Kids Back Her
Cross-Dressed Teen Booted From School
By Associated Press
Contributed by Jodie Miller, Sharon Marie, Doreen Abadjian, and others
CARROLLTON, Ga.
October 30, 1998
Matthew "Alex" McLendon |
Patrick Nelson had heard there was a cross-dressing boy
enrolled at his high school. But darned if he could figure out just who it
was.
"I looked for him the first couple weeks. The honest truth - I didn't even
know," Patrick said.
One day, he was talking about the mystery to a friend, who smiled and
pointed to the pretty blonde at the desk next to his.
"I said, 'No way, that's too weird!"' Patrick recalled. "Then I thought
about it, and I said, 'So what's so weird about that?"'
But while Patrick and his friends were willing to accept Matthew "Alex"
McLendon's feminine appearance and mannerisms, others in this rural,
conservative western Georgia community of about 20,000 weren't.
And so 15-year-old Alex withdrew from school under pressure, leaving
supporters of the popular, easygoing student wondering what threat they
had supposedly been protected from.
"Alex wasn't causing any problems. She got along well with everybody,"
said classmate and friend Meayghan Denkers. "She wasn't trying to change
anybody to be like her or anything."
After a heated meeting of the board of the small, private Georgian Country
Day School on Oct. 6, Alex was "invited to withdraw" or face expulsion.
Alex, who had enrolled in September after attending public school, was
cited for wearing a tongue ring, but had been called before school
authorities earlier about his female dress, makeup and hairstyle.
Most of Alex's classmates - including some of the boys - wore bows in
their hair in protest until ordered to remove them by the principal. Some
indignantly quoted their school handbook, which urges acceptance of
"diversity in opinion, culture, ideas, behavioral characteristics,
attributes or challenges."
"Alex represents something that's way beyond the experience and the
comfort zone of the very conservative people we live with," said Lori
Lipoma, Meayghan's mother and a drama teacher at the school. "I really
think we all lost something very precious that night."
School officials would not discuss the case.
"We make no comments on students," said Rex Camp, chairman of the board of
the school, where tuition is more than $5,000 a year for the 50 or so high
school students. Kindergarten and elementary students are in a separate
building, but one parent of a 6-year-old expressed concern at the board
meeting about Alex's effect on younger children.
"I believe in sexual standards in society, and I want my child in a school
that holds the same sexual ethics that I do," said Craig Neal.
Alex, who speaks in a soft, feminine voice, began cross-dressing two years
ago and considers himself "95% girl."
Larry Harmon, a Dade County, Fla., psychologist who counsels patients on
sexual identity, said such feelings appear to fit a rare condition called
gender-identity disorder. He said it doesn't necessarily imply
homosexuality, and it's difficult to know how many youngsters have it and
why.
"I'm not homosexual," Alex said. "I just look like a girl and I dress like
a girl. It wasn't anything flamboyant, not sequins or anything. But
because I'm a guy ..."
He enrolled in night school but quit in less than a week because he didn't
feel the courses offered would help his education goals. He hopes to
pursue a career in fashion merchandising and modeling.
Alex said Thursday he's looking into the possibility of home-schooling. "I
do wish I was still at the Georgian School," he said.
At the Georgian Country Day School - where Alex said he enrolled to get a
better education - he struck up a friendship with Meayghan and was soon
invited to spend nights over at her house. The first couple of times,
Meayghan's mother popped in on them unannounced just in case.
"They'd be sitting there doing hair, or painting nails, and I said to
myself, 'This is a girl," Ms. Lipoma said.
A few weeks into the school year, he and his father were summoned to a
meeting with school officials. They said that parents had complained, and
that he had to dress like a boy, Alex recalled. He refused and was sent
home. A special board meeting followed.
Under the law, a public school would have had to show that Alex was
disrupting education or undermining safety. A private school has more
leeway.
Alex's mother died when he was young. He said that his cross-dressing
initially caused a rift with his father, but that the older man stood with
him in the dispute with the board. Mack McLendon declined an interview.
"School is supposed to be preparing you for life," Alex said. "Parents are
trying to protect their kids by covering their eyes. It's going to be a
real shock for some of these parents when their kids get out into the real
world."
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