Becoming Separate

The End of Single Sex Schools?

Australian Single-sex Schools in TransitionTransgender Students Gain Acceptance  Henrietta Cook
Stuff

Jeremy Beach was the only male student at his Catholic girls' school.  He had short spiky hair, hated wearing the school's checked skirt and in Year 12, the Avila College student came out as a transgender male.  "I presented as quite masculine. I didn't fit in. I wasn't going on about boyfriends and about make-up," the 19-year-old said.

"It was inherently a very gendered environment. It made it more difficult."  It's a situation many single-sex schools – whose entire existence has relied on rigid concepts of gender – are grappling with.   For the first time, the region's peak body for girls schools, the Alliance of Girls Schools Australasia, is urging its members to support transgender students.  This includes males who transition to females and want to enrol in girls' schools, and females who transition to males and want to remain in girls' schools.

Earlier this week, the organisation, which predominantly represents private girls' schools, held a conference which focused on gender and transgender issues.  "It's an emerging issue, everyone is still learning what to do and that includes the doctors, the psychologists, the support services," the Alliance's president and Mentone Girls' Grammar principal Fran Reddan said.  "It's critical that we provide a safe environment where all students can express their gender identity."

Behold, yet again, the madness of the Gentiles.  The words of II Corinthians 6 are as apt as ever:

Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? What accord has Christ with Belial? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said,

“I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them,
    and I will be their God,
    and they shall be my people.
Therefore go out from their midst,
    and be separate from them, says the Lord,
and touch no unclean thing;
    then I will welcome you,
and I will be a father to you,
    and you shall be sons and daughters to me,
says the Lord Almighty.” [II Cor. 6: 14--18]