International Grammar School (IGS) in Sydney has announced that its school uniforms will now be gender fluid, according to .
“[Changing the uniform policy] is not a hard step to take, it’s not fighting IGS’ culture, which is an inclusive, celebratory culture,’ said IGS principal Shauna Colnan
“It’s almost like for those students who do identify as far more gender fluid, the uniform has been a refreshing way for them to identify that,’ said IGS Principal Shauna Colnan.
Colnan said the decision was made after male born students began wearing the girls’ uniform and vice versa.
“We are letting kids be who they are. We agreed it would be best to equip students for the world… to empower students and letting them be who they are without restrictions.
“We had a student who identified as agender and teachers were worried about [them] asking not to wear a tie and if [they] would get into trouble for not wearing one.
“I said let’s make them safe as they could possibly be.”
However, the reaction from IGS alumi has been mixed, with one person writing on a Facebook group for former students: “Personally I always considered the standard of my education to be more important than what I was wearing, but that’s just my archaic view of the world.”
Another wrote: “My issue is the ensuing censorship policies that might occur because you didn’t choose to respect someone’s concocted list of 300+ pronouns. This is a case of pandering to people who feel sorry for themselves and demand you change language for them. It’s a matter of feeling over fact.”
The same commenter said that being non-binary was “a meme based upon false suppositions”.
IGS is known as an LGBT+ friendly school and has a coalition of Rainbow Families.
Source: Facebook
The majority of former students on the Facebook group were in support of the new uniforms and questioned those who saw the change as “censorship”.
“There is absolutely nothing ‘unhealthy’ (emotionally, psychologically or physically) with people choosing to dress themselves as a way that makes them comfortable,” wrote one user.
Source: Facebook
Another said: “Just clarifying that you are super worked up and cranky because you prefer girls wearing girl dresses and boys wearing boy pants? Or do you have children at the school? Look in the mirror and I think you’ll find a precious snowflake staring back at you.”
