A row has erupted over a BBC sex change programme for children as young as six, which follows a transgender schoolboy who takes sex-change drugs.

The show, available on the CBBC website, showcases an 11-year-old’s struggle to secure hormones that will make it easier to have a sex-change later in life by stunting puberty.

But campaigners have argued that exposing young minds to such controversial issues will only leave children "utterly confused", the Mail on Sunday reported.

A mother, writing on the Mumsnet website, said her daughter had questioned her gender identity and asked her "anxiously, if that means she was a boy".

But the BBC said it was aiming to "reflect true life" with enough context for young people to understand.

'Completely inappropriate'

Peter Bone, a Conservative MP, said: “It beggars belief that the BBC is making this programme freely available to children as young as six. I entirely share the anger of parents who just want to let children be children.

“It is completely inappropriate for such material to be on the CBBC website and I shall be writing to BBC bosses to demand they take it down as soon as possible.”