So what are we supposed to think about this story from The Atlanta Journal Constitution’s website?
Jonathan Escobar says he chooses to wear clothes that express himself. Skinny jeans, wigs, “vintage” clothing and makeup are the staples of his wardrobe.
The simple solution is a ‘gender neutral’ dress code. If a boy can wear it, a girl can. This is already true—for girls. Time for equal rights—for boys. Boys can wear what girls can wear; if it doesn’t distract people when girls wear it, it won’t when boys wear it.
Provided of course, people grow up and stop acting like cavemen.
Kids in public schools may not be free to express themselves exactly how they please. We wouldn’t let a kid go to school naked; we wouldn’t let a kid go to school dressed as a hedgehog. In Arab garb with a fake dynamite belt. As a Nazi SS officer. There’s all kinds of ways to express yourself which could be distracting, offensive, and wrong.
Dressing like a girl isn’t one of them. I’ve read that the school initially said they would permit the attire, but threw in the towel when the fights started. They didn’t say he couldn’t wear ‘costumes.’ They said he had to be more ‘manly.’
They decided to force Jonathan out. Sounds to me like the school is letting the terrorists win.
If these combative students wanted to beat up, say, Asians, because a new child was asian, how would that go?
Let’s try another thought experiment.
What rule would we make for an inter-sex kid? Physically inter-sex; between male and female; the current best practice isn’t to ‘fix’ them at birth anymore, because that didn’t work out well in the past. Intersex people may be working out how they want to live their lives. Sometimes they find they need to change their presentation. Honestly, I think that this school district would make an accommodation for that situation. Because you can see intersex. Things you can see are real.
Things inside our heads are harder to understand. But they are just as real.
Kids with ADD used to be called ‘bad students.’ Kids with dyslexia used to be called “stupid.” Alcoholics just needed more willpower, and they could stop drinking after the normal number of martinis.
What is the core of identity? What is a fad, a phase, a whim? We know that gender is at our core. When Escobar says he’s not cross-dressing, what he means is, this isn’t a fetish, a game or a costume. This is who he is.
I think he should be as free to express himself as any boy or girl in the school—in any way allowed to either boys or girls. No special rules. One rule for all.
Because some people are a bit of both physically; some are mentally; and some people are born in the wrong kind of body.
And it costs nothing, absolutely nothing, to let people be who they are.
I can tell you, that a place where someone feels safe, being who they are, while still being different, is a place where everyone can learn.
It’s worth it to make schools into places like that.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
In regard to your questions about school standards, I think it’s worthwhile to note that the school, when originally asked if his dress would be tolerated, said “yes.” It has been reported that Jonathan was upfront about how he dressed and was told it would be acceptable. It was only after he started getting harassed did the school change course, using the rule that student clothing can’t be “disruptive.” This leaves me with the strong indication that the school has made a mistake here. This isn’t about some predefined standards being flouted. This is about a school punishing the harassed party rather than the harassers, as so often happens with gender issues in schools.
I didn’t get that from the article; in that case, the school is simply giving up. Jerks.
Putting kids in uniforms or normative clothing doesn’t actually provide any meaningful protection. Gender non-conforming kids express their identities in more ways that their clothing; it’s in every word, every gesture.
If the school knows it cannot keep Jonathan safe, the school has worse problems than a flamboyant teenager. There are other kids at risk there.
Gender non-conforming kids are the canary in the coal mine; right behind them are other kids; special needs; autism; overweight; other differences. In a school where there is no solution to bullying, all these kids are suffering, I can guarantee it.
I’m sorry if I seemed to defend the school’s policy. I wasn’t. The article seems framed to suggest that Escobar is demanding ‘special rights,’ which is the conservative code word for denying GLTBQ people safety and freedom.
The Marriage Equality movement is an example of what i’m talking about; take a set of rules that the culture accepts and uses and now make those rules applicable to everyone, regardless of gender. Equality isn’t asking for special rights.
Sorry if I was confusing.
You summed it up quite well, I thought. And it is especially important to note that when rights are denied glbtq kids, you can bet that other populations are being abused by the system (and their peers) as well. It seems hard for people to make that connection – that is, if you can be marginalized or unprotected because of your gender expression or orientation, those same people are likely to marginalize you for many other reasons. Compassion, empathy, respect and tolerance have to be taught – and the schools should be teaching it, as they interact with the children daily and observe when people are bullied or tormented.
The school’s attitude should be one of distance from the issue and approach it for what it is…a social issue. Not a political oversite issue. If the child chooses to dress cross and the wardrobe is socially acceptable, then school has no actionable cause to take…neither promoting nor discouraging. The promoting and discouraging behaivor belongs with society, not the governing bodies. The harrassment may, will, and is expected to come from society. If the local nature of society there (student body) chooses to harrass the cross dresser, that’s their choice and the cross dresser has to deal with it. If the harrassment is socially acceptable harrassment, standard verbal teasing, staring, laughing, loneliness, separation from the group, then the cross dresser has no actionable cause. Only when the harassment crosses into rights violation does society lose it’s protection of their societal expression (harrasment) and the issue is resolved by rules, governement, lawsuits, policies, dress code, etc…
In other words:
-school…stay out of it.
-Cross dresser…live with the ridicule or learn to channel your self expression in a less attention attracting way.
-student body…do what’s natural in every sense of what natural means. learned behaivor through life, learned behaivor through this experience itself. every action, any action, all action is not to be bound. Instinctive behaivor.
If that includes totally acceptance…great. If that includes total social torture of the cross dresser, that’s allowed too. but just don’t VIOLATE his rights. And here we enter legalities such as constitution rights to education. rights to not be murdered. rights to not be socially unacceptable harrassed. (yes that implies there are forms of harrasment that are socially acceptable…defined by what’s natural of the group more than anything else).
The last piece to talk about that correctly slots the governing bodies in their roles involved here is what to do when the harrassment is just too much, but doesn’t violate rights. It is the role of other voices in society to correct the obscene voices in society, but not through political oversight (dress code in this case).
Yes, your right to swing your fist ends at my nose, Ayn.
The reality is, the only harassment the school can intervene in is physical harassment, and to a lesser degree name calling. The school can also mediate a series of interactions between harasser and harass-ee, which is to the mutual benefit of both in many instances.
I’ve seen it work. Over and over again.
The school cannot mandate that someone be friends with someone, or mandate how someone feels about someone; it is well within it’s rights to have codes of behavior which govern interaction. These codes exist in the free-market workplace. I don’t get to call my boss a whore-monger or the receptionist a slut. Even if they are.
Haters will always be free to hate, and they will always be able to express that hate, one way or another. They don’t need you to stand up for them.
I suspect if the school was private, and if the private school had all this spelled out in a contract as a condition of attending the school, your libertarian purism would be mollified. It is only the fact that the government, via public education, is involved that bothers you.
Then win a seat on the school board, make your arguments to the voters, come out strongly in favor of the lord of the flies as a pedagogical technique, and see where that gets you.
So, let’s pretend there’s a, I don’t know, evolving social contract which recognizes that intervening in the unfolding of ignorance into abuse into violence is worthwhile. Because it is ignorance which underlies the behavior. Retarded racial theories lay beneath the holocaust (he says, Godwining the thread) Retarded racial theories lay beneath slavery and Jim Crow. Retarded believes vis a vis sexual preference and gender identity lay beneath homophobia and transphobia.
Schools do not exist to coddle the ignorant, or reassure people that their ancient fairy tales must rule all modern human interaction.
The civil rights movement acting through the supreme court led us out of a persistent pervasive racism which could have torn the country apart. There are few today who have any problem with that. Those who do are generally understood to be insane.
Call it social engineering, and go and live tax free in a trailer in a national forrest if it offends you.
I enjoy civilization, personally. The fact that my property values have continued to rise while most in this benighted country have plummetted is a sign that people are voting with their feet to live our little experiment; our socialist utopia. We like it here. we pay a lot of taxes. We have small houses, yards, and apartments. The traffic is mind boggling.
And we don’t nail innocent gay people to fences or drag black men to death behind pick-up trucks.
We are free to marry who we love.
Folks like you are free to go and live tax free in rural hell-holes surrounded by ignorant, unvaccinated red-necks, from whom you are free to protect yourself with as many firearms as you care to purchase. I’m sure there will be no heavy handed tolerance curriculum there to impare your children’s freedom to call the boy in a dress a faggot and make him cry, for the good of the body politic.
You go live there. Vote with your feet. I feel sorry your children. They’d be happier going to our school, but it’s your right to screw your kids up.
But you and your kids don’t get to screw my kids up. Not where I live.
You enjoy your freedom. I’ll enjoy mine.
Wow, amazing, your response made my night.