And it did, rather abruptly one day. We were playing catch and I tried to teach her to throw from the shoulder rather than the elbow. In frustration I told her throwing from the elbow was how girls threw.
"But Daddy," she explained, "I am a girl!" And with that, she dropped her glove and baseball cap on the ground and stalked off. No amount of coaching would get her to be my boy again after that incident, although she eventually forgave me and went back to being my little girl.
My one daughter would wear her older brother’s hand-me-downs (usually long basketball shorts and a t-shirt and a hoody). My son hated it - “She looks like a boy!” Her twin sister was/is into girly clothes.
She still doesn’t worry too much about the really nice fashion stuff that her sister does, but she is definitely a young woman and dresses appropriately.
I have a similar story. This was in the 80s in San Francisco even. At 3, my son was all about DUCKS. Quacky pull toy, rubber ducks in the bath etc. A friend and her 4 year old met us on a Saturday and we were off to the park to feed the ducks. Her daughter was wearing barrettes with little plastic ducks on them. She took off one and stuck in my boy’s hair. It was a present from his friend and it was a duck!! Happy day, ducks everywhere, even in our hair! So on Monday morn, time for me to go to work and no way was he gonna go to preschool without his duck barrette in his hair. Ok, I indulged him, figuring it would fall out by the end of the day and he’d forget about it anyway. The preschool ladies went berserk . “You’re gonna make yor son GAAAYYY!” And I go , Calm down. He’s a child. He likes ducks. But as soon as I left they took the barrette away from him, which made him sad. Because of rules, they told him.So to cheer him up I had to read him some storybooks, and he was learning about rhymes.
When he discovered duck rhymes with truck, he ran around hollering “DUCK TRUCK DUCK TRUCK” for days. Like to drove me nuts.
Nowadays , the preschool ladies would want to put him in a dress and help him “transition.” They won’t let a child be a child.