Murray Edwards College Cambridge

[TheWeeWitch]

The statement from the Women-only college, who are now to allow both women and women with penises to join their ranks, reads as per the typical inane trans-enamoured response to such things:

“In order that we remain true to our mission of being open to all outstanding young women we recognise that it is right for anyone who identifies as female, regardless of their born gender, to be able to apply to study with us."

Luckily, Germaine is on the case:

“If [Murray Edwards] really don’t believe that gender is binary, then they really shouldn’t be a single sex college. Their position is ridiculous. The only sane thing for them to do is to cease discriminating on the basis of assigned gender of any kind... There are plenty of women who have served their time in women’s colleges, who are pretty whiskery, but nobody did a DNA test on them. But they had to live women’s lives - with all the disabilities that that entails.”

Link here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/10/03/women-only-cambridge-college-allow-students-simply-identify/amp/

Why not just become a mixed sex college?

Well, they are effectively doing that. The issue is that Cambridge (and I’m sure other old institutions too) didn’t admit women until the nineteenth century, and didn’t grant them equal degrees until some time after that.

As the article says, Murray Edwards “was founded to address gender imbalances at Cambridge University, which at the time had the lowest proportion of women undergraduates of any university in Britain.”

Academics from the college defended the move, saying it does not challenge the College’s single-sex status but is a recognition of the fact that "how we define women is changing".

So, a woman is anyone who says they are a woman...

When is this insanity going to stop?

It makes it a very easy way for a man to get into the college.

How are they going to assign dorm rooms to young women and identify-as-women?

But they need to admit "cis men" as well then, not just men who identify as women.

Wasn't there another thread about this earlier?

"how we define women is changing"

I'd love to know what the new definition "we " are all using is.

Academics from the college defended the move, saying it does not challenge the College’s single-sex status but is a recognition of the fact that "how we define women is changing".

Christ, they can FOTTFSOF with that one. It's bloody Cambridge, and they don't know what the word 'sex' means?

Fine then. Fucking define woman for me, if you can define woman so it includes me (who is objectively a woman - the two children, my DNA, and my body attest to that) but excludes both of those children and my DP (male) then I'm all ears. Bet you bloody can't.

Dear god I swear an awful lot more than I used to (online at least. In actual speech it's clean because a swearing primary school child would be mortifying for me)

I went to an all girls college and it was SO NICE. It went coed just after I left and it was such a shame, by all accounts it completely changed to atmosphere. And there were always a lot of Muslim girls there who otherwise wouldn't have been allowed to go to the uni so it seemed a terrible shame for them.

Let's hope no one hoping for a Biology degree goes there...

There’s another thread? Oops. Sorry. I did look but didn’t see anything in Fem chat.

There are lots of shared rooms at Murray Edwards college. How do they propose to ensure that a woman who does not want to share a room with a transwoman is protected? How will they ask? Will that not be difficult to enquire 'what gender were you assigned at birth?' (No I cannot bear that phrase either! No gender assigned! Sex noted and written down!) This has not been thought through...

A succinct reply to @glosswitch here:

twitter.com/boodleoops/status/915264791899463686

“If resource X is accessible to anyone who identifies as eligible for X, then resource X is accessible to everyone. This is not difficult.”

Quite.

Why not just become a mixed sex college?

I can see the point of women only colleges when only a tiny minority of women went to university but given that almost 50% of school leavers now do and of that 50% likely more than half will be female it seems anachronistic.

So far as segregation because of religious beliefs personally I cant support that and I don't think it should be encouraged.

So far as women who choose a female only environment for my other reason- what reason? We are talking about grownups going on to tertiary education. Women are not delicate flowers which need to be hot housed in male free glass houses.

i did start a thread but i used transphobic language in my haste so i asked for it to be taken down while i edited. i don't need to start another thread though - basically my point was that if applications are now open to anyone who identifies as a woman, where does that leave those students who apply because they want to be in a women-only space?

apparently the rationale behind the change is that most students apply to university when they are under 18 but you can't legally be recognised as having changed sex before the age of 18 so it's discriminatory.

but my view is that it's yet another instance of men being able to barge into a women's space. it's not like there aren't plenty of mixed colleges they can apply to.

"how we define women is changing"

Clearly that is drivel but defending the right to single sex tertiary education is not something I'll lie down in a ditch and die for.

I agree Lass. But the college has decided not to go down the route of mixed sex on the surface, but instead introduce it by the back door

Clearly that is drivel but defending the right to single sex tertiary education is not something I'll lie down in a ditch and die for.

This is a recurring theme though.

If one is being forced into position where one has to defend woman only spaces, the next question is always why are they women only?

It's stealthy and two faced (I don't mean you Lass).

It's still not enough for women to say no. The basis on which they say no is constantly challenged.

Not because these men disagree with the reason why women have women only spaces, but because it's important to them to colonise that space. Therefore the reason they are women only is immaterial.

And women making decisions for themselves about themselves is simply not allowed.

In a statement published after the vote, the council stated that it has “sympathy with the idea that gender is not binary” and that “narrow gender identities” are damaging to “wider society”.

If they truly believed that they should simply be a mixed sex college. Instead they pick 2 indefensible options of retaining single sex and tearing up the rule book on what determines sex.

we recognise that it is right for anyone who identifies as female, regardless of their born gender, to be able to apply to study with us."

Quite worrying this college either don't understand the difference between "sex" and "gender" or think we're all born with gender being innate. What a ridiculous move although it seems it's the inevitable consequence of what's going on with regards to this. How long before single sex schools are admitting pupils depending on how they or their parents feel they identify, I wonder.

How do they propose to ensure that a woman who does not want to share a room with a transwoman is protected?

Very good question. I also wonder how many will be hesitant to object lest they be accused of "transphobia".

It's a hill I would die on, NoLove. I had just come out of an abusive relationship when I went to uni. I couldn't have shared with a man.

We have a variety of different rooms available on the main College site, including ensuite and split-level. A small number of rooms can be shared, but this is only ever at students' request. The College also has a number of houses close to the main College site which provide further accommodation

From the college website. Some rooms might involve sharing a bathroom if there is no en suite facilities.