Can girl have muscular dystrophy

Answer 1

The short answer is yes, absolutely.

You may be primarily thinking of sex-linked dystrophies, such as Duchenne's or Becker's Muscular Dystrophy. The gene mutations for these types of dystrophy are recessive traits located on the X chromosome. It is vastly more common in boys then in girls because boys only have one X chromosome. If they get the gene for these dystrophies on their mom's X chromosome, then they will not have another X chromosome to "mask" the trait, and thus they will get the disease.

Since girls have two X chromosomes, this is a lot rarer. Even if one X chromosome has the gene for the disease, as long as the other one doesn't, they are only a carrier, they don't actually have symptoms. There are only two ways where a girl can get a sex-linked dystrophy: if her mom is a carrier and her dad has the disease, or if her X chromosomes mutate in a way that make her have the gene on both X chromosomes.

However:

Muscular dystrophies come in dozens of types. Sex linked varieties may be among the most common, but there are plenty out there that are autosomal (i.e.: not sex-linked). Some come from autosomal recessive genes, other come from spontaneous mutations. For those types of muscular dystrophy, girls are just as likely to get them as boys.

Answer 2

Yes, they can but it is very rare.