of junior high. I never stopped being me, but man it made the awkwardness of that age more awkward.
I met my husband in high school and he appreciated all the “tomboyish” things that are a part of me. How wonderful is that?!
We would often joke about fate handing us a daughter who was my polar opposite. Well… as fate would have it, it’s partially true.
We have The Princess Tomboy and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
She’s really into pink, glitter, and princesses/fairies. Let us not forget shoes! We always have let her pick, never forced.
She’s also a climber, athletic, analytical, confident, and opinionated. She is who she is and that’s it.
All the princess dresses she owns have holes and snags from climbing trees, running and falling, or just plain being her active self.
I’m sure a few of the holes have come from her dressing up her little brother too. 
Her hardest experience was her self done hair cut, well her 3rd one to be exact. She had cut it down to the scalp in so many places that there was nothing left to do but cut it much like the character in Tomboy.
She proudly sported her new cut with her princess dresses and usually a tiara. If anyone could rock that cut and make it shine, it was her.
Adults were wonderful and very often complemented her “awesome do” and her princess attire.
Other kids, were just plain awful. Strangers at the park called her horrible names, called her a boy, and made her cry more times than I can count.
She was 4 at the time. FOUR. Her hair has grown out so much in the past year, but I honestly think she will not stop growing it out for quite some time.
This year in kinder, my daughter has also been the victim of relational aggression. I think that it comes partially from the fact that she straddles the fence. She’s confident and able to play with both boys and girls while not seeing the division between boy/girl things. As a parent, I am proud to say she is handling it beautifully by standing up to her aggressor and getting help from trusted adults as needed.
In fifth grade, I decided I would never wear a dress again, “even to my own wedding.” Instead, I wore Dallas Cowboys jerseys to school. Later, I decided dresses were okay but weddings weren’t.
