There were always girls who wanted to be boys. They were called tomboys back in the day. It was completely normal. No one gave it a second thought.
All the ones I knew of outgrew it by 6th or 7th grade.
“There were always girls who wanted to be boys.”
That may not quite be true.
There were girls who wanted to be one of the guys - the ones that would play baseball with the guys and weren’t afraid to get into fights.
My niece wanted to be called Brian until she started middle school. She out grew it. She is a beautiful young woman who is dating a wonderful man. Thankfully my sister and brother-in-law were not the types to stuff her with male hormones in order to turn her into a male.
Yep. I was a tomboy. Had absolutely no interest in dolls. I think a lot of it, back in the day, was that boys were able to play sports and there weren’t any sports organized for girls. I was a better hitter than my older brother, but there weren’t any girls baseball teams back then. Of course I outgrew it!