text: Just because you have rigid expectations about gender doesn't mean that they are right or correct. 
  
  I was a total tomboy as a child, long enough ago that we can't blame the current toxic environment for it, and thank god I had a mother and family that accepted me for who I was. I wasn't forced to wear stupid frilly dresses and play with stupid frilly dolls and stupid frilly girls. Instead hung out with my brother and his friends, climbed trees, etc, and was accepted as one of them. And while I had to endure a hell of a lot of teasing, that was probably more to do with my advanced vocabulary than my tomboyishness. 
  
  I grew out of it, as will most boys and girls if they are accepted and loved, but if I hadn't, I know that my family would have still accepted me, and that family love and acceptance is what helped me overcome not only the horrible bullying I endured, but sexual assault, too. 
  
  No amount of being forced to be a "girly girl" would have done that for me.