Creating a character for children

I've decided that it would be much better to write/illustrate a little story to base the activity pack on. My idea for the story is pretty simple - about a young boy who is confused about his gender (not necessarily transgender, but doesn't feel that he fits in with gender constructs associated with being male). I want the story to show what it is like for this character being surrounded by others who all seem to fit into the gender binaries. Perhaps I could also show that once this character opens up about their issues/concerns, other characters step forward and talk about how they feel about either their gender or their opinion on gender expectation.

I've come across this article about creating characters for children - basically a do's and don'ts. I hadn't really thought about the impact a character's name could have on children's perception of them. As the article suggests, it might be a fun idea to use a typically masculine name like Curt and have a character that contradicts what this suggests. It reminded me of a book we read in primary school, The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tiler, and throughout the whole book I imagined Tyke to be a boy - and then right at the end, it was revealed that Tyke was actually a girl! Which goes to show that we assume gender based on how a character behaves because we have learnt that boys and girls behave so differently. 

EDIT: rather than create one character, the story could follow multiple characters which highlight the many issues with gender binaries. E.g. One young boy who wants to wear pink and tries to make his friends see that it isn't a 'girls' colour. Another character could be a young girl who loves being super feminine and dressing up as a princess but also loves to play 'boys games' like football or rugby.