Texas School District Gives 4-Year-Old Boy Two Options: Either Cut Your Hair or Wear a Dress

I don’t condone violence, but if ever there was a story that completely justifies throwing hands, you’re about to read it.

According to WKYT, four-year-old Michael “Tink” Trimble’s plans to spend his first day of school minding his business while living his best Capri Sun-flavored life came to an abrupt end when his grandmother, Randi Woodley, was summoned to the principal’s office.

Once there, Woodley was informed that her grandson’s hair was too long and that she had three options to rectify the matter.

“The superintendent then gave me three options,” Woodley told WKYT. “He told me that I could either cut it, braid it and pin it up or put my grandson in a dress and send him to school.”

There’s also this juicy nugget, courtesy of CNN:

The superintendent responded that if she was so passionate about keeping Tink’s hair long, she could put him in a dress and have her grandson tell others that he was a girl, his grandmother recounted. That way the child would be treated as a transgender student and protected by federal law.

See? I told you throwing hands is entirely justified.

Woodley notes that the school’s dress code prohibits “ponytails, ducktails, rat-tails, male buns, or puff balls” on male students and that their hair shouldn’t “extend past the top of a T-shirt collar.”

As is to be expected, Tink isn’t the only kid feeling the wrath of Tatum Independent School District’s hair policy. Another mother, Kambryn Cox, had a similar experience with her son, Kellan.

“My son came home and said that, ‘Mom, I think there’s something wrong with my hair,’” she said. “With my son’s dreadlocks, sometimes they do fall in front of his face. So I felt it would be easier to put his hair up, but then that’s a problem.”

Parents are disgusted by what’s occurring within the Texas school district and are fighting back by attending school board meetings and demanding the school dress code be changed.

“I will be here at every board meeting,” Woodley told the Tatum school board at a recent meeting. “I will fight to get all of the rules changed.”

But more importantly, Woodley wants her grandson to know that he’s perfectly fine just the way he is.

“I was just always taught to embrace. Embrace my identity, embrace who we are,” Woodley told WTHR. “I’m trying to teach him that God created you and you can feel good about it. You’re loved, you’re beautifully made.”

A Change.org petition in support of Woodley and her grandson has collected over 8,000 signatures and counting thus far.

“We shouldn’t even be talking about this at any age because hair has nothing to do with learning,” Woodley said.