My little boy says he wants to be a girl

[Bellabelloo]

I wasn't sure where to post this.

My little boy is 4. He is very boisterous and typically 'boyish' (likes rough and tumble games etc)) but also loves dressing up in princess dresses and recently he keeps saying he wants to be a girl and asking whether he can be a girl when he grows up. He asks every day if I will buy him some make up and dresses.

I'm not sure if this is a phase, him experimenting, or something I should take really seriously. Has anyone had similar with their young boys?

Thank you.

I work in a primary school and children have dressing up clothes up to year 2 in the classrooms. The boys often dress up in the princess dresses including the high heels just as the girls will dress up in the woody, ninja turtle, knight outfits. All very usual play, so at 4 definitely not unusual.

Get him a box of dressing up clothes and tell him to wear what he wants. I wouldn't buy any 4 year old make up though

@LitCrit

Gender isn’t more fluid. Gender is actually more rigid. That’s why, when little boys like dresses, people tell them they are a girl.

I agree. Putting people into boxes is what leads to people feeling the need to label themselves different genders. A boy who likes pink and dresses, oh you can't be a real boy you must be transgender/non binary or whatever because ONLY girls can like those things.

I made my mum call me Thomas for a full eighteen months between the ages of three and a half and five.
I loved Thomas the tank engine, hated baby dolls and asked for a tractor for my birthday.

Suffice to say I grew out of this phase, but my parents indulged it without undue distress because it was 1988 and nobody mentioned trans kids etc.

I dread to think what would have happened were I born in 2013 for example.

Gosh that was particularly outing if any of my family members are in here.

In which case, Hi!

@Bellabelloo, good luck with your FiL. Hold your boundaries. There's a good MN campaign around 'Let Toys Be Toys' which is worth looking at.

At that age, clothes that they 'wear on' are as much toys as the other objects they play with.

Skirts and dresses are twirly and colourful, like cbeebies characters. Especially those in the dressing up box at nursery. No offense to bright pink hooped dresses meant, they're fun. And for boys and girls, with no deep meaning taken from it.

These bright twirly clothes appeal to a lot of children regardless of gender. I actually think children are genderless until puberty. Both genders should climb trees, have chemistry sets, twirl in pink skirts, play with baby dolls and build bricks (to age 14.)

At puberty they develop more into the wide range of men and the wide range of women... engineers, doctors, artists and ballet dancers.

I’ve just been listening to Victoria Wood’s biography. She wanted to be a boy until she hit puberty. She hated being a girl, thought being a boy was much more fun because you got to climb trees and get dirty(if only someone had told her girls can do that too!) As soon as she went to secondary schools she was fine being a girl.

Phebe Walker Bridge has written about wanted to be a bit too. She made everyone call her by a boys name until she was in her teens. She then realised she was fine being a girl.

For those children who “feel” like the opposite sex, the vast, vast majority stop feeling this way as soon as puberty kicks in.

*boy

Christ alive, he's four, he'll probably want to be a tractor or a dinosaur next week.
Ignore the woke nonsense and let him be without worrying.

Theres a Jacky Fleming cartoon on this very topic but it's not on Google. :(

My brother (who is a stocky manly man) had a dolly,pushchair and pearls at that age. It's likely just a phase OP

I look after a child who crawled down my path the other week. (Not that helpful to parent needing to get to work )
The reason he was crawling- he was a dog.

I think the big worry is far too much focus is put on a child saying i want to be a girl / boy.

I let the boy crawl in. Eventually he became a boy again but wants to be a rabbit when he grows up.

@Lou898 And before there were such things as Disney princess dresses to buy, in the early 1980s we had donated 'dressing up clothes' in Nursery though to top infants.
Boys regularly were to be found playing with the toy cars or doing their writing clad in pastel 'baby doll' nighties and policeman's helmets.
It was ever thus, but back then we just let them get on with it, and maybe offered a feather boa or a pair of flippers to complete the outfit du jour.

Haven't read the full thread, but wouldn't buy make up for a child, whether they're boy or girl or non-binary. Saying no him wearing makeup isn't stopping him being whatever gender he wants to be.

My DD used to wall dressed like Bob the builder being a "tomboy"...then became obsessed with unicorns and pink... now a teenager she refuses to wear dresses, but likes her hair long and wears makeup, dresses in black, hates pink...

She hated being a girl, thought being a boy was much more fun because you got to climb trees and get dirty(if only someone had told her girls can do that too!)

My mother literally would not allow me to wear trousers to school unless it was snowing. Those were the rules. Skirts only.

My sisters and I 'helped with' housework; my brothers played outside with my father.

That's what 'gender' looks like. It is artificial, damaging, and only exists because people do actually know what sex their children are.

Excellent response. Ignore advertising and ideology and let kids be free to be whatever they want without operations.

just play along, but don't indulge too much. and never read any gender ideology garbage.

@LizzieSiddal

When he says “I want to be a girl” tell him he is a boy and always will be, BUT he can wear whatever he likes, do whatever job he wants, put make up on if he likes etc etc. Being a boy doesn’t stop him being able to do anything!

This with bells on

you wouldn't be overthinking this if he said he wants to be a dog

That's awful @SpindleWhorl. What happened to feminism?
As a girl in the 70s I wore trousers dungarees, climbed trees and played in the mud, did quite a bit of woodwork, and did no more housework than my brothers. (None really!)

The worlds gone mad.

When Ds was that age he announced we had to call him Thomas. As in Tank Engine. I used to say “right - Inhave just had a call from Sir Topham Hat. All the Little Engines need to put their shoes on ready for nursery.”

It was great! Thomas the Tank Engine was so much better at getting out the house than Fred the Boy.

We would then “choo choo” all the way to nursery.

@Crystal90567

That's awful *@SpindleWhorl*. What happened to feminism? As a girl in the 70s I wore trousers dungarees, climbed trees and played in the mud, did quite a bit of woodwork, and did no more housework than my brothers. (None really!)

The worlds gone mad.

I'll be a few years older than you, and from a bit of a backwater presbyterian upbringing.

I couldn't get away to university quickly enough, once their aspirations for me became clear! Luckily, my parents 'let' that happen just to get shot of me probably.

Gender and gendered parenting can be terribly cruel.

Ds was Santa when he was 4 for a year. Costume and everything for the full year.