High School Boys Fight Back Against Their Dress Code by Wearing Dresses

It looks like Jaden Smith isn't the only teenager fighting against those outdated gender norms. A group of boys at Buchanan High School in Clovis, Calif. proudly wore dresses to school to protest the school district's gender-biased dress code.

The bold move came after the district's trustees denied an amendment that would allow boys to have long hair and earrings, and to remove language that says dresses and skirts are strictly for girls. To show their disapproval students came to class wearing clothing usually associated with the opposite gender, meaning guys in skirts and girls in collared shirts. They also started a petition for a new gender-neural dress code that has gained 2,500 signatures.

“Boys deserve to express their sexual orientation and gender identity through clothing, whether it’s the traditional boy look or a more feminine look,” Kristen Van Orden, a sophomore at Clovis North, told the Fresno Bee. “Clothing shouldn’t determine a person’s education.”

According to the American Civil Liberties Union, which has taken the district to court over its dress code in the past and will most likely do so again, the decades-old policy violates the state education code. In addition to the changing trends, many students have expressed concern for their transgender peers who would be negatively affected by these rules.

Clovis is just one of many schools that have recently come under fire for strict and often sexist dress codes. Students and parents around the country have been protesting the extreme rules that are being enforced by school administrators.