THE city council has been labelled a "laughing stock" after sending out forms asking parents which gender their "three-year-old children “most identify with”.

Councillor Dawn Barnett said it had gone too far in trying to be politically correct by urging parents to support their child’s choice of gender identity in a letter confirming primary school places this week.

Labour councillors from Brighton and Hove City Council have hit back at national criticism saying the letter, which asked them to return the form with information about their child, was designed to prevent the small number of trans children at the city’s schools from being bullied.

The Argus:

The letter follows previous plans to drop Mr and Mrs from council forms and introducing gender neutral toilets.

The incident also follows forms sent out to pupils from the office of the children's commissioner which asked them to choose from 23 different gender identities on another form.

The latest controversy centres around a note on the form which allowed parents to leave the tick box for male or female to be left blank if their young children had another gender identity.

It states "please support your child to choose the gender they most identify with or if they have another gender identity please leave this blank and discuss this with your child's school".

But Brighton and Hove City Council said parents were not being asked to speak with their young children about their gender identity.

Council studies revealed that around four per cent of city pupils did not always identify with their assigned gender.

Councillor Emma Daniel, the council's equalities lead, said the amendment had been made after the authority’s trans scrutiny panel raised concerns about gender questions on their forms.

Cllr Daniel said the authority was ahead of other public bodies nationally and internationally on the issue and their work had attracted the interest of LGBT groups and the local government press.

She said: “If schools do [receive forms left blank], in simple terms we would expect them to be supportive to the family, to the child.

“If a child is distressed by being addressed as male when they feel female, we would expect schools to deal with that.

“The biggest issue that trans people talk about from their primary and secondary school experience is being terrorised by bullying and not being able to learn, not be able to enjoy their childhood, so it's important to make schools safe from bullying.

“Most people never battle with gender identity, most people will fill that form in straightaway.”

Conservative Councillor Dawn Barnett said: “It’s absolutely ludicrous.

“We are becoming a laughing stock because of these PC issues.

“There are a lot of bigger issues that are more important that the council should be dealing with than questioning children about this sort of thing.”