A college at one of Britain's oldest universities has rewritten its 650-year-old dress code to allow transgender students to dress how they choose at formal events with campaigners hoping other colleges will follow suit.
Mark Elliot, the dean of St Catharine's College at Cambridge University, reworded the dress code after a campaign spearheaded by American transgender student Charlie Northrop, 25, who transitioned from male to female earlier this year.
Previously male students had to wear smart trousers and jacket with a tie at formal events while women had to wear a skirt and blouse or dress but now students can choose to wear what they like as long as it is "suitably smart dress".
"'Smart dress' is defined without reference to considerations of gender identity or expression," states the revised dress code published on the college's website.
A spokesman from the college declined to comment further.
Northrop, a post-graduate student from Richmond, Indiana who is studying classics, welcomed the move that comes as transgender rights become hotly contested globally.
U.S. President Barack Obama notched up a presidential first by using the word "transgender" in this year's State of the Union address.
"Men can wear dresses, women can wear suits, and non-binary people are free to define the outfits that feel most appropriate to them in a formal setting," Northrop told the Cambridge University student newspaper, Varsity.
