School officials in a Mississippi high school told a graduating senior that she must wear boys’ clothing at her high school graduation; if she didn’t, she would not be permitted to participate in the ceremony. The girl is transgender and has worn girls’ clothing for the four years of high school. The mother sued with the legal help of the Mississippi ACLU. The Trump-appointed federal judge ordered the trans girl to wear boys’ clothing.
The Mississippi Free Press reported:
A federal judge ruled late Friday evening that the Harrison County School District can prohibit a 17-year-old transgender girl from attending her graduation Saturday unless she dresses in attire designated for boys, the Sun Herald’s Margaret Baker reported.
U.S. District Court Judge Taylor McNeel issued the ruling after hours of testimony from the Harrison Central High School senior and school district officials. Former President Donald Trump appointed the conservative judge to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi in 2020.
“The court’s decision to uphold the school district’s explicit discrimination of our client is deeply disappointing and concerning,” the ACLU of Mississippi responded in a Twitter thread this morning. “Our client should be focused on celebrating this life milestone alongside her friends and loved ones. Instead, this ruling casts shame and humiliation on a day that should be focused on joy and pride. All Mississippi students should have the right and autonomy to be who they are—not who judges and school officials think they should be…”
“On May 9, 2023—less than two weeks before graduation day, Defendants informed Plaintiff L.B. that she could not attend or participate in her high school graduation ceremony while wearing a dress and heeled shoes,” says a complaint the American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi on Thursday.
“Defendants based this instruction on the HCHS gender-based dress code policy for graduation, which provides that girls must wear a white dress and dress shoes and that boys must wear a white button-down shirt, black dress pants, black dress shoes, and a tie or bowtie,” the complaint continues.
“Defendants instructed that L.B. must dress in accordance with her sex assigned at birth—in other words, that L.B. must dress in accordance with the stereotypical male standards, even though she entered high school as a girl and has lived every aspect of her high school career as a girl.
L.B. would be humiliated in the company of her classmates if compelled to dress as a boy after living as a girl for four years. Why should it matter to school officials if she chooses to dress as a girl and her parent(s) permits it. Does her mother have no parental rights?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
I think L.B. should skip the graduation ceremony and/or see if any other students want to join her for an alternative graduation ceremony and do what New College graduates did in Florida.
https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2023/05/19/new-college-graduates-hold-alternate-commencement
I agree!
She could make a statement by wearing a Scottish kilt. It’s a skirt and effectively unisex.
What am I missing, don’t high school graduates wear long robes (covering whatever they are wearing underneath) and tassled caps? Silly nonsense from the powers that be which amounts to “legal” persecution of L.B..
Republicans never miss an opportunity to be cruel.
The irony of conservatives yelling “freedom!” like Mel Gibson to punctuate discussions is unbearable.
Here’s a possible option for dressing like a boy, truly old school attire. Look up images with the following keywords: 18th century A Boy in a Red Coat Petting his Dog. Just screams testosterone.
Yes, LCT. Funny that GOP claims to be the party of freedom, when they don’t like it when people act freely in defiance of GOP rules.
As in Florida, everyone is free to be what DeSantis likes: white, straight, ignorant.
OK. It’s bedtime for democracy. So, a bedtime story.
Once upon a time in the formerly sort of democratic United States, . . .
the Federalist Society went around the country turning up rocks until it found lots and lots of toxic lower lifeforms with legal degrees. It compiled these into a list and put this list in front the Orange Idiot, a man (using the term loosely) so vile that a jury just determined that he committed sexual assault and so stupid that he thought stealth airplanes actually invisible.
So, the Orange Idiot had to do nothing but sign with his Hollywood horror flick psychotoddler scrawl appointments of the lower lifeforms. As a result, the lower lifeforms were enabled to bring egregious harm to the most powerless people in the country for the rest of their natural lives.
But that was just the beginning. Wait until you see the rest of this horror story, which involves a handful of these Just Asses, as some of the lower lifeforms came to be called thanks to the Orange Idiot, eliminating powers of the federal government not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution and allowing state legislatures to determine how elections are decided (as in, “Oops, a progressive person won, so ‘Do over'”).
So, Tampa just cancelled a major outdoor Pride event because of Flor-uh-duh’s new law preventing drag queens from appearing where it might be possible for a kid to see them. St. Petersburg did NOT cancel its major Pride event. So, at Pride events, as you will know if you have attended on or viewed one online, lots of people dress up in gender-bendy ways. And this sets up the following possibility, that the Flor-uh-duh version of the Taliban Morality Police will show up and start arresting people for whatever they consider to be non-gender-appropriate clothing.
Let freedom ring, Flor-uh-duh style (sarcasm on the word style)
Meanwhile, in Putin’s Russia, the Patriarch Kirill, head of Russian Orthodox Church, is giving sermons about how Russia had to invade Ukraine because they are in league with Satan because they hold Pride marches, and Tsar Vladimir is repeating this when they prop up the decaying pile of his body for public events.