Stupid Gender Role Rules

Here's how attempting to enforce Don't Say Gay rules, rules that say you can't instruct students about gender roles of sexual identity, ends up--with stupid, stupid rules.

In Iowa, parents are apparently receiving a letter that says, in part:

Recently passed legislation … requires that school districts receive written permission from parents and/or guardians regarding any request by a student to accommodate a gender identity, name or pronoun that is different from what was assigned to the student during the school registration process. This requirement also applies to all nicknames. (i.e. Sam instead of Samuel; Addy instead of Addison, etc.)

This is stupid. Students cannot even name themselves. And nicknames, which often (and frequently) emerge organically from the regular ins and outs of life must now all be cleared with adults via a new level of bureaucracy and paperwork. I cannot even imagine the stupidity of classroom exchanges like

Student: Hey, could you call me Butch instead of Albert?

Teacher: Not until you bring in your paperwork from home and it clears the office and I'm notified that Butch is allowed.

Not to mention all the ancillary stupid that comes with this, like the divorced shared-custody parents who can't agree on whether a particular nickname is okay or not. 

Update: Florida parents may getting the same dumb letter. 

In Florida (of course), the Parental Rights In Education Act, also known as the Totally Not A Don't Day Gay Law And Don't You Dare Call It That, appears to have outlawed the AP Psychology course, because it mentions LGBTQ stuff. The state quickly backpedaled--well, actually, let's call it a side-pedal-- and said it's not illegal exactly, but teachers are risking their careers if the state decides they have judged "age and developmentally appropriate" incorrectly. 

And so we have a parental rights law that makes it illegal to say gay, and also denies parents the right to enroll their child in certain courses that say the Forbidden Words. 

But let's go to Mississippi, where the Harrison County school district has decided to crack down on trans students, specifically by requiring them to wear clothes that are "consistent with their biological sex that is stated in the student’s cumulative folder and permanent record the School District."

Mississippi is one of seven states that doesn't need a Don't Say Gay law, because back in the 90s they passed a "No Promo Homo" law, a relic of the gay panic of thirty years ago. Mississippi has gone hard for anti-trans laws. Oddly enough, attempts to ban instruction about gender roles and sexual identity have failed, which is good news for Harrison County, which now has a policy that provides very strict policy about gender roles and sexual identity.

Because, yes, if you read about requirement to wear clothes that conform to "biological sex" and thought, "Well, who decides that," the answer is Harrison County schools, where the new dress code explains specifically what boys and girls are allowed to wear.  

The handbook explains :

The Harrison County School District (the “School District”) does not intend to have policies that overly restrict the dress of the individual students under contemporary standards. It is, however, the School District’s duty and objective to see that students attending the schools in the Harrison County School District are well groomed, particularly as to their physical appearance, and that their choice of dress is conducive to the learning environment, and is not disruptive to the learning environment; enhances learning and good behavior; increases the focus on instruction; creates a sense of school unity and discipline; maintains dignity in school; encourages responsible dress for students; and enhances safety and security at school.

The new additions to the policy are these three items:

1. Boys must wear shorts or pants, and shirts and footwear according to the dress code of the Harrison County School District.

2. Girls must wear dresses or skirts or shorts or pants, and shirts or blouses and footwear according to the dress code of the Harrison County School District.

3. Boys and girls must follow the dress attire consistent with their biological sex that is stated in the student’s cumulative folder and permanent record the School District prepared under the guidelines of the Mississippi Department of Education Manual of Directions.

So, basically, boys can't wear skirts or dresses. 

Why is Harrison County bothering to add these rules? Could be because they wound up in court last May because they wouldn't allow a transgender student to wear a dress and high heels to her graduation. This despite the student's assertion that for four years she had worn dresses to class and been addressed as a female by students and staff. The district superintendent Mitchell King felt the need to track down the students in the district that were, in his opinion, boys who were going to try to wear a dress at graduation and pre-emptively forbid them. The court rules in favor of the district, and then the district got rewriting their rules, because of all the things that threaten education in Mississippi, boy's wearing dresses is clearly the Number One problem.

We could add more stupid rules to the list, like the anti-trans athlete rules that have the effect of allowing parents of losing athletes to harass female athletes who beat their kid ("I don't believe any girl could beat my Susie--I demand you make that fifteen year old runner prove she's really a girl. Make her take a dna test! Pull down her pants! Do something!").

All of these rules whipped up by culture warriors ultimately have the same effect--they make life more difficult for children just trying to live their lives and make their way through school.

If this is supposed to be child-centered and for the good of students, we are way off the mark. I would say that in many cases the warriors are shooting themselves in the foot, but that's not quite right--they are shooting children and parents in the foot. Maybe stop using children as shields and excuses for anti-LGBTQ rule-making.