A study examined how critical literacy activities within a homeschooling education project sustained or transformed the participants' awareness of gender identities and inequities in texts. Subjects were two brother pairs who had been close friends for over 4 years at the time of the study. The older brothers (13 years of age) attended a rural county middle school in Northeast Georgia as seventh graders prior to the study. The younger brothers (ages 11 and 10) attended the same elementary school, in fifth and fourth grades respectively. Primary data sources included audio tapes and transcripts of the boys' participation in the critical literacy activities, including 10 that were videotaped to capture the nonverbal actions of the participants. Field notes were taken. Results indicated that one of the older boys thought that gender did not matter, believing that anyone could be or do anything that he or she wanted, although he acknowledged that boys have more sports and job opportunities. The second older boy saw himself as opposite to a girl, and said that if he was a girl he would hate himself. The 11-year-old thought that if he woke up as a girl he would want to be sexy and look like Cindy Crawford. The 10-year-old's view of masculinity was his thinking about heterosexuality. Findings through critical discourse analysis suggest that the four boys were aware of the chameleon-like nature (or loopholes) of the "Discourses" of gender. (Contains 39 references.) (CR)