Ian now Isabel as Oxford tutor changes sex (Daily Telegraph)
Ian now Isabel as Oxford tutor changes sex STUDENTS receive lots of bumf about this and that, most of which sees the bin. But a missive just sent to classics undergraduates at Queen’s College, Oxford is a potential candidate for lamination. “Your tutor in classics, Ian Ruffell, has decided to undergo gender reassignment,” writes senior tutor Professor Madden. “The next time you meet him he will be living in the opposite gender role. He would like to be known as Isabel.” Prof Madden invites students to discuss any changes they would like in their tutorials and asks that the situation be accepted in a calm manner.. “None of the students has been to see me yet,” Prof Madden tells me, “but I expect some to. “Ian Ruffell is a visiting lecturer,” he adds, “but if he were a Fellow we would approach the matter differently, although of course the law would stop us doing anything about it.” Ruffell’s decision is not unprecedented. Commander Simon Stone, a bursar at Exeter College, became Susan Marshall. But Prof Madden views this case differently. “This is a slightly more serious problem,” he says,”as Ian is dealing directly with students. As you can imagine, it was the first time I’ve had to write a letter of this kind.” © Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1999. |
