The Hockaday School is a private all-girls school in Dallas, Texas.
The school has many openly LGBTQIA+ students, a Gender and Sexuality Awareness club, and pro acceptance stance, but has strict regulations regarding graduation attire. The school requires that all graduating students wear a dress at the Graduation Ceremony, something that is uncomfortable and gender dysphoric for transgender and gender non-conforming students. The majority of the student body supports and calls for an alternative option that will better suit gender nonconforming students. Graduation should be a beautiful day highlighting the seniors. On the day of their graduation many students are unable to represent their true identities. Simply offering one alternative to the dress, such as a suit or some other gender neutral form of attire, could fix this issue and help students feel like themselves on a day intended to celebrate them. Sign our petition and help change the dress code for the class of 2016 and graduating classes from then onward.

More detailed information:
The white dress on graduation day has been a Hockaday tradition since the conception of Hockaday. Graduation should be a beautiful day, one of the best days in a student’s life. Graduation is emotional for everyone, but for a portion of the student body it is emotional for the wrong reasons. Hockaday may be an “all-girls school” but we admit people on basis of biological sex, not gender identity. The two may align for some people, but do not have to coincide. It is undeniable Hockaday has students who identify as men. Therefore, the tradition of forcing them to wear dresses on graduation must stop.
Transgender students are at Hockaday for a variety of reasons. They all have different stories of why they came to Hockaday, an “all-girls school” despite their gender identities, but they share similar themes. They often are too afraid to tell anyone, or they do tell people and are met with hateful, silencing aggression. Due to lack of knowledge about transgender identities, many transgender people do not have the proper terminology for how they feel, and think they are alone. Additionally, most transgender people report being unsupported and even abused by their families when they came out. Transgender students at Hockaday come to Hockaday for a variety of reasons, mostly unawareness about their own identity or fear regarding telling their families. Due to this students at Hockaday joined at all ages despite their transgender identities.
These students are often forced to remain silent about their identities, all the while struggling with gender dysphoria. When the sex a person was assigned at birth does not match up with their gender identity, they often suffer from gender dysphoria, a term defined in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). “Dysphoria” is a feeling of unease, dissatisfaction, and anxiety. For those who experience gender dysphoria, the restlessness and discomfort with their physical body, a body society says is wrong for the way they identify, can cause such stress and anxiety that normal life is interfered with. The issue with gender dysphoria is not the person’s transgender identity or the “mismatch” between their gender and their societally enforced sex. The depression, stress, anxiety and general misery that go along with it are the mental health problem. The DSM-5 states as well in its description of gender dysphoria that “It is important to note that gender nonconformity is not in itself a mental disorder. The critical element of gender dysphoria is the presence of clinically significant distress associated with the condition”. Intense bouts of the depression and anxiety caused by gender dysphoria can be triggered by a number of things, such as being misgendered or being forced to wear clothing that is not associated with the gender of the trans person. This school should prioritize caring for the mental health of their students, especially on graduation day.
Some argue that transgender students do not belong at Hockaday, and should simply have to deal with the tradition. But transgender students are incontrovertibly at Hockaday, and should be just as valued as cisgender students (cisgender is a term for a person who identifies with the sex they were assigned at birth). Many of them did not have a choice in coming to Hockaday, as previously stated. Additionally, girls’ schools were founded to give girls an equal education and an equal chance to have their voices heard. It has be proven through numerous studies that in a co-ed environment girls still do not receive them same treatment and attention as boys. Transgender students are ignored, harassed, abused, and silenced at even higher rates. Girls’ schools exist for the voiceless. Until societally it becomes normal for parents to talk about the complexities of gender with their children so transgender children can learn of their identities at a young age and the chose whether or not they would like to attend an all-girls school, we are going to have transgender students at Hockaday. As long as we do, we must prioritize their mental health just as much as their cisgender peers. As a school founded on a base of advocating for the voiceless, we must strive to do so for all of our voiceless students, and past that, all voiceless communities.
This is why seniors should have at least two options for graduation attire, one of which should not be a dress. Gender neutral or masculine attire, such as a suit, would help each student feel they are truly representing themselves on this day meant to be one of the best of their lives. It is not only disappointing, it is mentally harmful for some students to wear dresses at all, much less at their graduations, an event where all eyes are on them. Other institutions with similar histories and traditions to Hockaday, like Greenhill, have made changes to their graduation dress code to accommodate for every student’s gender expression. Hockaday itself has made changes to required dress, reinstating the plaid pants two years ago as an approved part of the day to day uniform. That change no more altered the unity of the student body than an alternative to the white dresses will. It has been done before, and Hockaday can do it as well. The mental health of students at this school should be priority at all times. A tradition, even an old and important one, should not be held over the victims of this disorders as an excuse not to make change.
Tradition can be very meaningful for people but when crosses over from respecting history, Hockaday alumni, and Hockaday students, to harming its students, a change is necessary. If tradition is the only reasoning for continuing to hurt an oppressed and abused people, it is a bad motivator. For instance, it used to be tradition for Hockaday students to wear skirts down to our ankles and curl our hair every morning. It used to be tradition for Hockaday to not admit black students or allow clubs for affinity groups. Segregation was tradition, the illegality of interracial marriage was tradition, and women not being able to vote was tradition. Sometimes “tradition” gets in the way of progress. It is uncomfortable for people to wear clothing that does not coincide with their gender expression. There are girls who do not find their own personal power in femininity, as well, and why should we force them and our transgender students, to wear a dress if they would be happier and more comfortable on this day that is supposed to be solely about them?
This is why we have started this petition: to inform the decision-makers of this school that many people care about this serious issue and that it needs to be addressed. Sign our petition to call for a change in the dress code for the class of 2016 and classes from then onward.