nobody's grooming anybody. i do believe that gender identification can come up when they are quite young. why not? why is that such a big deal - it is not. now, having said that, i do not, nor have i ever, feel children should be abused by grownups for sex!! that is utterly ridiculous & horrible and it needs to be stopped. but from what little i have read, it's the children themselves that are bringing up the idea of gender identity, the parents are actually surprised and shocked that the kids come up with this. this is a soul issue and kids are evolving and getting smarter, so they probably are just more self aware than they used to be. if it were my kid i would NEVER shame them about their identity. never. i would probably just give them plenty of room and time to just be a kid - whatever that means to them. i would wait a bit to bring up sex education. what i don't understand is the tremendous fury and fear around these issues with people here. we are all just human - if you have intense fear about these issues (NOT pedophilia) then you might want to make an appointment with a quality therapist.