Catching up with the gender times

Stellenbosch University and the University of Cape Town appear to be the only two institutions to offer sexually diverse students seeking admission the option of indicating on the admission form whether they are transgender or non-binary.

Stellenbosch University’s admission form has since 2017 made provision for students to tick whether they are male, female or non-binary, and UCT included a category for transgender students last year.

The universities of Pretoria, Johannesburg, KwaZulu-Natal and North West this week indicated that they were either considering or were in the process of making allowance for transgender or non-binary students on their admission forms.

The University of the Witwatersrand and the University of the Western Cape have done away with using titles such as Mr, Ms or Mrs in university correspondence to reflect a student’s designation.

Others such as Rhodes University and Stellenbosch University allow transgender and non-binary students to use the gender-neutral title Mx. — Prega Govender