A federal judge ruled that a biologically male student who identifies as a woman would have to comply with a Mississippi high school’s dress code for graduation on May 20.
The decision adds to the national debate as definitions about sex and gender are being challenged by progressives, who advocate for minors being able to decide their gender even if it doesn’t align their sex as determined by their chromosomes.
U.S. District Court Judge Taylor McNeel—appointed by former President Donald Trump—issued the ruling on May 19, the day before graduation.
The plaintiffs—a 17-year-old student named L.B. in the lawsuit and his parents—filed the lawsuit against the Harrison County School District in Gulfport, Mississippi, alleging that it violated the equal protection clause under the Fourteenth Amendment and the student’s freedom of expression under the First Amendment, in addition to violating Title IX.
The lawsuit was supported by the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Mississippi Foundation, which stated that the court’s decision is “deeply disappointing and concerning.”
According to the lawsuit, two weeks before the graduation, the school told L.B. they couldn’t attend wearing a dress and heeled shoes because it goes against the school’s sex-based dress code policy for the ceremony.
Female students must wear a white dress and dress shoes, while male students must wear a white buttoned shirt, black dress pants and shoes, and a tie or bowtie, the lawsuit states.
“Defendants instructed that L.B. must dress in accordance with her sex assigned at birth—in other words, that L.B. must dress with 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,” the lawsuit states.
5,000 Percent Increase in Gender Dysphoria Diagnoses
According to Patrick Lappert, a plastic surgeon with Lappert Skin Care in Alabama, there were only five gender clinics in the entire United States ten years ago.“Now, it’s somewhere on the high side of 57,” he said in a previous interview.
Much of the argument centers around whether a minor should be affirmed and encouraged to undergo surgery that would alter their lives forever, or to seek cognitive therapy, which Lappert argued historically has a 92 percent success rate.
‘It Makes Absolutely No Sense’
Democrats like Nebraska Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh have taken a zealous approach supporting gender changes in children using drugs and surgery.
No lawmaker opposed to gender-change surgeries for children has expressed hate or negative sentiment toward transgender-identifying people.
“At the end of the day, there are two positions here: One tells children that they’re beautiful the way they are, that they can find happiness in their own bodies. The other tells them that they should take drugs and cut themselves up with expensive surgeries in order to find freedom from depression. I know which side I’m on. No child in Mississippi will have these drugs or surgeries pushed upon them,” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said in a statement.
“It makes absolutely no sense to the average American,” Reeves said. “It certainly doesn’t make any sense to the average Mississippian. Why on earth is this so important to the far left that they want to literally mutilate our children?”
In February, Reeves signed a bill banning gender-change procedures for minors.
House Bill 1125, also known as the “Regulate Experimental Adolescent Procedure (REAP) Act,” prohibits health care officials from providing gender-change procedures to minors under 18.
The Epoch Times contacted the Harrison County School District for comment.
