Students at Newtown High School of the Performing Arts in Sydney have successfully lobbied the school administration to remove school uniform gender rules. This means the boys and girls may now choose which parts of the school uniform to wear depending on what they’re comfortable with.
Previously, students could do this but only with parental permission and a psychological assessment including physical diagnosis of body or gender dysmorphia. Year 11 student Jo Dwyer said to Fairfax Media, “Our aim was to remove the un-inclusive gender labels from the school uniform, and make it so that anyone could wear any aspect of the uniform without having to go through a long and difficult process.”
A spokeswoman from the Australian Christian Lobby Wendy Francis commented on the topic, “To encourage a guy to wear a dress would just be setting him up for bullying.” For a second there, Wendy must have forgotten that we’re living in the 21st century and working towards a world of acceptance.
The high school also made headlines back in 2014 when year nine students faced Tony Abbott with some tough questions around gay marriage and asylum seekers.
