Schoolgirl questioning her gender moves to boys’ rooms

A TEENAGE girl has been moved to a room in a boys’ boarding house at her private school because she is questioning her gender identity.

Andrew Fisher, headmaster of “progressive” independent school Frensham Heights in Farnham, Surrey, said the girl and her parents had requested she be given a private room.

Two other teenage girls at the school who play football in the boys’ teams and have adopted male names have asked to be addressed as “him”, rather than “her”.

Mr Fisher said: “Our boarding houses are co-educational in the day, but boys and girl separate at night into single-sex wings. One of our students,

‘The other boys are aware this student is going through questioning their identity’

however, has a single room in a boys’ boarding house wing this year. The other boys are aware this student is going through questioning their identity and they are not frightened or intimidated by that.”

Mr Fisher, who said he tries to avoid using terms such as “Hi guys” and “boys and girls”, in favour of “pupils”, added: “In the past, girls identifying as boys would simply have been called tomboys, and boys who felt more like girls would have been described as effeminate. The ability to medically transition has changed the conversation.”

Barnaby Lenon, the Independent Schools Council chairman and a former headmaster of the all-boys school Harrow, called for schools to be given greater access to “wise doctors”, and cautioned: “A wise school will take into account the views of 14-year-olds but knowing that those views will change.”