Soon as I saw it was the Washington Times I could pretty much predict the nature and tone of the article. I just don't think you can describe the Times as being subtle or insidious when they are so blatently bigoted. It is pretty much the mouthpiece for the tea party, except when they say that the TPers have not gone far enough. I've actually seen an Op-Ed piece where the Times and the TP spokesman argued that the other wasn't as bigoted as they should be (my phrasing).

Anyway, I have no problem ignoring the Wash. Times and what they stand for. As a friend of mine would say, it's pointless to argue with their stupidity - they'll just drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.

I got as far as the word 'lefties'. That was when this piece forfeited its right to say anything to me at all.

...I felt motivated to write a miniature essay in the comments (only ten so far, but more people gently pointing out the writer's an ignorant idiot than agreeing with him). If you don't want to increase the paper's hit count, I'll reproduce my ramblings below...

Biology's complicated. While about 98% of the population self-identify as the gender inferred by their karyotype, there are others that don't.

For a start, there's the spectrum of intersex conditions - some have an unusual karyotype (e.g. XXY, XYY, XXYY) which can affect gonadal development and the associated hormones; there's XY females and XX males - usually caused by the SRY gene (which normally sits on the Y chromosome and is primarily responsible for male sex determination) jumping to the X chromosome or becoming mutated (so it no longer functions); there's conditions in which either estrogen/androgen production is impaired (little to none of the relevant hormone is produced) or the receptors have impaired functionality (so regardless of how much hormone is produced, the body has little or no response to it), plus a variety of other conditions which result in abnormal gonads.

There's even a school of thought (backed up by brain studies) that transgenderism is a variety of intersex, in that the body gets the message to develop along the lines of one sex but the brain gets the message to develop along the lines of the other. It's also likely there's a biological element to sexual preference.

While we tend to think of gender identity and sexual preference as black and white, they may be more positions along a scale; so with sexual preference, at one end would be strongly attracted to males, at the other strongly attracted to females, and in the middle feeling an equal attraction to each.

As for the six year old declaring themselves the opposite gender, which pronouns you use are obviously a matter of personal preference, but it may be worth finding out what background information has been given and weighing up the evidence. If it appears they suddenly declared themselves a girl, it's only logical to treat the announcement with suspicion. However, if it turns out that despite the parents' best attempts to interest the boy in activities considered masculine, since an early age the boy has shown preference for activities considered feminine; then if the boy also thinks of himself as a girl and has expressed a strong preference over a period of time for being called by feminine pronouns, then switching pronouns may be more appropriate. Unfortunately the English language lacks a commonly accepted / readily usable set of gender neutral pronouns which could help avoid disputes: "it" sounds rather distant and unhuman, while although "they" is more acceptable, it can feel awkward using a plural pronoun in a singular context.

However, in the case of "Princess boys", in at least some cases they're confident in their masculine identity, but prefer feminine activities - so effectively they're the opposite of tomboys, who are usually confident in their feminine identity but prefer masculine clothing and activities. Perhaps because of the paternalistic legacy of many Western societies, females acting / dressing masculine accepted, while males acting / dressing feminine isn't.

As I said above, biology's complicated. Organisms (particularly humans) don't always fit neatly into labelled boxes - as evidenced by the alphabet soup of additional letters that sometimes get added onto the LGBT acronym (the more common of which are Q - questioning [so on a scale of gender identity with strongly male at one end and strongly female at the other, they'd be somewhere in the middle, so could go either way], and I - intersex).