Women-only college lets in trans students
AN all-women Cambridge University college is to admit students who are ‘living as female’ even if their new gender has not been legally recognised.
Murray Edwards College said it had taken the step to help transgender students because it has ‘sympathy with the idea that gender is not binary’.
it believes ‘narrow gender identities and the expectations associated with them’ are ‘damaging both to individuals and to wider society’.
Until this year, students had to have legally changed their gender to female under the Gender Recognition Act in order to be admitted to the college.
But critics said this was unfair since only over-18s are allowed to change their gender, while many of those applying to Cambridge are 17 years old.
Murray Edwards – whose alumnae include Sue Perkins,
‘Their position is ridiculous’
Claudia Winkleman and Tilda Swinton – has changed its policy so those born male who have ‘taken steps’ to live as a woman will be able to apply as well, without having to provide legal documentation.
Students praised the decision but feminist Germaine Greer, who attended another womenonly Cambridge college, Newnham, said it was ‘ridiculous’.
She told the Daily Telegraph: ‘it’s a difficult relationship, having a transgender person in an all-female environment.
‘if Murray Edwards really don’t believe that gender is binary, then they really shouldn’t be a single-sex college. Their position is ridiculous. The only sane thing for them to do is to cease discriminating on the basis of assigned gender of any kind.’
Murray Edwards, which was founded as New Hall in 1954 and renamed in 2008, said: ‘We will consider any student who, at the point of application, identifies as female and, where they have been identified as male at birth, has taken steps to live in the female gender (or has been legally recognised as female via the Gender Recognition Act).’
Admissions service Ucas replaced ‘legal sex’ with ‘gender’ on the university applications form in 2015 to allow students to identify as a different gender from the one they were born with.
After this, Murray Edwards took legal advice and consulted students. The policy change was passed by the college council, a group of academics and teaching fellows.
Dame Barbara Stocking, president of Murray Edwards, said: ‘in order that we remain true to our mission of being open to all outstanding young women, we recognise it is right for anyone who identifies as female, regardless of their born gender, to be able to apply to study with us.’