Different at 5?

I don't know if I told you this but I am currently student teaching in a New York City Public School. Kindergarten level. 3 days a week. 8 hours a day. On top of 12 credit hours. Hectic. But I'm learning a lot. :)

Here's a short excerpt from one of my journals:

Children tend to say the most unexpected things and there will be times when I feel at loss for words. During a reading workshop a few days ago, Mrs.G introduced a new book to the kindergarteners and discussed strategies that could be used to predict the words. Mrs. G explained that advance readers often use the book illustrations as well as the sentence patterns from previous pages to predict what the words would be. The children were very attentive throughout the lesson and raised their hands before being called upon by the teacher to share their thoughts and suggestions. Suddenly, Jim’s hand shot up and Mrs. G invited him to speak up. “I want to be a girl!” Jim blurted out in a loud voice. The room immediately fell silent as if processing the statement in shock. Some children then giggled in response while the others and myself included, turned to look at Mrs.G and hear what she would say. “Well Jim, I know you like to play dress-up and that’s okay. But right now, we are working on this book and I would like you to focus and stay on task. You and I can talk about that later” she had replied calmly as if it was no big deal. I thought that Mrs. G handled this issue very well and objectively; she had acknowledge his statement and redirected his attention back to the topic, just like she would for any other non-related statement. Mrs. G had also invited him to speak with her later on this issue if he ever needed to talk to someone about it. If I were in Mrs. G’s position, I would have probably ignored Jim’s comment because I would not know how to address the statement in an appropriate manner. Mrs. G’s response served as a great lesson for me when handling sticky situations in the future; to keep calm and reply in an objective manner. 

Yeah, so Mrs. G and I always had a feeling that Jim (not his real name) was not your regular boy. He's a really cool kid who is well-loved by his teachers and friends. He is also very soft-spoken and flamboyant in many ways. He probably does not know what it means to be gay but obviously feels different from the rest of his boy pals. He's five.

So, the gay issue - Nature or Nurture?