Girls' school allows pupils to identify as boys

[IAmAmy]

Apologies if there's a thread on this or if this should be in an existing thread. I found out about this at a school near my own the other week: www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/19/st-pauls-girls-school-pupils-choose-gender-indentity

What do posters here think of this? I think it's quite a shame in a way, though I'd never want any pupil to feel uncomfortable. Going to a girls' school myself, I think they should be fighting against "gender" and conformity to what's expected from one or the other, this seems to be enforcing the idea certain traits mean someone should be a girl and others mean they're a boy (although I acknowledge my thinking may not be as developed as it should be on this).

In this context I was referring to girls who specifically styled themselves to look as if they were male because they identified as masculine.

But .. how?
What kind of clothes are considered exclusively male nowadays?
Suit and tie? That's bit overdressed for school ...hm, okay, probably not in the UK.

The only way of dressing that would convince me that the person in question identifies as boy, and is not just a girl wearing normal clothes, as one does, would be a fake hipster beard.

It's not about convincing you or anyone, it's about intention rather than effect.

There are plenty of girls who dress how they like without setting out to look or identify as masculine. But then there are girls who do and do.

Not sure about gender dysphoria jokes about fake beards...

Ninon seeing as I go to a highly comparable school minutes from this one which has a uniform and has never had any such issues, I doubt that.

Why do people keep writing "dress as girls" or "dress as boys"? There is no such way of dressing.

(By which I mean people generally sorry, not "people" here of course!)

If you're currently at Godolphin you were born in what? 2000ish?

With the greatest respect how would you know what went on in the 70s?

In 2014 Paulines were targeted by their uniform in a spate of muggings. Boys were advised to change out of their blazers before they left school.

The same has happened to other schools with uniforms...

There is no such way of dressing That's true to a large extent, but at the same time Caitlyn Jenner & Kellie Maloney, for example, now style themselves in a typically female way.

I'd have said "stereotypically" rather than "typically" personally.

I originally put 'stereotypically' but I felt it was perhaps a bit judgemental. I wouldn't say that about a woman who dressed similarly.

I think I probably would also say the same about a woman dressed the same way.

I think we all know how clothing is seen by many as highly gendered, and that it's also a lot more accepted for girls/women to wear clothes that are usually associated with boys/men than vice versa. Boys/men face a lot more social stigma for wearing clothes more usually associated with girls/women.

I have a DC at at a school called Latymer Upper which is co-ed independent near to St Paul's Girls. On school forms now, parents or pupils are asked to tick one of three boxes - 'male', 'female' or 'non-binary'. My DC tells me there are a few students who identify as non-binary, but apart from that nobody could care less really.

One thing that strikes me is I have only ever come across (as an adult maybe 2 transgender people apart from when travelling around Thailand)
As kids growing up you did have tomboy girls and feminate boys but none that were deeply distressed about being the gender that they were.
It seems to be now there are loads and loads, almost an epidemic of transgender children
Is it
A- people are more accepting nowadays
B- a medical reason i.e. Conspiracy theory's of the female pill in the water supply etc or something affecting pregnancies
C- it's become 'fashionable' to say your child is transgender and 'oh how accepting we are that we let 3 year old johnny be a girl (my DS1 went through a phase at 2 of wearing a pink feather boa everywhere and carrying a doll, it didn't mean he was meant to be a girl!)

I understand to have a truly transgender child must be very hard and surely any acceptance is good but I'm just confused where all these children have suddenly come from??

I think the previous poster who said it's the new goth/emo has probably hit the nail on the head in this case. I sincerely hope it's just a bit of silly teenage navel gazing, in the same way that some kids question their sexuality. But because it's a "thing" right now, they're questioning their gender instead.

Harmless, as long as they aren't all marched off to the nearest gender clinic and started on testosterone

I wonder what's making these girls reject their sex, though? Because it sure as hell isnt gender dysphoria.

I find it a bit off that St Paul's made such an issue - as its a school where the Girls don't wear Uniform. I know a boys school which has had boys "transition" and stay at the school, and not have the huge publicity despite the fact the school does have a uniform.

Personally I prefer the Oxford approach - that anyone can wear either form of dress (male of female sub fusc). Of course anyone can use whatever name they want. And anyone can do any subjects they want. No one should be sexually harassed or flaunt their sexual preferences in school, and should be able to change privately if they choose. And Toilets should be nicer and private (quite a few schools have mixed toilets now).

What this says to me is that the school do not accept the creed that if a girl says she is male that literally means that at that moment she becomes male.

If they did believe this, they would be having conversations about either removing them, or moving to be a mixed sex school. As they would genuinely believe that X number of their pupils at the girls school were male.

They are going to have issues when transgirls start applying - as are all single sex schools. When the law changes they will not be able to say no.

Also for non binary / agender / whatever - what schools are they allowed to go to?

I wonder what's making these girls reject their sex, though? Because it sure as hell isnt gender dysphoria.

Why are you so sure?

Why do you write "gender dysphoria"? Of course they have gender dysphoria.

I just doubt many of them have sex dysphoria.

But I readily believe that many of them hate the gender role that is being forced on women under patriarchy.

And pretty sure that misogyny is what is causing them to reject their sex.

In the past, there just wasn't an accepted way of getting out of this shit, other than perhaps by becoming anorectic and thus preventing the development of an adult female body that would be objectified.

Now that there is, I am not much surprised. To those girls, it must be like a giant neon sign reading "Exit" over a door that seemingly leads out of oppression.

They'll soon realize that the door will not lead them to freedom, but just to another prison, and will then perhaps join the feminists who are digging their way out of patriarchy prison with a rusty spoon, metaphorically speaking - which will take much longer but has an actual chance of getting us out.

I agree with you vestal

YY vestal

In my day, girls starved themselves and wore baggy clothes to cover their developing bodies.

It's a scary time and when you start getting "noticed" by men, even if they aren't doing anything bad or obvious, it's unsettling.

The popularity of breast binders is for obvious reasons, surely? Obvious to me anyway.

YY I had a friend who was like that and she had a terrible time.

It's a lot for girls to manage when they are young,

Other people's behaviour can make things very difficult as well

Ninon yes, I do go there and was born in March 2000. You're right, I don't know what happened in the 1970s but as St Paul's Girls' has no uniform whilst numerous similar schools nearby do, combined with what I'd been told about the reasoning why they don't (including on their own website), I assumed it was for a different reason.

This "dressing like a girl/boy" irks me no end. Clothes are clothes. I don't have a uniform anymore and pupils dress in all manner of styles, doesn't mean any are more "masculine" or "feminine" other than in terms of what society deems those traits to be. That the two people you name dress in the manner you describe is another of my issues with all this, that people deem "being a woman" or "feeling you're a woman inside" to be wearing dresses and make up etc.

AssassinatedBeauty that's certainly the case regarding boys/men dressing in ways which are stereotypically deemed "feminine". I think that's due to the idea in society that anything associated with girls or women is "weak", so the idea of a boy/man wearing something such as a dress is risible to society because of the negative connotations. Whilst women and girls can be derided in other ways for displaying traits/styles of dress considered "masculine", it's perhaps not the same as "masculine" traits are associated with strength/power so it's more because many prefer women and girls to act in ways deemed "feminine". Apologies if I'm articulating this badly.

*But I readily believe that many of them hate the gender role that is being forced on women under patriarchy.

And pretty sure that misogyny is what is causing them to reject their sex.*

That's what I feel about this summed up far better and more succinctly than I was managing. When you're pushed into outdated gender roles due to being a girl, but see those roles as potentially being entrenched, perhaps the way out seems to be to "identify as male". Unfortunately all this does in my opinion is reinforce gender roles as it suggests the only way to break free of them is to decide you're not boy rather than a girl, or vice versa.

Unfortunately all this does in my opinion is reinforce gender roles as it suggests the only way to break free of them is to decide you're not boy rather than a girl, or vice versa.

Only you cannot really break free from the feminine gender role. Men do not ask the women they rape how they identify. Abortion laws also do not ask for gender identity, if you can get pregnant, you're fucked.
The only way to get out of some kinds of oppression via "transition" is full-on sugery and hormones, which I am sure significantly lowers a woman's lifespan.

Telling everyone that you are called Dave now does nothing to reduce the oppression you face. The girls who do that are delusional.

And wearing a binder, which might, perhaps, reduce the sleazy comments on your breasts, is already permanently damaging. (I had no idea before this whole transnonsense got started, how damaging it is to flatten breasts; if I had been offered the opportunity to wear a binder, I would totally have, for the same reasons others have already stated. Only now I know that it permanently damages the tissue, yes, even the allegedly "safe" binders, let alone the selfmade alternatives.)

HeyRoly
Harmless, as long as they aren't all marched off to the nearest gender clinic and started on testosterone

Unfortunately, this may happen, if they are over 18. The affirmative approach means denying this treatment is considered conversion therapy.

Only you cannot really break free from the feminine gender role. Men do not ask the women they rape how they identify. Abortion laws also do not ask for gender identity, if you can get pregnant, you're fucked.

I entirely agree, I should have phrased it better. I meant that I think this kind of thing reinforces gender roles and further entrenches people in them. Some may then feel rather than fighting them, the only way there seems to be to escape them is to "identify" as the other, but of course doing so doesn't free you of the oppression women and girls face. It's one of the reasons I personally have some issues with the idea trans issues need to be centred in feminism (which I've heard many say), when they could never understand fully what it is to be a woman, grow up as a girl, start receiving street harassment etc, as has been alluded to on this thread in a way.