Nephew likes feminine stuff...

[Cridders88]

I don't think you need to be sending a 5 year old to a psychologist. Allow him to explore, safely of course. Trying to get him to conform and sending him to a shrink could be more damaging in the long run. Make sure he has a safe place to express himself. This would be, in my opinion, the far better option.

[JCasey]

As long as he limits it to when he is at home, how could it be a social problem? I have to agree that attempts to stop this behavior can be psychologically detrimental. I spent 36 years in the closet as a gay guy and I could attest to the problems that has caused me (but I won't elaborate, sorry).

I believe it is the oppression of one's personal expression that contributes to sex-related crime in our country. I worked for a while with sexually reactive teens, so I have a basis for my opinion. If there were no stigma on sexuality, people would be freer to express themselves and I believe we would see a dramatic drop in many of the sexual assaults, rapes, and molestations that occur. If we look at the prevalence of issues in the Catholic church, we can see that it tends to be restricted to that denomination probably due to the oppression of sexuality. Priests cannot marry and are required to be celibate. Unless you castrate them, they are still going to have sexual energy that needs to be released, but their options are limited, so it tends to be released on those over whom they have power/authority to help maintain their secret.

Unless you want to increase the chances of your nephew having a greater potential of acting out sexually or becoming depressed later in life to the point of suicide, let him express himself within his home and see where it goes.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Lets turn this the other way, women are not supposed to drive cars, play at being surgeon, be astronauts, presidents, leaders of nations, vote, etc. etc. etc. Now if that trips your trigger and gets you to thinking that I'm primitive and belong in the stone-age alone with clubs and dragging women home by their hair, then you only have to ask yourself why is it OK to NOT limit woman yet perfectly OK to limit man?Interestingly enough, Boys are denied easy bake ovens, yet the top chefs in the world are male.

Up until a few centuries ago it was typical that men wear skirts, in some places in the world men still wear skirts... Granted they are called something else like Kilts.

About 100 years ago it was all the rage for boys to wear dresses. And contrary to popular opinion Pink is not a girls color, it is actually the color of boys.

These are historical facts. There are many more that show that for a species humans are at best gender fluid - at least when it comes to the expression of what we call "gender-based-items".

Men wore wigs, make-up and lots and lots of frills and fluffy crap. Men wore heels and were damned proud of it..... on and on this list goes.

Just because your nephew wants to play with dolls (actually he might as well get a lot of training on how to change diapers and take care of a child... oh wait no that is not what real fathers do. Pardon me.) or wants to dress in the latest fashions does not make him bi, straight, gay, tri or anything.

It means that he is a little kid who does not have the hard programing of a whole species hell bent on self destruction to prevent him from enjoying whatever life has to offer.

But that's OK, in less than five more years all this 'insanity' will be replaced with dogged determination for him to "be a man" and he will add to the burden of billions of men who think they need to be real men... Did I mention that that path leads to the destruction of all?

After all real men make for good warriors and a good warrior needs to have a few good wars.

That is what being a man is about? No?

Tell his mom there is nothing to worry about, soon he will be in school and the other boys will beat this nonsense out of him.

[Doc]

Tell his mom there is nothing to worry about, soon he will be in school and the other boys will beat this nonsense out of him.

They just might do that.

[Cuddly]

You're right, I guess I always approach these things with the worse possible scenario in mind.

Nothing wrong with viewing the issue from all angles.

I completely agree that the parents (and larger family, including uncle) should be supporting the child in whatever he wants... provided it isn't torturing animals...
If he's the next RuPaul and he takes that with him to the classroom and he happens to be the target of bullying, I hope that will ultimately make him stronger and more independant later in life.

He's probably just got an idea in mind, for play, though. In which case he'll have a new one soon. Maybe pirates. Or army things. Just let the kid play...