Bursary funding -non binary

[Runnersandtoms]

Went to an open day for very prestigious and expensive private college yesterday. Fees are £10,000 a year on top of tuition fees loan available from government. They offer bursaries on a means tested basis but are looking to increase diversity (it's a very white, middle-upper class female bias) so anyone who ticks a diversity box is higher up the bursary list. This includes being non-binary or male.

It struck me that when anyone can say they are non binary (or indeed male) and not actually have to do anything different in the way they live their life, it's a bit dodgy offering financial help on this basis.

I mean by the logic of the gender ideologists, you can be non-binary (born female) and still choose to wear dresses and makeup because "it's not about clothing or stereotypes". So on what basis could the college ask you to prove you are non-binary? Also experience shows that some people's gender identity changes with the wind so what if you identify as non-binary when you apply and then subsequently change back to identifying as female? Do you lose your bursary?

Has anyone come across bursaries being offered on the basis of gender identity before?

I suppose private institutions do what they want. Im surprised you can discriminate on the grounds of sex though

Well it comes under the heading of positive discrimination, like when they encourage girls to do science because numbers are lower than boys. Because this is a traditionally female field they are keen to encourage men to come. According to them they are keen to increase diversity so it's not just gender it's also other things like ethnic background, disability and so on.

But I just think allocating finance on a basis of sex or ethnicity is one thing, allocating it on the basis of how someone identifies is very nebulous.

Surely parents will exploit that loophole - "You like to have short blue hair and wear hoodies don't you, darling? Do you feel like you might be 'non-binary'? OK. TICK!"

This sounds absolutely batshit.

There is absolutely an incentive now for teenagers and young people to identify out of womanhood. This was an advert put out by the BFI, so presumably publicly funded, for an all expenses paid trip for several non-binary-identifiers to go to the Cannes film festival to meet influential people in the industry to help them up the career ladder (the link in the Tweet has timed out as the festival is now on). It also teams and thus equates the centuries long discrimination and marginalisation experienced by black women with that of a vague identity dreamed up less than a decade ago characterised, according to The Guardian this week, by things like not shaving your armpits if you're female, and popular with middle class white people working in the arts and media!

Umm no.

This is an opportunity designed for black women, and black non-binary people. There is absolutely no incentive here for black women to 'opt out' of being a woman, since black women are already eligible for the scheme.