A women-only Cambridge University college has changed its policy to allow any students who "identify" as female to apply.

Until this year, Murray Edwards college required all applicants to be “legally defined as female”. But now the college’s council has approved an update to its entry criteria, stating that it will accept any student “who at the point of application identifies as a woman”.

The college, whose alumni include Sue Perkins, Claudia Winkelman and Tilda Swinton, states on its website that “with so much gender inequality still in the world there is a role for a College able to focus on outstanding young women, their learning and skills for life."

The change was made after a motion on transgender was passed by the College Council, a group of academics and teaching fellows.

In a statement published after the vote, the council stated that it has “sympathy with the idea that gender is not binary” and that “narrow gender identities” are damaging to “wider society”.

Its statement adds: “In relation to current students, we consider each case on an individual basis, focusing on what is in the best interests of that individual, in full discussion with that student.

“Should the student decide that they would prefer to be in a mixed college if transitioning to male or if rejecting a binary gender category, the College would be fully supportive of a transfer.”