In another ridiculous dress code dispute, a boy (apparently no transsexual), got the ACLU to help him win the "right" to wear a skirt to school:

HASBROUCK HEIGHTS, N.J. (AP) - A male high school student can wear a skirt to school after the American Civil Liberties Union reached an agreement with school officials.

The ACLU announced the deal Tuesday. It will allow a Hasbrouck Heights School senior to wear a skirt to protest the school's no-shorts policy.

The district's dress code bans shorts between Oct. 1 and April 15, but allows skirts, a policy 17-year-old Michael Coviello believes is discriminatory.

"I'm happy to be able to wear skirts again to bring attention to the fact that the ban on shorts doesn't make sense," Coviello said in a statement.

This whole flap is an argument in favor of school uniforms, even though it appears to undermine them. There's no reason why a school shouldn't be able to spell out what students wear, although public schools seem to constantly run into ridiculous problems whenever they attempt to do so.

Quite incidentally, when I was a kid, many schools -- private and Catholic parochial schools -- had dress codes far stricter than anything I see today. And ironically, the above boy's claim of "discrimination" could not have been made as easily under those rules, because shorts were allowed as part of the schools' uniforms. They weren't the sloppy, halfway between the knees and ankles variety you see today, though. Girls wore skirts of a certain length with knee socks, and boys wore shorts. But they were dress shorts worn with knee socks, and with school blazers -- the sort of thing today associated mainly with British preparatory schools. (Picture here.) Had the Hasbrouck Heights School in question above allowed boys to wear shorts in that style, the boy in question wouldn't have had a case of "discrimination."

Had the school made such a change in the dress code, would the ACLU would have had a case?

Sometimes, more strict is more fair.

AFTERTHOUGHT: I realize that by today's standards, the idea of boys wearing shorts with knee socks and blazers sounds ridiculous.

But in logic, why is it any more ridiculous than a boy wearing a skirt?

MORE: For more on the subject of dress codes, From the Grand Stand has written some very wise posts on the subject. Excerpt from a favorite:

One of the reasons that societies have dressed children in school uniforms and strictly controlled their behavior is the recognition that children will be resistant to developing their intellect and abilities if they are allowed to develop them outwardly, instead of inwardly. They become shells of human beings. It's so much easier to tattoo your body than it is to expand your mind. When children are forced to become interesting internally because there is no other option available to them to express themselves, they will do so. So, too, with behavior. If there is conformity in acceptable behavior then expressions must become mental hurdles.

Tearing down social conformity just enables outward conformity of a different variety. Western civilization left tribalism behind in the 16th century. Unfortunately, some people didn't get the memo or were incapable of reading it.

What they fail to realize today, however, is that we already know all this about them. Even without the experiment of similar attire and style. There is nothing unique about them at all. They are nothing more than drones (although colorful), trying to feel significant through the acceptance of others, rather than acceptance and development of themselves and their minds.