There's a blog called http://raisingmyrainbow.com/ in which a woman writes about her experiences raising what she calls a "gender-creative" child that's quite a fascinating read and very germane to this topic.
In short, she has two sons, the older of whom likes the usual boy things and the younger lives for Disney princesses and sparkly cupcakes and anything pink and pretty. She's absolutely determined to let the younger boy enjoy what he enjoys and develop however he wants, but she writes about some of the challenges they face as a family in trying to do so.
One of the interesting questions the blog raises is the point where gender identity meets sexual orientation. The boy is only 4, too early to make any definite judgements about what his sexual orientation will be. But the fact is that a lot of people will assume, even if they accept a boy playing with princesses, that he will grow up to be gay. And there's a lot of discussion about whether that's a valid assumption to make.
Does a boy liking girl things automatically make him gay? Does a girl liking boy things make her a lesbian? Of course not, but "common wisdom" might say the averages are in that direction.
As for me, I'm a gay man. My toys when I was growing up were Transformers, Lego, Meccano, technical things like that. My interests were science and how things work. The stereotypical "boy" interest in sports passed me by completely, which some might say is a "gay" trait, but neither was I interested in girly things like Barbies and pretty dresses.
My sister now has two children - a boy of 10 and a girl of 8. The boy has many of the same interests as me - science, space, building things - but unlike me he definitely is interested in sports. In fact he's already only a step away from being a karate black belt. The girl is extremely girly - anything pink and sparkly is good. She has very strong ideas about what she wants to wear and wants to be either a singer or a vet. So both of them are very firmly within the assumed interests for their gender. But I've never had any sense that my sister is forcing them to do anything they don't want to do. It's entirely the children's choice - they just happen to have chosen exactly what people might have expected them to.
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In short, she has two sons, the older of whom likes the usual boy things and the younger lives for Disney princesses and sparkly cupcakes and anything pink and pretty. She's absolutely determined to let the younger boy enjoy what he enjoys and develop however he wants, but she writes about some of the challenges they face as a family in trying to do so.
One of the interesting questions the blog raises is the point where gender identity meets sexual orientation. The boy is only 4, too early to make any definite judgements about what his sexual orientation will be. But the fact is that a lot of people will assume, even if they accept a boy playing with princesses, that he will grow up to be gay. And there's a lot of discussion about whether that's a valid assumption to make.
Does a boy liking girl things automatically make him gay? Does a girl liking boy things make her a lesbian? Of course not, but "common wisdom" might say the averages are in that direction.
As for me, I'm a gay man. My toys when I was growing up were Transformers, Lego, Meccano, technical things like that. My interests were science and how things work. The stereotypical "boy" interest in sports passed me by completely, which some might say is a "gay" trait, but neither was I interested in girly things like Barbies and pretty dresses.
My sister now has two children - a boy of 10 and a girl of 8. The boy has many of the same interests as me - science, space, building things - but unlike me he definitely is interested in sports. In fact he's already only a step away from being a karate black belt. The girl is extremely girly - anything pink and sparkly is good. She has very strong ideas about what she wants to wear and wants to be either a singer or a vet. So both of them are very firmly within the assumed interests for their gender. But I've never had any sense that my sister is forcing them to do anything they don't want to do. It's entirely the children's choice - they just happen to have chosen exactly what people might have expected them to.
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my sister works for the UK government though so that helps 
). So there are outlets and role models for girls. 
).
