By Ronny Reyes and Doree Lewak
The historic all-boys Browning School on the Upper East Side says it will now begin accepting trans students who identify as male as part of a new gender policy, infuriating some of its deep-pocketed parents.
“As a school that proudly celebrates and affirms boys at every stage of their lives, we acknowledge that the many ways in which gender can be lived and expressed are vastly different now than at our founding in 1888,” the prestigious private Manhattan academy recently wrote in a letter to parents.
The elite K-12 school — which costs $62,500 a year and was founded to educate brothers Percy and John D. Rockefeller — added on its website, “The Browning School will consider for admission any child who (i) identifies as a boy or (ii) was assigned male at birth, who wishes to join a boys’ school and is well-served by our mission.
“We will not consider for admission a student who identifies as a girl at the time of application,” the school said.
Browning added that if an admitted student no longer identifies as a boy, the school will work to accommodate the young person.
But a Browning parent fumed to The Post on Tuesday, “This decision was very upsetting — and it kind of defeats the entire purpose of sending my kids to an all-boys school.
“I would have had my kids attend any other school if I knew this was going to happen.”
The school declined a Post request Tuesday to elaborate further on its new policy.
The academy said in its letter to parents that the school had been evaluating its admissions policy during years of public discourse over gender and diversity.
“Like many schools around the world in recent years, we have witnessed changing cultural concepts, vocabulary and identities with regard to gender,” the letter said.
“As a single-gender school that educates boys starting in kindergarten, we are engaging with how gender is viewed today, particularly by the students whom we serve.”
Jacqueline Toboroff, an author and anti-woke advocate based in Manhattan, criticized the decision as the “death knell” for single-sex schools who take that route.
“People specifically send their kids to single-sex schools for very unique reasons,” Toboroff told The Post.
“They’re f–king with the wrong people,” she said of schools changing their admittance policies in such a way. “They’re f–king with people who can spend $50,000 on a gala that they don’t even attend.
“These people are not going to put up with this,” Toboroff said. “We saw it during COVID. These parents who are liberal who pretend to be into this s–t were the first to move to their second and third homes in the Hamptons and Florida. They are not going to put up with this bulls–t.”
The Browning School is only the latest single-gender prestigious academy in the city to admit trans students.
In 2018, both the Spence and Brearley all-girls schools announced they would be accepting all applicants who identify as female.
“Brearley reaffirms its mission as a leader in girls’ education, and going forward will consider all applicants who identify as girls,” the school said in its policy change.
Brearley, founded in 1884, also noted that if a current student no longer identified a girl, they would still be allowed to complete their studies at the academy.
It remains unclear how many other gendered private schools in New York City accept trans students.
