<p>i personally would have let him keep the title. the school treats him as a male. teachers call him by his male name and he will get to wear a male robe for graduation. i think if the kids voted for him, he should have been homecoming king.</p>
<p>this kid is presurgery and is still technically a female. that is why the school did not let him be homecoming king.</p>
<p>but I have a question. let’s say that a caucasian person doesn’t feel white inside. let’s say he identifies more with black culture and feels black. can someone just identify themselves as whatever they want? this kid has not had surgery yet, but he identifies himself as male and his parents support him and the school does too, i guess. what is to stop someone from identifying themselves as another race or ethnicity and marking that on a college app? can they use the same argument that they just don’t feel like they are the race or ethnicity they are. i have wondered about this.
[Transgender</a> Teen Becomes Facebook Superstar After Homecoming Snub](<a href=“News, Politics, Sports, Mail & Latest Headlines - AOL.com”>News, Politics, Sports, Mail & Latest Headlines - AOL.com)</p>
<p>I don’t know. It is a tough issue - I understand the school’s side in one way since he is pre-surgery. Being so young, I doubt any doctor would perform this operation until he is at least 18. On the other hand, his classmates elected him and see him as a male. </p>
<p>Has he been living as a male for years? Or has he just recently began the transition? I would think that’s more complicated. </p>
<p>It’s a good question you ask about self-identifying for different situations.</p>
<p>I think as long as the student is in good standing, the student body should be able to elect whoever they want for any elected position. If it is a public school, it should reflect the student social values and beliefs, not those of the school board.</p>
<p>Regarding a student self identifying with one race over another. Students who are multi-racial have to do it all the time when filling out forms. For some, it’s silly and annoying. Why should they have to state who they are…they just ‘are’. My cousins are japanese, hawaiian, african american, and caucasian (and stunning btw). How do you fill that out? They don’t unless they absolutely have to.</p>
<p>If you are suggesting a student be allowed to legally identify with a race that they are not related to by blood (ie asian, african american, native american), which I actually believe is what you were getting at… interesting thing to ponder in theory, however I have no idea legally how you could do that and still offer any sort of URM status in college admissions, or quantify an data gathered regarding race. Do you then begin asking people are you related by blood or do you self identify? That seems like a messy slope. I believe as long as we continue to make racial distinctions for any reason, allowing people to self-identify will lead to those reading statistics gained this way to view the data differently.</p>
<p>^ I agree, that as I understand our legal system today, he will have to identify as a female on legal paperwork if and until a gender reassignment surgery is done.</p>
<p>I don’t think that has any bearing on who the classmates can vote into any elected position, ever. If that student is a respectable student at that school (ie, in no trouble for any reason) there should never be restrictions on who can or can not be voted into any position. These things should be decided by the student body.</p>
<p>I know many college applications do not provide an “other” or “decline to state” when it comes to sex, but if it were me, and I only had two options, I’d either leave it unmarked, or check off the biological sex, and then write my essay about my identity(lifestyle, transition into another sex, etc)
If not, then I doubt that “type” of school that only believes or identifies or acknowledges only two genders probably isn’t the school for me.<br>
I guess the same thing could be said about identifying with a particular race/culture that is not the one, one is born into or the one that one is labeled into. However, I think people tend to be uncomfortable comparing the two for obvious reasons. Not doing so, doesn’t bring about the conversation that should be had about what’s wrong with the status quo and the words/labels used to described the physical/biological of a person, and the ignored or/and encouraged assumptions and assumed behaviors of those physical/biological characteristics(that technically speaking doesn’t necessarily or always follow the stereotype of what it is to be male/female/black/white/asian/hispanic/gay/lesbian/straight/intersexed/etc)
Either, gender or race, should make for an interesting essay, as I doubt many people write essays(and can successfully justify without making the essay come off as a joke), about identifying with the other gender and living the assumed lifestyles of that gender, or the assumed lifestyle of a race/culture.</p>
<p>Food for thought: You can get a passport without surgery. It still requires a few hoops, but transgendered individuals no longer have to go under a knife just for people to recognize them as the gender they identify with.</p>
<p>^ Ah. So obviously the legal system as I knew it is different. I stand happily corrected. I don’t know how this will change other legal policies (ie DL, or college apps), however the change in Passport policy is huge IMHO.</p>
<p>Regarding OP’s question, it seems to me there is a difference between identifying with a state which you can surgically become (eg. female to male) and identifying with a state which you cannot surgically become (white to black, etc.). The transgendered person doesn’t just identify with the CULTURE of being the opposite sex, but with the physical state as well.</p>
<p>I think the student body should be able to elect whoever they want as “King.” Why can’t a female, whether feminine or not be “King.” On the other hand, why can’t a male be “Queen.” These are just arbitrary titles with something that the kids are supposed to have fun with and is really just a popularity contest. I’m a bit surprised a modern school system would have trouble with this. By disallowing it, they certainly are drawing more attention to the issue.</p>
<p>Well, you can’t surgically change gender except at a superficial level (those XY cells won’t be XX). And you could adopt the appearance of another race I guess. There were those cases of investigative writers taking drugs to appear “black”.</p>
<p>Agreed…and lacking in common sense. I don’t even see the legal issue here- there isn’t some law about homecoming Kings. </p>
<p>What matters is not biology and surgery, but self-identification which isn’t just ticking a box and saying so, but living the life of, in most ways. regardless of one’s particular private parts. </p>
<p>I wonder how this school administration would cope with a hermaphrodite?</p>
<p>I wonder how this school administration would cope with a hermaphrodite?
While chromosomal tests arent generally done at birth, there is surgery that is performed so that the child can be raised to identify as either male/female. ( if ambiguous, it seems to be easier to identify as female- although that doesn’t always match up with chromosomes)</p>
<p>The person was never really stripped of the title, the person was never given the title. I think the adults and the kids at the school handled everything very well; there was no animosity, no brow beating etc. and the kids at that high school handled it in a manner that undoubtedly will enable the school board to have a discussion that will impact future decisions. I think it’s interesting the national news picked up on the Facebook angle.</p>
yeah, that’s what i think too. some transgendered people can never afford surgery. does that mean the male is less of a female if he feels female?</p>
<p>what stops anyone from self identifying. not adopting the culture of something, but saying “i feel like an african american or a native american on the inside. just 'cause my outside doesn’t match doesn’t mean i’m not that thing.” that’s what transgendered people say. what’s the difference?</p>
<p>sstrugling, it’s a tricky topic to be sure. That’s why I thought the teens in the story and the school handled things OK by saying these are the rules as they exist now and we’re not going to change the on the fly without discussion. Now with the urgency off the table, they will have the time to talk, discuss, and work things out.</p>