One day, when the folks of Generation X are grandparents, maybe we will tell our children of the time when, for better or worse, it was OK to be weird.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s, not everyone needed to be categorized. You could let your freak flag fly. David Bowie reveled in androgyny, onstage and onscreen, identifying as Ziggy Stardust, an alien who need not choose male or female. After Bowie came a deluge of gender-bending rock stars.