Asante Cotman, Gay Student, Allegedly Suspended For Wearing High Heels To School (VIDEO)

Asante Cotman, a 17-year-old junior at Charles City High School in Charles City County, Va., says he was suspended for three days after refusing an order from school officials to take off a pair of high heels he was wearing, WWBT-TV reports.

Cotman told the station he was ordered to take off the shoes because they were "disrupting the school."

"I wore this jacket right here and my white shirt and my scarf and a pair of cargo pants and the heels," Cotman told WWBT. "I didn't see how it was bothering anyone. I wasn't revealing nothing."

The station's first report elicited heated response, prompting the WWBT crew followed up with Cotman, who told reporters he hopes the discussion will spark changes at the high school.

"I'm not advertising. I'm being myself," Cotman told the station in a separate report. "I want to be able to be a regular student. A gay regular student that attends CCHS."

School Principal Stephannie Crutchfield, who suspended Cotman, has declined to comment, but WWBT reports that district Superintendent Janet Crawley chalks the decision up to a safety hazard -- since Cotman's heels were 6 inches tall -- and not as discrimination.

"That is not our mission. I am not aware of him being unhappy here," Crutchfield told the station. "It's a situation where I'll have to investigate."

The incident comes after 17-year-old high school student Jamie Love was allegedly expelled in January for wearing women's clothing to school. The move sparked from community members and the expulsion was reversed -- but not before Love's feelings were hurt, the Scottish Daily Record reported.

"It took me years to finally open up to someone about my sexuality and now I feel betrayed by the people I trusted," Love told the Daily Record. "I have always felt different but I have never been able to talk about it. They have made me feel like a fool. I left the school in tears feeling totally humiliated and embarrassed."

Last year, a male student who wore high heels to Riverview High School in Florida was asked by an assistant principal to take them off. The reason, according to school Principal Bob Heilmann, was to "prevent bullying."

"Part of bullying is to try to prevent it, whether people make fun of what you are wearing, or your hair," Heilmann told WTSP-TV. "If I can prevent that, I will prevent that."

Some community members thought the incident only perpetuated intolerance and organized a protest.

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Comments

[JrTokin]

12:12 PM on 11/17/2012

What a great Kid.
Great parents too in taking the time to explain things rather than exclaiming "oh you're too young to hear stuff about sexual orientation" like a lot of other parents do.
You're never too young (or old) to learn, and only the insecure and misinformed will cause harm.

[Ian Wagner]

06:04 PM on 09/06/2012

I think this ruling is ok, as long as the female students have to follow the same rules...

[colorsplash7]

07:43 PM on 04/12/2012

No one male or female should be wearing 6 inch heels in a school. Public or private. School is not a place to wear dangerous clothes. However suspension is not the proper punishment. He should have been asked to go home and change his clothes. I think that uniforms in public schools....allowed most places.... should be required. That takes the whole issue of allowing teens with hormonal issues (both genders) from making wardrobe decisions.............

[Diane Monroe]

10:56 AM on 03/15/2012

Six inch HEELS in school, give me a break, its not good for girls or boys. You are in school for learning purposes and to develop your self as an intelligent productive human being, NOT a SHOW or EXPRESSION of SELF. Its not about YOU. Take the attention off YOU and let the students learn and the teachers teach. We are going to become one big dumb nation focusing on everything but the more important things. ME, ME, ME, ME, society.

[ksg-va]

09:07 AM on 03/14/2012

Fot those looking for a followup - see the below article re: Asante Cotman. Maybe it wasn't the school harassing for being gay - maybe there were other factors because he is not the well behaved young man many seem to think he is and who just wants to be himself. I wonder how much he took from his mother and granmother not to mention I have heard he also "appropriated" fund from his church.
http://www.nbc12.com/story/17150229/teen-in-detention-center

[Adam Gresch]

04:22 AM on 03/13/2012

Just thought I would re-post this, in case anyone missed it:

This is a petition for Asante Cotman.

Please sign it and please share it with your family and friends so that this petition can be effectively heard. These are issues that really do matter. Thank you!

http://www.change.org/petitions/apologize-to-asante-cotman-and-stop-discrimination

[meanguy]

02:53 PM on 07/05/2012

just thought you might want to THINK about it, first...the student was NOT suspended for wearing heels; he was suspended for cursing out his teacher and his principal-he's been a disciplinary problem for YEARS, and is a convicted thief...i'll save my sympathy for someone who actually deserves it

[Katie Medico]

03:57 AM on 03/13/2012

Please sign the petition to support Asante.

http://www.change.org/petitions/apologize-to-asante-cotman-and-stop-discrimination

[Gregory William Vaughan]

06:38 PM on 03/12/2012

Charles you only revealed your community's intense need to genderize you. They're just jealous you looked better in the heels then they did!

[TheAlmostGraduate]

03:55 PM on 03/10/2012

In the words of Madonna "Girls can wear jeans and cut their hair short and wear shirts and boots cause it's okay to be a boy, but for a boy to look like a girl is degrading because you think being a girl is degrading."

This kid is obviously struggling with a lot right now. If wearing heels makes him happy then let him be happy. Also, I didn't see any mention that it was solely because of the height of the heel that he was suspended anywhere in that article so I'm not sure why so many people are jumping onto that argument...

[Julian Pembroke Steptoe]

06:20 PM on 03/09/2012

The fact that this natural course is not the general rule, throws the debate of youth and adult
rights and responsibility into confusion. Confusion is good, for to remove it, lessons have to be
learned, and so, we have schools. The suspension of the boy is not so much that he wore heels,
but that doing so showed little, no, or even dangerous respect for the environment, purpose, and
persons of the school, including himself. He did no harm, but provoked controversy, and posed
hazard to normal progress in the school population, by wearing six-inch heels.

Fashion is not merely an expression, but a function, and one that has rules to learn, and issues to
address. Girls, at least in my day, were discouraged from dressing "too grown", so a boy doing
so as a girl, or anyone visually, dramatically, and persistently acting against expectations, is
bound to distract attention from the educational mission. Teachers may use such moments as a
challenge to overcome in teaching, but in failing to do so, are not lax in bending toward
authority and rules of order.

It is the children who ultimately must adjust, to the fair, and more responsible, concerns of the
adults. Death and the threat of death bullies us all, so we should seek ways of supporting, and if
not, respecting one another, in our differences and similarities, founded in the humility, as well
as the honor, of the self.

[Julian Pembroke Steptoe]

06:17 PM on 03/09/2012

"...there is a place & a time for everything" - and childhood is a time of learning the ropes of
adulthood. Having read the article, and some of the response in this thread, and having lived and
learned in the years of my own life, I can only support the idea that individuals tend to evolve
into members of various groups, by choice and by classification. These groupings have
overlapping "memberships" that take the shapes that individuals bring to them.

Cross-gender dressing is probably one of the first entertainment ploys of social history. It is used
as personal experimentation, and as public therapy. Many schools have uniformed clothing
assignments. Schools are essentially an introduction to the individual, of public life. It is about
getting used to, and being gotten used to. However, it is administered by adults, for the benefit of
children, to teach them the ropes of society, as well as to give insight into self, and others, and to
develop respect for both.

As such, school practice varies according to personal and local issues, but they conform to the
general purpose and regard, that education is delivered to persons. Persons, by nature, do not
become adult until the age of full dentition, or all the adult teeth are grown in.

[Complexchick]

10:28 AM on 03/09/2012

I am more upset that I can't walk in 3 inch heels & I am a female, this young man can do 6 inches no problem..

[Adam Gresch]

01:47 AM on 03/09/2012

There was a petition started for this child.

Please sign it and help end homophobia and gender discrimination!

https://www.change.org/petitions/charles-city-high-charles-county-virginia-apologize-to-asante-cotman-help-him-make-up-missed-work-create-a-new-rule

[BonzaSheila]

11:06 AM on 03/10/2012

Thanks for this

[Blankety mk Blank]

10:41 PM on 03/11/2012

homosexuality should not be encouraged in youth sir or madam

[Adam Gresch]

03:50 AM on 03/13/2012

We are promoting everyone's right to freedom of expression.

[Thomas Platt]

11:09 AM on 03/08/2012

School is not the place for six inch heels, regardless of the gender or sexuality of the wearer. Expressing yourself is one thing, breaking your ankle is another.

[Thomas Platt]

04:19 PM on 03/08/2012

Also, in defense of schools - teachers have it pretty rough controlling classes as it is, and say what you like about "breaking barriers", a guy walking in with stripper heels is going to be disruptive. Teachers have a duty to the education of their students first, and to the self-expression of their students somewhere else down the line. Don't blame the teachers.

[Evan Arisan]

05:54 AM on 03/11/2012

Ahem... Agreed

[Ieatpopplers]

03:11 AM on 03/14/2012

Agreed, and in my high school we only had 4 minute passing periods, there were maybe a handful of girls that ever bothered to wear heels to school as it just isn't practical at school. Wait til college and wear them with something nicer than cargo shorts.

[Jan Baer]

09:16 AM on 03/08/2012

He is a young person, and young people are finding their way and also shocking their parents' generation. This young man stood up against bullying and may save lives! Get over your heterocentric view of society--being gay is not a choice, and it isn't catching. If so, millions of us would have "caught" being straight from our parents and siblings! Its not about you. www.grandparentoptions.com