Cambridge University ignoring the Supreme Court ruling?

[yoursweetpotatoesarebland]

Dd is going to the Cambridge open day coming up, I got an email through about the colleges and was having a read through. There’s a section about “gender identity” and how it impacts on what colleges you can apply to. There are two women’s colleges but both accept anyone who identifies as a woman!

This is from Murray Edwards:
“At the admissions level, we will consider any student who, at the point of application, identifies as a woman“

How can this still be allowed? It’s self ID too so has NEVER been legal for the purposes of the eqA.

Newnham and Murray Edwards are both wonderful wonderful places that promote females in education and are hugely accepting of people from all backgrounds. They are also both built on the premise of making education accessible to people who have historically been disadvantaged due to gender. They are safe havens for people who may previously have felt unable to be themselves in education for fear of discrimination or even abuse. As a cis person, I never once felt threatened by any members of my college (which is one of these two) and would be much more upset at the thought of studying somewhere that excluded others who identify as females and quite frankly are significantly more marginalised and disadvantaged than myself. I don’t know any trans females at either (that’s not to say they aren’t there - just that the numbers are INCREDIBLY low and that their presence has never made an ounce of difference to anybody else’s life). The media is selling a belief that trans people are inherently dangerous but there is ZERO empirical peer-reviewed scientific evidence for this (and lots of evidence suggesting they are more likely to be victimised). The Newnham and Medwards communities voted on the issue and voted in favour of self-ID - the student body accept trans students and are happy to share their college with them

There’s no such thing as cis and single sex women’s spaces are for women only - your male friends don’t qualify either morally or legally. Hope that helps.

Well I'm a Newnham alumna and I wouldn't have been happy at all.

"They are also both built on the premise of making education accessible to people who have historically been disadvantaged due to gender."

So yeah, women, cunty ones.

I helped out at the 50 year ceremony for the anniversary of when women were first allowed degrees, and spoke to women in their 80s and 90s who felt it important to attend to hear the vice chancellor's apology, some in wheelchairs, having travelled 100s of miles to be there. It mattered to them.

Men, who were always allowed degrees, taking spaces from women, some of whom may need a single sex college for various reasons, does not sit well with me at all.

Another Newnham alumna here who would not have been happy with this.

Do you really believe the thing that makes men and women different is not that our bodies are different, but that our minds are different?

It doesn’t matter whether the student body voted @TeachWithMissM - it’s a breach of the law. The college can’t be single sex and allow some males - it’s either mixed sex or single sex and they don’t get to opt out of following the law because they don’t like it!

what I am particularly surprised by is that they are self - ID which was not legal even before FWS!

If they admit TIM, then presumably at pool stage (where colleges with spare places look at applicants who have narrowly missed out at other colleges but are deemed capable of the course) they would be open to a discrimination claim for not considering non-trans males. Now THAT would be an interesting test case.

As outlined in the gender policy which I will link here, Newnham explains that it is not a single sex space per se. There are male staff across all areas of the site and it is also very common for students to have male partners stay in college with them and use the communal bathroom facilities etc. There are even male academics who are affiliated with the college. Nobody at newnham is expecting not to come across any men in the college. Where there are religious or other reasons why someone might need a single-sex space, appropriate provisions are put in place and the presence of a very small number of trans students (based on UK census data it would be 0.6 of a student across the whole undergraduate population) does not prevent this.

here is the policy, given along with justifications: https://newn.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2025-10/rationale.pdf

Iirc the rationale for self id was that no one of the usual age for undergrad application could possibly have a GRC - the process entails ‘living as a woman’ () for 2 years so 17/18yos are simply too young.

obviously they aren’t compliant with the law - Newnham was created to be all female (all students and staff) while ME was female undegraduates; it does have male postgrads and staff so it’s maybe less clear cut.

Anne Clough and Millicent Garrett Fawcett must be turning in their bloody graves. MGF more so at what's been done to the society named for her.

Yes, I was there when the Dr Padman situation kicked off, as it was supposed to be all female fellows....

There was a male chaplain, but we shared him with Selwyn.

I suspect the stuff was produced before the guidance came out and someone will challenge them soon, can but hope...

Male staff don't take a female student's space. Male guests don't take a female student's space. By your argument, my all-girl secondary school was mixed because of men being on the staff.

If this is so-called logic is what Cambridge grads are spouting, I'm glad I went to a poly.

No such thing as a trans female.

As soon as you called yourself CIS when woman needs no additional pretext, you lost a lot of us.

I am doubtful you know how every student feels considering the violent and bullying tactic of trans rights activists (especially in the universities).

Kathleen Stock and many other professors have been violently bullied and harassed due to trans rights activists being unable to debate or take no for an answer. Trans nonsense is rightly being pushed back on by most people as it’s absolute crap that props up the feelings of mostly men over women.

Section e of the document helpfully linked by @TeachWithMissM at 00:12 after you posted says
Newnham does not have a fixed intake of undergraduate and postgraduate students
and assesses eligible applications on the basis of academic criteria. Accordingly, the
admission of one applicant does not presuppose or require the rejection of another.

I’m not sure I wholly believe that. The college website says
all Newnham undergraduates live on site and are always close to their friends.
(followed by
Postgraduate students can choose dedicated graduate houses and flats nearby, with a lovely common room in College.)

They recently replaced part of their buildings on site: the new buildings in my opinion are beautiful. However, if I remember correctly, when they originally applied for planning permission they said that they need extra accommodation for students - despite letting out some of their existing off-site property on the open market.

If they accommodate all undergraduates on site there must be a limit to the number they can take.

Still not sure why it's supposedly better to define women as a sort of mind rather than its old meaning as the half of humanity who happen to be female.

It's not like we magically stop being female and start being womanny-minded instead. We're still female with all that entails, just unlike the womanny-minded, we don't get woman-only provision 🙄

That statement by Newnham is shocking, twisting language, truth and logic.

What a pity. All that history, and its place in the struggle for women to access education in their own right, thrown away because a handful of men want something.

I love it when someone goes on about 'a long and fine tradition' and then proceeds to shit all over the said fine tradition.

And there's no such thing as 'cis'.

I went to New Hall, now renamed Murray Edwards, as a shy, immature 18 year old. It was all-female and a badly needed safe space.

You occasionally saw a boyfriend, but that’s what he was - an occasional visitor attached to another woman. His presence overnight broke the rules so you could have easily had him removed.

Many of the undergraduate rooms are split level shared. The downstairs woman has no privacy from the upstairs one walking through to and from the shared entrance door. I have no idea how this has been resolved architecturally or whether Murray Edwards has a system in place to make sure shy immature 18 year olds don’t find themselves forced to share with a man claiming to be a woman.

I am appalled that Murray Edwards has fallen for the “most vulnerable“ line and lost its understanding of women’s needs in a still sexist society.

Isn't Newnham where Germaine Greer taught ? I think there is/was a trans (TIM) professor there too.
I imagine they're busy working out what the SC judgment and EHRC guidance mean for their policy. They might have to stop calling themselves women's colleges.
Presumably if a boy applied and was rejected on the grounds of sex, he would have a claim of sex discrimination if another boy who identified as a girl was considered eligible.

In fact men are so privileged that they can even take away places for actual women in a resource intended to help equality for women against the higher demands and priorities of men, and be indulged as special guest men at an all-women's college. The law entitles women to an inch of universe of their own.