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High School Girl Told To Remove Her Pants & Walk In Underwear At Her School's Graduation

Photo: Sara Carpenter/Shutterstock
Graduation day

Two students at Harrison Central High School in Mississippi allegedly had their graduation day ruined by administrators going to extreme lengths to police what they wore.

A Mississippi graduation ceremony made national headlines when a trans student, L.B. Brown, sued the district after she was told she would have to follow the male dress code in order to walk at her May 2023 graduation. Another student at the same ceremony, Jai Dallas, was pulled aside moments before the ceremony that if she wanted to walk, she would have to take off her pants.

The teen girl was told that in order to participate in her graduation ceremony, she would have to remove her pants and walk in her underwear.

Dallas wore a white shirt and black pants to her graduation. In the hours leading up to the ceremony, she was allegedly given no warning that her clothes were apparently unacceptable until she was pulled out of line by a supervisor and told that she would have to remove her pants to walk.

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Dallas’ family members spoke out about the incident. “She tells her that she can take her pants off and walk the stage. So, she could walk in her underwear, but she can’t walk in pants,” recounted Dallas’ mother. “This is something that she achieved, you know, that she worked hard for.” 

Dallas’ sister, who graduated from the same high school, was understandably devastated that she didn’t get to see her younger sibling walk. “When I graduated, I was proud to come from Harrison Central, but I just don’t know what this is today,” she said. “That was a very awful experience to see my sister not be able to graduate from where I graduated from.” 

Her grandmother, who traveled over 800 miles to attend the ceremony, said “I don’t understand how a moment this important can be taken away from a child that’s worked 12 years to get here.” 

Dallas’ aunt claimed school officials waited for hours to say anything about her clothes. “Several adults told her that her attire was OK, and they waited. She’s been here since 4 o’clock. Why didn’t nobody say anything?”

School district superintendent Mitchell King, who ordered the district’s dress code to be “strictly enforced” for this year’s ceremony, informed L.B. Brown two weeks before the ceremony that she would have to adhere to the male dress code in order to walk. Brown sued the district but a federal judge denied the motion, leading Brown to miss her ceremony.

In Dallas’ case, administrators waited until she was about to walk to challenge her attire, which meant she had no time to debate the decision or change clothes.

When King was contacted for comment by WLOX News, he said “We followed the graduation policy of the Harrison County School District.”

Dallas and Brown’s graduation was ruined by school officials attempting to enforce conformity to strict, arbitrary gender roles.

Transphobia is running rampant throughout the United States. Republican lawmakers are pushing a record number of bills targeting the rights of trans people, including bans on gender-affirming care and bathroom bans.

Incidents like Harrison Central High’s graduation ceremony demonstrate how the moral panic around trans people doesn’t just stop at harming trans people — cisgender women are next on the chopping block.

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Jessica Bracken is a writer living in Davis, California. She covers entertainment and news for YourTango.