A top boarding school that charges parents £45,000-a-year for their children to stay at the school has refused to clarify its position on transgender pupils after reports suggest they had the option of staying in accommodation that matched their gender identity.
Bedales school in Hampshire, which counts stars like Lily Allen and Daniel Day Lewis as alumni have said that they treat all their ‘young people as individuals’ after they were asked if a trans girl who was born male, could be allowed to sleep in a female dormitory.
Such an arrangement would clash with updated government guidance which last year stated trans children must sleep in dorms that match their biological sex.
In a statement given to MailOnline, Bedales school refused to debunk claims that their boarding accommodation was making exceptions for trans pupils.
A spokesman said: ‘Normal channels of communication with houseparents are very much open [for parents] if they want to discuss any concerns.
‘At Bedales, we treat all our young people as individuals, seeking to accommodate their needs accordingly. The school keeps its approach to boarding in line with current guidance and legislation.’
A policy on Bedales website says students who are boarding at the school should be allowed to stay in dormitories ‘according to the gender with which they identify’.
Caroline Ffisk from Conservatives for Women told MailOnline the new policies would at the very least violate the school’s ‘statutory safeguarding responsibility’.
She explained: ‘Imagine working in a school, having a statutory safeguarding responsibility for the children in your care, and even contemplating allowing boys and girls to share sleeping accommodation.
‘Personal exploration and identity is completely irrelevant.
‘Yet this is the power of this corrosive ideology. It shows precisely why the Government must make its proposed gender-questioning guidance compulsory – and embedded into the “Keeping Children Safe in Education” statutory guidance for schools.’
The discovery has sparked concern among some Tory MPs, including Education Secretary Gillian Keegan who published the draft guidance last month.
Among the schools with these policies is Taunton School, in Somerset, which charges parents up to £14,970 a term for students to full board there.
Its equality, diversity and inclusion policy claims ‘as far as possible, transgender pupils and students should be able to sleep in dorms appropriate to their gender identity’. The Telegraph reports this policy is currently under review.
Another fee-paying school, Christ’s Hospital in West Sussex, has a policy of giving ‘careful consideration’ to requests from trans pupils to be housed in dormitories ‘different to their biological gender’.
However, a spokesperson for the school told the Telegraph: ‘Christ’s Hospital is respectful of students who may be questioning their gender, and balance this with our duty of care and safeguarding responsibilities.
‘No student who is questioning their gender is allowed to share sleeping or changing facilities with others of the opposite biological sex to them.
‘While, like all schools, we will be reviewing our policies following the recent publication of the Government’s draft guidance, nothing we do currently is outside that guidance.’
Speaking to the MailOnline, women’s rights campaigner Kelly-Jay Keen also slammed the reported policies, labelling them ‘deranged’.
She said: ‘What on earth has happened to safeguarding? It seems that this ideology is just a new way to totally abandon safeguarding principles.
‘So, you would have a girl in a boy’s dormitory.
‘I don’t use terms like biological girl or female, we know what a girl is and what a boy is.
‘A girl in a boy’s dormitory is basically at much higher risk of sexual assault.
‘And then boys in girls’ dormitories! It’s just preposterous that we would think about the needs of a single pupil to have their identity validated and put all the other pupils at risk.
‘It’s absolutely deranged and can only come from a dogmatic ideological cult.’
The policies have sparked concern among top Tories as they appear to clash with government guidance which states ‘no child should be allowed to share a room with a child of the opposite sex’.
The draft guidance also says trans students who don’t wish to stay in a room with members of the same biological sex should only be allowed to do so after the school has taken its safeguarding obligations into account.
A source close to Ms Keegan telling the Telegraph: ‘Ministers have been clear that single-sex spaces must be protected and this has been reflected in the Government’s draft guidance on gender-questioning pupils, which is currently out for consultation.’
Miriam Cates, Conservative MP for Penistone and Stocksbridge, told the paper that parents who ‘spend an awful lot of money’ sending their children to these schools would ‘probably be horrified at some of the gender ideology in these schools’.
