Wear a Tux for Ceara
This is Ceara Sturgis, an openly gay high school senior. Her Mississippi high school, Wesson Attendance Center, refused to publish her picture in the yearbook because she’s wearing a tuxedo. They refused to mention her name in her senior yearbook. (Thanks, Style Spy, for bringing this to my attention!) We’re publishing her picture, and encourage everyone to do the same. Let’s make her senior picture the most published in history! If you have a blog or a Facebook page, please think about giving this young woman our support and post her picture and story. The high school principals Ronald Greer and Oscar Hawkins should be ashamed of themselves. This is just so wrong.
Une femme is taking this one step further, I’m wearing a tux for Ceara tomorrow (or as close as I can get, based on what’s in my closet). Spread the word, and please blog if you do the same.
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Oooh! I love the tux idea! Rock that tux, people!!!
I will do the same and I will tell my students – as much as I can- why I am wearing what I’m wearing!
Thanks for writing about this. I hope that the teachers are supportive even if the admin is not.
What, they refused to publish her because of her attire? In a head-shot? That’s freaking insane.
It’s amazing to me how cruel people can be to teens and adolescents.
She is a lovely young woman and thank you for doing this. Hope there is some way to let her know how your commenters feel.
Beautiful–that smiling face, your gesture, and everything.
There is a similar case in Mississippi, the ACLU is involved: http://www.aclu.org/lgbt-rights/fulton-ms-prom-discrimination
Oh come on! A tux is too extreme? Aside from the GLBT issues, it’s not as if tuxedos haven’t been a staple of women’s fashion since the 1970s. It’s time for these old fogey school administrators to join the 21st century.
Shame on Wesson! I loathe this sort of discrimination based on gender, sexual orientation and outfits- this behaviour is actually illegal in Australia. Can’t believe it is happening in 2010.
Bravo, Pseu! If I had a tux, or anything remotely resembling one, I’d join you — what a great idea!
I’m impressed by that Justin Bieber hair she has going on.
THIS MOMENTOUS DAY!
Not one day in anyone?s life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down?s syndrome child.
Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kindnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconscious example.
Each smallest act of kindness ? even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile ? reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it?s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away.
Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others, and is therefore the seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people whom you have never met and never will.
All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined ? those dead, those living, those generations yet to come ? that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands.
Therefore, after every failure, we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief, we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strength ? the very survival ? of the human tapestry.
Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days for which we, in our dissatisfaction, so often yearn are already with us; all great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in THIS MOMENTOUS DAY! ? Rev. H.R. White
Excerpt from Dean Koontz?s book, ?From the Corner of His Eye?.
It embodies the idea of how the smallest of acts can have such a profound effect on each of our lives.
MY one comment here (I’m in agreement with everyone else) is to point out the name of the school: Wesson Attendance Center. I don’t know who named that place, but ‘attendance center’ smacks of prison, not a high school.
Sad to think how much homophobia there still is.
Think elegant women in tuxes go back to Garbo and Dietrich at least…
I have nothing remotely tux-like (no formal trousers for one thing, I’m a skirt gal except for some practical purposes) but my cat is wearing his. And would be if he were a her.
Sad to think how much homophobia there still is.
Think elegant women in tuxes go back to Garbo and Dietrich at least…
I have nothing remotely tux-like (no formal trousers for one thing, I’m a skirt gal except for some practical purposes) but my cat is wearing his. And would be if he were a her.
Miss J posted it he her blog. How awful people can be. And to children no less. Its a scandal.
Great tux idea and I hope it gets published everywhere – I’m going tweet your post.
What they’re doing is outrageous. What century are they living in? Geez. I’ll pass this on, and see if there’s anything remotely tux-like in my closet.
Stories like this come up every year around this time. I hope that someday, that won’t be the case.
posting it now.
Dumbest high school I’ve heard of for awhile! Have you all seen Prom Night in Mississippi, a terrific doc a about a community that till recently had segregated proms (for the same class)?
Thanks for this!
I believe the people in Mississippi have never heard of Marlene Dietrich, who wore the h*** out of black tie back in the ’30s.
And Nina Simone summed it up well in her excellent song, Mississippi G-D. Guess things haven’t changed much down there.
boy,is there something in the water in Mississippi ?
thank you for posting this
will link in my fb page