4 more to our first milestone..lets keep it going!

Thank you everyone for your support. I hope we can continue to garner support for this change. I still have not heard anything from the school board. These two, easy to implement changes, will have a huge positive impact. My child missed his milestone 8th grade graduation because the school had a dress code for the ceremony where boys were to wear green gowns while the girls were to wear blue gowns. In addition to the different gown colors, my child was told on a few occasions, that girls had to “wear dresses or skirts”. Although the hand out from the school stated “All students must wear the gown. Clothing under the gown must be school appropriate. Girls will wear blue and boys will wear green". Being told that he had to wear a dress caused a great deal of anxiety and stress for my child and put him in a very difficult situation. It’s important to point out that my child has never worn a dress to school and, at that time, was wearing clothes for the gender he identified with. My child had to choose between coming out to the school by asking for an exception, miss graduation or wear an outfit that he felt extremely uncomfortable in. At that point in time, my child was not ready to share his story with the school. However, we were forced to tell them so they would stop pushing the dress issue. I will say that once I talked to the school they were very apologetic and truly felt bad for the anxiety that my child experienced. I know they didn’t purposely try to make him feel uncomfortable, they just didn’t know how to handle the situation. Educators need to understand and be aware of what happens when gender variant kids are faced with gender specific situations and they need to be given the tools needed to support them. Lets hope the school board will do the right thing. Please continue to help me spread the word ...