BRIGHTON has made the national news again over its advice in sex education lessons to pupils.

“Boys can have periods too, children to be taught in latest victory for transgender campaigners”, screamed one headline; all the others ran along the same lines, highlighting that this advice, in guidelines to teachers approved by Brighton and Hove City Council, applies to pupils as young as eight.

The advice is among “key messages for learning about periods” contained in a report by the council’s Neighbourhood, Inclusion, Communities & Equalities Committee on Countering Period Poverty and states “Trans boys and men and non-binary people may have periods”.

On the surface, it does indeed seem like crazy advice, but coming just a couple of weeks after it was revealed that at Dorothy Stringer School, there are 40 pupils who “do not identify as the gender presented at birth”, the highest number in the country, it begins to make sense.

In fact, it is probably the case that girls and women transitioning into boys and men will indeed have periods, a complicating factor for a young person in transition and an issue that does need to be tackled. As the council has said, it believes “it’s important for all genders to be able to learn and talk about menstruation together. Our approach recognises the fact that some people who have periods are trans or non-binary”.

However, I do think the appropriate place for this to be tackled is in the young person’s home with their parents and family and with the adults in a school, that is the teachers.

But not with children as young as eight. For heaven’s sake, let them be children for a few more years. At eight, girls only have three or four more years before they start their periods, which will be a huge part of their teenage and adult lives.

It should be parents who broach the subject of periods with their daughters at an appropriate age and they should be consulted on what their daughters are told at school. How confusing it would be for a young girl to be told by her parents about periods, including the fact that it is females who have periods, only to be told at school that “boys and men” may have them too.

This advice is effectively forcing parents to confront a topic that they really may not want their children to know about or that they may not wish to discuss with their child until they are older or who may wish to leave it until or unless their child brings it up.

Also, it is a minority issue. I have every sympathy for children who are transitioning. I simply cannot imagine the confusion they go through, especially at a time of hormonal upheaval and in the company of hundreds of other teenagers, and strongly believe they should get all the support they need, both at home and at school.

But the reality is that they are in the minority. Dorothy Stringer School has about 1,600 pupils, so the 40 who “do not identify as the gender presented at birth” constitute six per cent of its total, a minority. In other schools, especially primary schools with younger children, that percentage will be far lower.

For years, Brighton and Hove City Council had led the way with its eye-catching LGBT policies, but, as I have said before in this column, I draw the line when it comes to sacrificing the many for the few. It’s a shame that this one particular line in a report has overshadowed its real purpose, which is to respond to a petition asking the council to implement a policy for the distribution of free period products to schools to counter period poverty.

It quotes statistics that one in ten girls in the UK have been unable to afford period products, and 49 per cent of girls have missed an entire day of school because of their period. While there is no local data, the report concludes that there is a need in the city for free period products for young people and for these to be promoted in schools.

It describes Brighton and Hove’s Period Positive Charter approach, which among other things wants periods to be talked about openly and that appropriate language is used, avoiding the use of words such as “sanitary” for example, and that language and learning about periods is inclusive of all genders, cultures, faiths and sexual orientations.

The charter lists key messages for learning about periods, such as the fact that they are natural and normal, and that they are not dirty, disgusting or something to be ashamed of or embarrassed by. While covering the issues of trans boys having periods seems particularly appropriate in diverse Brighton, these are far more important messages to impart to pupils, but when they are older than eight.