Waller High School has changed its mind and is allowing Brandon Navarro to wear a dress to his upcoming graduation ceremony.
Initially, Navarro said a teacher told him he’d have to cut his flowing locks, ditch the makeup and earrings and wear men’s clothing if he wanted to pick up his sheepskin.
“She was like you know you’re gonna have to cut your hair right?” said Navarro.“I said well they didn’t tell me anything about that. It hasn’t been an issue all year. Why is it an issue now?”
Navarro and his mother met with the principal , who agreed to let the openly gay senior wear a form-fitting dress to the event, but no Louboutins or Maybelline.
Honestly, if Navarro was a trans girl, we’d feel a lot more strongly about this. But there’s no indication he identifies as a woman: he says he’s a “cross-dresser” who just enjoys wearing women’s clothes. We enjoy wearing shorts and sandals but don’t expect that would fly at church or a five-star restaurant.
How about we take this to the next level?
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There’s no sin in having a dress code, so long as it respects different forms of gender—not personal preference.
Besides, don’t graduates wear those long, shapeless robes anyway—who’s gonna know what he has on underneath?
Samuel
Well personal choice should be respected. Part of the problem for our transgender community members is that there is such a strict gender binary when it comes to clothing and appearance. Allowing people in general too break those binaries will make it easier on us because we won’t have to feel so forced to conform to a norm if that norm no longer exists. Dresses and heels are usually considered proper attire for graduation, but saying that it is only proper attire for girls just enforces the idea that clothing has inherent gender. People shouldn’t have to identify as a specific gender to wear certain items of clothing, and saying that they do only serves to propagate the same kind of stereotypes and stigmas that the hetero-normative bullies have been pushing on our community the whole time.
I guess at the end of the day I think it’s all very silly to say that people can;t wear dresses because they don;t identify as female. If it were a female student choosing to wear a suit or slacks, would people be as thrown about it as this? I don’t think so.
L. Dub
The road to trans is not clearcut and not everybody grows up in New York City. This person is still really young. Clearly he’s been wearing dresses all year long, so whatever they identify as, they are presenting as feminine and should be allowed to dress that way. I think this is an awesome victory. And not surprisingly it’s in the South.
Youjo
@Samuel: I whole heartedly agree! Cross dressing shouldn’t be seen any differently as only other sort of “identification”. Once upon a time, it was “odd” for females to wear pants, and now we have to come up to the point were we have to meet “men wearing dresses”. If they were feuding about a female wanting to wear pants (full drag, or not), this would be an over blown female civil rights issue. People would be pointing all kinds of ways they were discriminating against her, and forcing her to abide by society’s gender rules. Where was that for this boy? It just goes it show discrimination is on both sides.
Clockwork
He’s not a fraud, so go for it.
Gotta love the gay Hispanic kids, they always lean to the femme/flaming side.
yaoming
Good thing they don’t do a “gender-appropriate” check at the Oscars. Diane Keaton and Ellen Degeneres (who hosted) would never get in.
Spike
The school compromised, a school in Texas at that. Why does this need to be reported on, unless it was the kid and his mother who contacted the local news station, it which case, they are playing the cross dressing card for publicity.
Alexa
Cross dressing aside, the teacher told him he’d have to cut his hair? What is this, the 1960s?
Dave
@Alexa:
If you’re going to enforce gender baggage based on nothing more than cultural norms, you may as well enforce them all, I guess—even the ones society has already given up on as silly and pointless. Ultimately, “only women wear dresses” is just as arbitrary as “only women have long hair”.
J Stratford
This is what I have been saying about some Transgenders that seem to hate the existence of Drag Queens (guys who wear dresses). Get over it! There are guys who wear dresses who DONT want to be women. There are guys who wear dresses that will piss on a urinal standing. You are not better than them and they are not better than you. They are just different.
Like the colors of the rainbow.
Maricon
@Clockwork-Actually that’s not true about bisexual and gay Latino men, most gay and bi Latino men are masculine or just regular guys and not flaming queens. It’s a bad stereotype that pops up in movies or in this case as a defense mechanism in the case of this young queen.
Rex
I agree with J.Stratford. I’m also puzzled as to why Trans people do not like Drag queens or drag kings?
russ
Who says trans people don’t like drag queens? Who says trans people like or don’t like anything unilaterally? I’m a trans person and a drag queen, and I certainly don’t dislike myself!
Clockwork
@Maricon:
I’m Hispanic, spare me your political correctness.
Max
Yeah, pretty much what Samuel said, Queerty. In theory, clothing should have no inherent gender so why not in practice? He’s a young kid, sure but he’s also a trailblazer. Let him wear his dress. It’s still formal attire so whatever.
Rooney
The way these fascists school rules always require boys to cut their hair… you can see they were drafted by old guys full of complexes over going bald, it’s just hair jealousy.
Dave
A lot of flaming queens desperately want “gay” to mean “effeminate.” That is why they so readily embraced the concept of LGBT, a deceitful idea that lumps gay people in with transsexuals. This is an insult to gay men. Gay men are men and effeminacy shouldn’t be coddled in the name of gay rights. Maybe this kid has an individual right to express himself, but don’t make his desire to wear women’s clothes into a gay issue.
Brandon
@Dave:
Thank you! I’m not saying the kid shouldn’t be able to wear a dress if that’s his personal style. But I’m sick and tired of cross-dressing getting lumped in with gay rights. Wanting to wear women’s clothing has absolutely nothing to do wth being attracted to the same-sex. The very fact that it’s clothing associated with the OPPOSITE sex should make that painfully clear. Just because some cross-dressers are also homosexual doesn’t make it a gay rights issue anymore than homosexual quarterbacks make football a gay rights issue.
Ginasf
Good for Brandon!
1) There are lots of trans women who ID’d as ‘gay boys’ in high school. Brandon might be one of them or might not. Brandon might be a cross dresser (and I think their rights ought to be respected as well) or might be a gay boy who just likes femme clothing. Who knows, a few years from now, Brandon could also come out as trans. You think it’s that easy to do so? Coming out as trans girl is quite a bit harder than coming out as a gay boy, and that’s certainly not the easiest thing in the world either.
2) Brandon never, ever ID’d himself as a drag queen. He doesn’t dress over-the-top as most drag queens do, so I suspect this is way more about gender identity than performance or just looking queer fabulous.
3) I’m not happy about the no-jewelry or high heels rule, which seems arbitrary. Glad Brandon gets to go to graduation but, honestly, can’t these stupid schools just give their students a break and not try to control every facet of their lives. Hope Brandon has a safe, fun graduation experience.
Katie
The school should not have different dress code requirements for males and females at all. If female students are allowed to wear earrings, high heels and their hair long then males should be allowed to do so also. Vice versa with female students who want to wear ties, trousers instead of skirts etc.
And why on earth are they forcing him to cut his beautiful hair? Are the reactionary middle-aged guys who control the educational systems in Republican Texas closet sexual sadists a la Mitt Romney who share a bizarre, deep-seated obsession with stalking young students and cutting their hair off?
ThatoneguyJon
@Ginasf: “I’m not happy about the no-jewelry or high heels rule, which seems arbitrary. Glad Brandon gets to go to graduation but, honestly, can’t these stupid schools just give their students a break and not try to control every facet of their lives.”
Allowing students the express themselves such that theyre comfortable and secure in their identity regardless of archaic gender standards?! We cant do that!People might challenge other arbitrary cultural barriers and facades that do no one any good!
THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!11!111!1ONE!1
Roxxy
OK…but haven’t there been articles on this very website about lesbian girls who want to wear a tux to either prom or senior pictures. I don’t understand the snark in this article.
Samuel
@Brandon: The co,,unity isn’t just a “G” it’s “LGBT”. Yes, it primarily deal with sexuality, but part of dealing with that is breaking social norms regarding gender expression. Personally, I’m tired of people asking my boyfriend and I “Which one of you is the girl?” That’s why this story becomes an issue for the community: because they are insisting on traditional gender roles. The same ones that are keeping people from accepting homosexuality because a gay couple does not fit the gender shaped mold they have made to define what a “real” couple is. By addressing issues such as cross-dressing, it helps to develop more acceptance for those who break from traditional gender roles.