Unsuitable Accommodation

[steepholm]

The subheader in today's Mirror ("School Bans Skirts!" is the main headline) reads: "Anger as head brings in new uniform to cater for 'small number of transgender children.'"

The Piers Morgans of this world have been duly outraged. The rather more measured piece in the The Telegraph makes it clear that the issue of transgender pupils was only one of several factors (and not the first mentioned) that led to the more uniform uniform of trews only:

"Pupils have been saying why do boys have to where [sic] ties and girls don't, and girls have different uniform to boys," he said. "So we decided to have the same uniform for everybody from Year 7.

"Another issue was that we have a small but increasing number of transgender students and therefore having the same uniform is important for them."

There had also been complaints from the wider community about the length of school skirts, so this was another factor in the decision to ban them altogether.

Mr Smith said: "We know the current uniform is not necessarily worn as respectfully as it should be. "There were problems with decency and a number of issues raised by people in the community about how students were wearing uniform."

Actually there are several things in that justification that I find problematic, but then I'm not a fan of uniforms at the best of times, so I'll let that slide for now. Since this is being spun by the professionally outraged as a transgender issue, what I'd really like to know is: how does this change of policy accommodate trans children? I'm trying to see the scenario, and I can't.

I can imagine a scenario in which a trans boy wanted to wear trousers, or a trans girl wanted to wear a skirt, or a genderfluid child wanted to change from time to time. I can imagine a head so worried by the challenge to gender norms that rather than allow children to wear the clothes of the gender they identify with he forces everyone to wear the same thing. This is not called accommodating transgender children, it's called accommodating cis fragility. But of course it's the children who are being presented as the problem here.

I'm not saying that's what happened. But if not that, what?

Comments

[lamentables]

I've just been looking at that and thinking that any claim to gender-neutrality would need to allow that trousers and skirts are not gendered and that anyone can wear whichever they choose. What the school is doing is saying that boys' clothes are not gendered and thus neutral, which is like saying only girls possess gender, white people don't have race, RP isn't an accent, hetero isn't a sexuality and all that old guff. In conclusion, aaaaaaaaargh!

[steepholm]

Oh yes, absolutely - that's a bigger issue of course, but male-as-generic sexist bullshit is a also part of what's going on here. (If the head had mandated skirts for all he'd be getting even more flak.) Paradoxically it results in more freedom for girls in one sense - they can wear trousers, play football, be into engineering (up to a point) and everyone many people thinks it's cool, whereas a boy who is into "feminine" clothing and pursuits is far more disturbing, apparently. But then, it's understandable for girls to aspire to be boys, but degrading for boys to lower themselves to be girls.

[lamentables]

Yes, I hadn't followed the train of thought far enough to be thinking about boys and the 'feminine'. Bah!

Uniforms are horrid anyway, and unfair on poorer families. And horrid.
Oh, how I loathed school uniform, in its particulars and in principle. And it was even fit for purported purpose: children can always introduce fashion rules and cause for bullying. In my case all the other girls got their mothers to make school dresses in the cotton gingham with full circle skirts, while I got a dress in the floral synthetic, cut tight to fit my family's budget.

[calimac]

Particularly ironic in Britain, since - although this school is at the south end - in the northern parts men are known to wear skirts. They get away with this by calling them "kilts."

[calimac]

"Look what you made me do" is a common line of defense, and only very occasionally justified.

[lilliburlero]

Null points all round, I think. I saw a clip of another article on Twitter (source not identified) which led me to think that maybe all the trans students at this particular school are boys, and that conditioned the phrasing of the comment and some of the assumptions behind it? It wasn't clear though, and obviously still leaves the wider issues unanswered. I'm troubled by the mention of 'decency', too: what's the betting that there have been exactly 0 complaints about boys dressed 'indecently' and 'disrespectfully'?

I don't really know why British and Irish schools love uniforms so much anyway: many schools around the world seem to manage just fine without. A uniform sweatshirt or t-shirt might be handy for PE and outings, I suppose, but more than that I can't see the use of. My most unfavourite argument for uniforms, the anti-bullying one (constantly reiterated by my school and parents) seems the most ludicrous. When has bullying ever been prevented by urging more conformity?

[steepholm]

I couldn't agree more about uniforms in general. I picture the bullies sitting around saying, "I'd love to bully that person, but I don't have anything to bully them about!"

And yes about "decency". Another story in the same issue of the Mirror makes that point still more egregiously, although here the key word is "modesty" - something all educationalists agree girls can never have too much of. To quote the head in that case:

The design of the Academy means that there is a greater than average set of staircases in the school and I would ask you to consider your daughter’s modesty when buying a skirt that is too short.

If you could further support us by ensuring your daughter’s [sic] wear tights it would ensure that their modesty was even further protected.

[redbird]

This may be something like "the child's parents asked us to let her wear the skirted uniform, and I said yes, but her math teacher made a fuss because he insists she's a boy. This way I don't get caught between parents and staff." Of course, that won't actually resolve the problem, if such a teacher insists on calling a trans student "Michael" or "Mr. Smith" and the student is Miss Smith and now wants to be called "Suzette."