High schools changing rules for gowns at commencement

Boston Globe ^ | May 16, 2015 | Jeremy C. Fox

[ConservativeStatement]

For years, Sharon High School parents had help finding their sons and daughters among the sea of gowns on graduation day: boys all sported deep maroon, while girls wore pristine white.

But last year, students approached principal Jose Libano with a proposal: end the tradition, which alienated some students. Now, all graduates wear maroon.

Around the region, longstanding customs of assigning graduation colors by sex are giving way to new realities, driven by transgender student activists and supportive educators and classmates of all stripes.

The change reflects a growing awareness that simple categories of male and female do not fit every teenager.

[mykroar]

longstanding customs of assigning graduation colors by sex are giving way to new realities fantasies

fix'd

[Morgana]

Look mom, I’m going to HOMESCHOOL!!

[metmom]

ANOTHER REASON TO HOMESCHOOL

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[Morgana]

“They were not capable of distinguishing....My rule would have been if you have a penis, maroon is your color...if you don’t...white is it....discussion OVER.”

They could do that or just go to the old way of simple, solid black. Was done for years before schools got into this “school color” stuff. Most, if not all universities do it that way no matter if one is male or female.

[Enlightened1]

NASA must be desperate for money. Hence, they put out more lies in order to please their Masters for more tax money.

According to Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth”, the melting of the Arctic should have already happened in 2013. Florida, New York City and Boston are all suppose to be in the ocean now.

What about the Polar Bears? They are all supposed to be wiped out according to Al Gore? How come they now have the largest population in recorded history to his doom and gloom prediction? What happened???

[mountainbunny]

We all had one color of robe way back then. This is the first I’ve seen colors by sex. The only color difference we had were sashes and tassels representing letters in sports, or academic/attendance/volunteer honors.

Looking back, our tradition honored accomplishment and hard work, not biology.

Yay, us.

[Pollster1]

The change reflects a growing awareness that simple categories of male and female do not fit every teenager.

Now we can sort boy, girl, and crazy. Give blue to the boys, pink to the girls, and straightjackets to those too mentally ill to know whether they are boys or girls.

[stevem]

The change reflects a growing awareness that simple categories of male and female do not fit every teenager.

First, I never had the slightest problem spotting my son and daughters in any and every graduation commencement we ever attended. These included Holy Angels High School in Richfield, MN, University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, Marquette University (Milwaukee) and Creighton University (Ohaha). It never mattered what color they wore.

Second, is there an educator left at any and every high school and college in the United States who isn't a granite pate?

[Nifster]

For crying out loud this is such nonsense. I graduated a long time ago and we all wore black. Get over yourselves

[monkeyshine]

I don’t recall ever seeing gowns divided by sex. But I admit I have not seen a lot of ceremonies either. I agree, it is silly to divide by sex.

Progress has become just another Orwellian type word. It is superficial progress they want. Superficial diversity, superficial identity driven. Diversity of the superficial is celebrated as an end, not a means. Get more Women, get more Ethnicities and Cultures represented but reject any ideas that deviate from the consensus and ostracize those who refuse to conform. It is the way.

[Andy'smom]

“William F Buckley’s home town.”

Where did you get that idea?

[ThanhPhero]

A decade ago one of the girls in my parish asked me what I thought about what she should wear to her senior prom. She was a tall (for a Vietnamese then) delicate and very pretty girl and very thin and didn't want bare shoulders. I immediately got a picture in my head of her in one of those huge bare shoulder getups that girls wore to the prom back in my day in the Jurassic Era and almost choked.
I said, "Wear an ao dai." That is the Vietnamese traditional dress. She said that would look odd and terribly old fashioned, thinking of women back "home" that had been wearing those things for centuries.
I told her that if she wore one all the other girls would be mad at her because their dates would be looking only at her and lining up to dance with her. Well, she wore a double ao dai, two layers of silk, one of blue and one of red. The ao dai is floor length and split to the waist over loose silk pants. In a draft the fore and aft panels swirl and the colors shift through red, blue and purple over the white pants. One of her classmates months later told me that Hanh got venomous commentary from a number of the other girls back in school the days after the prom.
I didn't find about how it all went until midsummer when a neighbor who is a teacher at that school mentioned to my wife that there had been a strange bit of disturbance at the prom, that some of the "popular girls" had left early in snits and more than one had slapped their boyfriends and also left.
I asked from across the yard if one of the girls was dressed differently. Wife's friend said "yes, how did you know?"

[Shimmer1]

Unless their parents egg them on to “feeeeeeeel” differently.

[tbw2]

The screaming starts when women get drafted and sent to the front lines to die in the next war, to make up for all the guys who died last time.

[BlackAdderess]

Huh, the only escapees around here from uniform black are those who have distinguished themselves academically.

[SoFloFreeper]

So the moron administrators let the children run things, eh?

Wait until the kids want to euthanize them.

[Albion Wilde]

I said, "Wear an ao dai." That is the Vietnamese traditional dress.

Awesome story! Thanks!

[5th MEB]

Brilliant idea, and makes for a beautiful formal gown at any time (of course I could be prejudiced).

[Mrs. Don-o]

"... giving way to new realities,"

Translated: giving in to new delusions.

[ThanhPhero]

How I saw it a long time ago.