Facebook supporters rally behind Cobb County cross-dressing teen
October 9, 2009 at 5:13 pm by Benjamin Fisher in NewsJonathan Escobar may have chosen to wear wigs, skinny jeans and make-up as a form of expression. But the administration at North Cobb High School wants him to go express himself somewhere else.
According to the AJC, Escobar recently relocated from Miami to the Atlanta area to live with his sister. After attending the Cobb County school for only three days, the school’s assistant principal told him he should dress more “manly” or consider home schooling.
Escobar refused to compromise his personal style and withdrew from the high school.
But students at the high school refuse to keep quiet about the issue. Over 5,000 people have joined the Facebook group Support Jonathan, where 21 separate threads of discussion have popped up and over 1,000 people have submitted wall posts.
One supporter said, “Be who you are and the hell with anybody who has a problem with it.”
Another added: “Keep being yourself Jonathan! Support from Sweden!”
But some Facebookers were not so sympathetic.
“faggs don’t belong.”
Another poster chimed in, “How is he being denied any sort of education? HE DROPPED OUT ON HIS OWN ACCORD. He is not being discriminated against, he’s playing the “its because i’m gay!” card and everyone is seriously blindly just buying in to it.”
Friends and supporters have posted threads with GED resources for Escobar to continue his schooling and are also selling bright pink “Support Jonathan” for five dollars each.
Other supporters are sending a letter to the school’s principal expressing dismay that the school has “attacked a gender variant student at a vulnerable time” his life. Some students are advocating a cross-dressing day on Oct. 12, the day after National Coming Out day.
The story is moving past the local news arena with supporters commenting from as far away as Japan. And the New York Daily News and Huffington Post have picked up the story and brought Escobar’s fight to the national spotlight.
October 11th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
He should switch public high schools. He should come to Oakwood High School in Cobb County. It is the Cobb County open campus high school and has been open for more than thirty years. The most highly qualified teachers in Cobb County work at Oakwood High School. The students choose to go there. The staff are very accepting and care about their students, regardless of their background or personal choices. So, Jonathan, if you read this, feel free to register. A new session starts next Tuesday. They’d be happy to have you and with their flexible schedule, you’ll more than likely graduate sooner than you expect! http://www.cobbk12.org/Oakwood/
October 13th, 2009 at 12:39 am
This is what happens when you let conservatives run the schools. Cobb has always been a wart on the face of metro Atlanta, especially North Cobb.
No, he should not have to go to an Open Campus or any other school. He should be allowed to go to school in the district where he lives and the school should deal with the homophobes, not him. He did not cause the disruption, the bigots, both faculty and students, did.
That is just one more child being pushed into the streets for who he is like so many little young transgenders are every year. (That is why Atlanta has so many trans-prostitutes, parents and schools who make them unwelcome. Every one has a story of rejection to tell and some are in their fifties now.)
I was thinking all the metro schools had non-discrimination for sexual orientation/gender identity. And where do they get off telling the victim instead of punishing the kids who were fighting? That assistant principal needs to lose his job. The kid already had problems with his parents being bigots and went to live with his sister.
I hope there is a busload of demonstrators in outside North Cobb High School before the end of the week. It would be so un-Atlanta not to. They need a big one like when Hosea Williams integrated Forsyth County!
Cobb is still as backward as ever and needs to be forcibly annexed onto Alabama!