Charles Barbosa, a spokesman for the White House, said in a statement: ‘We appreciate the leadership from Secretary DeVos and her senior colleagues at the Department of Education on this important matter.’

The department in a statement described its guidance as ‘part of President Trump’s ongoing commitment to provide students, parents, and educators with the best education possible, supported by the best evidence and the highest standards’.

The agency said that although it is ‘unlawful’ for any student to have a parent or other adult in the room during the class, a teacher’must be able to supervise in a reasonable fashion the child’s instruction, so long as the child is not learning any material not related to their subject of study’.

The guidelines add that no student’shall be prevented from learning from the perspective of their own religious or personal beliefs’ about faith or sexuality, even if those beliefs have led the student to not participate in a religious organization while in school.

The Trump administration has in the past spoken about the benefits of integrating transgender students into the mainstream.

Under the Obama presidency, the Department of Education launched a nationwide guidance on the issue, which instructed schools across the country to accommodate transgender students in the name of’religious freedom’.

In 2015 the Obama Justice Department, along with several states, sued to block federal enforcement of the rules, claiming the rules violated the religious liberty of religious school districts that objected.