The Church of England has said schools should encourage young children to experiment with their “gender identity”, in its new guidance on bullying.

“Pupils need to be able to play with the many cloaks of identity (sometimes quite literally with the dressing-up box),” reads the latest church advice on homophobic bullying, which has been updated to warn of the perils of “transphobic” and “biphobic” harassment — using “HBT” as a shorthand.

4,700 schools, which serve more than a million pupils in total, were told by the Church of England Education Office to allow young children to experiment with their gender identity, in advice which said that primary school and nursery school children, in particular, must be a period of “creative exploration”.

“Children should be at liberty to explore the possibilities of who they might be without judgment or derision. For example, a child may choose the tutu, princess’s tiara and heels and/or the fireman’s helmet, tool belt and superhero cloak without expectation or comment”, it reads.

God really should be more progressive with whom He calls to serve Him 🙄 https://t.co/VyYkth4Rc5 — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 28, 2017

The Church adds: “Children should be afforded freedom from the expectation of permanence. They are in a ‘trying on’ stage of life, and not yet adult and so no labels need to be fixed.”

Also endorsing the progressive message was Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, who writes in the foreword: “Central to Christian theology is the truth that every single one of us is made in the image of God. Every one of us is loved unconditionally by God.

“We must avoid, at all costs, diminishing the dignity of any individual to a stereotype or a problem.”

Many experts have urged caution in the debate over “transgender” children, including Lord Robert Winston — professor of science and society and emeritus professor of fertility at Imperial College London — who warned that “a big portion” of patients come to regret the “horrendous” consequences of their transition.

Cross-Dressing ‘Queer Role Models’ Read to Toddlers to Stop ‘Hate Crimes’ https://t.co/6lp2qo61wD — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) November 13, 2017

Citing his work at fertility clinics, the TV presenter reported almost a quarter of “transgender men” who have had their breasts removed “feel uncomfortable with what they’ve done”, and expressed concern over the risks of “transition” — such as permanent damage to patients’ fertility — when scientists do not actually yet understand what causes gender confusion.

UKIP’s education spokesman David Kurten acknowledged “bullying is bad and needs to be prevented”, but said that the persecution of individuals is “an entirely different issue to allowing the damaging ideology of genderqueer theory to be taught as normal”.

“Children are of course full of imagination at a young age, but teachers and schools need to separate imagination from facts,” the science teacher told Breitbart London on Monday. “In the end, it is young children who will be damaged, and their normal development as boys and girls will be corrupted,” he said.

Let's drive mainstream Christian teaching out of church schools, shall we? https://t.co/C4VayQo1rl — Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 23, 2017

Speaking of how the Church of England, along with schools watchdog Ofsted, has joined the British Conservative party as in hock to “unscientific rubbish”, as a result of having become overwhelmed with liberal ideology, Kurten added: “It is time to drain the swamp.”

It was revealed in The Times last week that Roman Catholic primary schools were found to be breaching government policy by placing the words “mother” and “father” on admission forms.

After a parent complained that the terms discriminated against “gay parents” and families with step-parents, the schools’ adjudicator demanded the terms be wiped from admission forms.