4yo DD says she’s a boy and I’m being accused of pushing her

DD was allowed shorts at nursery and I would have an issue with any nursery forcing a girl to wear a dress if boys can wear shorts. It’s not practical or fair.

Back in the 80s before all this was a thing, age 8-11 I had short hair, wouldn’t wear dresses, idolised a male film character and wanted to be called his name. I watched traditionally male sports and had no interest in traditionally female toys/games. At 12 I started liking boys as more than playmates and it all changed. It was just a phase.

Crucially no one made a fuss about my hair, clothes and interests so I did what I wanted and emerged the other side loving being the woman that I am. I’m definitely tougher and more resilient than a lot of women I know, more ambitious and go getting and I’ve never let my sex stand in my way. But those can be female traits even if we think of them as traditionally male.

it sounds as if your daughter just wants to be like her brothers and that’s ok. She should be able to wear shorts, play traditionally male games/sports, even be called a name she likes and still be a girl. I wouldn’t be forcing her into a dress. I’d be letting her enjoy the same pursuits as her brothers and just not passing comment or giving it attention. She will most likely grow up to be a strong, independent woman who doesn’t take any shit from anyone! And good for her.

As for nursery, they need to rethink their uniform policy as it’s incredibly sexist. I would just explain she likes to be treated the same as her brothers and that’s ok. Girls can wear shorts, can play football and can even have boyish names. This obsession with reinforcing gender stereotypes can be so damaging.

That could have been me at her age (except hair, I liked mine long and matted). There was never any leeway for school uniform, or dresses for “occasions” I would cry and tantrum but capitulated & wore the dress.

At home, I wore boys jeans, boys trainers but oddly girl tops (kitten, pony type designs). No name change - never occurred to me.

I high school, I discovered boys and slowly started dressing as a girl, makeup etc.

I was not scarred by parents wanting me to appear as a girl when required. There were many times I was told NO about many many things other than refusing dresses. I think that’s part of being a child.

@IstanbulBaby In YR they change clothes for PE. A girls’ uniform affects nothing in terms of sport and activities. My DDs were talkers, not tree climbers.

If DD here is confused, I think she needs some girl stereotypes but the future might be an interesting ride! Maybe seeming all those blond ponytails in the Euros might help?

"She isnt at full time school either so she is in fact allowed to wear whatever."

Does that apply to prep school nurseries, too? Many have a uniform policy for their nursery schools.

We don't know what type of nursery school the OP's daughter attends - she has not said.

This sounds very much like my daughter. She has said since she was 4ish that she wants to be a boy. The last year has refused all dresses and only wear sports clothing or clothes aimed at boys.
She hates pink/dolls/make up anything she considers girly. The one exception is that she loves her long, blonde hair in fancy styles. She has considered having it cut like her 2 older brothers a number of times.
I won't force her to do anything she hates, she's not hurting anyone.
I would have a chat with nursery.

They should change the uniform policy so that it isn’t sexist. There is no need for it. Dress as an option, shorts/trousers as an option. We campaigned for and got trousers added the the uniform for girls at secondary school 30 years ago, I’m surprised everywhere hasn’t caught on yet. (Actually its about more than fairness. If they can’t do climbing and running in a dress without showing their underwear girls are likely to just stop being active)
The more they make certain thing just for boys or just for girls eg comfy clothes or short hair, the more perfectly normal children will want the ‘wrong’ one and then gat the message they are the one that is wrong, wrong body, wrong mind. Just make sure she knows there is nothing gender specific about clothes or haircuts!

Nursery were probs a bit concerned about your parenting if you can’t keep your daughter’s hair from being matted! This comes up in training as potential neglect.

In my children’s reception classes of 60 not one child has matted hair.

It's totally sexist that they make girls wear dresses. Dresses make it harder to perform lots of physical-style play that young children of BOTH sexes enjoy. That sort of rubbish is PRECISELY the reason some girls start saying they want to be boys.

Let her wear whatever she wants, let her have whatever hairstyle she wants, let her play whatever games she wants.

Just don't let her believe she can change her sex, but that there's nothing wrong with that, because being a girl won't stop her from doing anything she enjoys or having any job she likes when she grows up.

It sounds like you are doing everything right, OP.

My sister-in-law had a phase of insisting she was a boy, when she was about 3-4, chose a boy's name for herself and everything. And it was for exactly the same reason - she had 3 brothers and didn't want to be left out. Her parents just shrugged their shoulders and let her get on with it, because it was the 90s. She grew up absolutely fine.

She sounds like me and my cousin when we were little. We were tomboys. That was the thing then, little girls could cut their hair and say they wanted to be boys and adults would laugh and let them grow out of it.
We’re now both married mums who wear dresses.

100% agree. Both my children are at the bog standard local primary and can choose between skirts, trousers and shorts (and to be honest many come in joggers etc and no one seems to care as long as they’re there)

I'm very amused at these comments.

When I say my SD is non-binary and prefers to wear "boys clothes" on MN, I quickly get shouted down and told there are no "boys clothes" and SD is a girl who wears clothes.

When you say your DD wears clothes which could be for either gender, they say force her into a dress. 😂

I'd honestly look for a different nursery which is more inclusive. If she doesn't feel comfortable in a dress she shouldn't have to wear one.

I honestly don’t know if this is just a phase or something more

There is nothing "more" to this. There is no such thing as being born in the wrong body.

She's a 4-year-old learning about the world and making sense of things. Other 4-year-old girls observe that it's girls who are given pink toys and begin rejecting anything that isn't pink (or vice versa). It doesn't actually mean that pink is only for girls or girls are require to like pink. They're just developing socially. Your 4-year-old girl adores her brothers and wants to be like them.

She will always be female, humans cannot change sex. It is your job to gently reinforce that she's a girl and that being a girl doesn't mean she can't do the things she enjoys. Parents are supposed to teach their children the things they need to develop into healthy adults.

Girls who resented wearing dresses are not new. The only thing that's new is sterilising them in response.

Honestly i would avoid such schools like plague. What backwards values are they teaching children?

It is bonkers that she can’t wear the ‘boys’ uniform. There are so many girls who don’t like dresses, whether they want to be boys or not.

Prep school nurseries often have fairly strict uniform rules.

No, they don't. My daughter prefers boys clothing and hates dresses. She doesn't wear school dresses, as long as it's uniform it shouldn't matter. She also doesn't wear skirts or dresses outside of school (although likes to get her nails painted and hair done). Completely identifies as a girl without feeling she has to conform to traditional 'girl' clothes. And when she did wear skirts she wore shorts under them anyway.

I don't think the name change should be encouraged though. Is there a way to shorten her name into a nickname?

My daughter claimed she was boy for a few years around that age. Wore underpants and boys uniform for reception and Year 1.

She was a girl before going to juniors. She's now 11 and still a girl, but wears boyish clothes. I think it was the effect of a big brother.

Trans stuff was less of a thing than now, so no one worried about it too much.

You sound like a great mum and your little girl sounds awesome. Keep doing exactly what you’re doing and support her to be herself - don’t doubt yourself. And tell the nursery to update their uniform policy and jog on with the judgmental comments.

Is she getting concern for this behaviour? I wonder if that is spurring her on unintentionally.

Like other posters have said I wouldn’t pay too much mind to it. Let her do what she wants to do and send her to nursery in what she is comfortable in. Seems odd they insist on dress for girls!

I don’t think we are on a different page about that. She isn’t trans and people shouldn’t telling her she is in the same way that people shouldn’t be correcting her or insisting she’s a girl if she says she’s a boy. Just let her be on that. She wants to be exactly like her brothers and they are boys so she wants to be one too most likely.

I just think the uniform thing is a policy issue rather than a child one so I’d be challenging the school not the child.

The OP really seems to be dealing which the whole thing quite sensibly and in the same way I’ve seen lots of other parents deal with it.

I could have almost written this myself, apart from Colin and the brothers.

I am in my 60s and, until I was about 10 or 11, I thought I wanted to be a boy and rejected all the girly stuff, though I had no choice about clothes at school. For me, though, it was because I thought boys got to have more fun, had more choices, did the cool stuff, while girls were meant to do the boring stuff, playing house and so on.

When I got to senior school I had accepted I was a girl and didn't really want to be a boy but was still indignant at some of the imposed differences. In those days, at our school, there were still certain subjects that only girls or only boys did. E.g. needlework (which I loathed with a passion) and cooking as opposed to woodwork and metalwork.

The older I got though the more I could see that was changing and I actually ended up in a fairly male oriented industry. Despite this I would say 100% female, married and a mum. I even own a sewing machine and make some of my own clothes!

🤢 at all the posters insisting that girls be made to wear skirts and dresses. Fuck that. It's 2025.

As long as she's wearing uniform, there's no problem. Same for any boys who would rather wear a dress.

Enforcing arbitrary gender stereotypes and insisting that X is for girls or Y is for boys is a lot of the reason we're in this ridiculous mess in the first place. People don't burst into flames if they wear clothing that's traditionally been worn by the opposite sex.

She's a little girl who likes short hair and hates dresses. The end. Tell school to stop reading more into it than that and concentrate on teaching her.

My dd was similar but without the siblings.
Always wore trousers and shorts to school. All clothes came from the boys dept. Hair was short and cut at the barbers.
She even wanted to wee standing up like boys! That was intresting!!!

By about 14 this all changed, hair was grown long etc.

Bad that nursery ask girls to wear dresses and no other option.

This post exactly OP 👌

Couple of days ago saw a dad on insta talking about how angry he was that his daughter came home from nursery upset because a boy told her she couldn’t play instruments because they were for boys so him and his wife showed her female musicians. He said that the one part of parenting he hadn’t considered was he’d have to learn how to combat other people’s parenting.