On the third of January 2022, Pink News published an article stating how the Girls’ Day School Trust - a ‘sisterhood’ of 26 girls’ schools in the UK - will now not be allowing transgender girls to be admitted as students. 

Experts themselves have said the decision is ‘unwise at best’, and students have also expressed their unhappiness with the policy. The new GDST policy states that students will be admitted ‘based on legal sex’, and cases of transgender boys and non-binary students wanting to join the schools will be treated ‘case-by-case’. 

The CEO of the GDST, Cheryl Giovannoni, stated these reasons for the decision: “Under current laws and guidance, the GDST believes that an admissions policy based on gender identity rather than the legal sex recorded on a student’s birth certificate could jeopardise the status of GDST schools as single-sex schools under the act. We will continue to monitor the legal interpretation of this exemption.”

Experts in the field have emphasised that transgender girls will not ‘jeopardise’ girls’ schools, and that the GDST’s decision should be reconsidered.

Essentially, it boils down to this. Since transgender girls are girls, why can’t they attend a girls’ school?

Sign the petition to help show the GDST that their decision is not one their students, parents, and peers are happy with.