Young children are developmentally unable to process that kind of information, says Dr. Michelle Cretella, president of the American College of Pediatricians.

"It is precisely because kids under seven years of age do not understand that sex is constant that teaching transgender ideology to children can derail their normal gender identity development," she told LifeSiteNews in an email.

"And to do so constitutes psychological abuse."

Kindergarten transgender transition

A Sacramento-area charter school, Rocklin Academy Gateway, was hit by controversy when some parents reported their five-year-olds traumatized after a male classmate appeared in girl's clothes and was reintroduced to them as a girl just before summer break.

Several parents say their children fear they will "change" into the opposite sex, and one says her son now wants to wear dresses to school, according to Greg Burt of the California Family Council, which is advising parents.

The school board has defended not forewarning parents because gender identity is not part of sex education and doesn't fall under state laws mandating parental consent and opt-out.

Moreover, California bans discrimination based on gender identity and expression, so not supporting a five-year-old's transgendering could open the school board to lawsuits.

The school has since doubled-down on its position, sending a first-grader to the principal's office last week for "misgendering" the boy.

5-year-olds too young

"Most kindergarteners know they are either boys growing into men or girls growing into women, but they have not yet developed an understanding of biological constancy," Cretella told LifeSiteNews.

"It is no wonder many of them reacted with fear and confusion about their own sexual identity after witnessing their teacher declare a little boy to be a girl once he changed into a dress."

According to developmental psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg's Cognitive Developmental Theory of Gender Identity, "most children between the ages of two and four years correctly identify their own biological sex," Cretella wrote. (Image: "I Am Jazz"-cover of transgender 'children's' book/via HNGN)

"Most children between the ages of four and five years begin to understand that sex is stable (they start to realize that a boy grows into a man and that a girl grows into a woman)," she said.

But "many children under age seven or eight years of age may still believe that cosmetic changes alter biological sex," Cretella noted.

Developmentally speaking, children under age eight have greater difficulty distinguishing between fantasy and reality, she said.

So "many" of them at that stage "may believe that a man who puts on makeup and a dress actually becomes a biological woman right before their very eyes..."

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