LBGTXYZ Group: Boarding schools should introduce 'gender neutral' uniforms

[-:Undertaker:-]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/ar...-bullying.html

Boarding schools told to introduce gender-neutral uniforms to prevent LBGT bullying

• Elly Barnes is CEO and founder of LGBT charity Educate & Celebrate
  
• Spoke at a conference with the Boarding Schools Administration about making schools more LGBT friendly
  
• Introduction of gender-neutral uniform would reduce bullying, she says

Boarding schools in the UK may soon adopt gender-neutral uniforms in order to prevent discrimination against LGBT students. At a conference with the Boarding Schools Administration on Wednesday, Elly Barnes, a writer and LGBT Schools Advisor, explained that schools need to be more LGBT-friendly - even when it comes to their dress code. She told the Independent: 'If it's all right for a girl to wear trousers, why should a boy not be allowed to wear a skirt. We should be giving them the option.'

Ms Barnes also called for teachers to be trained in how to be more inclusive and comfortable with the language associated with the gay and lesbian community. This includes educating children about families with same-sex parents as well as discouraging the use of LGBT terms as insults. She said: 'If a pupil says "my pen's run out, it’s so gay", you should challenge it. "My pen’s so Jewish, my pen’s so black", you wouldn’t be allowed to say it.' Ms Barnes added that bullying on the basis of sexuality is just as bad as racist or sexist bullying, and should be treated as such.

Julie Bremner, head of media at Educate and Celebrate, a charity run by Ms Barnes, told the MailOnline that the movement is heading in the right direction. She said: 'So far we have received very positive responses and this is an issue that can be raised and taken back to governors and leadership teams for further discussion.' The uniform reform is just one initiative promoted by Educate and Celebrate, which draws on Ms Barnes' experience as a teacher to train and provide resources for teachers in relation to their LGBT students.

In March, the charity was one of eight national organisations which successfully bid for government funding to tackle homophobic bullying in schools. Each organisation was awarded a share of £2million towards helping prevent and eradicate homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying. Minister for Women and Equalities Jo Swinson, who announced the funding, said in a release: 'The trauma of being bullied at school can stay with you for life, and it is absolutely unacceptable that those who may be gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender are being targeted.

'Teachers need specialist support and training to help them stamp out homophobic bullying, which is why we have funded these excellent projects which are designed to tackle this issue head on.' According to Metro's 2014 Youth Chances Survey, more than half of gay young people have experienced either harassment or discrimination. And lobby group Stonewall found last year that 86per cent of secondary school teachers and 45per cent of primary school teachers said pupils at their school had experienced homophobic bullying.

My first thought other than what a fruitloop was I hope this group isn't recieving any taxpayer funding, which when I read on it was. Why are millions being wasted on these nuttier than squirrel **** so-called charities? End all state funding for the lot of them and end it now.

But here's two points;

1) Boys should dress like boys and girls like girls. A boy dressed in a dress looks ridiculous and is asking to be bullied.
2) Bullying/insults like "that's so gay" is part of character building in school which toughens you up for the real world. That's life.

If my child went to a school that pushed this LGBTXYZ crap I would be up there giving them an earful. I send my children to school to learn maths and english - which a lot of schools can't even manage nowadays with huge percentages not achieving either - not to have them lectured to by social marxist creeps in Stonewall on how it's alright to wear a dress and not alright to say "that's so gay".

Then again if I ever have kids, the way it's going by the time I had them i'd be sent off to a New Labour re-education camp.

Thoughts?

[Empired]

How come it's ok to be casually homophobic and say "that's so gay" but racism is completely out of the question? I find that very much a double standard.

Schools should have a set list of clothing that all pupils are and aren't allowed to wear and ALL items on the list are available to everyone. Maybe they will get bullied but if they wanna do it anyway then let them?? Not my problem.
If boys want to wear skirts, let them wear skirts. Personally I don't see why they'd want to because skirts are a ******* nuisance especially in the wind and even when it's not that windy there's ALWAYS a terrible draught around your crotch ugh.

[FlyingJesus]

Skirts are impractical anyway in most workplaces, just make it all trousers if you want to try de-gendering the clothes and leave it at that. You can then buy whatever trousers fit your body shape and the same with shirts, it can all be a UNIform ie one dress, and then surely everyone wins. Except for the kids who want to wear their own stuff but shut up you're like 6 and uniforms are important in schools. Simple. Sorted.

But of course we need to have an argument because that's how Habbox works so idk what can I attack errr oh ok
"Boys should dress like boys and girls like girls" do you by this mean that you believe that there is an innate sense of gendered dress?

[-:Undertaker:-]

But of course we need to have an argument because that's how Habbox works so idk what can I attack errr oh ok
"Boys should dress like boys and girls like girls" do you by this mean that you believe that there is an innate sense of gendered dress?

I think it stands well as a statement really.

If you turned up in a skirt I would be like "Tom why are you wearing a skirt" or i'd laugh. Because boys don't wear skirts.

[Kyle]

men have worn dresses for hundreds of years so that argument is void and "that's so gay" perpetuates the idea that gay=bad and straight=good because it is said about bad things.

[-:Undertaker:-]

men have worn dresses for hundreds of years so that argument is void

yeah but they don't now and we live now and not in a 1400's Catholic monastery.

and "that's so gay" perpetuates the idea that gay=bad and straight=good because it is said about bad things.

that's such a gay way of looking at things.

[FlyingJesus]

But they do Anyway you are just talking about an effect of socialisation as though it were a natural instinct. As something of a dress historian I can tell you that "dressing like a boy/girl" changes all the time, there is no natural set template for what a person wears. I'm not trying to suggest to you that we should have a Habbox Gentleman's Party where we buy glitzy sequin dresses in spite of our sex because as fabulous as that would be it's not very practical and rebellion for rebellion's sake is stupid (see: idiots in London the last couple of days), I'm just challenging your statement that there are ways that boys and girls must dress because of their sex

[AgnesIO]

Agree with you on the gender-neutral dress, Dan. Absolutely ridiculous. Boy and girls are different. People need to accept that.

However, I disagree that the phrase 'that's so gay' is fine, for the reason that Kyle highlighted.

[Aiden]

It's only 'life' because a lot of people accept it.

If a trans student wants to wear the male uniform they should be able to though with confidence that the school will protect them from bullying. But since they are allowed to wear their chosen uniform so should everyone else, if girls want to wear a skirt that's okay.

[James]

Then again if I ever have kids, the way it's going by the time I had them i'd be sent off to a New Labour re-education camp.

Better than studying a UKIP climatology course

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More on-topic: I don't think gender neutral uniforms will be a bad thing. It just emphasises equality mroe i guess, which is never a bad thing.