Opinion

A high school senior stayed home from her graduation ceremony last month because school administrators refused to let her attend dressed like a girl.

In a legal complaint filed by "L.B." and her parents, her mother states that Mitchell King, superintendent of the Harrison County (Miss.) School District, explained that the girl, who is transgender, "is still a boy" and that "he needs to wear pants, socks, and shoes, like a boy."

King wasn't caught off guard by L.B.'s intention to wear a dress. As he later testified in court, after seeing a young man wearing a dress at a previous event, he asked the high school principals which students were likely to defy the graduation dress code. L.B. was called to the principal's office, where she was warned: no tie, no slacks, no ceremony.

When school administrators were subsequently sued for sex discrimination, they didn't decide that forcing a child into a pair of pants was a poor use of school funds. They didn't stop to think that, in fact, every single graduate would be wearing a flowing white gown.

Nope. They hired a lawyer and spent eight hours in court the night before graduation to make sure that L.B. would not be collecting her diploma in a dress and heels.

Why such determined effort? To punish L.B. for crossing a line they seem to think is extremely important: the one enforcing the gender binary.

This sort of aggressive gender policing is happening all across the country. At least 10 states have new laws on the books requiring people to use the bathroom for the "biological sex" listed on their birth certificate. In Florida, people who use the "wrong" bathroom can be charged with trespassing — literally the crime of crossing a line.

A dress code recently circulated by the Texas Department of Agriculture insists that employees dress "in a manner consistent with their biological gender." (They can also choose "Western business attire," although it's unclear whether that option is open only to employees assigned "cowboy" at birth.)

Both Tennessee and Montana added drag shows to lists of sexually oriented performances from which minors must be protected — although drag shows aren't necessarily sexual, and drag story hours, which Montana specifically prohibits, definitely aren't. In fact, a federal judge on Friday struck down the Tennessee law, finding that it unconstitutionally limits the free speech of "male and female impersonators" whose work "purposefully challenges the limits of society's accepted norms."

Jennifer Rubin: With an ode to the First Amendment, a judge rebuffs the war on woke

What drag performers actually threaten is not children or innocence or America but the very persistence of those norms. After all, attending a drag story hour might tempt boys to abandon the rigid rules that withhold from them every fun article of clothing and offer in recompense … novelty ties and colorful socks.

It's all so silly. Except that the recent uptick in harassment of drag queens is serious. The persecution of trans kids is serious. The fact that Target employees were threatened with violence because some of the store's merchandise crossed the gender line — that's serious.

So, how do decent people stand up to this bullying?

We sue to block anti-trans and anti-drag laws, urge our legislators to fight anti-trans legislation in states where it's still pending, and vote against candidates who support those bills. We elect people such as Nebraska state Sen. Megan Hunt (I), who responded to an anti-drag bill by filing amendments to postpone it indefinitely, replace "drag show" with "beauty pageant," require manufacturers of chocolate-coated candy to identify the candy's birth gender and bar minors from religious camps because of a "well-documented history of indoctrination and sexual abuse perpetrated by religious leaders and clergy people upon children." (The bill is stalled in committee.)

We do all of that. But we also stop toeing the gender line.

Sure, most of us grew up with "boys" and "girls" restrooms, clothes, toys and names. Sorting people by gender is familiar and might even feel right. But habit doesn't change the fact that for millennia, this sorting has been a reliable means for some people to control and diminish others. Remember, we also grew up with boys and girls career prospects, salaries, sexual assault rates and rights to reproductive freedom.

We’re still living with those inequities. And since gender bias persists, we can't act as though there is no gender binary; it absolutely exists as a powerful cultural force. I simply propose that those of us who believe gender is a meaningless way to define people — that its rules are arbitrary and its distinctions ripe for abuse — should do everything we can to lessen its power.

So let's write dress codes that don't specify "boys" and "girls" — or ask our children's schools to. Let's write forms without a space for gender — or leave that space blank. Let's retire gender-reveal parties and gender-specific toy aisles and assume everyone is a "they" until they tell us otherwise. Let's label our restrooms "restroom" and, if we’re worried about privacy, put locks on the stalls. (How's that? Stalls already lock? Great!)

Guest Opinion: For girls’ sake, let's end the myth of the ‘fearless’ girl

Let's resist being sorted by gender and resist sorting others. Yes, this could take some time to get used to and some thought to get right. But the more power we take from the gender binary, the more power we take from the bullies itching to enforce it.

And, of course, the more gift options we’ll have for Father's Day.