Boys will be allowed to board with girls at a top state school if they are questioning their ‘gender identity’.
Gordon’s School in Surrey is drawing up new guidance for transsexual pupils which will allow them to wear the uniform of the opposite sex and be addressed by a gender-neutral pronoun.
Deputy Head Rob Pavis said the school had already allowed one boy to wear make-up and a dress to the prom, and another to be addressed by a girl’s name.
Royal patronage
The school, of which the Queen is patron, is following guidance by the Boarding Schools’ Association, which states that if a boy intends to change sex he should be offered the chance to sleep in the girls’ dormitory and vice versa.
As well as being permitted to board with children of the opposite sex, students who say their gender does not match their biological sex may use gender-neutral toilets.
The move comes just two weeks after it emerged that a teenage girl was being allowed to sleep in boys’ accommodation at Frensham Heights School, also in Surrey, after she expressed doubts about her gender identity.
‘Hysteria’
However, a headmaster in London has criticised recent pushes to affirm transsexualism.
Andrew Halls, headmaster of King’s College School, Wimbledon, said that schools needed to be wary of embracing the transsexualism agenda.
He said: “We have to be careful. There is evidence that some people who have done the full transgendering have regretted it. We must avoid a headlong rush into a void of ignorance. This is like new science no one fully understands.”
He also warned against creating “hysteria” in which children might think they are the opposite sex, and then “find support online for such ideas”.