A homecoming tradition in which boys dress like girls and vice versa in a tiny Texas school district won’t be held on Wednesday after a parent complained about what she regarded as the event’s homosexual overtones.
As a substitute for ”Twirp Day”, the schools — ranging from elementary to senior high — decided to hold ”Camo Day” — with black boots and army camouflage to be worn by everyone who wants to participate.
”Twirp”, which stands for ”the woman is requested to pay”, was hosted by Spurger schools for years during Homecoming Week — to give boys and girls a chance to reverse social roles and let older girls invite boys on dates, open doors and pay for sodas.
The Plano-based Liberty Legal Institute issued a news release on Tuesday reporting that it ”came to the aid of a concerned parent” over an ”official cross-dressing day” in the school district 240km north-east of Houston.
”It is outrageous that a school in a small town in east Texas would encourage their four-year-olds to be cross-dressers,” Liberty Legal Institute attorney Hiram Sasser said in the release.
Tanner T Hunt Jnr, the school district’s attorney, called Sasser’s statement ”inflammatory and misleading”. He said the district never planned or conducted a ”cross-dressing day”.
”They are a tiny little East Texas school district,” Hunt said. ”It never occurred to them that anyone could find anything morally reprehensible about Twirp Day. I mean, they’ve been having it for years, probably for generations, and it’s the first time anybody has complained.”
Delana Davies (33) said she complained after reading a school notice about ”Twirp Day”. Davies, whose nine-year-old son and four-year-old daughter attend Spurger Elementary, said she viewed the day not as a silly Homecoming Week activity, but rather something related to homosexuality.
”It’s like experimenting with drugs,” Davies said. ”You just keep playing with it and it becomes customary … If it’s OK to dress like a girl today, then why is it not OK in the future?” — Sapa-AP