Trevor Wilkinson Texas teen suspended from Clyde High over fingernail polish. Student starts online petition to force school district to change policy.
A place for learning or a place for self expression? But if girls can wear make up or nail polish, why not boys? Examining gender stereotypes….
A Texas teen student has told of being punished by his high school in Clyde, for wearing nail polish to class.
Trevor Wilkinson, a 17-year-old senior at Clyde High School said he returned to school after the Thanksgiving holiday, after having received an in-school suspension for violating the school’s dress code earlier this month. Wilkinson says he was punished for painted his nails.
‘Imagine your school not allowing boys to paint their nails and giving boys [in-school suspension] for it,’ the teen tweeted. ‘And the whole administration being okay with it, homophobic and sexist? Welcome to West Texas,’ he wrote, adding a smiling cowboy emoji.
Of note, Clyde is a small town in northwestern Callahan County, about 170 miles west of Dallas.
‘I am a human. I am valid. I should not get in trouble for having my nails done’
Wilkinson, who’s openly gay and ‘beyond proud,’ decided to start an online petition to convince his school to ‘allow males to wear nail polish.’
The petition, posted on Change.org, had just on 62,000 signatures by Sunday evening — nearly reaching its intended goal of 75,000 names.
Wilkinson hopes to show the school that ‘it is okay to express yourself and that the identity that society wants to normalize is not okay.’
‘I am a human. I am valid. I should not get in trouble for having my nails done,’ he wrote.
According to the school’s student handbook, men are explicitly prohibited from wearing nail polish or facial makeup.
‘If the campus administrator determines that a student’s grooming or clothing violates the school’s dress code, the student will be given an opportunity to correct the problem at school,’ the guide states.
‘If not corrected, the student may be assigned to in-school suspension for the remainder of the day, until the problem is corrected, or until a parent or designee brings an acceptable change of clothing to the school. Repeated offenses may result in more serious disciplinary action in accordance with the Student Code of Conduct.’
Double standard?
Wilkinson calls the dress code a ‘complete double standard because girls are allowed to paint and get their nails done,’ as he wrote on his online petition.
After meeting with the school’s principal and vice principal, the teen was told that if he did not remove nail polish, he would have to remain in suspension.
He’s refused to do it.
‘It’s really sad to me because I feel like it’s 2020 and we should be progressing and not taking steps back,’ the teen told NBC News.
‘And it makes me really sad because I know that there are other people who feel like this and feel like they can’t express themselves and that they never will be able to because of people like this, who are not open-minded enough to see another perspective,’ he said.
With his petition, his goal is that ‘people like me don’t have to ever deal with this again,’ he wrote. ‘It’s time for a change and that time is now.’
The Clyde Consolidated Independent School District declined to comment on the incident with Wilkinson but said in a statement Friday that it ‘conducts a diligent and thoughtful review’ of its dress code policy on an annual basis.
