Jeremy Stangroom

Largely in that the 90s killed that freedom dead. But yeah, the 80s were a lot more liberated than the 1990s or 2000s

Well, these sorts of things are cyclical - young people like to think their interests, concerns, ideas, etc., are different from anything that's been before. (Bit of a generalization, admittedly! )

I think coming out of the 70s was a large part of it in the UK Nothing to lose meant little risk to being whoever you wanted to be When we all had money and stuff by the 1990s, there was more at stake I suspect youth "liberation" follows a wider societal perception

The difference is that the New Romantics knew they were just dressing up. Same with Bowie in the Seventies, and Glam Rock, and right back to the Dandies a century earlier.

Maybe. But Boy George & Marilyn, for example, were certainly not (initially) forthcoming about their gender, etc. Also, the language of binary/non-binary wasn't available to them. If it had been...

Youth culture used to centre on music. The genre was your tribe. Gender expression, political attitudes, drug use, all defined by the music you were into. Now the music has gone youth culture ramps up the gender, politics or drug use to fill the void.

There's probably something to that. Good spot!