Managing Nuance

Some days you can see the Guardian editors at work, working out which stories belong together. On Wednesday they paired two transgender stories, illustrating very different approaches to this frighteningly complex issue.

In the first, the WI reaffirmed its policy of inclusivity. They’ve a proud tradition of taking progessive,tolerant stands on controversial issues, and were clearly not going to be stampeded into a kneejerk reaction. Melissa Green had thoroughly researched members’ attitudes, so she could confidently assert that “We’ve not been afraid to tackle things that cause us or other people discomfort in an effort to inform and educate and move society forward…We’re not always going to agree on everything. I don’t know why anybody would expect us to.”

From the sublime to the ridiculous. the government has been considering what advice to give t single-sex schools who are asked to accept transgender pupils. Education secreary Gilian Keegan is confident that this is really pretty simple - “We have to be sensible and have a big dose of common sense here. We can’t mix up sex and gender. We’ve seen what happened in Scotland when it got that round the wrong way.” So girls’ schools are free to reject applications from pupils who identify as female but whose legal sex is male. Neat and easy for the schools, and the girls for whom Keegan is obviously concerned. For the transgender students, not so much.