In case it makes you feel any better, the United States isn’t the only country dealing with social issues surrounding “transgender children” and schools. England is getting in on the action as well, but in this case we’re not talking about bathroom access and privacy concerns. Since school uniforms are the norm in Great Britain, such rules lead to the obvious question of what to wear if one of your male students insists they self identify as a girl or vice versa. In the tolerant manner they’re well known for, the Brits in charge of at least some of the schools are adopting a do whatever suits you attitude. (Public Radio International)

In the UK, pretty much every child has to wear school uniforms. In most cases, that means girls in skirts and boys in pants.

If you don’t fit into one of these binary gender categories, this distinction can cause a lot of anguish. And this is something that an increasing number of schools in the UK are beginning to acknowledge.

Earlier this week, it was announced that more than 80 publically funded schools across the country have now adopted gender neutral uniform policies.

That means that the schools have either removed any reference to boys and girls in their dress codes, or in some cases, have expressly told children that they can wear whatever part of the school uniform they feel comfortable with.

The “LGBT campaigner” they spoke with, Zitta Lomax, was mystified as to why people would care. She explains that her own daughter identifies as gender fluid and has faced clothing issues as a result. She bemoans the fact that, “girls wear blouses and boys wear shirts and ties,” which is an example of dividing the children by gender as soon as they walk into the school.

Well, Zitta, in a more sane world of bygone days, that would have pretty much been the point. We do “gender” children (Good Lord in Heaven, how I’m sick of people making verbs out of everything these days) as soon as they walk in the classroom because there are two genders. That’s not an attempt to disrupt your sensibilities. It’s just science, which they used to teach in schools when I was growing up.

While it may come as a surprise to regular readers, this story doesn’t really put me off my feed and if that’s how the schools want to handle it, so be it. First of all, it’s not America, so they don’t have the same rights as we do to begin with. But even ignoring that, we’re not talking about forcing underage girls to shower with the boys. It’s a school uniform. I’m generally in favor of uniforms in schools to start with and seeing somebody in the opposite of the traditional garb for their gender isn’t going to kill anyone.

True, it raises more questions about what’s going on in these kids’ homes and how their parents are impacting their life choices, but that’s really an issue for them to handle. Children are easily influenced by their parents and one can see how this may cause them some problems down the road, but it doesn’t cross the line for any sort of official intervention. So get used to seeing boys in dresses on your next trip across the pond, but don’t worry too much. After all, it’s not as bad as plate of haggis, is it?