A gay high school student has been suspended after she refused to take off her ‘Nobody Knows I’m a Lesbian’ T-shirt.
Brianna Popour said she wore it to reach out to other students who may have been struggling to come to terms with their own sexuality. But when she arrived to Chesnee High School, in South Carolina, she claims she was told to change it or go home.
After she refused, arguing there was nothing in the school’s dress code against clothes depicting a student’s sexuality, she was suspended.
‘I’ve worn this shirt before and nobody’s ever said anything,’ Popour told WSPA.
The student claimed that when school staff noticed the T-shirt, which says ‘Nobody Knows I’m a Lesbian’ in large capital letters across the front, she was sent to the front office.
An administrator is then alleged to have told her the shirt was ‘disruptive’ and she needed to change it.
When the shocked student pointed out there was nothing in the student handbook prohibiting wearing something which mentioned sexual orientation, she claimed she was told ‘Well, not everything is in the handbook.’
Chesnee High School’s dress code states ‘clothing deemed distracting, revealing, overly suggestive or otherwise disruptive will not be permitted,’ according to WCBD 2 News.
But Brianna’s mother Barbara Popour said that her daughter’s T-shirt did not breach any of the policy’s rules and hit back at the move, branding it discriminatory.
She told WSPA that the school administrator ‘does not like people in his school wearing anything that says anything about lesbians, gays, or bisexuals.’
While her daughter, who is openly gay, has been left upset by decision. For Popour, it was about more than a t-shirt. It was about her identity.
‘Isn’t that what school is supposed to teach you? To be happy with who you are? Maybe people will be more comfortable showing who they are, because you should be able to wear what you want to wear,’ she said.
Ellen Kahn, director of the Children, Youth and Family Program at Human Rights Campaign Foundation, condemned the school’s decision.
She warned that it could not only be ‘hurtful’ to Brianna, but it could also be damaging for other gay students.
‘It’s quite an extreme measure,’ she told Dailymail.com. ‘I think the majority of school administrators and national organisations would tend to agree that it’s an extreme punitive reaction.
‘It’s not only hurtful to Brianna who was simply expressing who she is. But it creates a much more hostile and tense environment for other LGBT students, and other students who want to be more supportive.’
She also praised Brianna’s ‘courageousness’ for ‘being open and honest in a place where there is always risk.’
‘It opens the doors for conversations. Those conversations are important; they raise social awareness and they increase skills for living in an increasingly diverse world.’
The decision also sparked fierce debate online, with some in support of the student and others fearing the impact it could have on their own children.
Chesnee High School were unavailable for comment.
