Indiana Male, in a Dress, Barred From Prom

From the AP via the Houston Chronicle:

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.

Click here for the rest.

Despite all my views about how the authoritarian nature of the public school system tends to undermine its ostensible mission to educate young Americans, I do believe in dress codes: I think students should wear clothes to school. Any restriction beyond that stifles creativity and personal expression, and in a society that increasingly insists that creativity is something to be consumed, at the mall or on television, rather than lived, self-adornment is currently the lone major bastion of artistic expression for most Americans. It is a moral crime to restrict the way that people dress--unless, of course, one is paid for such a restriction, that is, at work.

Anyway, it's obvious that the schools have no idea how to deal with cross-dressing students. The main objection, no doubt, to such behavior is that it causes disruption to the heavily regulated school environment, and that's completely true. But so what? The schools should just deal with it. Cross-dressing goes beyond simple artistic expression; it is an expression of the self, a statement of identitiy on an extraordinarily deep level. To insist that a student who desires to cross-dress refrain from doing so is every bit as destructive to the psyche as insisting that the non-cross-dresser take a walk on the wild side him or herself.

The article says this kid is considering a lawsuit. I hope he wins.

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