UK school allows transgender pupils in girls’ section To Kill a Mockingbird goes off school reading list

London: A boarding school in south-east England will allow boys to stay in the girls’ section if they identify themselves as transgender.

Gordon’s School in Woking, Surrey, will also allow boys to wear skirts and light make up and be known by gender- neutral pronouns such as “zie” if they question their gender identity.

“Parents of pupils were surprised by how open-minded we have been. Most schools are having these issues,” Rob Pavis, the deputy head of the school, told The Sunday Times.

He said the school is drawing up guidance for pupils saying they can ask to wear the uniform of the opposite sex, be addressed by a different name and/or pronouns, use gender-neutral-lavatories, grow their hair long if they are boys, change their accommodation and wear make-up and jewellery.

Several pupils have already explored their gender identity in the school, which has 10 boarding houses, five for boys and five for girls. Mississippi: Harper Lee’s classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, about racism and the American south, has been removed from a junior-high reading list in a Mississippi school district because the language in the book “makes people uncomfortable”.

The Sun Herald reported that administrators in Biloxi pulled the novel from the 8th-grade curriculum this week.

Kenny Holloway, vicepresident of the Biloxi School Board, said, “There were complaints about it. There is some language in the book that makes people uncomfortable, and we can teach the same lesson with other books. It’s still in our library. But they’re going to use another book in the 8th-grade course.”

A message on the Biloxi schools website said the book teaches students that compassion and empathy do not depend upon race or education.