3.5 yr old DD and gender identity

My DS went through the exact same thing at about 3.5 -- I posted about it here. He would talk about wanting to be a girl, and get teary-eyed about it, and ask how he could turn into a girl. It broke my heart to see him to be seeming to struggle so much with his identity.

The mamas who responded to my thread mostly told me to give it time to sort itself out, and until I read your thread I didn't even realize that it hasn't been an issue for several months! He hasn't brought it up at all.

So, I don't know -- it may be something he'll come back to when he's older, or it may not. But for now, it looks like it was just a phase. I gave him some pretty clear messages that I love and accept him just as he is, and will always love and accept him no matter what, so hopefully he'll feel comfortable coming to me if this is something he thinks about more as he grows up.

Our DS went through the same thing, also at 3.5. He was never particularly upset about it but he did insist that he was a girl. We went along with it more or less, even bought him a fancy dress, which he wore to PS sometimes with his homemade crown. The first time he did, all the other kids immediately started to dress up and also make themselves crowns - boys and girls.

At some point at school there was a bit of a movement to claim one bathroom as a boys' room and one as a girls'. I'm not sure how that happened since it wasn't usually that way and while it was a little bit of an issue, they figured out some way to work around it.

I really think this is almost always a stage about sorting out gender identity. The pronoun confusion speaks to that as well. They are not just figuring out their own gender identity, they are figuring out the very concept of gender identity - well, as much as anyone can.

Our DS also insisted that he was not going to turn 4 (indeed, that he had not turned 4) and at one point claimed that everyone wore diapers - all his friends, his parents, and all super heroes. This was, of course, because he was still in diapers and I assure you, his parents and his friends were not. Not sure about the superheroes.

We dealt with all of this the same way. Mostly, we played along. You don't want to be four yet? Ok. Superman wears diapers? Really? I didn't know that. Notice, I didn't commit about whether superman actually had on diapers or not. Likewise: You're a girl? Cool! I'm so happy to have a daughter. Of course, I also loved having a son. For us, references to anatomy didn't help. A few times he tried to stuff his penis between his legs during bath time or he would insist that girls could have penises. Especially the hiding the penis business led us to back way way off and just let him figure it out on his own.

You know, I really DID enjoy having a girl for a few months, LOL.

My niece went through this for a couple of years, starting around the same age. She kept it up until kindergarten. She wouldn't wear girl clothes, she even wore boxer shorts. Right before she started kindergarten, the kids in her pre-school started asking lots of questions like, why does she use the girl's room? Is she really a boy? Why does she have a girl's name? And it made her uncomfortable. So she decided to be a girl when she switched schools and started kindergarten. I was visiting that summer and she was "transitioning". It was really hard for her. She would wear shorts over her bathing suit so it didn't look girly. I'm pretty sure she still refuses dresses or anything pink.

I don't know what will happen when she gets older. Her mom resisted at first, but finally gave in, and it was eventually my niece's decsion to swtich because of the complications with other kids. I would just leave it alone and let her be who she wants to be for now and deal with the challenges as they come up.