TRI In The News
Virginia School District May Force Cross-Dressing Students to Wear 'Gender Appropriate' Clothes
From The Daily Mail
Original article available here
Cross-dressing high school students could be forced to wear 'gender appropriate' clothing- if a proposal by a Virginia school district is approved.
Several male students in the Suffolk district wear girls' clothes including dresses, wigs and make-up to school.
But some teachers and administrators say students who cross-dress are a distraction and are even putting themselves in danger.
The Suffolk Board of Education will meet tonight to discuss the proposal which explicitly bans clothing 'not in keeping with a student's gender,' distracts other children from lessons or creates health issues. If approved, the new regulation would come into effect next year.
District spokeswoman Bethanne Bradshaw insisted that there was plenty of time for debate.
The proposal arose after reports during a school board meeting about cross dressing male students who had to use staff toilets because they had been threatened in the men's bathroom.
School Board Vice Chair Thelma Hinton told My Fox8 TV: 'My main concern is [the] safety of those individuals,'
'Freedom of expression is good, but there is a limitation. Anytime there is a threat upon a child, to me, that's where you draw the line of freedom of expression.'
Meanwhile civil liberties organisations say the proposed ban is a 'clear First Amendment issue' that must not be brought in.
The Supreme Court has ruled that students can express themselves with clothing with the proviso that it doesn't cause a 'substantial' disruption in school.,
In the past, white students were banned from wearing Confederate flag T-shirts in mainly black schools because of the disruption it posed.
John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, a Virginia-based civil liberties group, said it's the teachers that have a problem with the dress rather than the students.
'But a kid wearing a dress or something, or a girl wearing a tuxedo, most kids today don't care,' Whitehead told FoxNews.com. 'So it wouldn't cause a substantial disruption.'
He added: 'To me, it's a clear First Amendment issue. It's ridiculous.'...
'We have to teach them that they have these [First Amendment] rights or else they'll grow up and think they don't have them. Today, gender is a subjective thing.'
One senior Sean Artis, at King's Fork High School, told My Fox43 TV he is against the proposal because 'people express themselves' in different ways.
Artis said a former classmate who was openly gay dressed in women's clothes every day -- and was never a distraction.
'I've talked with the guy and he's perfectly fine,' Artis told MyFox43tv.com. 'There is nothing wrong with him. It's just the way he feels and if he feels he can express himself that way, he should.'
The 13-point proposal also aims to ban sexually suggestive clothing, baggy pants, any item of clothing that promotes alcohol or drugs, clothes with slogans or words across the buttocks, nightwear and head covering unless worn for religious or medical reasons.
Suffolk Public Schools, based in Virginia, is responsible for around 14,000 students in 19 schools, including three high schools.
