A Boy and a Skirt

Image via NYtimes

About two years ago I was teaching ESL at an Upper East Side elementary school and teaching an interesting student. He was a 6 year old Japanese student, Ichi and who spoke very little English. He was sweet, inquisitive and very interested in anything pink or sparkly. He also had a twin brother, Taro, who was rough, energetic and very eager to show me and others that he was nothing like his brother.

One day, they were explaining what they had done over the weekend and Ichi said he had wanted to buy a skirt, but his mother had said, 'no'. His mother had told him that skirts were for girls, but Ichi insisted he was a girl. Taro chimed in and said, "yes", "she like skirt, Ichi like girl" I thought maybe they were confused by the different he/she pronouns and tried to explain the difference between the words, he and she and girl and boy, but they kept repeating that Ichi was like a girl.

As the twins English skills became stronger so did Ichi's desire to wear that skirt. He would beg to play dress up during writing time and he would tug at my clothes and ask to have what I was wearing. Eventually, Ichi's desperation for the clothing of his female classmates warranted a parent teacher meeting.

My message to his mother and father was supposed to be simple. If they wanted to let Ichi wear skirts to school, the school would support it and Ichi would be allowed to wear whatever he wanted as long as it was comfortable and weather appropriate. The school would also be happy to provide family and private counseling for Ichi if they wanted it.

The meeting did not go well. The translator I had hired giggled constantly. And the father could not seem to understand why I wouldn't just hit Ichi everytime he mentioned anything girly. When I offered the family an opportunity to meet with a therapist they got up and left, followed by the translator who happily told me that in their culture boys are boys and no one goes to therapy.

 I saw Ichi only a few more times. His family withdrew him from our school, I heard that he flew back to Japan, a whole two years before they had intended to move back home.