[Aliantha]

Kids at that age don't understand the biological reasons for different genders other than that girls become mummies and boys become daddies. They're only just starting to be aware and ask for reasons why girls and boys have different bits - particularly if they only have same sex siblings and the parents aren't the sort to parade around the house naked etc.

I don't see why the children will ask anymore questions than, 'why does little johnny want to wear a dress?' and if a parent can simply tell the child quite calmly, 'because little johnny feels more comfortable in a dress', it probably wont go much further than, 'that's weird'. Of course, some parents might like to remind their child how they like to play dress ups etc, and that Johnny used to do that too but then realized he wanted to wear dresses more often...or something like that.

I really don't think it's a tough issue at all other than for the close minded. There are kids in most schools these days with same sex parents. Maybe other parents can avoid that issue, but if your kid happens to be friends with one of those kids, it become unavoidable very quickly. I know because it happened to our family. The kids certainly didn't seem to care though.

All these types of gender issues are fairly easy to explain to children if you can simply put aside your own predjudices.