Mississippi Student Ceara Sturgis Not Allowed To Wear Tux In Yearbook Photo ‘Cuz That’s Gay
16 October 2009, 9:35 AM. By Alex Alvarez
A Mississippi high school called Wesson Attendance Center has not allowed 17-year-old student Ceara Sturgis to don a tuxedo for her yearbook photo because, if wedding cake toppers have taught us anything, it’s that dresses are for ladypeople and tuxes are for non-ladypeople.
The school typically has female students wear “drapes” for their yearbook photos but Sturgis, who happens to be gay, does not play that. She explains:
I feel like I’m not important, that the school is dismissing who I am as a gay student and that they don’t even care about me. All I want is to be able to be me, and to be included in the yearbook.
Her mom, Veronica Rodriguez, echos Ceara’s sentiment that, by not allowing her to wear a tux, the school is not respecting her sexual orientation:
The tux is who she is. She wears boys’ clothes. She’s athletic. She’s gay. She’s not feminine.
We sort of see the point of equating Ceara’s homosexuality with her gender nonconformity, since, in this country, being gay is overwhelmingly seen as something that goes against what is deemed the natural inclinations of one’s gender. But it’s important to realize that one can be queer and still choose to present oneself in accordance to gender norms. Lots of lesbians wear the trappings of “femininity:” dresses and heels and jewelry and lipstick. If only there was some sort of name for it…
Kristy L. Bennett, legal director of the ACLU, says Sturgis’ First Amendment rights are being violated by the school’s decision not to allow her to wear a tux, and that there is no state policy dictating the dress each gender must wear in yearbook pictures.
We really do wonder how much longer the current, fairly rigid gender binary is going to stay in place as more and more news coverage is lent to people who don’t fit neatly into one category or another. Or for people who just aren’t interested in playing characters. At our high school, we had to wear white dresses and carry red roses down an aisle during our graduation mass, as if echoing that well-worn joke that, for many of us, our education was just “the icing on our wedding cake.” Now, we’re fairly femmetastic, but we were moderately to extremely horrified at the idea of marching down an aisle in matching white dresses and asked, along with a few other classmates, to wear white pants, to at least step away from the virginal, bridal, freakishly cult-like aspect of the ceremony. The answer was no. We were to all march along in our white dresses, as if so many among us hadn’t administered quicky hand jobs in the bathroom at house parties or as if wearing a dress somehow cemented the fact that this was an all-girl school and don’t you forget it.
Anyway. Good for Ceara for standing up for herself and for having really great hair.
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My heart was warmed as soon as I saw the ACLU mentioned.
The tux is fine, but the hair must go.
agreed. the fall out (of the closet) boi is not a good look for anyone. even pete whasshisface shaved his head. i humbly suggest ceara do the same.
Man, I really love that skater hair flip thing. Except it’s usually worn on younger kids and so I end up feeling all Gus Van Sant.
I live about 30 miles from this school and I can tell you (as a lesbian) that this decision by the school does not reflect the attitudes of the community. They could give a fuck if you’re gay. At least, everybody that I’ve dealt with around here.
On another note, I’m amazed that kids now days figure out that they are gay so early.
i think kids always knew they were gay early on. it’s may be just ready for them to be more vocal about it since society right now seems to be on an oversharing trend in general. and of course society being more accepting as the free love generation gets older, etc.
yeah, i hear you totally on the gender norms. femmes gotta represent too. but obviously, a little easier for them to get through in society as long hair, makeup, etc is the expected gender norm.
but hey, for a latino family in mississippi, i gotta say, one thing at a time, and fuuuuck, that’s cool the mom is so accepting in the media. right on.
Why not drop the tux, get a drape and keep the bowtie? That would be a subversive f you to school staff, speaking of, I bet if they start digging in school staff’s private lives, the ceara controversy would be put to rest.
hey! have surgery, have a dick sewed on. then change your name, clothes and what ever you like. then we can put you on as a guy. in between that, don’t complain biatch. you still do have a vagina right? so then.
gender is fluid. stop complaining about her “complaining” and leave ceara alone.