This November the Church of England that apart from being an Established religion of Anglican Christianity here in the UK is a substantial provider of both primary and secondary education though its schools that are open to all, made a pronouncement around gender equality in a set of guidance issued to Heads and others running them.
In it it was clearly established that a culture of humiliation, intimidation and ridicule was not to be accepted within school for children with gender identity issues or have differing forms of sexuality from the mainstream was not going to be tolerated.
This covered staff but also from other children in the classroom.
In this the issue of childhood exploration of roles and identities through play such as dress up was addressed by saying a boy who wishes to wear a Tutu or a Girl who wishes to dress in attire associated with boys roles would be accepted without anyone saying "Don't be silly, pick something else" or with any acceptance of the same from that child's peers.
Some in the UK media read that as saying ordinarily in a class a boy might wear a Tutu but this wasn't about uniform so much as play and exploration of roles through it.
What was made very plain is in so far as presenting as either non-binary or in a gender different to that assigned goes, this is to be accepted and a child would be permitted to wear school uniform from with the range that in their opinion best suits them as that child.
In other words uniform was to be upheld but in a form allowing expression of a child's gender identity. Something socially liberal but fairly traditional sorts like me would agree with and indeed would of willing engaged with had it been an option for us at that time in our childhood.
While I'm not an Anglican I find much within this I can agree with as we do not send children into school to be intimidated or humiliated for just being the gender and sexuality they truly are.
Boy me back thensuffered in school from that and it's about time we put a stop to it.
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