Alleged statement from a 3-year-old boy: "I feel like a girl inside." Hogwash: he has no idea what a girl feels like inside. He feels like, precisely, himself, and only himself, a boy, inside. But somebody told him that very experience was feeling like a girl.
When I think about it, I get pretty angry.
Full disclosure: I remember my first time as a bride's maid, when I was about 18, having my hair "done up" and my face "made up" (and my glasses taken away from me) and being peer-pressured into a silky bridesmaid dress: I tolerated it with good humor, since I didn't want to refuse my friend's festive request, but I distinctly remember feeling like a "female impersonator." I did. It just wasn't my style.
But that never made me less a woman. Sheesh.
I remember thinking to myself that I was going to wear bluejeans my whole life and I didn't care what anyone else thought! I am 73 and I do still wear jeans but it's nothing unusual now for women to wear them, but I don't ride horses anymore.
Ding ding ding, we have a winner! In all these cases, the child's subjective experience, whatever it may be, is being narrated and programmed to accomplish something for the adults.