Do you remember the day that yearbooks got passed out? Do you remember running around the halls and passing them to friends? Perhaps you still pull it out sometimes and reminisce while reading all the witty or endearing notes left by friends and classmates. Now, can you imagine if you opened up that yearbook, excited to see your own smiling face, and saw that your picture had been excluded?
This is exactly what happened to
Ceara Sturgis . She was excluded from her high school yearbook because she did not conform to her school administration’s model of gender presentation. Rather than wearding the traditional garb made for the girls at her school, Sturgis opted instead for the more conservative tuxedo worn by her male classmates. Because she wore what the boys wore, her picture did not appear in her senior yearbook.
In a similar incident at a different school, a female student was recently barred from competing in volleyball games until she
shaves her legs and underarms . It is hard to believe that high school students are being forced to conform to stereotypical gender presentations by public school teachers and school officials.
Discrimination based on gender identity is wrong. It is especially harmful when it is inflicted on a young person by the first form of government they are likely to have encountered. Schools should offer a safe and nurturing environment, not one where children are told they are wrong for being themselves. In the
suit filed by the ACLU they explained that:
When school officials exclude or deny benefits to girls who do not conform to gender stereotypes from school activities, they ratify and reinforce outdated views of the relative qualities of men and women. The District inflicted harm on Ceara by sending her the message that her "masculine" appearance was so unacceptable that she was literally not fit to appear alongside her fellow classmates' official photos in the yearbook.
Moreover, the fact that the central dispute here concerns a yearbook photo makes the controversy not one that is beneath the federal courts, but one that resonates with almost all Americans. Yearbooks are part of American life, a rite of passage for students completing high school and entering adulthood. For many students, a senior yearbook portrait is the first time their image ever appears in a book, and for many others, it will be the only time that happens in their entire lives.
Young people in America deserve to be themselves, and they should not be penalized for it.