I am a college freshman in need of some help for a research project for my Gender in Toyland class. I am interested in finding out more about people's favorite childhood toys in relationship to adult gender identity. To keep things confidential I have made it to where only people with the link can post here and give feedback. What is posted here will be used in my presentation, names are not necessary.

That being said, I would like you to list three of your favorite childhood toys and why they were your favorite. What color where they? Were they "boy" toys or "girl" toys? Also if you could indicate what you identify as in terms of gender (ex. FTM, MTF, female, male, bi, etc.). To respond to these questions double click anywhere on the padlet and a text box should open.

Lastly, if you know of anyone who would be willing to participate in this study please pass this along to them. I would really appreciate it. Thank you for your time.

2) Play-doh. I liked this because I could make whatever I wanted out of it. I don't think of it as gendered.

3) Raggedy Andy doll - this is the first toy I remember and I took it everywhere when I was little. I'm not sure, I guess it is a girl toy because it's a doll, but it was a boy doll, so?

4) MTF

2) My second favorite toy has to be a yoyo I really don't have a reason to liking this toy so much it just every time I played with it it created a huge smile on my face. The ones that lit up in all bright colors that made your eyes glow from the excitement. I think there really isn't a gendered choosing.

3) Finally my last favorite toy had to be legos. Legos were one of those toys where the creation was in your imagination. They had lots of vibrant colors and millions of things you could build. These little pieces generally were made for guys to built what they wanted, but as this toy progressed I believe it was for all genders.

4) I consider myself a gay male.

2. On the more masculine side of things, I was also obsessed with beyblades. They were the in thing during elementary school. Collecting them, building them, using them; it was all a thrill. Not only did I enjoy playing the game, but this was a toy that for me promoted a sense of inclusion, because it was one of the things that I had in common with all of the "popular" kids if you will.

3. My gameboy. I loved pokemon. The sense of adventure, discovery, and accomplishment in each of the games is probably why I still play them to this day.

4. I suppose technically I am a gay male. To be honest though my gender isn't something I think of when I begin to describe myself. That is probably why I have been so open to performing in drag, and experimenting with the genderqueer side of my makeup artistry.

2) Books - I spent a lot of time reading by myself as a kid. I loved being able to escape into another world for a while. My parents did not appreciate how much I wanted to read, and I remembering being punished for reading too much when I was a kid. I loved reading books about animals, historical fiction, the Babysitter's Club series, the Boxcar Children series, Encyclopedia Brown, a book of Shakespeare's plays, and pretty much anything I could get my hands on.

3) Ball in a Cup game from a colonial village recreation educational site. I spent a lot of time trying to get that ball on a string to go into the cup on the stick. It was a simple, quiet, task-oriented game that made me feel like I was living in a different time period.

I identify as a female to transmasculine person.

2. SNES

3. Legos

Mtf

2. Erector set

3. Stuffed dog I named "chan"

Female

2. Lego sets. I had a lot of Legos. I liked a bucket of space themed Legos the best, but I also collected a lot of the medieval sets.

3. A stuffed bear named Snuggle Bear. He was just a plain brown bear but he was my absolute favorite stuffed animal (I had a lot of stuffed animals!) I slept with him most nights.

4. Bisexual, cisgender female.

2. These fantastic french paper dolls, all faerie tales and rennasiance awesome that I had to super carefully cut out. There was a sheet of color-your-own in each set too.

3. The orange patchwork hobby horse my dad's Junior Achievement guys made me. I called him "hobby" and pretended I was in the wild west.

4. Cisgender heterosexual woman

2. Dollshouse my grandfather got me. I was often frustrated because most of the furniture didn't fit. It is only as an adult collector than I realize that it was an unusual scale. It was too big for my playmobil but too small for my Ken doll (I didn't have barbie - I only wanted Ken). I still have it and still love it. Very much a girl's toy.

3. Fuzzy Felt Farm https://www.etsy.com/listing/242787616/1980s-fuzzy-felt-farm-set

I lived in a farming community, but we didn't have a farm. This was one of my earliest toys and I still enjoyed it when I was older. Again, gender neutral, maybe slightly male.

4. Cisgender lesbian woman. British.

2. Legos. My brother and I pooled our kits and collections into a big box of Legos that got used for building everything--houses, cars, airplanes, ships...well, lots of mechanical/vehicular things I suppose. I always thought of them as gender neutral, and this was before there were many ties-in to movies/themes, and long before Lego friends.

3. Action figures. The "people" we called them, figures from Star Trek (so many of these), Star Wars, Jurassic Park, anything that had ~6" figures could be added to the people. They always went on long traveling adventures, and sometimes got renamed to be new characters. Gender neutral again, I think--packaging mostly just showed scenes from whatever movie/TV show--though I had many more female figures than my brother did. I'm not sure if it was my choice or parental choice when I was younger, but by 12ish I was picking out women (if available) preferentially.

4. I am cis female (and het).

2. American Girl dolls. I had two of them and I loved dressing them up and playing with all the accessories and taking them on adventures with me. Generally thought of as a "girl" toy.

3. K'Nex. They were a building kind of toy. I had a ton of the playsets and you could make all kinds of things out of them from dinosaurs to buildings. They all came with instructions on how to make specific things but it was also easy to be creative with them and make your own creations. Advertised as a "boy" toy but pretty gender neutral.

4. bisexual cisgender woman

2. Dolls: I loved my dolls, so much so my mom had to sew arms back on or send them off to be repaired. Playing "house" was a favorite activity. Most of the dolls were white, although I had several Black dolls made for my mom by my great grandmother. Gendered for girls.

3. Legos: from 8-13, I was a Lego architect extraordinaire. My sister and I would build complex houses and cities with Legos, complete with gardens and upper stories. Some of my favorite memories are of building houses and creating stories with Lego people during the long winters. Gendered for boys, I suppose, but I never felt like I was excluded from playing with them as a girl. This was probably bc 1) we only watched public television and 2) my mother didn't believe in gendered toys, so to speak. We played with what we liked.

4. Lesbian woman.

2. Matchbox cars and planes, like the kinds you get when you go away on vacation. I had London cabs, a red Chevy pickup, smaller matchbox size cars of al styles. I played with them like you might play with dolls, there were societies and the cars were anthropomorphized. This was probably masculine, though I'll say my use of them feels stereotypically feminine.

3. Legos. I never had the specific sets, but I played with a ton of legos as a kid. I didn't have tiny lego people, so I generally made houses or things for my other toys. These are gender neutral.

I'm a heterosexual woman (cis).

Along with Mickey, I had a blanket I had been given at birth that I called Green. Green was a quilt my grandmother sewed for me. Mostly Green got drug around on the adventures Mickey and I took, but didn't really participate in them. I don't think you could really genderize a quilt.

Finally, I had my Kirsten American Girl Doll. I honestly think American Girl dolls are huge action figures (most kids seem to use them to act out stories!), but if you're making me, then sure, it was a girl toy.

I'm female.

2) My Little Ponies. They were pretty and they smelled nice. Definitely geared toward girls.

3) Legos. You could build anything and create any kind of world you wanted. I even had the kit to make a giant castle with a working drawbridge and everything. It was awesome. There were knights on horses and the knights and little detachable helmets, swords and shields. But you could also build cars, houses, robot-type things. Very engineering-oriented.

I identify as bi cis woman.

1) Transformers - I loved that they could change shape and turn into realistic vehicles and other objects. I particularly loved Megatron because of his alt mode as a gun and elbaorate transformation, Devastator for the same reason and Wheeljack because of the car he turned into.

2) He-Man and She-Ra - I collected She-Ra dolls first and then started with He-Man too. I basically started collecting the toys because each of them were unique and different, but the main reason was that I loved the cartoon show.

3) I really don't have a third toyline I am fond of. I had both boys and girls toys like Barbies, Gobots, cars, Popples and some teddy bears. But I rarely played with other toys other than Transformers, He-Man or She-Ra.

My favorite toys

I have a picture of a 3 year old me hugging a blue nerf car. I think i loved it. Or maybe the picture. I never liked dolls as much as i was supposed to. I liked toys that did things.

I loved my big wheel and other kids sit and spin. I loves my easy bake oven. I dont remember fully identifying as a gender but more as my self. I loved books and puzzles and overall i would say i largely preferred gender neutral toys. As a little kid i had a bedroom decorated with planes and i always hated my mom for later giving me a room with pink and flowers. I was never really into things that were very obviously designated and marketed towards boys but i liked cap guns and things that were not designated as female.

I was a child of the 70s and remember much less gender marketing than i saw later in the 80s and beyond.

I had an averaion to the color pink for years and only let myself like and wear it after i had proved myself with accomplishments and physical feats.

I liked games. Once again in analyzing i think i was most drawn toward active doing or thinking toys that avoided gender categorization.

1. Action figures- He-man and MOTU, G.I. Joe, TMNT, boys toys for straight males

don't know what this research is for homosexuals are everywhere now. Sucks for us straight people. Funny how now if you want to raise your kids without any gay leanings its considered wrong. Straight anti-pc male 4 life

My favorite was Barbie and had many dolls, a house, and lots of accessories. The doll was almost ancillary. I enjoyed all of the miniature things because it was a world that I could control and manipulate. The pinks and purples irritated me, but not that much. There was no question that these were "girl" toys.

My second favorite toy was my dollhouse, which I loved because my dad built it for me. It also was a world in miniature (see a theme) that I could create all on my own. This was also a "girl" toy, but it was not for little girls, but older ones.

My third favorite were LEGOS, but these were "boy" toys. I outgrew these quickly, not because I stopped enjoying them, but because my brother played with them too and I didn't want to be caught playing with a boy toy.

I also had a load of Star Wars toys. I had the figurines, guns, light saber, spaceships, vehicles. I loved my Princess Leia figure secretly. I pretended I only got her to complete the set because boys don't play with dolls, but she was the one I loved most. I also loved my shootout in space game. It was a rotating platform with some hollow rockets on it. As the platform turned you could aim your laser rifle in a small window. If you fired the laser at the right moment when a rocket was directly above it would launch into the air.

2. Favorite 3 toys were: He-Man Masters of the Universe, Thundercats (especially Lion-O), and Centurions (especially Ace McCloud).

3. I still collect toys to this day.

In my childhood I was encouraged to play with action figures and I ended up falling in love with Masters of the Universe. The Filmation cartoons and the toys had an huge impact on me. Later on I liked Turtles and started getting into action figures as collectibles. My parents were concerned about me for liking toys at an older age and forced me to part with toys. When I moved out of my childhood home I became an young adult toy collector. Nowadays I have a collection of video game figures, MOTUC figures, some Marvel Legends and Select figures. And various characters from tv series and movies. I also collect comics and art books. Comic books were as well an important part of my childhood.

I love fictional stories and especially the characters in those stories. I like having a good representation of the character(s) in a physical form and I prefer posable action figure forms.

I loved multiple action figure lines, especially He-man/MOTU. I was also obsessed with ninjas in any form. G.I. joe, Transformers, Go-bots, Thundercats, Silverhawks, Rock Lords, Madballs, Marvel Secret Wars, Inhumanoids, Visionaries, TMNT, M.A.S.K., Star Wars, M.U.S.C.L.E., Star-com, and others...I was in to it all. I also loved robots of all kinds. And Contrux were a big part of my childhood.

I wasn't encouraged to play with any particular type of type of toy. My imagination led me to be interested in these lines. I almost always altered them from the given story to a more serious and dark story line.

I also ALWAYS found myself much more interested in the "bad guys" of these lines. My favorite characters were always the villains. However it was almost always never the main villain, always the strong silent type character.

Strength, secrecy, and some kind of code of honor were three big draws for me. If there weren't a "ninja" type character in a line I would alter the story of a villain to make him one.

And I would add for your research that I DID NOT want the female characters from any of these lines. I think it was because I've always viewed females as symbols for sweetness, love, and happiness (in a positive way) so they had no place in my battles.

I also had both Lego and Barbie dolls. I liked both a bit but generally I preferred reading and making art to playing with toys.

                          1) 1984 G1 Transformers Megatron

                          2) 1979 24" Shogun Warriors Godzilla

                          3) 1980 Star Wars AT-AT Walker

1) Megatron was a favorite because he was the Decepticon leader and could transform into a gun.  I really liked Transformers and leaders are always the toys most children want to have.  He had plenty of airtime on the animated show which helped foster my fondness for him.  He was silver and black with quite a few attachments (visual scope, a stock, a chrome weapon).  I remember the Christmas I received him in 1984, I slept with him in my bed just like Ralphie from A Christmas Story and his Red Ryder BB gun (although I didn't shoot my eye out because Megatron didn't fire any projectiles).

2) I have always loved Toho's Japanese Godzilla movies and really loved dinosaurs.  So the 24" Shogun Warriors Godzilla toy really struck a chord with me.  It was oversized, had a lever on the back of his neck that you could press down and his flame tongue would stick out, had wheels on the bottom of his feet so he could roll around and a fist that would shoot out as a projectile for some reason.  Like Godzilla, this toy was green and great fun for a young child like me.

3) I loved and still love Star Wars.  The ultimate toy for me from the original Kenner toyline was the behemoth (for a child I mean) AT-AT Walker.  It was gray and battery operated.  He had lasers that would light up and make noise at the cockpit.  He had adjustable legs and could carry many Imperial Snowtroopers in his belly.  An excellent toy for me that provided many great memories.

My favourite toys were

Action Men, especially my BulletMan and Atomic Man

My stretch toys, especially my X-Ray and Monster ones

My Star Wars figures

And I still collect toys today.

1) an action man horse. I asked my parents for a horse for christmas, I got an action man with a horse, never played with the action man but I really loved that horse

2) a dragster matchbox car, what I liked about it was it could go really far in a straight line but probably more importantly it was a gift from my grandmother and she was the only adult that I felt loved me.

3) a teddy/doll that I made myself out of denim offcuts.

2) My second favourite was probably my doll I took to nursery almost every day, called Helen. Apparently, every day it was either her birthday or she was ill! My Nan used to knit her dresses.

3) My third favourite was my plastic realistic-looking T-Rex, who was missing an arm. I used to play with him in the bath, and pretend to feed him things.

Good luck with your study!

I also played with dolls a lot - Cindy mostly. Got together with friends and dressed them up and made up stories about their lives.

My other 'favourite toys' were books. I read all the time, loved history and myths and legends in particular. My reading age was advanced so I picked whatever was on my parents' bookshelves that was readable too. My favourite at the time was The Three Musketeers. I've loved adventure stories ever since.

My favourite toys from about 7 to 9 or 10 were Power Rangers action figures, because I was obsessed with Power Rangers.

My favourite toys from about

Favorite toy colors, Blue, yellow, and green

My favourite toys were:

1. She-Ra and Bow from the She-Ra: Princess of Power toy line (girls toys)

2. Optimus Prime and Galvatron from the Transformers toy line

3. Michelangelo, Bebop, Rocksteady and Shredder from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles toy line

I would have owned far more "girls toys" if I had been allowed. But, even as a child I had to fight to buy the female characters in boys toy lines (e.g. April O'Neil in Ninja Turtles and Janine in Ghostbusters). I also really wanted female characters that they never made (e.g. Arcee from Transformers).

I'm not sure why the listed toys were my favourite. I regularly played with She-Ra and Bow not as those "characters" but as a variety of characters (e.g. The Doctor and Sarah Jane, James Bond and Moneypenny, Maxwell Smart and 99, Indiana Jones and Marion). I guess they seemed like the closest to regular "human" looking action figures and they were easy surrogates for other characters.

Their colours were white, gold and red for She-Ra and red, blue and gold for Bow.

36 year old straight cisgender woman

My favorite toys were:

1) She-Ra Princess of Power dolls and play sets, especially the winged horses

2) traditional doll house, which I decorated and furnished with my mom and grandmother

3) American Girl Samantha (then known as the Pleasant Company, prior to its purchase by Mattel)

4) Barbies - both current to my childhood (1980s) and my mom's vintage ones (1960s) - we had tons of clothes and furniture for them, along with a car. My best friend had a Barbie-sized house that we played with constantly.