Trans student killed in school

[Ken]

All students should feel safe in school, regardless of how they dress or identify themselves.

Yes, nobody should get beat up or murdered. But that has zip all to do with identities or clothes.

Schools should, however, have dress codes. And expect students and staff to follow them.

Schools do have dress codes and expect students to follow them. Every school I have ever been associated with has a dress code and enforces it.

But they do it fairly and try to treat everyone equally.

[RZehr]

All students should feel safe in school, regardless of how they dress or identify themselves.

Even if they dress like a school shooter, tactical vests, gloves, helmet, AR-15?

[Josh]

All students should feel safe in school, regardless of how they dress or identify themselves.

Even if they dress like a school shooter, tactical vests, gloves, helmet, AR-15?

And what if it’s for Halloween?

[Ken]

All students should feel safe in school, regardless of how they dress or identify themselves.

Even if they dress like a school shooter, tactical vests, gloves, helmet, AR-15?

And what if it’s for Halloween?

That is banned at every school I have ever taught at.

Every year they come on the announcements before Halloween and say that you can have fun dressing up but that:

1. Halloween masks are NOT allowed
2. You still have to be within dress code, and
3. No toy weapons of any kind are allowed (and not just on Halloween).

[Neto]

....
Is there no dress code at these schools? I think boys should wear button down shirts and long pants, and girls should wear long dresses.

Sorry if I am quoting the same post again, but I had also wanted to comment on dress codes in the Owasso public school.

There was when I was there. Boys were to wear button shirts, with no more than the top button unfastened. Pants with belt loops, belt also required. (No shorts.) No pant legs tucked inside of boots. (Well, that one wasn't in the written code, but a classmate was expelled for three days for wearing his pant legs tucked inside his Apache moccasin boots.) Guys' hair had to be above the eye brows, over the ears, and off the collar.

Girls were to wear dresses, no pants, unless the temperature was extremely low. There was also a measurement above the knee, but I have no idea what it was - just that girls were sometimes sent home or expelled for infractions of this rule.

But the next year (after I graduated, 1974) some people moved in from out-of-state, or maybe that boy's family just came from Tulsa, and the parents sued the school over the dress code. (The public schools in Tulsa already didn't have dress codes when I was still a student there.) So that was the end of it, because lawyers jumped at a sure win deal like that - the over-all culture was changing. Lots of people had moved into Oklahoma from Northern states, and that trend increased in the rest of that decade. (This girl was part Indian, I think Choctaw, so her family were not 'Yankees'.)

By the way, the East Holmes HS was also sued (or threatened) over their dress code - quite a few years back already, over guys wearing ear rings.

[Soloist]

Nonsense

Women and girls wearing pants is not "cross dressing". Those are women's clothes, designed for women and sold at women's clothing stores. And if you are citing some Old Testament dictates about dress then you are being hypocritical because when those verses were written neither men nor women wore anything resembling the clothing of today. Not pants, shirts, and jackets. Nor skirts and blouses or dresses. Maybe you should go back to tunics, robes, and sandals if you want to dress Biblically. Since pants are now as much women's dress as men's.

In any event, the few trans kids I have ever seen in class aren't actually dressing in any way unusual. Boys aren't wearing dresses. They tend to dress pretty much the same as their peers. Jeans, t-shirts, hoodies, etc. Maybe with a little more flair with earrings, fingernail polish, and sometimes makeup. Perhaps hairstyles that are a bit different. But that is about it. And non-trans kids do the same thing. HS dress is pretty unisex in style and has been for decades. Girls may dress up for fancy events, but not to attend school.

Unless you want to actually mandate school uniforms, kids are going to wear what they want, within school dress codes. Which these days are usually unsex and mostly about keeping straight kids from showing too much skin.

You are missing my point entirely. We as a conservative Mennonite culture do not have women wearing pants and I was pointing out a culture that indirectly marginalizes men and accepts women doing the same thing.

No, you are missing my point. Pants aren't Biblical and neither are dresses or skirts. You are free to dress however you want, but it is inaccurate to claim it is in any way Biblical.

And modern culture does not marginalize men. I don't know where people get that notion. Not in schools, not in sports or entertainment, not in politics or business. Not really anywhere.

Im not saying that people wore pants in the Bible, and maybe a lot of this would have been solved if people stuck with robes. That is still missing the point. i’m just going to have my wife write the rest of this, and then I’m bowing out.

Wife: The point being that most people are not concerned about a girl who is stereotypically tomboyish in her interests, or who wears something that 100 years ago would have been considered men’s apparel. More often, boys who like anything deemed feminine end up getting mocked, and there are a lot more cracks at a guy’s masculinity than the other way around. Maybe this has changed in public schools at this point, but a typical elementary or middle school boy may go to the point of not wanting any of their friends to know if they had picked flowers for their mom ect because they might get mocked for being girly, and I don’t really know that many situations that a girl would get mocked for a stereotypically boyish behavior/interest. She might even be praised for challenging stereotypes. It’s pretty hard to find a straight middle school boy who would ever admit to liking the color pink or purple (although maybe a few would be gutsy enough to). Boys also get harassed a lot more for showing emotion and anything else deemed sissy. Even adults can sometimes allow this to affect how they discipline or respond to their children, because they understand the idea of a sensitive daughter, and tolerate a sensitive son a lot less.

As adults, there’s still an expectation by many that men should be bringing in money, and women have the right, but not the requirement to provide for their family. Stay at home Dad’s are more likely to be harassed for being lazy freeloaders than stay at home moms.

Talking about trans, people are more accepting of women who decide to become men than the other way around, and I can almost assure you that those men who transition are experiencing more revulsion and hatred. You could always ask some of them. I’ve stood in line at Fred Meyer watching the cashier getting mouthed off at by a customer, and even though it probably happens to females who transition to male, I don’t think it happens nearly as often. I’m certainly not suggesting that women don’t face discrimination as well, and probably more so in certain cases, but to marginalize some of the situations that boys and men face doesn’t solve the problem either. You can say that boys and young men have struggles with discrimination without it automatically, threatening the idea that ladies have struggles and discrimination too, but often, if any male brings up anything, it’s seen as an attack on females, and just immediately discredited. Not trying to endorse lgbtq+, but I think it’s good to at least try to understand people better.

[Ken]

....
Is there no dress code at these schools? I think boys should wear button down shirts and long pants, and girls should wear long dresses.

Sorry if I am quoting the same post again, but I had also wanted to comment on dress codes in the Owasso public school.

There was when I was there. Boys were to wear button shirts, with no more than the top button unfastened. Pants with belt loops, belt also required. (No shorts.) No pant legs tucked inside of boots. (Well, that one wasn't in the written code, but a classmate was expelled for three days for wearing his pant legs tucked inside his Apache moccasin boots.) Guys' hair had to be above the eye brows, over the ears, and off the collar.

Girls were to wear dresses, no pants, unless the temperature was extremely low. There was also a measurement above the knee, but I have no idea what it was - just that girls were sometimes sent home or expelled for infractions of this rule.

But the next year (after I graduated, 1974) some people moved in from out-of-state, or maybe that boy's family just came from Tulsa, and the parents sued the school over the dress code. (The public schools in Tulsa already didn't have dress codes when I was still a student there.) So that was the end of it, because lawyers jumped at a sure win deal like that - the over-all culture was changing. Lots of people had moved into Oklahoma from Northern states, and that trend increased in the rest of that decade. (This girl was part Indian, I think Choctaw, so her family were not 'Yankees'.)

By the way, the East Holmes HS was also sued (or threatened) over their dress code - quite a few years back already, over guys wearing ear rings.

Dress codes are a perennial battle in schools and always will be as long as hormones exist.

But it's not about trans kids. I would guestimate that 90% of dress code violations in most schools are straight girls pushing the envelope too far in terms of tight and revealing clothing. 5% is boy athletes wearing gym clothes to class (shorts and tank tops) and the last 5% is just random stuff like kids barefoot or wearing flip flops. Or other random unsafe stuff like spiky punk clothing.

Despite what some of you see to think. HS isn't about trans culture or LGBT culture. It is the same stuff it's always been. Boys eying girls and girls eying boys. The LGBT stuff is on the fringes. But students are just not as intolerant towards it as they used to be.

[Szdfan]

All students should feel safe in school, regardless of how they dress or identify themselves.

Even if they dress like a school shooter, tactical vests, gloves, helmet, AR-15?

The child deserves to feel safe at school, even if he can't bring is AR-15 with him. If a student does dress up as a school shooter, it means that the student is not feeling safe and that there needs to be some exploration about why they are feeling that way.

Also...are you comparing non-binary and trans kids to school shooters? I'm a bit confused by the comparison.

[RZehr]

All students should feel safe in school, regardless of how they dress or identify themselves.

Even if they dress like a school shooter, tactical vests, gloves, helmet, AR-15?

The child deserves to feel safe at school, even if he can't bring is AR-15 with him. If a student does dress up as a school shooter, it means that the student is not feeling safe and that there needs to be some exploration about why they are feeling that way.

Also...are you comparing non-binary and trans kids to school shooters? I'm a bit confused by the comparison.

No, you aren’t a bit confused.
You are pretending to confuse them, in order to virtue signal that you would never confuse or associate the two. And to associate someone with traditional social values, with murder, as a way of discrediting their traditional values as nonsensical and justifiably dismissible.

[Josh]

All students should feel safe in school, regardless of how they dress or identify themselves.

Even if they dress like a school shooter, tactical vests, gloves, helmet, AR-15?

The child deserves to feel safe at school, even if he can't bring is AR-15 with him. If a student does dress up as a school shooter, it means that the student is not feeling safe and that there needs to be some exploration about why they are feeling that way.

Also...are you comparing non-binary and trans kids to school shooters? I'm a bit confused by the comparison.

Considering how often school shooters are trans, there isn’t a need to do a comparison.