3yo DD says she's a boy

[eversomuch]

DD very, very often refers to herself as a boy (i'm a big boy, I'll be a daddy when I'm big, etc). sometimes she says she's just pretending & says she's a girl, other times she is more insistent. DH & I just tell her that it's ok & we love her whether she's a boy or a girl.

she has a younger brother who is 20mo but I don't think there's any sort of jealousy of him that would cause her to think it's preferable to be a boy.

I'm just wondering how accurate her gender identity could be at this age (i've read that it starts to develop around this age) & how to proceed. I'm guessing we should just wait & see how things evolve.

are there any age-appropriate books that might be useful to introduce?

any other suggestions?

thanks.

[Pico2]

Does she ever say why she thinks she is a boy? Children often have ideas about what makes someone a man or woman (e.g. Long hair = woman) and it takes quite a while for them to refine these ideas.

[LokiTheCynicalCat]

At that age, I told everyone I was a boy and I insisted that my parents called me David. I refused to wear skirts and dresses and wouldn't answer to my own female name.

It's too early to say definitively if it's something serious, but it's also a fairly common childhood phase. You may well find she has forgotten about it in a few weeks or months, and grows out of it.

But it's good that you're thinking ahead and trying to research this.

[eversomuch]

she's been saying she's a boy almost as long as she's been able to talk (and she's very verbal)... so at least a year, I'd estimate.

I also wondered if it was something like short hair = man. she prefers short hair & will not wear dresses, skirts, hair accessories, etc. often gets mistaken for a boy. we're letting her be her, never force her to look or 'act' like a girl & have made a concerted effort to avoid all the frilly pink girly stuff.

it may just be a phase but it does feel like it's been going on for a long time so I figured a little knowledge/research couldn't hurt.

[eversomuch]

oh, and to answer your question, when we ask her why she thinks she's a boy, she usually says she doesn't know.

[eversomuch]

oh, and to answer your question, when we ask her why she thinks she's a boy, she usually says she doesn't know.

[rocketjam]

I think that often children will see things n black and white, and girls will not identify with being a girl because being a girl means you like pink, have long hair, like dolls, look like that girl from Frozen. The image that little girls have of what it means to be a girl (in a Disney movie or at the toy shop) is very narrow. I like your attitude of just letting her be, but I think it would be important to explain/let her know/show her strong female characters that are not girly. To widen her understanding of what it means to be a girl. Does that make sense? I am no expert, I'm just a mum with two boys but I am a child-minder with years of experience and I have looked after little girls who don't identify with early years 'role models' and don't fit in, so they don't want to call themselves 'girls'.

[Misfitless]

My DC3 was like this. She refused to wear dresses, always in leggings/jeans. At pre-school, she preferred to play with the boys because the "girly" girls drove her mad; she couldn't relate to all the power struggles over dressing up in the favorite princess costume, being "mum" when they were playing in the home corner etc .

Fast forward, I have a 6 year old, who still steers clear of anything pink or frilly, is always the dog when they play families at school, but chose a green frill-free dress when we went shopping last week!

She is fabulous and unique, and your daughter sounds the same!

There were times when me and DH thought she would almost certainly be gay, which would have been fine with us. Now I doubt that very much. She talks about which boys she will marry, even though I have told her and her siblings several times, that girls can marry girls, and boys can marry boys.

[postmanpatscat]

I suggest you join the discussion group on Mermaids, there are lots of parents of gender non - conforming kids who are happy to share their own experiences.

[MollyBdenum]

I have 2 children. DD started identifying as a girl at around three and a half. DS was around four and a half when he started identifying as a boy. Before that DS talked a lot about when he would be a mummy, though that he would turn into a girl when he got older, wanted long hair (which he still has), had mostly female friends (which he still does) loved pink (which he still does) and liked wearing dresses, including to nursery.

Then, over the space of around a month, he started referring to himself a boy, talking about how he was like daddy, played a lot less at fairies and a lot more more at superheroes (essentially the same game anyway) and went from being pretty much genderless to being very clearly a boy.

I have several trans friends who talk a lot about how difficult it was being forced into the wrong gender role as a child so I wanted to make sure that I have my children the opportunity to decide for themselves what being a boy or girl involved and whether it was what they are. It turned out that DD was a fairly girly girl and DS is a boy who seems toembrace both stereotypically boy and girl stuff but is very definitely a boy.