Hermaphroditic tendencies throughout the book

I was wondering why this idea of a female looking male was expressed throughout the book. One time this was expressed was when Billy met the German boy that was described being "as beautiful as Eve," (Pg. 53). This description struck me as a little odd, but this puzzling (possibly unintentional) theme wasn't cemented into my mind until the play, Cinderella, comes into the book. The man that played the Blue Fairy Godmother comes up three or four times. This seemed important to me as one of the underlying themes in the book. Did the idea of men looking female seem important to anyone else? Is there something that I missed that makes this elusive idea make sense to the story? Am I just overanalyzing and was this a random connection that I made, or does this have a bigger part to the story?