Thursday, May 12, 2005

Student in Drag Ejected from Prom and Fined

This story sums up part of the American public school experience that I always found baffling: the enforcement of conformity for its own sake. A straight male student accompanied a gay male friend to their prom. He went in drag. For this, he was removed from the prom and fined $249 for disorderly conduct.
School administrators warned Lofy not to ruin prom for others, Lofy says. "It's not your prom," he says the associate principal told him.
How does one guy in drag ruin the prom for others? The prom, as the student pointed out, is not a learning environment. Attracting a lot of attention is what people try to do at prom. The previous year the same student wore a duct tape tuxedo. Surely every prom has its own scandals: the girl who shows up with another girl's boyfriend, or the improbable couple no one knew about. And what's more, this was his prom. It was everyone's prom. It was his date's prom, who apparently was too embarrassed to go alone.

How wearing women's clothes is disorderly conduct is beyond me, especially compared to the normal stuff that teenagers do.
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