Female-Only Cambridge College to Allow Transgender Women
- 7 years ago
Female-Only Cambridge College to Allow Transgender Women
That same year, Smith College in Northampton, Mass., said it would accept applications from transgender women
because "in the years since Smith’s founding, concepts of female identity have evolved." Dr. Foster said the new policy at Murray Edwards College was necessary because people are not allowed under British law to change their gender until they reach the age of 18.
In 2015, Barnard College, which is part of Columbia University in New York, said it would accept applications
from transgender women (but not from transgender men or from students who identified with neither gender).
"But legally, societally and generationally, there has been a change in the understanding of gender
and what makes one female." The school, which was known until 2008 as New Hall and counts the actress Tilda Swinton and the comedian Sue Perkins among its alumnae, is one of 31 legally distinct constituent colleges at the University of Cambridge, one of the world’s most prestigious institutions of higher education.
Germaine Greer, a feminist academic and a former lecturer at Newnham College who has argued
that transgender women are not "real women," criticized the decision by Murray Edwards.
4, 2017
LONDON — Transgender women will be allowed to enroll in one of the three female-only colleges at Cambridge University, the school has said.
"The only sane thing for them to do is to cease discriminating on the basis of assigned gender of any kind." Murray Edwards
College is not the first prominent women’s school to allow the admission and enrollment of transgender women.
That same year, Smith College in Northampton, Mass., said it would accept applications from transgender women
because "in the years since Smith’s founding, concepts of female identity have evolved." Dr. Foster said the new policy at Murray Edwards College was necessary because people are not allowed under British law to change their gender until they reach the age of 18.
In 2015, Barnard College, which is part of Columbia University in New York, said it would accept applications
from transgender women (but not from transgender men or from students who identified with neither gender).
"But legally, societally and generationally, there has been a change in the understanding of gender
and what makes one female." The school, which was known until 2008 as New Hall and counts the actress Tilda Swinton and the comedian Sue Perkins among its alumnae, is one of 31 legally distinct constituent colleges at the University of Cambridge, one of the world’s most prestigious institutions of higher education.
Germaine Greer, a feminist academic and a former lecturer at Newnham College who has argued
that transgender women are not "real women," criticized the decision by Murray Edwards.
4, 2017
LONDON — Transgender women will be allowed to enroll in one of the three female-only colleges at Cambridge University, the school has said.
"The only sane thing for them to do is to cease discriminating on the basis of assigned gender of any kind." Murray Edwards
College is not the first prominent women’s school to allow the admission and enrollment of transgender women.