School wears equality on their sleeves

School wears equality on their sleeves

BY ALEX EUGENE

A Sydney private school is introducing ‘gender neutral’ uniforms in a bid towards greater inclusion and diversity.

The International Grammar School (IGS), which offers bilingual education for children from preschool to year 12, has released a statement saying it won’t push its students to conform to gender norms.

The uniforms consist of a range of options including pants, skirts and ties all of which the school says may be worn by males, females or other gender identifying students.

IGS Principal, Shauna Colnan, said the uniforms reflect the school’s culture of inclusion as they “accord with the school’s respect for gender diversity.”

Ms Colnan however said the move is not an official policy as the main priority of the school was on learning, not appearances.

It was a sentiment echoed by Norrie May-Welby, who became a champion of the LGBTIQ community in 2014.

Norrie battled the NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages in the High Court to have their gender recorded as “unspecified”.

Norrie is known as “they”, not “she” or “he”, which is an important distinction for many transgender people.

“Children are at school to learn and be all they can be…[not] to erase their individuality and make them conformist work drones.

“Children should never be abused by having to conform to adult gender fetishes.

“They should be able to choose clothing that they are comfortable in,” Norrie said.

The public announcement came from IGS after some teachers allegedly disciplined students for wearing “incorrect combinations” of clothing, when a shortage of girls pants at the uniform shop caused a widespread purchase of boys pants.

Ms Colnan said she had clarified with staff clothing combinations were not an issue.

“As long as uniforms are neat and tidy, we don’t need to get hung up on what is being worn.

“At IGS we are more interested in what is in our students’ heads than what combination of uniform they are wearing,” she said.

Fittingly, the school’s motto is “Unity through Diversity.”

Eloise Brook from the Sydney Gender Centre applauded the school’s actions, saying that gender matters, especially when a person is struggling to understand their own.

She pointed out that local school, Newtown High School of the Performing Arts, had made a similar move by allowing transgender children to wear uniforms of their identified gender.

“[It is] a practical solution, one that helps trans students do better at school and in life.

“This is also the overwhelming experience of professionals working at the Gender Centre,” she said.

The Gender Centre, which is run by volunteers in Annandale, provides services which aim to “enhance the ability of people with gender issues to make informed choices” whilst being “committed to educating the public about the needs of people with gender issues,” according to a statement on their website.

Acceptance of transgender people has come a long way in the last half century.

In 1983 when the Gender Centre was founded the experiences of transgender people were different.

There was widespread discrimination towards transsexual people (as they were then known).

The Gender Centre started as a refuge for transsexual people and evolved into the fully fledged service it is today.

Ms Brooks said such sensitivity to gender had also been backed by recent studies from the University of Washington, and the US Ehrensaft model of care for transgender children.

But Ms Brooks remains a realist about how to tackle day to day issues such as the uniforms at local schools.

“Despite frequent scare campaigns and moral panics around the gender expression of children, at the end of the day school principals and parents are the right people to make decisions about what is in the best interests of their children and students,” she said.

Norrie said there should be a range of clothing allowed to suit different athletic inclinations and weather sensitivities.

“In clothing, ‘one size fits all’ is not the norm,” Norrie said.

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