Is it normal for a 4 and a half year old girl to say she's a boy?

[Cali68]

My daughter is four years old and 8 months old. She love to play pretend, but she always like to pretend she's some male (and mean) character: Scar from Lion King, the horse from Tangled, Pong from 101 Dalmatians, the prince in Sleeping Beauty or LIttle Mermaid... the list goes on and on. She was a shy little girl until she started going to pre-school last year. She became way more outgoing with children her age (both girls and boys) soon after she started going to pre-school. At school she started hanging out with this one boy. They became best friends. The second half of the year she became friends with another boy and another boy. She will hang out with one boy at a time. She also had girl friends, but not at school. Just daughters of friends of mine, and she loves (still does) playing with them. This is her second year at the same school, with the same class and most of her friends are boys, but now she plays with a group of them and there are also a couple of other girls in the group. However, recently, my daughter has started saying she's a boy. She doesn't get mad when I tell her she's a girl. She's still wearing normal girls clothes but she doesn't like to wear dresses. About year and a half she was into dresses, but now she doesn't want to wear them. Two nights I had this dialogue with her:
Me: Are you a boy or a girl?
Daughter: I'm a boy.
Me: Do you want to be a boy? or are you a boy?
Daughter: I'm a boy.
Me: Why do you think you're a boy?
Daughter: Because I like boys.
Me: What do you like about boys?
Daughter: I don't know.
Me: Why do you like boys?
Daughter: I don't like girls.
Me: Why don't you like girls?
Daughter (sadly): Because they don't like playing with me.

Then I reminded about her girl friends who she used to play with during the summer and her face lit up. She asked me to go to  the house of one of them to play (which I'll be arranging for next week).

My question is, does my daughter have this Gender Identity Disorder (or something like that) people keep talking about these day? Or is this kind of normal? Is she saying she's a boy so the her boy friends at school keep playing with her? My native language is Spanish and I speak only Spanish to my daughter (she's bilingual. My husband is American and only speaks English) and in Spanish every adjective is either masculine or feminine. My daughter always uses the feminine form when talking about herself.

Once, when she told me she was a prince I said: You can't be a prince. You're a girl" And she said: I know, Mom, but I'm pretending to be a boy who's pretending to be a prince :-). What do you think?
Thank you!

[Cali68]

Dear Nikki, I wish we lived close by and we could have our daughters play together! I bet they would get along just fine! :-). Let me tell you that I know exactly how you're feeling, and I want to share with you the things that worked for me. It's been almost 6 months since my first post and I'm in a much better place right now. The first thing that helped was to talk with my daughter's pediatrician. He's a GREAT doctor! Everything that he has predicted about my daughter has come true. He said MANY girls go through this thing and that only 0.5 out of 10 grow up to actually be transgender. Well, that gave me some piece of mind.

Also, I recently became friends with a woman who has two children a boy who's 7 and a girl who's almost 5. Well, the girl likes playing with boys, likes super heroes and enjoys playing with cars. That gave me some peace of mind,too, because it helped me see that my daughter was NOT the only daughter exhibiting this behavior.

Has your daughter seen Frozen yet? Mine has and ever since she watched it she started pretending (for the first time) she was a female character: Elsa. She has Elsa and Anna (Barbie dolls) and she sleeps with them and plays with them all the time. She still likes to pretend she's some male character. What I've told her is that it's perfectly fine to pretend she's a boy or a male character, as long as she doesn't forget that she's really a girl. So now, sometimes, if she's pretending to be a boy she looks at me and says: I'm just pretending, mommy. I know I'm a girl" :-)

Not too long ago I heard a little boy ask her "are you a boy or a girl?" My daughter didn't even hesitated and said: "I'm a girl" :-). I smiled :-). On another occasion, at home, she was wearing a white night gown with orange and pink flamingos and she looked at herself in the mirror. She said: "I'm a girl. I like the way I am" I smiled again :-).

I don't know if you're a religious person. I am. For a while I was desperately praying that my daughter didn't want to be a boy; that she felt good being a girl. There were days I felt my prayers were being answered. There were times I felt disappointed. Now I only pray that I am able to accept my daughter the way she is; that I can enjoy her and be there for her no matter what; that I'm able to accept God's will no matter what that is. That's working way better for me.

My daughter sill like to play with cars, but she also plays with her Barbie dolls. She likes to wear her daddy's ties, and her favorite cloths are shorts and t-shirs, but she's getting more comfortable about wearing dresses. Her best friends are boys, but she plays well with girls. She's happy and healthy and that's all I care about.

Hope this helps. If you want to keep talking, feel free to keep writing. Believe me, I KNOW exactly how you're feeling!! A big hug! ~ Cali

[NikkiJ301]

I just want to add a few more comments to my post earlier on April 20th. My daughter seems to admire boys. She stares at them in a way that makes me feel she doesn’t just like them, she wants to be like them or be them. I can’t explain it. But, it would go with all the other behaviors she’s exhibiting that I mentioned above. Also, her answers are changing so much or go back and forth, I feel like she’s not being completely honest or not telling me things because she doesn’t want to disappoint me or for me to be mad. I’ve told her I want her to be honest, but my behavior may say something else when she’s telling me how she feels. Probably because this is killing me inside.  Again, anyone who can share their experience or who had this issue and have grown children now and what happened to them, I would really appreciate.

[NikkiJ301]

I am going through the same thing w/ my 5 yr old daughter. I have cried over it, worried, dreaded conversations. It's up and down. Some days I think things are fine, other days I feel like they aren't. My daughter is a beautiful child, so much so, that people constantly stop me to say how beautiful she is. She's very athletic and smart. Since about 3, I've noticed she likes "boy" things and prefers the male characters during play. Some of her mannerisms are boyish and she often stares at boys, especially if they have no shirt. Then she will comment why doesn't he have a shirt on? She plays w/ both boys and girls and we have mostly play dates with girls. If her girl friend has two dolls - a princess and a prince, and her friend wants the princess doll, she will happily take the prince doll. I feel like she aligns more with boys. Growing up, I would have fought over the princess doll. I played with He-Man growing up, but I never wanted to be He-Man. She does has a Sofia dress (that I bought her) and a few other princess dresses, and wears them on occasion, but I wonder if I didn't mention the dresses, would she put them on? She wears dresses rarely (holidays) and prefers shorts, pants or skirts (with shorts under). If I didn't do all her clothes shopping, I think she would go for boys clothes more. She loves super-hero's and says she wants to be one. A while ago, when she was 4, and I thought the "boy" thing was becoming an issue, I asked her, "if there was one thing you could change, what would it be?" She said "to be a boy." I acted calm but my face must have turned white and I was panicked on the inside. I felt like I had a heart attack. Since then I've asked simiar things and she says, "well sometimes I want to be a boy and sometimes a girl - like half and half." I told her you are a girl, you can't be half and half. I said it was OK to pretend, which is make-believe. Then she said she doesn't really want to be a boy, her mind just thinks about it in her dreams. I said when you're awake or asleep? She said awake. She said "I sometimes think about being a boy then my heart says no." I basically grilled her to try and get answers cause I was so confused. She didn't know why she thought it. I feel the more I ask, she changes her answers to only wanting to be a girl. Sometimes she says she wants to get married/have a baby when she's an adult. Other times she said she doesn't and afraid it will hurt. I don't know what to believe or what to think, and I don't know if she knows. She carries her babies around everywhere though. This has been going on for about 2 yrs. I thought if it was just a phase, it would have been long gone. I don't know what all this means. I have been struggling with it. My daughter can see I'm upset about it and I'm fearing not telling me the whole truth cause I cry or get upset when she talks about it. I'm so worried & concerned I talked to a Dr. about it, who said there's no way to know until puberty. If it persists, then it might be something or if it's a phase. Can anyone offer some other thoughts on this?? Anyone who had this issue and have grown children now and what happened to them?? It's consuming me. Thanks.

[ROSYouralright]

Yes... Don't borrow trouble!!! :)

[Cali68]

Well, today I went to talk to my daughter's pediatrician (I don't know why I didn't do it sooner) because after her latest comment ("I know what I'm going to ask Santa: A machine that would turn me into a boy!") I freaked out all over again. Her doctor was extremely patient and reassuring. He and I talked for an hour! He feels my daughter is simply playing and exploring different roles. He says he's seen a lot of girls do what my daughter is doing and that they have been fine. He feels that because she's not rejecting everything female (she pretends she's giving birth to her Teady bear, for example) chances of her turning out to be transgender are unlikely. After all, he said, that's a very rare occurrence, like out of 10 girls exhibiting this kind of behavior, 0.5 will actually change genders. So, I'm feeling more relaxed and optimistic :-). And I really need to stop searching the Internet! A lot of scary things out there :-).

[Cali68]

I just wanted to wish you all ladies Happy Holidays and a 2014 that will bring everything you're hoping for. Thank you once again for all your posts and advice. Things have been going well with my daughter. She seems happy and she's really excited about Christmas :-). Every once in a while though, she'll say something that darkens my day. Last night, for example, right before going to bed she asked: "Mommy, why was I born a girl? I wanted to be born a boy".... I wish I could understand what's in her mind and why does she say and ask this kind of things. Well, it is what it is, right? I'm trying to memorize and adopt something I read in Facebook last night: "Sometimes the best thing you can do is not think. not imagine. not obsess. Just breathe. And have faith that everything will work out for the best"... I'm trying. Blessings for you all.