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Catalyst for youth fervor wore dress 03-31-2006
dailypress.com
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It's an odd constitutional stand, defending a boy's right to dress like a girl. You wonder if Patrick Henry could have found the words for it - "Give me Lauren or give me Dior"?
But Gloucester High School students staked a First Amendment claim last week after officials clamped down on cross-dressing students.
It began with a lone sophomore - 16-year-old Michael Kaiser - arriving at school in a long black dress. An assistant principal ordered him to change into something more appropriate, and he didn't mean a knee-length with sensible pumps.
This action prompted a few indignant students to show their support for Kaiser by donning gender-bending clothing, as well. They staged a sit-in. They launched a "Free Kaiser" Web site and made "Free Kaiser" T-shirts. They called for a Cross-Gender Monday, with girls wearing their "manliest clothing" and guys dressing "on the feminine side."
"And I will continue to protest," a student named "Missy" declared on the Web site. "I know I will most likely get suspended for all this ... but I don't care ... It's waaay worth it!"
You have to admire fervor like this, even if the merit of the case escapes you. Even if you suspect the underlying goal of these teens is to see how many noses they can tweak under the guise of civil rights.
Motives aside, these kids are stoked. They're joining forces, organizing, plotting strategies, researching legal precedents ... until next week when the wind shifts and they're off, chances are, tilting at some other windmill.
Until then, they do have a point. Girls wear pants all the time, so why can't boys wear dresses?
I mean, throughout the whole of human history, males have worn just as many skirts - from breechcloths to togas to kilts to robes to caftans - as trousers. And if you think real men don't wear minis, take a look at Russell Crowe in "Gladiator."
While fashion today is wide open for women, clothing options for men have shrunk. Men of the Western world rarely don dresses or skirts, and even then only for a bold fashion or political statement. Or for laughs. Or they're actual cross-dressers who get a thrill from women's clothing. Or they have a gender orientation disorder and earnestly believe they are females trapped in male bodies.
I'm told Kaiser looked more Goth than Gilda in his black gown, so I suspect he didn't do it just to feel pretty. Long black man-skirts are very Goth.
There's even a movement afoot to get more men into skirts, but not the kind you can buy off the rack in the women's department at J.C. Penney. Clothiers market man-skirts and also something called "utilikilts" that come in assorted fabrics and look very Roman Coliseum.
Will they catch on? My German side says lederhosen are far more practical, but my Scottish side can still dream. And watch "Braveheart" for the 118th time.
As for the Gloucester students, their game plan is to research why a boy's right to wear a dress is guaranteed under the Bill of Rights. Then present their findings to the School Board on Monday.
I consulted Kent Willis, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, about the possibilities. Even Willis said he needs to do a bit of legal research on this one.
His initial take is that it's not so much a free speech argument as a matter of gender equity. "That's where it gets a little squirrelly," Willis says.
For instance, he says, a public school can set its own dress code. But if you forbid boys from wearing dresses, to be gender neutral, you'd have to forbid dresses on girls, too.
Or if a student had bona fide gender identity issues, a school would be unwise to discriminate against someone with a mental disorder.
Schools Superintendent Ben Kiser suggests it's a matter of safety. But if his concern is that students would beat up a boy for wearing a dress, then his district has bigger problems than a student's questionable fashion sense.
Safety would be a weightier concern if students did actually attack one another over clothing choice. But you can't let the mere possibility of violence restrict free speech - or what's known as the "heckler's veto."
If there's a positive to come from this, beyond creative fashion options for public school kids, it's that all this student energy may get harnessed and directed into other, worthier directions.
"Since Kaiser's case is almost won, but our school still has many problems," reads one message on the student Web site, "I have decided that it might be a good idea to make a new site ... to evaluate issues on a much larger scale than this one case. ... To ask what you, the students of GHS, think needs to change."
It's not revolution, but it's more than teenage cheek. Patrick Henry would approve.
Tamara Dietrich can be reached at tdietrich@dailypress.com or at 247-7892.
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