Gulfport Trans Girl Misses Graduation After Refusing To Dress As Boy

[Nevilledog]

https://www.mississippifreepress.org/33245/gulfport-trans-girl-misses-graduation-after-refusing-to-dress-as-boy

A 17-year-old transgender girl missed her graduation at Harrison Central High School on Saturday after a federal judge allowed the school to prohibit her from wearing a dress under her gown and ordered her to wear traditional male attire instead.

The Gulfport teen, identified only by the initials “L.B.” in court documents, told CNN on Sunday that she skipped her graduation rather than “show up and be forced to wear something that’s totally different from myself—my character.”

“It was detrimental to know that I won’t be able to experience my graduation the way I had envisioned it and planned it for so many years—and I’ve been going to this school actively being me with my teachers, my peers, the other students in my class,” she said.

The lawsuit, which L.B’s parents Henry Brown and Samantha Brown filed with the support of the ACLU of Mississippi last week, said school officials told L.B. on May 9 that she must abide by “the HCHS gender-based dress code policy for graduation, which provides that girls must wear a white dress and dress shoes and that boys must wear a white button-down shirt, black dress pants, black dress shoes, and a tie or bowtie.” During a hearing last Friday, the district noted that L.B. and her mother had previously signed a form agreeing to abide by the graduation dress code.

“She identifies as female, so we went by the female dress code,” L.B.’s mother Samantha Brown told CNN. “We felt like we were abiding by the dress code.”

*snip*

[Skittles]

1. ridiculous and inhumane

she needs to sue

[marble falls]

2. The crazy part of this - in the '70s some straight males in HS sued to wear skirts because ..

... schools wouldn't let them wear shorts to school in the warm months at a time most schools weren't air-conditioned.

Those boys got to wear skirts and culottes.

Just them wear what they want to wear. It's under a gown fer Pete's sake. Who cares? Whose rights are being crossed?

[BlackSkimmer]

3. Wow! I graduated in the 70s, and it's damn hot here.

I can’t imagine any of the boys I knew wearing skirts or culottes! But I imagine they’d keep it quiet lol.

On the other hand, most of us unzipped our gowns pretty quickly.

Where was this?

[marble falls]

5. They did it because the school claimed it couldn't change rules mid term and that while ...

... rules explicitly said boys couldn't wear shorts, there were no rules on who could wear skirts. In the end I believe the school found a way to change the rule regarding shorts.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

4. Hey, cis people: They're coming for you too. Same high school banned a girl from wearing pants.

https://www.wafb.com/2023/05/22/transgender-student-who-sued-over-graduation-dress-code-tells-her-story/

As it turned out, L.B. wasn’t the only student who didn’t walk at graduation because of the dress code policy. At the ceremony, Jai Dallas was pulled from the lineup just moments before receiving her diploma.

Caren Dallas, Jai’s mother, says a supervisor told her daughter that she could not wear black pants underneath her gown.

“She tells her that she can take her pants off and walk the stage, but she needed white shoes. So, she could walk in her underwear, but she can’t walk in pants,” an emotional Caren Dallas said. “This is something that she achieved, you know, that she worked hard for.”

“Several adults told her that her attire was OK, and they waited. She’s been here since 4 o’clock. Why didn’t nobody say anything?” said her aunt, Rasheedah Jackson.

[Solly Mack]

7. Yep

[Nevilledog]

8. Yeah... Saw that.

[Solly Mack]

6. K&R

[nolabear]

9. Ah crap. I didn't know it was Gulfport.

I’ve spent a lot of time there. It’s so strange; the coast is a very weird combination of things. Lots of worldly people but lots of screaming conservatives. Poor kid. I hope she has a future elsewhere.