Boys aren't Girls and vice-versa (other)

So here's an article that hits on two of the topics we've talked about in class simultaneously:
Students' freedom of expression, and equality of gender in schools.

http://www.ocala.com/article/20090331/ARTICLES/903311011

The gist of the article is that a boy at a high school in Florida dressed for school in a girls' V-neck t-shirt and girls' jeans. The administrators sent him home... not in discipline, but for disruption of the school. The school's policy states that students must dress "in keeping with their gender," but students protest that the masculine clothing worn by some women (specifically lesbians were mentioned) passes without concern.

It's a double standard in that case. I suppose there is something more outrageous in our society about feminine men than there is about masculine women--but that's just not fair. This kid's clothing wasn't revealing or outlandish except for the fact that the person wearing it was a boy... and if you check out the picture on the article, he LOOKS like a girl... granted, not a supermodel or anything, but if these administrators didn't know him and passed him on the street, they'd have been none the wiser. This is not a "drag queen" or anything... just a feminine boy in girls' clothing.

I wish this school would have been more tolerant of this student's freedom of expression. According to the article, past rulings have been in favor of transgender students dressing as the gender they feel they were meant to be (i.e. the opposite of their biological sex), with the argument being that "exposing children to diversity at an early age serves the important social goals of increasing their ability to tolerate such differences and teaching them respect for everyone’s unique personal experience in that ‘Brave New World’ out there.” I agree 100% with that argument. This society cannot shelter kids from the variety of people in the world forever, and cross-dressing is by no means physically harmful to anyone (other than perhaps the risk to the dressing student of being beaten up for being "queer" by intolerant, ignorant bullies).

If the kid feels like girl, let him dress like one. Let's teach the next generation to be more tolerant of the differences among us as people so murders like Gwen Araujo's and Matthew Shephard's are minimized.

~amanda~