Sta.sh
Thank you for everyones lovely messages and wishes for mine and Jenn's 4 years!
-------Psychic Follow-Up-------
Well, that was a varied set of results! I'll be honest and say they don't entirely surprise me, not due to the legitimacy/illegitimacy of psychics... but because of my audience here on deviantART.
Most of the people who follow me and vote in my polls are young adults and teenagers, who are all part of an art website, and so can be assumed to be creatively minded and imaginative. As such, predisposition towards the possibility of psychics seems reasonably likely. If I were to post the same discussion on a psychology forum, or a science forum, I imagine the results would have been very different.
I noticed a strong trend in "psychic-believers" that their belief tended to stem from a single experience with a psychic, in which they or someone they knew received a very accurate or shocking reading that they couldn't logically explain. My only comment on that, is to not base your entire belief or disbelief in a notion purely on one piece of evidence or experience. I've seen psychics perform stuff that I previously (and some to this day!) couldn't explain, but have seen much more evidence against them than towards them, and used this broader range of evidence to form the basis of my opinion. I did the same thing with religion, with my views on capital punishment, on drug legalisation, and many other things besides. It is dangerous grounds to base your opinion on an entire topic purely on one main positive or negative experience with the subject. I urge you all to bear this in mind, on all matters. 
Still! It was a very interesting subject, so thank you to everyone who participated in the voting and discussion.
-------Gender Roles-------
Suggested by ~fluffy-mokona
There have been several clips and articles cropping up about gender roles as of late. A couple in Canada, I believe, have been publicised for raising their child as gender-neutrally as possible, so as to let their child decide their gender identity entirely without pressure or stigma. Childminders are being instructed to encourage play with dolls for boys as well as girls. Schools are challenging gender identity in preventing bullying of children who go against the gender normality for their sex.
A short time back, I was linked to this video of a lovely little girl called Riley, who gave her own thoughts on the subject:
[link]
Of course, she is quite young, and obviously reflects the views of her parents/guardians moreso than makes an entirely independent point of her own accord. Still, she has been taught the value of gender identity, and the freedom we have in it, from a young age. These lessons are likely to carry on into her adult life which, to me, is a very refreshing thing.
My sister and I were very lucky to have quite a gender-neutral upbringing. This wasn't because my parents had any particularly strong views on gender identity (indeed, they still have struggles understanding transexualism and transgenderism, though this doesn't stop them going against their 'live and let live' life policy), but more because they just... didn't see why kids should be pigeon-holed in the activities they could take part in. My sister loved toy dinosaurs, I was a Scaletrix nut. We both had a large collection of barbies and MLP's, but neither of us liked baby dolls. Both of us were part of the Brownie Guides, and I was on the girls after-school football team. Neither of us liked pink, yet we both liked to wear blue (it was our football team colour, after all!). We were both videogamers from a young age, loved 'boys' cartoons like Biker Mice From Mars.
As a result, we've both grown up with a rather neutral view on gender. We both seem to like a variety of girls and boys stuff, aren't phased by those whose gender doesn't match their sex, and don't blink twice at overly masculine women, or effeminate men. We generally prefer jeans and t-shirts, but have a handful of dresses each, too.
SO! How about you?
How were you bought up? Were you treated in a way stereotypical to your sex? Or were you given a reasonably gender-neutral upbringing? How do you think this has affected you later in life? What are your general thoughts on the subject?
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"If you enter this world knowing you are loved
and you leave this world knowing the same,
then everything that happens in between can be dealt with."
- Michael Jackson -
So I guess in a way I was raised both gender neutrally but also know it what it feels like to be placed into a box based on my sex.
I found out in retrospect that my mother knew a transwoman where she lived in Colorado, but didn't go into detail about how she was treated or when it was. My dad is an equally hopeless cause on the subject of transgenderism- both of them refuse to understand because they couldn't comprehend it right away and so refused to try further. It's...really a hassle for me, actually. Even to this point they deny that I had an interest in more masculine things when I was younger, so that the version of me they see still fits into their ideals.
Because of this, and the fact that I was screamed at, insulted, and had things thrown at me when I came out, has pretty negatively affected my opinion of the 'family' of anyone outside the gender or sexuality norm. I don't talk to my parents much at all about myself anymore, or my siblings. I'm thankful to have a supportive boyfriend though (who is also trans but his parents are only seemingly accepting of him.)
I live in the southern part of the U.S. and think THAT makes all the difference. I am a girl and have always been very much a tomboy. People never had much of a problem with it when I was young. They thought I would grow out of it and went about their business. When I didn't grow out of it, they began to worry a bit. That is not the point though.
For girls, people tend to say, "She'll grow out of it." and go on their way. With boys around here, it is different. Fathers have some crazy fear that their sons will turn out gay if they show any signs of swaying from stereotypical "boy" stuff. For example, my cousins boy came to a family christmas wearing camo boots. He took them off and wore one of his girl cousin's rubber boots that had some pink on them. My cousin's husband seemed offended that his son wanted to wear the pink boots so bad. Like he was homosexual because he wanted to wear another kid's boots. (He probably only wanted to because they were a few sizes bigger.)
So I think that gender roles are more important to some people in certain situations. I'm all for letting a boy wear pink and a girl play with cars. That's the way I was raised. But some people around here take it too seriously, I think.
When I figured out my freshman year that I'd had crushes on other girls all my life as well as guys, they were totally fine with that, (and for some reason neither did most of the family.) I was never forced into a dress, or skirts (and I still hate them) and my complete loathing of most things fashionable at the time was never questioned. My mother knew from the start that I'd hate her if she sent me to girl-scouts, but seemed delighted when I took up gymnastics and dance, soccer (though I eventually hated it) and some baseball.
And though all this sounds pretty off-topic and I apologize, this is my answer to the question:
I have no quarrels with anything gender related in the slightest. I was not raised to be a girl, or a boy. I was raised to be whatever I wanted to be.
And that's myself.~~