Which no doubt led to at least a bit of gender confusion with many later in life(or may have accidentally led the way for some to realization of their orientation, who knows) and I'll bet you it's exactly this fad that led later to the faulty perception among psychiatrists that homosexuality and cross-dressing were disorders due to this kind of thing, and domineering by, the mother. Because most psychiatric patients back then would have been from well-off backgrounds, and would have had moms part of the generation that did this sort of thing, so the doctors would make a false connection maybe.
My guess had been that a lot of mothers then wanted girls, like in the later-generation lyrics to "I'm a Boy." And this was a way of compromising.