3yo DD says she's a boy

[mumtoa3yo]

I know MN is generally not a very trans-supportive space but posting here in case anyone has any experience.

My 3yo DD says she's a boy and has done for as long as I can remember. She has an older brother she adores, and I wonder if it's more idolisation of him (she even says she wants us to have another baby now, as she's the age her brother was when she was born, so that she can "be a big brother") or if there's actually something that might be gender-diverse for her.

She says she wants a short haircut like her brother but when I show her images of haircuts (for boys or girls), she doesn't want a boy cut but will pick something like a bob. She plays equally with boys and girls at nursery and has a variety of play interests (loads of pretend play, duplo, puzzles, play doh, outdoor play, but also lots of caretaking of animals and dolls, giving them bottles, breastfeeding them), and she does also model what her big brother does (he is very typically "boy," cannons, sword fighting etc.). Her clothes are mixed, she wants some old clothes of her brothers but also wants lots of pink and purple unicorns, rainbows, glitter (although refuses anything with frills or hearts!)

Has anyone gone through this? I sort of suspect that when she starts reception she might have more peer pressure and the glow of her big brother will fade a bit, but I also want to support her and let her know she is loved regardless.

Is this post genuine?
Talking about different sexes with a 3 year old.
And advising OP not to mention transgender to her now at 3?
Who the fuck would mention to a 3 year old what transgender means anyway.
Maybe i'm living in a parralel universe.

She is 3!
Enough said.

What on earth has ‘trans’ got to do with your question? You have a child exploring her personality and her imagination. She doesn’t even know that sex is fixed - the concept that girls grow into women and boys into men hasn’t developed yet. I’d suggest you read some books on child development and stop analysing normal toddler behaviours.

Suspect it this is a windup but I'll bite anyway. She's 3! She shouldn't know what is 'boys' and 'girls'. She should be living her best life in a dinosaur jumper, a sparkly tutu, wellies and a knights helmet. Clothes and toys are just that clothes and toys. Nothing is inherently more boys or more girls. Honestly, if we stop reinforcing all these ridiculous stereotypes we'd solve a hell of a lot of problems in the world.

Sounds like ones of my ds' best friends! She pretended to be a dog for years and had quite an array of dog collars and leads.

My three year old son insisted on wearing his sister's tutu and glittery stuff to nursery for a bit, and he wanted his nails painted etc because his sister had been given 'nail polish' for her 5th birthday. I just indulged him for a bit in terms of letting him wear the pink and sparkly stuff....after a while he decided he was a dinosaur and wanted a new costume. Just let her explore, stop stereotyping and enjoy her being creative and interested in the world around her!

(BTW - DS is now 18, 6ft 5, loves his rugby and has a beautiful girlfriend.....)

You are living in a parallel universe. NHS guidance is to have the conversation about trans in the delivery room, based on WHO research on 'Working towards a global trans majority' 😁 You're never too young to ignore the evidence of your genitals.

"For as long as you can remember" can't possibly be more than the last 18 months, surely.

She sounds like a completely normal three year old. Forget about sexist stereotypes of what "boy" stuff and "girl" stuff is and just let her play with anyone and however she likes.

She is 3, my friends DS wanted to be a caterpillar at that age.

When DS was 3 he wanted to be a dinosaur. He’s quite happy being human now he’s 7. Don’t worry about it.

Yeah. My sister was a boy from when she could talk (I not xxxx I bobby) to when she was a wolf who.lived under the table. My son WAS batman. How did parents cope? By understanding its part of imaginative growing up play and is not real.
My sister is now not Bobby nor does she eat people's feet during tea and ds1 doesnt go out fighting crime.

When I was three I changed my name every other week. My sister pretended to be a cow (she took this very seriously actually and had a little cow costume). I'm happy to report that as adults, I go by my given name and my sister remains a human and not a cow.

I would not give a three year old saying she is a boy a single second of headspace.

Age appropriate description of the sexes just means tell her that boys are boys because they have a penis and grow up to be men and girls have a vulva and girls can choose to grow a baby in their tummies when they grow up if they want. That’s it. Oh and no one should ask to see/ touch your private parts. That’s it for that age group. There’s nothing controversial about that and it’s not always obvious to kids who live in households where they don’t ever see nudity (like mum or dad getting changed or taking a shower) or where they only live with other people of the same sex and they are.
And I don’t think a three year old is capable of understanding transgenderism. The whole gender vs. sex thing is just not going to compute for them at that age at all.

Mine too 😄 Insisted she was a puppy named Squeak.

I was a space man,a soldier ,pirate, and a multitude of other things never transpired into reality funnily enough.
She's 3!!

I’m so glad my parents just said ‘that’s nice dear’ when I insisted on having my hair cropped short, asked for an Action Man for Christmas rather than a Sindy and spent my life wearing jeans and t-shirts and climbing trees when I was a kid.

It would never have occurred to them - or me - that I wanted to be a boy.

And i also think this post is a bit of mn(ooo look at the transphobes) baiting. And so reported.

OP both my kids have done this at a young age and got confused with him / her etc.

Honestly I wouldn’t think too much about it, just go with the flow. Things don’t have to be just boys or girls. My daughter grew out of it all and by 6 is super stereotypical girly.

So a three year old needs to know what a penis and a vulva are?

I agree with telling them some parts of their body are private obviously, but would you actually use the word vulva to a 3 year old?

That was me from 2 years old. I wanted boys clothes, boys shoes, short hair etc.
Mum just smiled and said “that’s fine, we can find clothes you like” and just got me the equivalent girls clothes- jeans, jumpers etc. She didn’t make an issue of it.

I grew up as a tomboy sort of girl and I still am as an adult. I don’t do dresses, frills, girly things… but I’m happily a woman 😀

One of my sons said that he was a T Rex from as far back as he could form that sentence, and said it consistently, insistently, and at times constantly.

If I called him “Tom”, he’d correct me that his name was “Tom the T rex”. He wore a T rex costume virtually every day, only wanted T rex toys, only read dinosaur books.

This carried on until he was in year 3.

Our response was never anything more than “yeah, T rexes are great!”. We didn’t start thinking he really was a dinosaur, or telling his school to treat him as a dinosaur, or exploring future surgeries to give him a tail.

I would take exactly the same approach with a child of that age telling you they’re a different sex. They’re not, they’re pretending, and exploring the world, and all of that is fine and nothing to pay much attention to or think much about.

You have a tomboy. It’s literally normal.

I had four older brothers. When I was four I went round telling everyone I was going to be a boy soon. I literally assumed that you became a boy when you were a bit older. Adults just ignored it.
my little brother ran around in my dresses when he was four. The adults just ignored it.

My 4 year old likes to be a hedgehog a lot of the day and has a name when she is a hedgehog. I let her play being a hedgehog and using her imagination as that is typical behaviour for pre schoolers along with wanting to play boy/ girl or be a superhero etc.. but she knows she is not actually a hedgehog if u see what I mean.
I suggest the same is the case for your DD . What’s damaging is these parents now encouraging children to make life altering decisions without enough time to pause and see is this a trend/phase/ other difficulty etc or actually more than that.
my elder DD had lots in her year (over 15) in senior school wanting to change sex so changed name informally /haircut /dress and was encouraged by school to do so. I was interested to note that years later (she 19 now) only 1 person has continued on that path . It’s difficult to navigate I guess and know what’s best with teenagers but at 3 - don’t give it any headspace at the moment