If Clyde, Texas Can Get School Dress Code Right, Can't Lubbock?

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Ever heard of Clyde, Texas? If not, it's a tiny suburb of Abilene. As you probably know, Abilene is about half the size of Lubbock. And I have to commend Clyde for finally getting it right and switching to a non-gendered dress code. Because gendered dress codes are discriminatory, mostly arbitrary, homophobic and sexist. Period.

Clyde Consolidated Independent School District didn't get it right because they were visited by three gender non-conforming ghosts at Christmas. It took a brave young man willing to fight to keep his nail polish on. Nail polish hasn't been exclusively for girls for decades. The cover photo for this article? That's Brad Pitt's hand. Probably the king of masculine dudes. And he's not afraid to wear it.

Senior Trevor Wilkinson, who happens to be openly gay and enviably confident in who he is, decided not to acquiesce to Clyde CISD's former dress code rules that made nail polish OK for girls only. He took suspension instead, and started a petition to change the rules that gained over 400,000 signatures. He also addressed the issue at a school board meeting.

Here's the result of Trevor fighting the good fight:

The board created the new dress code policy after months of discussion among staff members, administrators, parents and students, KRBC-TV reported. It was unanimously approved by the district school board Monday.

Some of Lubbock's school dress codes still remain gendered from what I can tell; finding a standard dress code online proved to be a frustrating process. I was able to find Evans Middle School's Dress Code that refers to boys as "boys" but girls as "females," which we as a gender generally do not care for. Are these school officials Ferengi? Of course, the female dress code requirements exist to limit the male gaze, instead of just teaching young men not to be creeps.

Cover those shoulders, ladies! If you wear leggings, wear a baggy shirt to cover your butt, because boys will be boys, amirite?

Outlying schools have been warned by the ACLU to knock this off as recently as October of last year because many of the hair requirements disproportionately affect black students with natural styles. Also, no one in the real world cares if men have long hair. In fact, many of us find it very beautiful.

Boys: if you wear nail polish, have earrings and grow long hair, be forewarned: you may grow up to be a fabulously wealthy celebrity. Wouldn't that be just terrible?