What's so wonderful about being a boy? As someone who is somewhat introverted and nerdy, for lack of a better term, all the boy stuff seemed insufferable to me, even as a child. Wrestling, fighting, being aggressive, being tough, being overly competitive, etc is not something I wanted or related to and that attitude most likely kept me from forming the typical male bonding boys and teens develop. I fell deeper into books, computers, games, etc while they were out doing 'boy' stuff. I remember envying girls because they weren't pressured to constantly play sports and being bookish and a voracious reader was perfectly acceptable for them but 'weird' for a boy.

As a parent I see my son's female peers and very few of them are remotely interested in boy stuff, even when offered. Even in toddler stages there's a marked difference in personalities with girls being calmer and more passive and boys wanting to do rough and tumble theatrics. Its obviously innate, at least to me.

>but girls were discouraged and put in dresses, etc.

Well, in the article that's exactly what happened but the males mistaken for girls complained. There's no evidence all girls complained.

That is a provocative thought.

But it were the case—if every young (apparent) girl felt the same unease about their gender—one would assume that the people in the town would have already acknowledged that.

They seem quite comfortable discussing gender.

This article goes into more detail:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34290981

And provides this interesting line:

"A final interesting observation that Imperato-McGinley made was that these boys, despite being brought up as girls, almost all showed strong heterosexual preferences."