25 British all-girls schools won’t be accepting applications from “legally male” transgender pupils.
The Girls’ Day School Trust (GDST), which represents 23 all-girls private schools and two academies across Britain, updated its admission policies saying that it won’t accept any applications from individuals who are “legally male”.
In the document, which was updated at the end of last year for the new term commencing in January, the GDST made clear that they remain “firmly committed to the benefits of a single-sex education for girls”.
In the updated admissions policy the Trust justified their decision by stating that creating a policy based on “gender identity” and not the “legal sex recorded on a student’s birth certificate” would “jeopardise the status of GDST schools as single-sex schools”.
The Trust has said they will continue to support trans pupils who are legally female, making the point that “an application for a gender recognition certificate can only be made from 18 years of age, so it is unlikely although not impossible that a pupil may be legally gender reassigned before leaving school”.
The GDST also added that, due to their schools being all-girls schools, trans pupils may feel that “moving to a different school might be more beneficial” and the schools would support this decision.
The policy also states that if a pupil begins transitioning whilst at the school and wishes to remain there, the school will support them, and wants them to feel “welcome, safe, valued and supported”.
They also highlighted that “transphobic bullying” won’t be tolerated in their schools.
There has been a large increase in the number of schoolchildren becoming transgender, with 2,383 children being referred in 2021-21 to the National Health Service’s child transitioning clinic, compared to 138 in 2010-11.
In 2018 it was reported that one school in Brighton alone had 40 children who do not identify with their sex at birth, as well as another 36 who are supposedly gender fluid.
The government has been accused of having a “lack of formal guidance” in place for schools on how to deal with transgender pupils by Julie McCulloch, the Director of Policy at the Association of School and College Leaders teaching union.
The British government has said teachers “should not reinforce harmful stereotypes, for instance by suggesting that children might be a different gender based on their personality and interests or the clothes they prefer to wear,” however.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.