The headteacher of exclusive all-boys Eton College, formerly attended by Princes William and Harry, said he is preparing his pupils to be more “gender intelligent” and that pupils who wish to ‘transition gender’ are welcome to stay.
Speaking to left-wing newspaper The Guardian, Simon Henderson said: “I’m very keen that we are very aware that as an all-boys school there’s a responsibility for young men to be gender-intelligent.”
“Unlike many other schools, Eton has not yet been required to accommodate a transgender pupil,” Henderson said. “We have not been faced with that particular situation. Conceivably they would stay if it was felt to be the right thing for them.”
Since Henderson took over the all-boys school in 2015, the £38,000 ($50,000) a year school founded in 1440 by Henry VI, now includes LGBT-awareness education and hosted a talk by the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, hardline feminist Laura Bates.
“I want us to be a modern, forward-thinking, relevant school,” the headteacher added. “Eton has always subtly reinvented itself. But you have moments in an institution – and this is one of those moments – when it has to take a step forward.”
Eton is not the first private school, traditionally seen as bastions of conservatism, to embrace cultural Marxist education.
Highgate School in north London, one of Britain’s top private schools, brought in ‘gender-neutral’ uniforms which allows boys to wear skirts, as teachers reported a growing number of children ‘questioning their gender identity’.
Gordon’s School in Surrey, which has Queen Elizabeth II’s patronage, will allow boys to board with girls if they are questioning their ‘gender identity’.
In 2016, Brighton College scrapped its uniform policy and “abolished the notion of boys’ and girls’ schools altogether” to accommodate a small number of transgender pupils.
And the headteacher of another exclusive school in London, Highgate School, backtracked on plans to introduce gender-neutral toilets after an outcry from parents and from pupils who said the move would make them feel “less comfortable and happy”.
So far, more than 100 schools in Britain have signed up to an LGBT “best practice” programme under which separate boys’ and girls’ uniforms are ditched, and material promoting gay and transgender lifestyles is spread across all parts of the curriculum – with a noted higher programme uptake in primary schools.
Teachers’ unions have also demanded the teaching of transgenderism and same-sex relationships to children as young as two to stop hate crime and for all teachers to undergo ‘gender diversity’ training, with major publication The Good Schools Guide to begin rating how ‘transgender-friendly’ schools are.
Breitbart London reported that the phenomenon of young children claiming to be the wrong gender appears in “clusters” in schools where the fad has taken off and that it was more prominent and persistent amongst children when promoted by adults.