Tag Archives: high school

DON’T TOUCH

Laurie says:

A high school student’s petition against her school’s new ban on physical contact between students, except handshakes, is in this post from Jezebel.

She says: I am insulted by the presumption that I’m too immature to decide which kind of touches are appropriate for school.

In a a society that whose media sexualizes younger and younger girls and politicians are safe unless they’re “found in bed with a dead girl or a live boy”, there is something profoundly ironic about her school’s ban on physical contact between students. This is yet another example of  the very effective social policy of of punishing the young, or other relatively powerless groups, instead of actually doing something about abusive behavior in the larger society.  This symbolism creates the illusion that something is being done while allowing the powerful to continue unpunished.

Her petition speaks clearly to the issue:

We, the undersigned, call for removal of or significant amendments to the new “No Touching” policy at our high school. The case for our request rests on several points:
• Interpersonal touch is not inherently sexual, and to treat it as such is to make it so. Touch can be a powerful bonding mechanism between friends, and any rule that fails to differentiate between acts of sex and acts of friendship seems arbitrary and inherently draconian.
• High school students will soon be turned loose and made responsible for their own decisions. Is it not the responsibility of educators to impart valuable life skills and ready us for autonomy? Outright bans are not the way to do so. Rather than be taught to see interpersonal touch as inherently bad, we should learn the nuances of what is and is not appropriate for public venues. Don’t force us to look at the world in black and white. Show us the shades of gray.
• Imposing limits on interpersonal relationships merely divides “school” and “life” into separate and often warring factions. This further alienates many teens who already fail to find much real-world meaning in school. School should be a holistic place in which social as well as academic needs are met. If we’re expected to integrate education into our lives, we should be allowed to bring our lives into our place of education.
• According to the World Book encyclopedia, “[m]ost teenagers mature psychologically at the rate set by their society. As a result, psychological adolescence normally lasts at least as long as the period of legal dependence.” In other words, micromanaging merely infantilizes us. Trust us to differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate touches, and we won’t let you down.

I wish her luck!

Trans Teen Doesn’t Make the News

Debbie says:

Mainstream news did a reasonable job (for what I’ve come to expect of mainstream news, anyway) of covering the story of Constance McMillen, who wanted to bring her girlfriend to her private high school prom. With the help of the ACLU and a favorable court judgment, McMillen won the skirmish, but she and her classmates lost the game when the school cancelled the prom.

Dan Savage points out that McMillen’s was neither the first nor the worst issue this year with that private high school. McMillen was another student at the time:

Constance McMillen was also a student. McMilllen clearly recalled [Juin] Baize’s first—and only—day at Itawamba Agricultural.

“People were talking about him all day, trying to get a look at him,” said McMillen. “It was insane, it was ridiculous, it made me so mad. They said he was causing a distraction with what he was wearing but it was a half day of school and people didn’t have time to get used to him.”

The other students wouldn’t be given a chance to get used to him: the next time Baize came to school, according Kristy Bennett, legal director of the ACLU of Mississippi, Baize was given a suspension notice and sent home. When Juin returned to school after his first suspension, he was suspended again.

“Juin’s case was a situation where a transgender student wanted to attend school dressed in feminine clothing,” said Bennett, “and the school district would not even let him attend school.”

The ACLU is not taking this one to court, apparently with the consent or even preference of Juin Baize (who prefers male pronouns at this time, according to Savage). The harassment level made it untenable for Baize to continue to stay in Fulton, Mississippi, and his grandmother sent him to Pensacola, Florida, to stay with friends:

“There’s this thing here called Florida Virtual School,” Juin told me today, “and I’m going to enroll in that online and do that until next year. And from what I’ve heard the high school near here is very accepting. So I’m going to start fresh.”

A Google search on Juin’s name turns up several of my favorite blogs, but not a single mainstream news organization.

Savage has put together a fund to support Baize in his new life. There’s a donation button in Savage’s column, or this link should work directly.

I sent money; if you are able to and so moved, you might want to as well. Juin is one of thousands, but letting any isolated trans kid know that there’s support for their lives out in the big world can’t be a bad thing.

Marlene pointed this one out to me.