Another women's college changes trans policy

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Last year Lucy Cavendish College in Cambridge announced their position that they would accept male-born students who had a GRC and were legally recognised as female (www.lucy-cav.cam.ac.uk/news-blog/latest-news/statement-on-transgender-students)

Less than a year later, this has changed to include both these individuals and anyone who 'has taken steps to live in the female gender' (www.lucy-cav.cam.ac.uk/news-blog/latest-news/statement-on-transgender-students-update )

What on earth does this mean? Saying 'I am a woman?' Wearing a dress? Considering that until about 1947 being a woman would have meant being ineligible to receive a Cambridge degree, it's very disheartening. I'd have thought that female academics would recognise the harm that 'gender' does to women.

Note also that this college is for students aged 21+ so it isn't out of concern for 17-year-old trans applicants who haven't yet been able to apply for a GRC.

I know also that there are young women from very conservative countries who have been able to come to study in the UK precisely because of the existence of the women's colleges. But I suppose they're acceptable casualties of identity politics.

Why does a woman decide to go to a woman's college over and above a mixed college?

Compare and contrast with the reasons why someone trans might decide to go to a woman's college.

That makes me very sad - my Grandma was a Cambridge academic who in her lifetime was very involved with Lucy Cavendish.

She was also amongst the first women to receive a degree at Cambridge University. She was an amazing woman - and very pro-women's spaces - she used to warn me all the time of all the "terrible pompous men" she came across in the land of Academia ( ). I wonder what she'd have made of all this.

*Lucy Cavendish the College, not the woman - in case of any confusion!

I think women weren't actually awarded degrees at Cambridge until 1948.

Lucy Cavendish takes students from all over the world. Applicants from China or Mozambique or Belize won't have a Gender Recognition Certificate, which is a UK legal process. So the new wording levels the playing field for international students.

As to toilets, if people bothered to check most undergraduate rooms are en suite:

"Most undergraduates and many students on nine-month graduate courses live within the College itself. The majority of on-site rooms are located in De Brye, Bertram and Warburton Hall. These Student in her bedroom readingrooms are modern with ensuite shower rooms " - www.lucy-cav.cam.ac.uk/college-life/accommodation/. It might surprise you to learn, anyway, that many students are straight so there are a lot of men sleep there and will already be using toilets.

So the real change is that trans women from other countries will now be able to apply, not just trans women from the UK. The impact on toilets and showers is a red herring because most rooms are en suite already.

Doesn't level the playing field for women though does it.

I'm sure the kind of man who would come from god knows where just to rob a woman from a place at a college is really the kind of person you wanna share a class with.

Your grandmother sounds great ToeToToe , must have been an inspiration for you.

She was, Assassinated. In a lot of ways, I didn't make the most of her when she was alive. I'd link to her Wikipedia page, but it would be a bit outing in these times, sadly.

Well in that case the same standards should be applies to the Blues men's rowing team - if plenty of women (who identify as men, of course) suddenly applied to join the team, I wonder how that would go down? Or perhaps some of the men's only dining clubs?

Lucy Cavendish takes students from all over the world. Applicants from China or Mozambique or Belize won't have a Gender Recognition Certificate, which is a UK legal process. So the new wording levels the playing field for international students.

No. The addition of 'or your country's legal equivalent' with a note about special consideration if the applicant is from a country with no such legal process at all would have done that.

I wish these places would just be fucking honest and admit that they have gone mixed sex.

I'm sure the kind of man who would come from god knows where just to rob a woman from a place at a college is really the kind of person you wanna share a class with.

The fact that the women's colleges tend to take more applicants from the pool than others suggests that actually there would be no robbery. My understanding is that the colleges with restrictions (sex and/or age, both in the case of LC) get first pick of pooled applicants with those characteristics. So the actual outcome should be that a woman who'd applied in the first place to a mixed college or made an open application would then get a place at a mixed college. (Of course, it's not an exact science in practice).

I can think of reasons other than wanting to rob a woman of her place for a TW to apply to a woman's college. A haven from male bullying perhaps? W

So once again women having to solve the problems men cause ? By losing options for themselves?

Men need to solve their own problems. For once

What about the bullying and sexual harassment and all the stuff that women there would have faced?

I'm not saying that's a sufficient reason, but it would be a genuine one versus the cynically trying to rob women you implied.

A man applying to a single sex college is there for validation . Or he'd go to one of hundreds of other mixed colleges.

A man applying to a single sex college is there for validation . Or he'd go to one of hundreds of other mixed colleges.

Almost half of the applications to Lucy Cavendish are via the pool

I wish these places would just be fucking honest and admit that they have gone mixed sex

Absolutely

It's just the thin end of the wedge, they'll probably all end up mixed sex. Women clearly aren't allowed their own spaces anymore.

I hear there a few transgirls in some of the fancier fee paying boys schools.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this is a cynical PR move aimed at a very niche group of wealthy parent benefactors.

I hear there a few transgirls in some of the fancier fee paying boys schools.

I cannot help but read that in horror. A couple of female people in an all boys school? I suspect, with the same issues surrounding changing rooms and such, as being single sex they have no need for two sets of areas.

Sorry, you mean transgirl as in biological male I think. Of course, thats actually where they should be. I read it as a few females in male schools. SO no horror, I take it back. Just reckon that would be REALLY dangerous for the females involved. Kind of the same reaction I have when people bring up trans identified females going to mens prisons (which AFAIK does not happen, nor hopefully would it ever)

Well, they are male bodied people.

They would’ve been admitted under their birth sex and allowed to stay while socially transitioning.

One of our local girls schools (non grammar, non feepaying) does now have female born trans kids and male born trans kids. Obviously this is all meant to be privacy protected from a schools point of view but parents talk.

Our local girls grammar (one of the best state schools in the country) now has quite a few female born trans students, so much so that the school no longer collectively refers to them as ‘girls’.

I’m wondering how this will play out at 11plus (what with younger and younger kids now identifying). Our LA is still entirely selective, but the schools mostly set their own exams. The most sought after boys grammar uses an entirely different type of exam to the girls school.

Is this transphobic? I wouldn’t have said so but then I didn’t think lesbians not liking dick was transphobic so who knows?

(I’m not into the selective system personally by the way, until I moved here I thought the 11plus was something historical your Nan used to frighten you into working harder so you didn’t end up working in a lampshade factory, like your Mam.)

Crosspost!

Totally agree re: female born people in the male prison estate. Not safe.

the interview process would hopefully filter out any who weren't actually dysphoric

In a rational world perhaps, but not sure how that would work under current rules and it would almost certainly qualify as transphobic to even consider the notion of judging between 'fake' and 'genuine'.

Okay the interviewer could invent another reason for rejecting someone they thought was fake, but that can't be the only acceptable option for the college can it.

For that matter I can imagine people getting rejected for other genuine reasons and claiming "it's because I'm trans. Make them let me in"