A12-year-old
middle school student is speaking out after he said he was sent home from
school for refusing to remove a T-shirt that read: “There are only two genders.”
The 7th grader, Liam
Morrison attends John T. Nichols Jr. middle school and during a board meeting
on April 13 he revealed to Middleborough Public Schools that he was in gym
class on day and someone on the school’s staff told him that he had to take his
shirt off because people were complaining that it was making them feel unsafe.
“Yes, words on a shirt made people feel unsafe. They told me
that I wasn’t in trouble, but it sure felt like I was,” Morrison
told the MPS board. “I
was told that I would need to remove my shirt before I could return to class.
When I nicely told them that I didn’t want to do that, they called my father.”
Morrison said he was
told by school staff his shirt was “targeting
a protected class.”
“Who
is this protected class?” Morrison
asked the board. “Are
their feelings more important than my rights?”
Twitter Video Link: https://twitter.com/i/status/1653096951007834112
“I don’t
complain when I see pride flags and diversity posters hung throughout the
school,” Morrison continued. “Do you know why? Because
others have a right to their beliefs just as I do.”
Morrison told the board
that what staff was telling him about his shirt — that it was making people
around him uncomfortable — happened to be the opposite of the feedback he had
been receiving from his peers that day. Morrison said that not a single student
or staff approached him and told him they were bothered by his T-shirt prior to
being pulled out of his gym class. Rather, Morrison insisted, several of his
peers said they supported his action and said they wanted a shirt like
his too.
The middle schooler
also spoke to “disruptions” to his learning that he experiences on a daily
basis by other students acting out in class, but frequently nothing is done.
“Why do the rules
apply to one, yet not another?” Morrison asked. “I
feel like these adults were telling me that it wasn’t okay for me to have an
opposing view.”
Morrison said his
purpose for bringing this matter to the school board’s attention was in hopes
they would speak up in support of students’ First Amendment rights.
The National Desk
(TND) reached out to both school and district officials for comment, and to
inquire whether they supported the decision to send Morrison home from school
for his shirt, but did not receive a response prior to publication. TND also
probed whether any disciplinary action would take place against the
administrator involved in sending Morrison home. If a response is received this
story will be updated.
The post 7th Grader Speaks Out After Being Sent Home For
Wearing T-Shirt That Said ‘There Are Only 2 Genders’ appeared first on Hollywood Unlocked .
MU2’s Take:
I think there should be some effort
to find a new word instead of gender, like self-identity. If one born male, he
will always be male even if he has surgery to change his outward appearance.
The same is true for females.
As an example of this changing of a word's meaning is the word marriage, which
has long been established to mean a union between a male and a
female. Marriage is for a male and female. Should a couple wish to
vow to stay with each other, that's fine with me, but it's not a marriage. Stop
changing the meaning of established words.
I think that this is a reasonable request, especially considering the same
folks that complain about tolerance seem to have none for anyone else.
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