After fighting tooth and nail, a Texas school board and an openly gay student reached a resolution that will allow all students to wear nail polish at school.
Superintendent Kenny Berry confirmed that the dress code policy for the next academic year will not include gender-specific dress requirements.
“The Clyde CISD Board of Trustees voted to approve a Dress & Grooming Policy for the 2021-2022 school year. There are no gender specifications within that policy,” he said in an email to the Washington Examiner.
NEW MEXICO HIGH SCHOOL WILL HAVE GENDER-NEUTRAL PROM ROYALTY
Trevor Wilkinson, the student who led the charge to change the school’s dress code policy, first revealed the school board’s Monday evening decision to modify the wording in its student handbook, which no longer separates male and female students, thus allowing him to wear nail polish to school.
“It is with great honor that I am pleased to announce that Clyde High School’s dress code is officially gender neutral forever,” Wilkinson told KTXS-TV.
Wilkinson celebrated the amended handbook, saying that he was filled with joy by the board’s decision.
“I’m at a loss of words for the joy I am feeling on this special day. I am so blessed by the support, love, and help I have received through this experience,” he said.
Wilkinson, an openly gay student at Clyde High School near Abilene, Texas, was suspended on Nov. 30 of last year because he wore nail polish to class, a violation of the Clyde Independent School District’s dress code at the time.
Shortly after his suspension, Wilkinson circulated an online petition calling on the board to modify its policy, which he called “unjust and not okay.”
“It’s a complete double standard because girls are allowed to paint and get their nails done. Not only that, but freedom of expression is validation enough that the dress code and policy is not okay,” the petition said. “I am a gay male and I’m beyond proud. … Help me show that it is okay to express yourself and that the identity that society wants to normalize is not okay. I am a human. I am valid.”
The petition attracted over 400,000 signatures, as well as the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union, which wrote a letter to the school board on Wilkinson’s behalf in December.
“As an openly gay male student, Trevor feels that wearing nail polish is an important aspect of his identity. It helps him feel connected to the LGBTQ community and helps him feel comfortable expressing himself at school. … By prohibiting Trevor from wearing nail polish and maintaining a dress and grooming code based on gender stereotypes, Clyde CISD is likely violating the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, Title IX, the First Amendment, and its own local policies prohibiting gender-based discrimination,” the ACLU wrote on Dec. 9, 2020.
Other schools throughout the nation have taken similar steps toward gender neutrality in recent weeks. A New Mexico high school eliminated the titles of “prom king” and “prom queen” in favor of gender-neutral prom royalty, and a COVID-19 survey in a Washington school district asked students as young as 10 about their gender identities, prompting ire from some parents.
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“I do not trust the public school system any longer. Once she is exposed to it, you can’t unring that bell,” the father of a 12-year-old daughter in the Bethel School District said. “I got a very special email about how to opt my kids out of the HIV classes but no specific/special email about wanting to ask my 12-year-old if she is a lesbian, a different gender than at birth, or how she identifies her sexuality.”
