Transgender pupils a risk to girls’ schools, warns trust

Independent education body says admitting such students may compromise role as single-sex educators

A GROUP of leading girls’ schools have said they will not accept transgender pupils for fear of “jeopardising” their status as single-sex institutions.

The Girls’ Day School Trust (GDST), which represents 23 private schools as well as two academies, updated its gender identity policy guidance document last month to include a new section on admissions.

It is rare for a group of single-sex schools to take a public position on the issue of admissions, and could pave the way to others following suit.

The guidance states that GDST schools do not accept applications from pupils who are legally male, even if they identify as female.

Having an admissions policy based on “gender identity rather than the legal sex recorded on a student’s birth certificate would jeopardise the status of GDST schools as single-sex schools” under the Equality Act, it says. A female pupil who begins to transition while already at school should be supported to remain at the school for as long as they wish to do so, the guidance adds.

The guidance, first published in 2016, was updated and shared with member schools just before the Christmas break. The GDST said that they always keep their policies under review, adding that their latest guidance was drawn up “in collaboration with experts, teachers and students”.

It comes as head teachers urge the Government that national guidance on transgender issues must be published for schools, saying that education leaders are “struggling” to cope. School leaders have said that in the absence of any official guidance from the Department for Education (DfE), they are left with advice from lobby groups to advise them on how to react when a pupil identifies as the opposite gender.

Julie McCulloch, of the Association of School of College Leaders (ASCL), said that as more and more children “come out” as transgender, heads are forced to wade into the fraught debate between biological sex and gender. “It is a really big issue and the lack of formal guidance for schools is something that we are concerned about,” she said.

The number of young people in the UK being referred to gender identity clinics has increased 17-fold in the past decade, figures show. Figures from the Gender Identity Development Service , which is the NHS’s only facility for transgender children based at the Tavistock Centre in north London, show that 2,383 youngsters were referred in 2020-21, compared to 138 in 2010-11.

If a pupil announces to teachers that they wish to transition to the opposite gender, the school would need to think about how to communicate the child’s new gender to their peers and teachers.

They may also consider if the pupil should be allowed to use the lavatories and changing rooms – as well as join sports teams – that match their new gender as opposed to their biological sex. This might be more complicated at a single-sex school where they do not have separate boys’ and girls’ facilities.

Meanwhile, single-sex schools face the additional dilemma of what to do if a pupil applies on the basis of the gender they identify with rather than their biological sex. Ms McCulloch said that this is a “very difficult area” for a head teacher to deal with and added that ASCL members often “struggle” to know how to respond.

A DfE spokesman said: “Supporting all children in a school can involve balancing complex and sensitive matters, and schools are best placed to work with parents, pupils and public services to determine the best approach.”