Legally and Morally: Should your school's dress code address transgender students?
Posted by De Sube at 1/08/2010 01:23:00 PM
Fisher & Phillips LLP - Danielle Urban: USA - January 1 2010
http://destrantalk.blogspot.com/2010/01/legally-and-morally-should-your-schools.html (http://destrantalk.blogspot.com/2010/01/legally-and-morally-should-your-schools.html)
Teenagers who push the limits of school dress codes are nothing new. Experimenting with clothing, hairstyles, and even make-up is a way for teens to explore their identities and test the limits of socially-acceptable behavior. Although school officials might find dress code enforcement challenging, dress code violations in the past tended to be fairly routine and usually revolved around prohibiting overtly sexually suggestive clothing or outward signs of gang affiliation.
But a new wrinkle in the dress code debate has developed, with some students demanding to express their gender or sexual identities by cross-gender dressing. Although cross-gender dressing is not particularly widespread in schools, a growing number of students throughout the country have begun dressing according to the gender identity they have chosen, which may not necessarily reflect their biological gender.
Legality and morality are often, if not frequently, not even close to the same thing.
I really don't think of this as a trans issue. Why not have the same dress code for boys AND girls? You might need to make a specific remark about anatomy at one point or other (say, cleavage, but if boys don't have cleavage, then you don't have to worry about it), but seriously, why do people care so much?
Why not have the same dress code for boys AND girls?
Oh that makes too much sense for anyone in education to think of it. My union has 6 dress codes from casual to full formal and there is no sexual distinction. Women are never allowed to wear skirts or dresses. If its a full formal event, then you wear a tux just like the guys do.