I believe my gender identity has had a significant impact on my life. In some ways, it is difficult to objectively see how much of an impact it has, as there is no baseline to compare it to. It also doesn’t help that, at least for me, gender usually doesn’t play a significant role in decision making. That being said, there were a few moments in my life where it was important. When I was young, if I cried, I would get told that “only boys cry”. I remember avoiding certain colors, like pink, because they were considered girly. I also didn’t take up any hobbies that would be considered feminine, but that may also be because I had no interest in them. In general, I would say that I learned about gender roles when I was very young.I think the idea of “doing gender” is very relevant to me. My mannerism and how I dress is typical for men. While I can’t say when or why I learned to do this, I would suspect I did it fit in, or maybe I just copied other people.Gender socialization would very accurately describe where I learned all of this. My parents, especially my dad, played a very large role. He stressed the importance of masculinity and believes that men should not show any weakness. Peer group also likely had a large impact on how I learned gender roles. While gender may not matter very much now, it certainly did when I was young. There was a strong pressure to conform to gender roles and not appear “girly”. Media probably played a role in teaching me about masculinity, although I can’t think of any specific examples. Unfortunately, I don’t remember when I learned about my gender, so I can't comment on that.