Feminine boy shakes up small school in Georgia
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Matthew “Alex” McLendon |
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‘I believe in sexual standards in society’
In this story:
October 29, 1998
Web posted at: 7:43 p.m. EST (0043 GMT)
CARROLLTON, Georgia (AP) — Patrick Nelson had heard there was a cross-dressing
boy enrolled at his high school. But darned if he could figure out just who it
was.
“I looked for him the first couple weeks. The honest truth — I didn’t even
know,” Patrick said.
One day, he was talking about the mystery to a friend, who smiled and pointed to
the pretty blonde at the desk next to his.
“I said, ‘No way, that’s too weird!’” Patrick recalled. “Then I thought about
it, and I said, ‘So what’s so weird about that?’”
But while Patrick and his friends were willing to accept Matthew “Alex”
McLendon’s feminine appearance and mannerisms, others in this rural,
conservative western Georgia community of about 20,000 weren’t.
And so 15-year-old Alex withdrew from school under pressure, leaving supporters
of the popular, easygoing student wondering what threat they supposedly had been
protected from.
“Alex wasn’t causing any problems. She got along well with everybody,” said
classmate and friend Meayghan Denkers. “She wasn’t trying to change anybody to
be like her or anything.”
‘Diversity in opinion’
After a heated October 6 meeting of the board of the small, private Georgian
Country Day School, Alex was “invited to withdraw” or face expulsion.
Alex, who had enrolled in September after attending public school, was cited for
wearing a tongue ring, but had been called before school authorities earlier
about his female dress, makeup and hairstyle.
Most of Alex’s classmates — including some of the boys — wore bows in their
hair in protest until ordered to remove them by the principal. Some indignantly
quoted their school handbook, which urges acceptance of “diversity in opinion,
culture, ideas, behavioral characteristics, attributes or challenges.”
“Alex represents something that’s way beyond the experience and the comfort zone
of the very conservative people we live with,” said Lori Lipoma, Meayghan’s
mother and a drama teacher at the school. “I really think we all lost something
very precious that night.”
School officials would not discuss the case.
“We make no comments on students,” said Rex Camp, chairman of the board of the
school, where tuition is more than $5,000 a year for the 50 or so high-school
students. Kindergarten and elementary students are in a separate building, but
one parent of a 6-year-old expressed concern at the board meeting about Alex’s
effect on younger children.
“I believe in sexual standards in society, and I want my child in a school that
holds the same sexual ethics that I do,” said Craig Neal.
‘95 percent girl’
Alex, who speaks in a soft, feminine voice, began cross-dressing two years ago
and considers himself “95 percent girl.”
Larry Harmon, a Dade County, Florida, psychologist who counsels patients on
sexual identity, said such feelings appear to fit a rare condition called
gender-identity disorder. He said it doesn’t necessarily imply homosexuality,
and it’s difficult to know how many youngsters have it and why.
“I’m not homosexual,” Alex said. “I just look like a girl and I dress like a
girl. It wasn’t anything flamboyant, not sequins or anything. But because I’m a
guy. …”
He enrolled in night school but quit in less than a week because he didn’t feel
the courses offered would help his education goals. He hopes to pursue a career
in fashion merchandising and modeling.
Alex said Thursday he’s looking into the possibility of home-schooling.
“I do wish I was still at the Georgian School,” he said.
‘This is a girl’
At the Georgian Country Day School — where Alex said he enrolled to get a
better education — he struck up a friendship with Meayghan and was soon invited
to spend nights over at her house. The first couple of times, Meayghan’s mother
popped in on them unannounced, just in case.
“They’d be sitting there doing hair, or painting nails, and I said to myself,
‘This is a girl,’” Lipoma said.
A few weeks into the school year, Alex and his father were summoned to a meeting
with school officials. They said that parents had complained, and that he had to
dress like a boy, Alex recalled. He refused and was sent home. A special board
meeting followed.
Under the law, a public school would have had to show that Alex was disrupting
education or undermining safety. A private school has more leeway.
Alex’s mother died when he was young. He said that his cross-dressing initially
caused a rift with his father, but that the older man stood with him in the
dispute with the board. Mack McLendon declined an interview.
“School is supposed to be preparing you for life,” Alex said. “Parents are
trying to protect their kids by covering their eyes. It’s going to be a real
shock for some of these parents when their kids get out into the real world.”