Not surprisingly, schools are responding very differently in each case, with varying levels of enthusiasm, anger, celebration, and punishment. In L.A. for example, a gay male student was crowned homecoming queen in his high school, while in Houston, another was sent home when his wig was longer than the collar length specified for boys by the dress code.
The issue of how schools should react is complicated for a few reasons, the most basic being that unlike reprimanding students for dressing in gang colors, or dressing too sexily, school officials must be mindful of antidiscrimination policies when addressing cross-dressing students. Schools that are opposed to cross-dressing say that school is distracting enough without cross-dressers making it more so, and that sending them home protects them from harm at the hands of other students. But schools that are open to cross-dressing say that the issue is only as big as officials make it, and that students are often surprisingly more tolerant than those that govern them.
Personally, the second line of reasoning makes more sense to me as a former teenager (always looking for a new way to express myself/ rebel) and a current parent (understanding that kids LOVE whatever is forbidden to them). But I’m not a teacher, and my child is not in mid- or even high school.
So, parents of school-aged kids, I’m curious: what do you think? Short of ordering every kid into a gender-appropriate uniform, what would you recommend to schools struggling to address the growing number of cross-dressing teens? Would you let your son wear a skirt to school? Would you let your daughter wear a tuxedo to Prom?