The former health minister, Jackie Doyle-Price, has sounded the alarm over the influence of transgender lobby groups on young girls going through puberty. 

She said it was "so dangerous" to encourage girls to think that they might not be "women". 

Addressing the issue on the radio show of women's rights campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen, the Tory MP for Thurrock said that rather than advancing equality, the transgender movement was guilty of gender stereotyping. 

"It's really regressive that we've almost re-adopted gender stereotyping and almost turned it into a science, to the extent that girls going growing up - and we all know going through puberty is not a pleasant time and some girls will feel very uncomfortable with their bodies," she said. 

"And the fact this movement is encouraging them to think 'Well, you might not really be a girl' in childhood, I just think is so dangerous. And we just need to give children the chance to grow up."

She said the Government "needs to look at" the influence of lobby groups as she spoke of her desire to see greater tolerance in the debate around transgender issues.

"It's become so established that those of those who question things are seen as nutty right-wing extremists, actually I'm really not - far from it," she said. 

"It's not about being against trans women, or the fact that we want to maintain women's identities. The two shouldn't be pitted against each other, there's room for all of us."

She cited JK Rowling as an example of someone who has been unfairly accused of hate for questioning the current approach to transgender issues and gender dysphoria.

"Look at JK Rowling, who is a master with her pen and writes elegantly and beautifully, and there was nothing that could be misconstrued as hateful, but the degree to which she gets that pile-on from men is quite sick," she said. 

Doyle-Price went on to suggest that the views of lobby groups should be taken as advice and not gospel truth.

"We seem to have developed a culture of organisations taking advice from respected lobby groups as gospel, when actually, sitting behind that is an agenda," she said.

"It means that in schools, it's actually done with the best of intentions, but is actually potentially doing harm."

Transgenderism is a topic Doyle-Price has already spoken out on.  Addressing the Commons on International Women's Day in March, she said it "scares the hell out of me" that young girls are being given irreversible medical treatment. 

"We are seeing more and more girls being referred for gender reassignment treatment. We are talking about girls well below the age of majority," she said.

"I personally am very uncomfortable — well, I think it is wrong — about putting forward people for treatment that is irreversible when they are not in a position legally to give consent.

"We really need to be more honest about the challenges of puberty.  I fear we are doing harm to girls when actually this is something that they could just be going through. It is quite a normal thing not to be comfortable with what is happening to our bodies.

"The fact that so many of the girls who are going for such treatment also have issues with autism frightens me even more."