ST. PAUL, Minn. – A St. Paul “gender nonconforming” kindergartner who was allegedly teased because he likes to wear pink shoes and backpack, and a jumper in gym class, is sparking a heated debate about transgender issues.

Hannah and Dave Edwards don’t want to label their 5-year-old son, and they’re letting the boy decide his own gender. The kid likes pink shoes, and wears a pink backpack, and has other female inclinations that have made him a target for verbal teasing, prompting the Edwards’ to request special accommodations from his school – Nova Classical Academy, Fox 9 reports.

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“He said it before, ‘I feel like a girl in my heart, I feel like (sic) have both boy and girl,” Dave Edwards said.

“We’re not yet sure of the person that our son is, he’s in kindergarten,” he told KAAL. “We don’t label him. He’s not anything. He’s our kid, but we know from what he has shown us this far, that we are going to need some protections in place to keep him safe while he’s in public school.”

School officials provided training to staff and teachers about gender identity, and also approached students about the problem, including introducing a book called “Jacob’s New Dress.”

The school’s executive director, Eric Williams, told the Minnesota Star Tribune students were also read a poem that “talked about gender identity and gender nonconformity.

“At that point, we talked about girls wanting to play with boy things and boys wanting to play with girl things,” he said.

The discussions enraged many parents who attended a community meeting at the school Tuesday put on by the Minnesota Family Council, which opposes transgender policies that infringe on student and parent rights.

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“Talking about sex and gender for children who are 5, 6 years old is something that many parents, representing hundreds of kids, think is inappropriate,” parent Leslie Lynn said, according to Fox 9.

“We’re learning that this is really a political agenda here and it isn’t just about the bullying of a child,” Paula Rothstein, the parent of two children at Nova Classical Academy, told KAAL.

Rothstein and most of the 75 plus other parents who attended the meeting believe there’s polices in place at the school to address bullying, and don’t think it’s the school’s place to tell children what to believe.

“If you put that sort of weight on an issue and you say, ‘OK we’re going to talk about this, and some children are this, and he looks like a boy but he’s really a girl,’ well, you know I would have a problem with that,” Rothstein said.

“I’d have a problem with them teaching that gender is a state of mind to my children,” she said, “because I don’t believe it.”

Family Council spokeswoman Autumn Leva explained at the meeting how LGBQT advocacy groups like Gender Justice, OutFront Minnesota, and Transforming Families MN – who are supporting the Edwards family – are attempting to use federal Title IX anti-bullying laws to push their agenda in schools.

It’s the same tactic the Obama administration is employing through “dear colleague” letters to schools dealing with transgender issues, though numerous legal experts vehemently disagree in the far-left’s Title IX interpretation and it has never been fully vetted in court.

“Is it bullying when a child says my parents taught me that someone is born male or female?” Leva asked, according to the Star Tribune. “Disagreeing with someone isn’t automatically bullying.”