re: 4 year old DD and gender identity

[herethereandeverywhere]

Sorry, have posted here for traffic, not sure where else it should be.

[trying to avoid drip feed, sorry if long]

DD2 is 4 next month. She wants to be a boy. If I ask 'Are you are girl or a boy?" she answers "I'm a girl but I want to be a boy". She selected lots of 'boy' toys for Xmas like fancy dress outfits of male characters. All of this I'm comfortable with. I was very 'ant-pink' with DD1 but as soon as she hit about 2.5 and started mixing with other kids it was Disney princesses and pink sparkles all the way. So DD2 was raised in a fairly universal environment of choose what you want.

Summer last year (just after I'd bought several dresses in the sale in time for holidays) she declared she would no longer wear dresses. This has moved on to any item that looks remotely female. I have replaced her princess knickers with pirate underpants, ditto socks. There is no way she'll wear any of DD's hand me down tops with 'girly' motifs on them. when I take her for new shoes she selects the 'boy' style. I have been fine with this and was pleased she was finding her own identity. She'd been shy-er and quieter than DD1 and I saw this as her coming out of her shell, being her own person.

The issue at the moment is her hair. It's currently past shoulder length and for the last week she has been going nuts when I try to tie it back, screaming 'no ponytail'. She says she wants 'boys hair'. Today she literally screamed the place down for 10 minutes and was sobbing, utterly heartbroken. I'd been hoping she just forgot about the hair thing but it's getting worse.

I really don't want to cut her hair off - it would take so long to grow back. Until now her choices have all been instantly removable (clothes/toys) if she moved on from this, but a short hair cut is something else.

So, I suppose it's AIBU about the hair - but more importantly: is this normal? How far do I let it go? has anyone else experienced similar and what did you do/say? I'm not afraid of having a transgender child but it seems wrong to be expressing what she's doing/saying in those terms when she's not yet 4.

[BunloafAndCrumpets]

Hehe bastard 'feathery pixie cut' is a much better way of describing it!

[SeekEveryEveryKnownHidingPlace]

Let your 4 year old daughter have short hair if she wants, and stop with all the trans stuff, I'd say!

[3WiseWomen]

I have no issue with short hair for a girl. And hair grows back too so really, if she changed her mind, she could have her long again anyway. It's not irreversible.

I DO have a massive problem with the idea that
1- you are letting a 4yo have so much decision power on her clothes/hair etc... There is a difference between following their lead within your own limits and jumping to their every wimp. At the moment, if she says 'jump' you are asking 'how height?'

2- you do that on the ground that 'there is a gender issue' or rather you are saying that she 'wants to be aboy' Now why why why would you want to make a girl preferring to play with boys toys or having short hair a gender issue?? At that age, they are still playing and trying to get their head around who they are. Not putting them in the box of 'I am a girl therefore I have to love pink' is good. But if your dd doesn't like pink, it doesn't mean she has to fit the 'I am a boy and I have to love sword and 'boys' toys''. It's very good for you to correct your dd1 about boys toys etc... but you also need to be careful not to associate short hair with boys, tshirt with dinosaurs with boys etc... Or to think that you be part of the group that loves pink, has long hair and sits quietly doing drawing OR the group who has short hair, climbs trees and plays with fire engines. Your dds can loves pink and play with cars, have a Tshirt with pirates and still have long hair.
What you do want to encourage her to do is to go out of the typical stereotype of 'If I am part of xx group then I have to do yy' which is exactely what both your dds have done. One has 'chosen' to be part of the girl group and your dd2 has 'chosen' to be part of the 'boys group'.
Don't let her. Encourage her to chose according to what she likes. Don't put things in opposition to each other (whihc is the wway most things are presented in shops etc unfortunately). Encourage her to try different things and decide what she likes. Challenge her ideas and her 'tastes'

3- Gender isn't something that is clearly defined and tbh I remember as a teenager still imagining myself going on about life as a (teenage) boy. It wasn't because I wanted to be a boy. Ididn't and still don't want to. But I wanted to do what said teenage boys could do. I wanted some freedom to chose what was right for me. And that meant being able to do stuff that was very 'boyish' (like going 1000m down a cave) or enjoying DIY and repairing electric stuff in the house as well as having a 'nurturing' job as a health professional.

[formerbabe]

I was very 'ant-pink' with DD1

Would you have been "anti-pink" if you had had a son? Or would you have encouraged a love of pink/sparkles/princessy stuff?!

[PortobelloRoad]

I always find it odd how all these children with gender identity issues seem to have parents who so rigidly see things as "That's for BOYS" and "That's for GIRLS". Any deviation is met with panic and labels and more rigidity.

Do not push such heavy labels on to your child because she wants a hair cut and pirate undies and "boys" toys. FFS.

[sherazade]

why on earth are you asking your dd what sex she is?
The problem here is how you perceive gender, not her. Why should girls want to have long hair and wear dresses? You can be a woman happy in your woman's skin without those things. You seem to have girls and boys things in compartmentalised boxes and now making an issue about gender identity when there isn't one.

[FlamingGalar]

Hi OP,

I haven't had time to read all of the responses so apologies if I am repeating much of what's been said.

From the age of 3 our dd2 would only show interest in typically boys stuff and would ask for typical 'boys' clothing and toys for birthdays/christmas. She would tell us that she felt like a boy in her heart (her words!) and would ask us constantly when her willy would grow. Her friends were mainly boys at nursery and she clearly felt more comfortable playing the more typically boyish games. When the nursery split them up into separate groups of boys and girls she would refuse to sit in either camp - in the end they had to create a specific 'tomboy' camp for her to avoid her becoming too upset.

She is now 9 and everything she wears is from the boys section including pants and socks! She goes to school in a boys school uniform - including shoes and coat. All her toys and games are either unisex or aimed at the boy market - she shows no interest (and never has) in any of her older sisters more typically feminine pastimes. She has both male and female friends but is still clearly far more comfortable in male company.

It may seem odd to those who haven't known us for long and she is often mistaken for being a boy, but it's perfectly normal to anyone who has known dd2 from toddler age. She would be a very miserable child if we didn't allow her to dress in the way that feels natural and comfortable to her.

Around the age of 5 the question of having a 'boys' haircut kept coming up. I resisted it for about a year but in the end we went for the chop. Although it felt a bit strange to begin with, it felt very natural for her and she was a happier child for it.

Incidentally, there is another girls in her class at school who is also a tomboy and as soon as dd had her haircut this other girl followed suit!

Have you found an organisation called Mermaids yet? //www.mermaids.freeuk.com - They are a great support to families with gender confused children. Like another poster said, everything could change at puberty, but it can be helpful to talk to other families who are experiencing the same issues in the here and now.

Apologies for the rambling and poorly constructed post! Just wanted to put it out there and say you're not alone!
xxx

[PosieReturningParker]

Wow. How engendered are your expectations?!

[PosieReturningParker]

Cut her hair ffs. She can have a lovely hair cut that's really smart.

[LovelyFriend]

'Are you are girl or a boy?"
Stop asking her this - just let her be herself.

[waterrat]

Let her have short hair . Hair length has no relation to gender whatsoever. I have a 4 year old he has no idea really what a boy or girl is.

[eyebrowse]

Studies of 3-4 year olds show they have very strict notions of gender e.g. they will already see a doctor and a man and a nurse as a woman. So some girls at this age will only wear dresses. A few will only wear trousers. A few boys at this age love playing with ladies dressing up clothes.

As far as I'm aware no studies have been done to look systematically at the sexuality or transgender of those children when they become adults. The important thing is to see it as part of them rather than label them.

[MattDillonsPants]

There have always been girls like this but in the past we didn't take everything so seriously....I had a friend with short hair, when we were ten she lived in tracksuits and played footie....she's not transgender...she's a 42 year old woman, married with two kids now!

[Lightbulbon]

Ridiculous that little girls nowadays can't even have short hair without some daft adult trying to put some kind of label on them!

[VinceNoirLovesHowardMoon]

If your son wanted to grow his hair would you refuse to let him?

Or maybe more pertinently if your son had long hair and wanted it cut would you refuse to let him?

Cut her hair. Relax. She's not transgender, there is no such thing as a transgender 4 year old. She's a small child who doesn't understand or like gender norms as she sees them and wants to have things that boys have. Let her have them.

[figureofspeech]

I cut my dd's hair into a jaw length pixie type cut to combat early morning battles. It took about 6 months to grow into a shoulder length Bob. She was 3 at the time and she is very girly but these things are not fixed at such a young age. Let her have a shorter hair cut if it makes her happier and more comfortable in her own skin.

[BathshebaDarkstone]

I wanted to be a boy too, Im definitely a woman. Theres no way youd get me in a skirt or a dress though.

[APlaceOnTheCouch]

I've worked out what was niggling me about this thread. It's the fact that you've turned a haircut into a gender issue.You seem to be projecting adult identity issues on to a common part of childhood.

If your OP title had been '4 yr old DD demanding hair cut WWYD?' then posters would have addressed your later question about whether you let a child choose their haircut or not (imo yes, it's their hair - it doesn't make you a weak parent to let a child choose their hairstyle). But you are very much pulling clothing and hairstyles into a 'gender identity question' which seems at odds with your commitment to giving your DCs a mix of toys to play with, etc.

Your DD associates certain clothing and hairstyle with boys. They're the only point of reference that she has, but as an adult, I don't understand why you're falling into that trap. You know girls/women can like trousers, pirates, short hair.

It reminds me of when my DS was 4, we went for lunch with one of my male friends. Male friend ordered a cup of tea and DS was and said 'But only girls drink tea!' He'd only ever seen his aunts drink tea, never his dad or his uncles, so in his 4-yr-old head, tea was something for girls. As far as I know tea drinking is not part of the gender identity debate so you know, I just looked at DS' statement as him making sense of his world from what he saw around him. Your DD is doing the same.

[AvaLeStrange]

Seriously - let her have a short bob. Not having to tie it back will be an absolute godsend at school and if she suddenly discovers a love of all things girly you can stick some pretty clips in it while it's growing out.

[Thehumaneggtimer]

My 3 year old also wanted short hair like her friend (a boy with short hair). She also is uninterested in princess type stuff and dresses and likes playing pirates. I didn't think much of this, it's just a choice. Unlike your dd she's still adamant she's a girl so we went for very short layered Bob as a compromise as it was quite long before, still a girls hair cut but much shorter. It was unbelievably cute and she seemed to think it was short like her friend. She still got some kids saying she was a boy (also to do with lack of dresses and playing with a boy I expect) and got upset at that but I just told her they'd made a mistake and she can wear and have her hair how she likes, grow her her back or keep it short, wear dresses or trousers and she's fine with it now. Doesn't sound like your dd would be upset at being called a boy so I don't think giving her shorter hair is a big deal.

[MamaLazarou]

I was exactly the same at the age of 3. I only wanted to wear boys' clothes and to have short hair and play with cars. I haven't had any issues with gender identity.

I am strong believer of letting kids express themselves through clothes/hair. My son has grown his hair long in the past and worn girlie stuff like lilac leggings and hair clips. He has no gender identity problems.

I'm not sure why you're so dead set against your daughter having short hair, OP (sorry, have only skimmed the thread). Is it worth the battle?

[Bluebolt]

I am sat in jeans, converse, jumper, no make up, short hair and looking forward to the football this weekend, just like I did as a child. Thank god my parents did not confuse personal style and choice as gender profiles. My DD had a reverse bob at that age as she wanted the clipper look.

[FinallyFreeFromItAll]

Why does her hair have to be in a ponytail? Why can't she just have it down?

I never liked my hair tied up. I played with boys toys. I got on better with boys. I hated girly or pink clothes. I despised dresses. I was a "tomboy". I was still born a girl and grew into a happy woman. There's no transgender issue here, she's just a girl who doesn't want to do things labelled girly things.

Also she is 4 so if you really don't want her hair cut short then you just don't allow it. Simple.

[Geraniumred]

Utterly normal. My dd had boys clothes and a short bob from the age of 2.5. Up until the age of 5 she was desperate to be a boy. Up until the age of 9 she had no interest what so ever in anything girly and everything she owned was either boyish or gender neutral and her best friend was a boy. She did have long hair, though. Since then she takes an interest in nail polish, hair styles and make up and 'pretty things'. I've never minded any of it and she is now 11 and very much her own person.