School backs down and allows student to bring "My Little Pony" backpack

[davidn3600]

The 9-year-old boy who was told last week that he couldn’t bring his My Little Pony backpack to Candler Elementary School in Buncombe County, N.C. will get to attend school with his trusty bag in tow after all.

The boy’s mother, Noreen Bruce, met with school district officials on Thursday to hash out their disagreements, reports The Asheville Citizen-Times.

The dismayed mother had pulled her fifth-grade son, Grayson, out of school last week after school officials allegedly asserted that the My Little Pony bag and various other My Little Pony trappings had become a “trigger for bullying” and were too distracting to other students.

According to both the elder Bruce and her son, other kids had been picking on the boy with flurries of insults and physical assaults because he is a boy and the Hasbro-generated franchise on which the backpack is based is geared toward girls.

http://news.yahoo.com/friendship-really-magic-school-pivots-allow-boy-little-175021374.html

[Nika]

1. I remember the stir when I took my coat off in second grade one morning to reveal I had the audacity

to go to school wearing one of my sister's dresses. I was in serious trouble then back in 1962. But I am transgender, always was and will be and should of been allowed to wear the clothes I felt appropriate for the gender I knew myself to be. I'm not saying that is true with this boy, but I empathize with what he has had to go through just to be able to bring his personal backpack to school. Life ain't ever easy if one does not fit a common norm; I wish him and his family the best.

[Art_from_Ark]

2. I was once taunted

for bringing a Mary Poppins lunch box to school. It was just one kid, though. He ran up behind me as I was entering the schoolyard, grabbed my lunch box, ran around with it in circles for a while, then threw it. The lunch box itself survived the impact, but the glass Thermos bottle inside did not. After that, my mother got me a construction worker's lunch box, which solved that problem, but I would rather have had a Star Trek, Lost In Space, or Wild, Wild West lunch box.

[Cha]

4. How freaking traumatic for a kid..

something you don't forget.

Mary Poppins wasn't just for girls, either, btw.

[Art_from_Ark]

5. I still remember the kid's name, too

Apparently HE thought Mary Poppins was just for girls.

[Cha]

8. And, mustn't co-mingle.. :)

[Art_from_Ark]

12. I used to sit by girls all the time at lunch

and my 3rd grade teacher called that "unhealthy". After that, I began to think there was something seriously wrong with girls

[Cha]

13. Oh dear... and then later..

Eureka!

[Cha]

3. Oh dear.. not "generated for girls"!!!

This part is weird.. from your link..

"In a local television news interview, Grayson Bruce had admitted that most of the characters on the My Little Pony television show are female. Nevertheless, he called the show “really not that girly.”

"admitted".. maybe he likes girls or not.. wth! Analyze the crap out of the kid..

So glad though that the school is looking at it like this..

“We sincerely regret that the issue of being told to leave the bookbag at home was perceived as blaming Grayson. While that was not the intent, the perception became reality. We support Grayson bringing the bookbag to school.”

“We appreciate all the support from the bottom of our hearts,” Noreen Bruce told the Citizen-Times. “That outpouring of love from everyone has been unbelievable and has given us the opportunity to shine a light on the different kinds of hurts kids experience at school.”

mahalo for the report, davidn

[roguevalley]

6. Transformers is almost completely male. Does that mean I can't have my

toys because I'm a girl? Jeez, people are petty. As a teacher, that would NEVER have happened in my room.

[Journeyman]

7. Perhaps now, the School will attempt to do its duty & restrain & retrain the bullies among them. . .

rather than accede to the bullies' perversion and make the victim kowtow to other's perceived acceptable behavior.

I don't believe it'll happen, but life's full of surprises.

[glowing]

9. I think all of this gender identity from society onto children is disgusting.

There should be nothing wrong with a boy playing with dolls or a girl playing with tonka trucks (of which I did both and my male cousin did both). I have huge issues with certain colors being unacceptable for male genders (or so exclusively "girlie&quot . As for dresses in general, many girls hated to wear that crap. It bothers me that men who identify as being a woman/ want to live as a woman see that dresses and makeup, women's magazine fashion identifies women as women... I am a woman who barely wears dresses or skirts and when I do, it's more for hot weather relief at work so I don't have to wear long pants all summer long in FL. Makeup is for special occasions (more of a society upkeep that I know I'm participating in). And as much as I love a nice heel, most often, a basic flip flop is the shoe of choice because heels are just a horrible thing for one's feet and overall body to wear on a normal basis at all...

I'm probably doing a horrific job of discussing the issue of society and assigned gender rolls that come almost as soon as the Dr says boy/ girl at birth, and my utter disgust with it. I guess growing up in VT around farms and the country and with limited TV access and no Internet when I was a child, I was insulated from a lot of "trends" and fashion magazine ideas. I was also expected to handle chores and play alongside my male childhood friends. It was normal for me to throw hay bales, drive the old crappy truck at 12 around the field, have just as many girl friends as my boy friends to go out and deer/ turkey hunt for freezer storage for the winter with their family. We were/ are just as tough, if not tougher sometimes, than the guys we grew up around. In fact flannel shirts and Carhart were main staples in my closet.

[Nanjing to Seoul]

10. Are they on drugs over this? What bullcrap!

[Democracyinkind]

11. The only "trigger for bullying" are bullies. nt

[justhanginon]

14. I think you just nailed it!

"The only trigger for bullying are bullies".
That sums up the problem in a nutshell.When these bullying problems arise, go for the person doing the bullying not the bullied.

[Iggo]

15. Blame the victim.

You saw how he was dressed.

Those poor bullies just couldn't help themselves.