The Cellar - Male student in dress shut out of prom.

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Male student in dress shut out of prom.

Quote:

GARY, Ind. - A male student who has worn women's clothes to school all year was turned away from his high school prom because he was wearing a dress.

Kevin Logan, 18, went to the West Side High School prom on Friday in a slinky fuchsia gown and heels. He believes officials discriminated against him by not allowing him inside.

"I have no formal pictures, no memories, nothing. You only have one prom," he said.

Logan, who is gay, received an $85 refund for his prom ticket Tuesday but was not satisfied. He said he is considering filing a complaint with the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana.

Sylvester Rowan, assistant to Gary Schools Superintendent Mary Steele, said school policy bans males from wearing dresses. Excluding Logan from the prom was based on "the dress code, not the student's homosexuality. That's his personal preference."

Tyrone Hanley, the youth program coordinator for the Gender Public Advocacy Coalition in Washington, D.C., said he often sees cases like this and called it gender-based discrimination.

"Prohibiting really short skirts for everyone is a fair dress code; prohibiting them for males is not," he said.

Logan said he had spent years defining and exploring his sexuality. This year, he took a major step by dressing as a female every day, wearing makeup, a hair weave, nails and girls' fitted jeans to school.

His mother, Donnetta Logan, said she was not surprised by what she called the ignorance of school administrators.

"I tell Kevin that in society there will be those who accept him and those who won't."

Right or Wrong?

I say it is completely wrong. The dress code should not discriminate by gender. Nothing should.

No he should be banned because men in dresses is so ten minutes ago.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ibram

I say it is completely wrong. The dress code should not discriminate by gender. Nothing should.

Especially if he's been dressing like a woman the whole year already. No reason the prom should be different.

And in the larger sense, women have been able to dress "like men" for a while now. It's about time it went the other way for those who want to.

Ain't it great...one more opportunity for folks to confuse "being a drag queen" with "being transsexual".

Nobody ever said he was transexual. The boy liked girls' clothes. It is his right to not be discriminated against because of his gender. Simple as that. His orientation should have no bearing on that simple fact.

In the first place, it seems like something like this happens somewhere in the country every couple years. The attention directed at the school as a result (positive and negative) is almost never welcome. You'd think school officials would realize that when deciding how to react to something like this.

Second, I was unsuccessful because it's not posted on the web site, but in these situations I like to take a look at the actual rule that's alleged to have been broken. It's always interesting. I'm willing to bet at least some other people were wearing stuff that would violate the dress code. Not to mention the question of exactly which school rules are in force at the prom.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ibram

Nobody ever said he was transexual.

Not true...look at the press coverage on this story on Google News. That's the "confusion" I'm talkng about.

$85.00?? Eighty-Five freakin' dollars??

Let's see... My son is 6 and my daughter is five... so hmmm... that's mmblgph... carry the naught... plus mmfgglllmph... at 10% for 11 years... times 2...

Hey, anybody need their grass cut???

Quote:

Originally Posted by Beestie

$85.00?? Eighty-Five freakin' dollars??

Priced college tuition lately? The prom is the least of your worries.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MaggieL

Not true...look at the press coverage on this story on Google News. That's the "confusion" I'm talkng about.

May I suggest to everyone, if you are making a comment on something that's not included in the original post or any link therein, give me a clue, or better yet a link, to what you're talking about.
My poor old punkin head gets soooo confused sometimes.:rollanim:

I read the story. Light on facts, and it doesn't get into the detail of the what "rule" was broken. I reckon if it is a prom-specific rule about no boys in dresses, then it came about as an organizational response to boys goofing off and causing a disruption by wearing a dress as a joke. Who knows?

In any event, I don't see why this young person should be turned away in this way. It sure doesn't seem fair to me. I hope he succeeds in his protest.

Again, administration being unable to think.. nothing new there.

It may have been prom-specific, but I have a feeling it wasn't... most schools forbid guys to wear skirts or dresses no matter when.

Quote:

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

May I suggest to everyone, if you are making a comment on something that's not included in the original post or any link therein, give me a clue, or better yet a link, to what you're talking about.

My original comment was about the actual event the linked story referred to....somebody said "he didn't claim to be TS" and my response was pretty much "exactly...he claimed to be a gay drag queen, but a significant fraction of the press is getting it wrong".

These days Google News is indispensable...what passes for mainstream media journalism is such crap; when it's not biased it's just plain mistaken. Or both.

Recent TV coverage had the suicide doc Edward Van Dyk killing both his kids "and then turned the gun on himself". A pretty cliche, but in fact no gun was involved: he threw them off a 15th-story balcony and then jumped himself. An AP story on the same suicide was slugged "Ill. Town Try to Decipher Doc Suicide Note" and contained the sentence "Investigators said Van Dyk left no suicide note, leaving no clues for investigators, neighbors, and Van Dyk's wife and other relatives."
I guess that's why it's so hard to decipher.

How can you get the story that wrong and then claim it's "news"? At least with Google News you have a chance to compare coverages and maybe average out the noise.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ibram

It may have been prom-specific, but I have a feeling it wasn't... most schools forbid guys to wear skirts or dresses no matter when.

If so, then why wait until the end of the year at prom time to enforce the rule, when, as the article states, he has been wearing women's clothing all year long? :eyebrow: