I just want to see if this is something that anyone else has come across. My 4.5 year old still doesn't seem at all clear on the difference between male and female, or perhaps just not the language differences. She will call most people 'him' and 'boy/man', as a default, but does also sometimes refer to men by female words. It all seems quite random. Yesterday she was playing with a toy, and she told me it was a boygirl, and it's name was Boygirl. She uses the term 'boygirl' a lot to refer to her classmates, and I think it's in response to us gently correcting her all the time about sexes. She seems clueless.
She seems to know she is a girl, and so is her sister but I'm not sure if that's just a rote fact for her. She's watched both me and her dad shower plenty (her dad when she was younger, she'll still watch me now, waiting for me to come and play). It just doesn't seem to sink in, and she seems to have no instinctive feel for sexes.
She's been seen by a paediatrician, because I had concerns about her development. She had physical delays and still struggles with things like balance and using her hands, but overall assessed as within the bounds of normal. I'm wondering if this is just a personality thing, or if it could indicate something like autism? She loves playing with other children, but she can be a bit unusual in some ways like this.