School Uses Bikini Photo Against Student

A Mississippi school district is using photos of a student in a bikini to prove that she does not always dress in a masculine manner, as a defense for not allowing her to appear in the yearbook wearing a tuxedo.

Ceara Sturgis sued the Copiah County School District after administrators refused to publish her senior portrait, in which she is shown wearing a tuxedo instead of a drape, in the 2009-2010 Wesson Attendance Center yearbook. Sturgis said that she preferred to wear masculine clothing, and that by banning her photo, the school district is discriminating against her gender identity.

However, the Associated Press reports, attorneys representing the school district will argue in a Jackson, Miss., U.S. district court that wearing a bikini shows that Sturgis does sometimes dress in a feminine style.