Callum is 17 years old, with a bright future ahead. He has offers to study psychology from top universities, including Cambridge. He describes himself as shy, with a lot of feminine traits. But "I do think I'm very competitive, I do fall under a lot of the stereotypes of masculinity," he says. "Not being very good at showing my emotions is also one of them."

He is an cisgenderA person whose gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth. The term was first used in academic articles in the 1990s. boy, meaning he was born with a biologically male body, and thinks of himself as male. Like many men¹, he finds it hard to express how he is feeling. "People tend to think I'm quite relaxed," he explains, "when in reality I could be quite anxious or excited. It's just that I don't really know how to express that."

He remembers being told to "stop being such a cry baby" when he was younger. "It does have some kind of impact later on," he says. And although he enjoyed traditionally "male" toys, he remembers his brothers' disapproval when he was playing with his sister. "I would play with her more than my other brothers... I remember them making fun of me. It's not necessarily adults who are doing all of the genderingAssociating something with a particular gender.."

But he thinks young people's ideas about gender are changing.

"I think teenagers are more sympathetic to not having rigid gender expressionHow you present your gender to the outside world, such as through your clothes, voice, speech, actions, hair and movement. . So we're more open to the idea of people being non-binarySomeone who does not identify as a boy or a girl., or having masculine and feminine traits."

For boys, that means being encouraged to talk more about mental health problems², although he says there is always room for more. When it came to his own self-esteem issues, there was "not necessarily the support to help me grow in confidence, as much as there is for girls. So a lot of the things that I've done... are things that I've forced myself to do, to push myself out of my comfort zone."

That includes joining his school's debating club. "I didn't want to continue to have to struggle in social situations. I thought, if I push myself to talk more in front of people, then hopefully I will gain the confidence that I need."

"I think gender is and maybe always will be important to society," he says. "I think that in the past, gender has been about allowing people to easily identify with other people. But I think that's shifting now. People are less sympathetic to the idea of putting themselves in boxes. I think for some people at least, gender has become less important in their lives."

"But in order to have conversations around things that specifically affect one gender more than the other, we need the concept of gender in our lives. So I think currently that gender is still important for our society, and for us, to make strides towards equality and the fair treatment of all people."