Milwaukee mom keeps son home during “Gender Bender Day”
Expect a flurry of students in Milwaukee to come out of the closet soon – apparently one school’s “Gender Bender Day” during School Spirit Week promotes homosexuality.
At least, the latter is the opinion of one Wisconsin mother on the spirit day where students can choose to voluntarily dress like the opposite sex.
Deidri Hernandez told the education reform nonprofit EAGnews that she wouldn’t send her son to school at the Tippecanoe School for the Arts and Humanities on what she claims might as well be called “Transgender Day.” Hernandez’s confusion about the definition of transgender aside, this stunt highlights how a playful spirit week can be politicized through homophobia.
“Every time something’s bothering a liberal or an atheist, they come forward to complain. And somebody always has a problem with Easter or Christmas,” she told EAGnews.
Rather than a sinister plot to turn young Milwaukeeans gay, the day was chosen by the school’s Student Council as a lighthearted end to spirit week. The complaint caused the name to change to “Switch It Up Day.”
But for Hernandez’s son, skipping a day of instruction was possibly more detrimental than seeing some of his classmates dressed differently.
No word how Ms. Hernandez felt about the Tippecanoe Book Fairies last fall. Or tomorrow night’s Sixth Grade Opera. Or the production of Grease the students are putting on next month.
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