'Feminist' Germaine Greer has faced criticism for further attacks on the transgender community after condemning Cambridge University's Murray Edwards College for changing its admissions policy to allow female identified transgender students to attend the institute.
Murray Edwards College was founded as a single-sex female only college in 1954, but has announced that it will now accept any person who identifies as female.
'At the admissions level, we will consider any student who, at the point of application, identifies as female and, where they have been identified as male at birth, has taken steps to live in the female gender,' the college has said in a statement.
Since the establishment of the Equality Act of 2010, it has been illegal to discriminate against transgender people, and to demand that trans people provide proof of their gender where a cisgender person would not be. This includes areas such as bathroom facilities, changing areas, and single-sex only institutions such as Murray Edwards College. Despite this, very few single-sex institutions have policies in place for transgender people.
Despite this, Germaine Greer has spoken out against this change. Speaking to the Daily Telegraph, she said 'It's a silly situation, and I'm sure that Murray Edwards will have their own reasons. But it's a difficult relationship, having transgender people in an all-female environment.
'If Murray Edwards really don't believe that gender is binary, then they really shouldn't be a single sex college. Their position is ridiculous. The only sane thing for them to do is to cease discriminating on the basis of assigned gender of any kind.
'There are plenty of women who have served their time in women's colleges, who are pretty whiskery, but nobody did a DNA test on them. But they had to live women's lives - with all the disabilities that that entails.'
This is not the first time where Greer has spoken out against the transgender community, having previously stated that transgender women are 'some kind of ghastly parody', and that trans women cannot be women as they 'don't know what it's like to have a big, hairy, smelly vagina'.
She has also stated that 'because you lop off your dick and then wear a dress doesn't make you a fucking woman.'
Despite this outlash from Greer, the President of Murray Edwards College, Dame Barbara Stocking, has defended the decision.
'We are a college that is open to all outstanding young women and so it is absolutely right, both legally and within our set of values, for anyone who identifies as female to be able to apply to study with us.' She said. 'Society is changing and there are now a greater understanding of the complexity of gender.'
The College has also said that it will accept existing Cambridge students if they transition whilst attending.
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