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Dress Codes in High School

A decent article in the NYT about high schools, crossdressing, and identity:

At Wesson Attendance Center, a Mississippi public school, just that sort of fight erupted over senior portraits. Last summer, during her photo session, Ceara Sturgis, 17, dutifully tried on the traditional black drape, the open-necked robe that reveals the collarbone, a hint of bare shoulder.

“It was terrible!” said Ms. Sturgis, an honors student, band president and soccer goalie, who has been openly gay since 10th grade. “If you put a boy in a drape, that’s me! I have big shoulders and ooh, it didn’t look like me! I said, ‘I can’t do this!’ So my mom said, ‘Try on the tux.’ And that looked normal.”

Shortly thereafter, students were informed that girls had to wear drapes for yearbook portraits; boys, tuxedos.

The Mississippi chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union wrote to the school. Rickey Clopton, superintendent of Copiah County schools, did not return phone calls. Last month he released a statement affirming that the school’s decision was “based upon sound educational policy and legal precedent.”

Last month, Veronica Rodriguez, Ms. Sturgis’s mother, paid for a full-page ad in the yearbook that is to include a photograph of her daughter in a tuxedo.

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He’s in Fashion: Men in Skirts

It’s not always the male-bodied people who crossdress or who are transgender that wear skirts; sometimes guys who identify as guys do. Sometimes even models do.

At Skirt Cafe (www.skirtcafe.org), skirt-minded men and people of other genders get together to talk about hemlines. As Bob explains:

At SkirtCafe, we are dedicated to the idea of “Fashion Freedom” for men. The basic idea is… if you want to wear a skirt, just do it; now you’re a man wearing a skirt. Men might want to wear skirts for many reasons. Some guys just like to be different, some want comfort, some want to look and feel beautiful, some have experienced gender dysphoria in one way or another. But whatever the reason, we are committed to the idea that we can just do it, as a man wearing a skirt.

We don’t need to go through elaborate makeup routines, or emulate a stilted notion of femininity, or consider changing our body through strong drugs and surgery, or orient our lives around our fashion choice, or call ourselves “Suzi” for the evening, or hide from everyone we know. There is no closet, and no secrets. Unlike the CD community, we really are no different from the woman who decides to wear a buttondown, described in your introduction. It’s just a fashion choice.

We have demonstrated, again and again, that a guy wearing a skirt in public is no big deal — a “non event.” We’ve experienced little or no rejection or discrimination, and we don’t bother much to hide our identity or fashion choice from the world.

Over at New Male Fashion, the blogger asks:

Wouldn’t it be likewise fair for us males in need of displaying our creativity, sense of style, and flare, who enjoy keeping in touch with our “feminine side”, to have the freedom to adopt styles, colours, and garments that were once considered too “feminine”?

Public opinion is moving tardily but steadily in that direction. Designers come up with innovations and creativity in their masculine lines, as opposed to the dullness and uniformity that has been so far the main feature of male garments. New proffers include not only more daring colours and designs, but also male skirts, high heels, dresses, and other garments that used to be kept at the other side of the aisle.

A “New Male” is under construction. Hopefully, a more balanced, understanding, sensitive, creative male.

The statement is beautifully underlined by the photo of the coy “new male” model that accompanies this post, & there’s a lot more like them there, including clothes by Westwood, Pugh, and Baratashvili.

(Ana de Gregorio styled by Ash Stymest, photographed by JM Ferrater.)

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Morehouse Crossdressing Policy

Morehouse College has chosen to have a clothing policy that prohibits crossdressing:

The dress-wearing ban is aimed at a small part of the private college’s 2,700-member student body, said Dr. William Bynum, vice president for Student Services.

“We are talking about five students who are living a gay lifestyle that is leading them to dress a way we do not expect in Morehouse men,” he said.

Before the school released the policy, Bynum said, he met with Morehouse Safe Space, the campus’ gay organization.

“We talked about it and then they took a vote,” he said. “Of the 27 people in the room, only three were against it.”

There has been a positive response along with some criticism throughout the campus, he said.

Senior Devon Watson said he disagrees with parts of the new policy, especially those that tell students what they should wear in free time outside of the classroom.

I’m wondering if someone needs to tell them about straight crossdressers, and about pre-transition MTF trans people. Hopefully Morehouse’s Safe Space already does – but I doubt it.

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Wearing Pants in Sudan

Women couldn’t wear pants in lots of places in the US until at least the 1970s, but in the Sudan, they’re still fighting tradition:

Sudan is partially ruled by Islamic law, which emphasizes modest dress for women. Mrs. Hussein, 34, has pleaded not guilty and is daring the Sudanese authorities to punish her.

“I am Muslim; I understand Muslim law,” Mrs. Hussein said in an interview. “But I ask: what passage in the Koran says women can’t wear pants? This is not nice.”

Mrs. Hussein even printed up invitation cards for her initial court date in July and sent out e-mail messages asking people to witness her whipping, if it came to that. She said she wanted the world to see how Sudan treated women.

The issue there is tradition, even if it’s being explained as a religious issue; here I’m sure it was pretty much the same kinds of arguments, all of them sexist bullshit.

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Summer Wedding Clothes

Honestly, what do you wear when you’re me, for a summer wedding, when you’re doing a reading & want to feel confident & where a bunch of people will be looking at you?

I’m not the long tunic/flowing pants type. I’m not the sundress type. Everything I own is black.

Miss Thing tells me she has no appropriate sandals. I do not understand how someone can own 50 pairs of shoes & not own the right sandals (especially when she doesn’t know what dress she’s wearing yet).

On top of the rest, it may rain, which means nothing too sheer.

*sigh*

I am so bad at formal clothes.