It has also emerged that single-sex schools such as Jersey College for Girls, Victoria College, De La Salle and Beaulieu could be breaking the Discrimination (Jersey) Law 2013 if they refuse admission to a student who is transitioning sexes, for example by refusing to admit a male-to-female transsexual student to an all-girls school.
The Education Department said that in the past two years a small number of secondary school students had identified as transgender, a decision which can affect everything from the toilets and changing rooms they use to the way they are referred to by teachers and the language used more generally in classrooms.
For example, teachers are encouraged to refrain from using phrases such as ‘ladies’, ‘gents’, ‘boys’, and ‘girls’ when referring to groups of students, and schools are advised to avoid segregation in physical exercise lessons as much as possible, such as separating boys for rugby coaching and girls for netball.
The numbers are too small for the department to give any further detail. However, it confirmed that all the cases so far had involved secondary school students.
Julian Radcliffe, the director of inclusion and early intervention at the Education Department, said that, ideally, all toilets in schools should be unisex to reduce problems for transgender students and promote equality.
Although there are no plans to make changes to existing school buildings, Mr Radcliffe said that it was good practice for education establishments to have single-stalled toilets that could be used by anyone and that consideration would be given to such provision in new buildings.
Mr Radcliffe, who put together the department’s transgender guidance for Jersey schools, said that unisex toilets was one way that problems for transgender students could be minimised.
‘Most schools in England do not have single-sex toilets,’ he said.
The guidance, which sets out what the department expects of its teachers in such cases, states that transitioning children must be allowed to choose which toilets they wish to use.
It adds: ‘If, for whatever reason, a child wishes for increased privacy, then a single-stall toilet must be made available to them. This could be a disabled toilet. However, a child wishing for increased privacy who does not identify as having a disability must not be forced to use such a toilet.
‘Ideally, all toilets in schools would be single-stalled toilets available to all children. The use of toilet monitors has also proved successful in ensuring children feel safe using the toilet which corresponds to their gender identity.’
