During the time of cliques, tyrants and adolescent nonsense, it seemed we needed to imitate and adapt to our “superior” peers in order to make it through high school unscathed. A girl would have been loathed if she dressed like a boy, and her male counterpart, tormented for strutting colorful hair or eyeliner.

Today, we sometimes see a girl with short hair dressed similarly to a man. We’ll even see a man strutting with that same colorful hair and eyeliner, simply embracing what makes him … well, him.

Peculiar? Perhaps, but it seems our generation is abandoning everything we’ve known about gender specific identity.     

In a 2013 study performed by the consumer insights company Intelligence Group, more than two-thirds of people ages 14 to 34 agree that gender does not always have to define a person in the way that it used to. He reported that millennials don’t feel confined or limited by traditional gender individuality. Instead, they see gender identity as a more “fluid and flexible construct.”

So, our generation is not as impassive as those before us. We are expressive, animated and at times, emotional. The line between gender roles is blurred, and we are pushing the boundaries of what it means to be feminine and masculine.

The mere idea of conformity makes me shiver and probably always will, but what’s troubling is the torment.

Too often, we see our expressive peers chastised for dressing, talking or strutting in a certain way.

This suffering alone causes some people to hesitate in embracing their true dynamic spirits.  

Even more disconcerting is the desire to conform in high school.

Unfortunately, it is something that will always remain. But on graduation day, as we walked across that stage, we were handed a diploma — a certificate of entrance into the real world, a world where we can embrace the eccentricities of our exterior and the distinctions of our character.

What our brave college peers possess is something I think most of us envy: courage.

Take a better look around the next time you walk to class or through the RSC. Notice the nuances. Observe the distinctions. I praise those who walk amongst our generation — even here on campus — with audacity and fearlessness.

Regardless of gender, summon the courage to embrace what truly makes you happy, unique and well … you.