Boys can enter girls' dormitories at state boarding school

[pisacake]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/transgender-boys-to-board-withgirls-at-gordons-school-qrllwztm3

"Gordon’s School in Woking, Surrey, is drawing up guidance for pupils saying they can ask to wear the uniform of the opposite sex, be addressed by a different name and/or pronouns, use gender-neutral ­lavatories, grow their hair long if they are boys, change their accommodation and wear make-up and jewellery."

Note that the uniform policy says:

www.gordons.surrey.sch.uk/uniform

"Make-up and nail varnish are both not allowed. This includes all make-up.
Girls are only allowed one earring in the lobe of each ear – no other piercings are allowed. With the exception of the above rule, jewellery is not allowed."

So it appears they are allowing make-up in order to cater for boys who want to dress up as girls. Line edited by MNHQ

"The school said it had acted because it had “become aware of students who would ‘come out’ after leaving the school”. It wanted pupils to feel safe to do so while still in their care."

Being safe obviously means allowing boys to sleep in the girls dormitories which are supposed to be safe spaces for girls who may be thousands of miles from their parents (most boarders are army children).

"The Boarding Schools’ Association has issued guidance to schools saying that if a boy intends to change gender he should be offered the chance to sleep in the girls’ dormitory and vice versa."

"Not all parents are happy about such changes. On Friday, parents at Highgate, a coeducational London private day school, received a letter from the head teacher, Adam Pettitt, apologising for the introduction of gender-neutral lavatories. Some younger pupils, he admitted, had felt “less comfortable and happy at school” as a result.

Highgate brought in the lavatories “to support gender-fluid pupils”, only for parents to ask if the change was “proportionate” given how few such students were at the school."

[BreakfastAtSquiffanys]

Well if the boys want to be girls, at the very least they should abide by the girls' uniform policy which is no make up or jewellery

[NoLoveofMine]

What I also find irritating is this kind of thing:

grow their hair long if they are boys...and wear make-up and jewellery.

Boys should be allowed to do this if girls are. Neither this nor wearing skirts means they aren't boys. This gendering is so harmful - suggesting wearing makeup makes a boy really a girl. Not only harmful to boys but it reinforces the pressure on girls to wear makeup, saying appearance is something girls should be concerned about to this level, that it's girls who should feel the need to alter appearance as we're imperfect without makeup. Similarly with long hair, how regressive to suggest long hair is for girls, short hair for boys.

As for allowing them to sleep in dormatries for the other sex, so inappropriate.

[BigDeskBob]

I couldn't care less about a school letting boys to wear skirts and make-up. However, I wouldn't send my 11 year old daughter to a school allowing 18 men to identify their way into girls bedrooms.

[AssassinatedBeauty]

I don't mind if they let boys wear makeup and skirts, as long as the rules aren't different for the girls! In this case the boys who identify as girls can wear make up, but the ordinary female girls aren't allowed to wear make up. It is illogical.

Shared intimate spaces like accommodation should be segregated by sex, not gender identity.

[NoLoveofMine]

Sorry, I should have read properly before posting though think the point stands generally - in that the way it's being reported suggests wearing makeup is part of what'd make a boy actually a girl which is damaging. Boys should be allowed to wear makeup and skirts if girls are, as they aren't it makes no sense to only allow boys to if they're "identifying as girls" whilst girls can't. It's still saying wearing makeup is "for girls" which is ridiculous anyway yet not allowing actual girls to.

[NoLoveofMine]

Shared intimate spaces like accommodation should be segregated by sex, not gender identity.

Very much so.

[Blanchefleur]

I'm staggered by how many policy-makers in so many different areas are just blindly going along with this. They all cannot possibly believe that a boy magically becomes a girl if he says so! How can they tell parents this with a straight face?

Totally fine to give all the children the choice of skirts or trousers, and whatever the make up and jewellery rules are, they should apply equally to all (as they did when I was a teenager in the 80s, when the eyeliner-wearing Goth boys were still very much boys). But this failure to grasp the difference between gendered norms regarding clothing, which can and do change, and actual biological sex, which never can, is astounding!

[Zoll]

I know this is about a state boarder, but will this trend eventually spell the end of public schools, I wonder? And by the hand of the Tory Party no less.

I would never send a girl to sleep in a room with adolescent boys. It would be a terrible betrayal; it would be neglectful in the extreme. I think few parents would.

Sadly I think it's clear that children in the care of the state will shortly be entering a new era of rape and sexual abuse, as girls are made to share sleeping and other intimate spaces with literally anyone who demands it.

[Oliversmumsarmy]

I am always at a loss when transgender boys think that wearing dresses and makeup makes then female when a lot of females I know don't wear either. Nor did I think it was a thing that denoted you were female.

In my case I think despite living with my male partner and giving birth to 2 children according to the "requirements" in order be female I fail miserably. I go around in steel toed boots and a hard hat. I also don't own a dress or any makeup.

[BigDeskBob]

I don't think that first statement came directly from the school, it was just the newspapers interpretation of what girls wear. If boys are allowed to wear makeup and jewellery and girls aren't, wearing makeup and rings would identify these children as boys, not girls. (If that makes sense)

[Terfing]

It's only a matter of time before a teenage pregnancy happens in these circumstances...

[BriechonCheese]

Blimey, I wouldn't be happy with this at all.
I'd withdraw my children quick smart.

It strikes me that men identifying as women seem to have a very set view that make up and skirts make you a woman. Society is now, more than ever allowing men to set the parameters of what being a woman is and apparently you can buy it from TopShop and Boots.

[HornyTortoise]

I read this as boys can wear makeup, but girls can't? Uniform policy says no makeup but in the bit about 'gender neutral'

'grow their hair long if they are boys, change their accommodation and wear make-up and jewellery."'

[LegoCaltrops]

It's only a matter of time before a teenage pregnancy happens in these circumstances...

It strikes me that men identifying as women seem to have a very set view that make up and skirts make you a woman. Society is now, more than ever allowing men to set the parameters of what being a woman is and apparently you can buy it from TopShop and Boots.

This.

[PeteAndManu]

This is crazy. Yes children need support especially if they are questioning their identity and sexuality but stop throwing our daughters and women under the bus. If my child was there I would object or move them. How does it stack up with basic safeguarding procedures. The world has gone mad....mad I say.

[BigDeskBob]

I watched a bit of strictly last night - where susan calman was on a train, and it struck me as one of the few times we get to see women on TV and film without makeup. The Olympics was another time. If women are only seen in make up, its hardly surprising that it becomes makeup=women.

I know lots of women don't wear makeup in real life, but I wonder if we are seen as giving up and being undesirable, that is not real women or certainly not the type of women males want to be.

[FloweringDeranger]

"How does it stack up with basic safeguarding procedures." It does not, not for girls. That's the whole problem with all this transgender extremism right there.

[Ttbb]

How long until boys start 'changing their gender' to have sex with their girlfriends in the girls dormitory?

[BetsyM00]

I love that about Strictly. When doing the real dancing, the learning and and hard work of training there's no makeup. It's real. It's just for the 90 seconds of showtime performance that makeup is part of the costume.

Conversely, I like Celebrity Jungle for this too. We see all the previously madeup stars stripped free of their costume, cooking over fires and forming friendships in a much more real, to me anyway, manner. Just a shame the face gets painted on again afterwards. I would love to see natural faces on TV more.

[Gileswithachainsaw]

I would not want my child taught by people who think that wearing make up and skirts makes you a girl and can't tell the difference between sex and gender. If i felt like a giraffe you'd still have to take me to the Dr not a vet.

Girls do not want to be changing and sleeping in rooms with boys. Even adults in relationships get to choose when they feel comfortable in doing that. We should not be forcing it on chikdren.

[VivaLeBeaver]

Dd goes to a state boarding school. Hasn't happened at her school (yet).

[BetsyM00]

What will you do if (when) it happens, Viva?

[VivaLeBeaver]

She doesn't actually board at the minute but we're thinking about it for next year.

If it happened I wouldn't let her board and I would argue with the school that she wanted to board but they were preventing her boarding by this. They do all have single rooms rather than dorms so I guess it wouldn't be like they were sharing rooms. Though they'd share bathrooms. Currently boys are on a different floor from girls and house staff sleep on both floors.....I'm not sure how much floor swapping there is when staff are asleep!

[Atenco]

Well I can see this school ending up with a dormitory for boys and a dormitory for transgenders.

[hipsterfun]

I know lots of women don't wear makeup in real life, but I wonder if we are seen as giving up and being undesirable, that is not real women or certainly not the type of women males want to be.

Never worn make-up, never been short of (mostly unsolicited and unwanted) male attention.

Ironically, make-up gives me the appearance of a female impersonator.

I’m irritated by the focus on make-up as a defining aspect of ‘being’ a woman.