A five-year-old boy who rejected his gender is now living as a girl with the support of his family, doctors and school.

Zach Avery was three when he started questioning his gender, and began wearing dresses and ribbons in his hair.

Following a psychological evaluation he was diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder (GID), and has now been living as a girl for more than a year.

The disorder is a conflict between a person's physical gender and what they identify as. It prompts Zach to feel like a girl trapped in a boy's body.

According to his mother Theresa Avery, until the age of three Zach was a regular boy who loved Thomas the Tank Engine, but suddenly he became obsessed with Dora the Explorer and started dressing in girls clothes.

Ms Avery, who has three other children, told the Daily Telegraph that Zach's anguish at being a boy was such that "he used to cry and try to cut off his willy out of frustration."

Eventually NHS doctors officially diagnosed Zach with GID, one of the youngest affected children in the UK.

Ms Avery said: "They told us that although he had a male body, his brain was telling him he was a girl."

Zach's primary school now addresses him as a girl and has changed the toilets to Unisex.

Ms Avery said the school has been very supportive and Zach had experienced no bullying from other children.

"We explained to the other kids at the school that Zach's body was that of a boy but in his brain he was a girl. We said Zach was just happier being a girl than a boy," Ms Avery told the Daily Telegraph.

According to the Tavistock and Patman Foundation Trust in London, where Zach was diagnosed, 165 children received a GID diagnosis in the past year, of which only seven were under the age of five.

A spokesperson for the Trust said: "The trend in referrals has been up over the years - this may reflect greater awareness.

"In general when younger children are referred it is in relation to cross gender preferences in play, play mates and activities. It is more unusual for children of this age to express cross gender identification."

http://uk.lifestyle.yahoo.com/five-year-old-boy-opts-to-become-a-girl.html

A lot of times adults put thoughts in their heads. Let the child live his/her life and make this decision later in life. If he likes to wear pink let him wear pink but don't equate it to he wants to be a girl. Some kids are just like that. I have a cousin that had she grown up in the US she would be gay today. She never liked long hair. She had short hair and would only wear boy shorts. She would cry if you even bought her a dress. Today she is well adjusted and is not a lesbian because nobody brought up that issue. We just know when the other kids got dresses she got shorts and when the other girls would braid on sunday she would get a hair cut every other week with her dad.

Well said Outstrip.

I was such a tom boy while growing up. I always dressed in shorts and trousers. Climbed trees & gates, played football with the other boys While in school, I always wore a shorts under my school gown and sat with boys. My was always low. Not until after my 4th year in Uni. tht I started wearing dresses.

No one put thots in my head and they all let me be. Today am happily married and expecting our first child.

Kai, oyibo people sef.converting a 5 year gender because he cried that he likes girls stuff!so, all the little tom boys in Nigeria would have had their gender surgically converted if our parents had behaved like Ms Avery. Oyibo!