HEADLINES about allowing boys to wear tiaras, from as young as five, appear, at first sight, disturbing to some people. Looking at the comments below the stories on popular national newspaper websites you’d think the Church of England was going to force all boys to wear girls’ clothing all day every day. The stories do little to dispel ridiculous ideas that somehow schools will be teaching children how to be gay, or to change gender. I wonder if these so-called journalists ever bother to read the reports they’re writing about. It’s obvious those who post vile comments don’t.

Sexual and gender identity are different. Looking at sexual identity in the animal world severely challenges the binary, or two sexes, norm that most people identify with. Male and female may be the dominant way that sex expresses itself, but it’s not always the case. Some animals are naturally hermaphrodites – they possess both sets of reproductive genitalia. In the wild some fish and reptiles, for example, can change sex.

At DNA level, while we’re taught that having two X chromosomes makes you female and having one X and one Y chromosome makes you male, in humans it’s not always that simple. XY females exist and other chromosome combinations, such as XXY, also add to the complexity of determining a person’s sex. Recent work in human biology challenges the notion that sex is binary. Biologists recognise chromosomal sex, hormonal sex, as well as anatomical sex. On rare occasions, people are born who are intersex, that is they’re born one sex, but have reproductive tissues of the opposite sex. Gender identity is a whole other ball game. I’m no expert in this, so I won’t pretend to be authoritative and comment, but I will note that your gender identity won’t necessarily correlate with any biological sexual identity.

But what about the Church of England’s report – are they really advocating classes to teach children to be gay or to try and get children to change their gender? In short, no. The report (which I have read) is a very sensible, informed report on the issue of homophobic and transphobic bullying and how to tackle it in schools. It affirms the Church’s view that bullying of all types is wrong and needs to be tackled. It acknowledges that the issues of gender and sexuality will be viewed quite differently by some Christians, but the heart of the guidance is about tolerance, respect and inclusivity; things that should be the bedrock of any religion.

As the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby says, “All bullying, including homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying causes profound damage, leading to higher levels of mental health disorders, self-harm, depression and suicide.” This guidance is aimed at prevention. But the popular press focussed on a section that said there is nothing wrong with letting children choose what they would like to wear from a dressing up box – that could be a boy wearing a tutu or a tiara, or a girl wearing a firefighter outfit. In other words, let young children be creative and explore through play lots of different situations. This guidance offered no ‘lessons’ on being gay, no orders to make all children dress as a different gender. The advice to teachers was simply not to draw negative attention to any child’s choice.

The report used a phrase, ‘cloaks of identity’, when it came to describing play. Let’s be honest, we all have various ‘cloaks of identity’ though not all are related to gender. I have the cloaks of ‘academic and teacher’, ‘grandfather’, ‘writer’ etc. As young children, we want to be so many different things, from superheroes to sporting heroes. Allowing children to explore these identities is not ‘teaching’ them to be one thing or another, it is what it is, play. Play is a powerful tool in the education of young children and those who work on early years settings will attest to this. It’s not dangerous, it’s essential we learn from play, but that learning is not bound to result in a particular outcome. Imitating your sporting hero won’t make you a world class sportsperson necessarily.

We can’t ‘teach’ a child to be gay or to want gender reassignment. Being who you feel you are is not taught. Nobody sits down and chooses to be straight, bi, gay, or to embark on gender reassignment on a whim. Even if they did, it would not last and we have extensive counselling and support to ensure that such things don’t happen on a whim. The popular press need outrageous stories to sell papers, sadly that’s a reflection of our society. The headline, ‘Church issues guidance to prevent all forms of bullying’ won’t sell because it’s sensible and what should happen in all schools.