skirtcafe.org

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/un ... nners.html

Article about St Catharine’s College, founded in 1473, has always insisted on male students wearing a jacket and tie and smart trousers with an academic gown, while women, who were first admitted to the college in 1979, have had to wear a skirt or a dress.

Centuries of tradition has now been overturned thanks to a campaign by a transgender student, who has persuaded the college that women should be allowed to wear trousers and men should be allowed to wear skirts.

St Catharine’s is believed to be the first college at the 800-year-old university to change its formal dress code, though others are now expected to follow suit.
The campaign was led by American Charlie Northrop, 25, who is studying for a PhD in Classics and began transitioning from male to female earlier this year.

She said: "I'm over the moon, it's absolutely wonderful that it's now been passed.

"It wasn't that there was much resistance, it's just the new wording had to be sound and there was a lot of conversations between the college and the committee.

"We had to come up with a way of proposing a new dress code that would omit gender specification but would still keep formality.

"For instance the college wanted to ensure those wearing suits would still wear ties but female suits don't have ties so we've worded it so that if you have buttons down the left side you don't have to wear a tie but down the right side you do."


more on the link above

Slowly but surely

Have I missed something, this is OK for “transgender people” and everybody excepts it, so later on every “man” who is seen wearing a skirt must be “transgender” NO I'M A MAN who like wearing a skirt I'm NOT transgender. I don't want to be labelled into groups just to make people feel they are doing the right thing.

Sorry Richard, you may have missed the headline
“ Cambridge college allows men to wear skirts at formal dinners “

“Centuries of tradition has now been overturned thanks to a campaign by a transgender student, who has persuaded the college that women should be allowed to wear trousers and men should be allowed to wear skirts. “
So the campaign was led by a TG person, so what ?

If the campaign were led by a Hob Goblin would you feel that you as a skirt wearer would now be labelled as a Hob Goblin ?
At least Charlie Northrop took a stand .

Be thankful for progress after all if “The Establishment” after 800 years can accept change then there is hope for us all be it Hob Goblins or Men !

Yes a win is a win no matter how it is brought to fruition.

Part way down the telegraph page is a poll which asks whether the rules should be changed. Possible answers are:

Yes - it is the 21st century after all
No - ancient traditions should be preserved
and
Don't care so long as they wear something

Scarily the current scores are 29%, 49% and 22% respectively. That would suggest that almost half the population object to a man in a dress or skirt.

Fortunately our everyday experiences of wearing skirts in public suggest that those numbers are nowhere near representative of the population as a whole.

Have fun,


Ian.

I think you mean half the population that also reads the Telegraph. That wouldn't be unsurprising! Luckily that would also mean a much smaller percentage that actively objects to men wearing skirts. I'd wager that the vast majority of people no longer mind!

Milfmog wrote:Part way down the telegraph page is a poll which asks whether the rules should be changed. Possible answers are:

Yes - it is the 21st century after all
No - ancient traditions should be preserved
and
Don't care so long as they wear something

Scarily the current scores are 29%, 49% and 22% respectively. That would suggest that almost half the population object to a man in a dress or skirt.

Fortunately our everyday experiences of wearing skirts in public suggest that those numbers are nowhere near representative of the population as a whole.

Have fun,


Ian.

Also, the "yes" vote has been split (IMHO) to make the "no" vote stand out more.

And the question was about formal wear. Maybe if it was about casual wear - e.g. what students should be allowed to wear to lectures - the "no" vote would have been lower.

Do people assume a man in a dress (however formal) is "dressing down"?

Interesting article, but I was really saddened to see the rampant, hateful, deluge of transphobic and homophobic comments posted by readers.

Stevie D wrote:Interesting article, but I was really saddened to see the rampant, hateful, deluge of transphobic and homophobic comments posted by readers.

I stopped reading the comments below a long, long time ago....