A gay, mentally challenged, biracial high school student in Eastern Washington, Benjamin Grundy, is being told he cannot perform all of the routines with the girls on the squad. Instead, he’s only allowed to stand there waving his arms. Ben’s mom wrong a very long letter to the Seattle Weekly outlining all of the issues. Among them:
After approximately the first week of practice, the coach implied to me that Ben's male anatomy might be moving around. I told her I would get him a jock strap to resolve this potential issue. I was ignored. However, because Ben's ordered uniform had some sort of manufacturing issue, his coach did indeed go and get him a really nice shirt, which she had embroidered, etc. With the warm up pants from his football cheer team and the shirt, he looked like a cheerleader. The shirt was long and the pants were close enough. I went to the first game, and Ben did most of what the girls were doing. He was happy, and therefore, so was I. That was the whole point… that he was doing something that meant a great deal to him.
A gay, mentally challenged, biracial high school student in Eastern Washington, Benjamin Grundy, is being told he cannot perform all of the routines with the girls on the squad. Instead, he’s only allowed to stand there waving his arms. Ben’s mom wrong a very long letter to the Seattle Weekly outlining all of the issues. Among them:
After approximately the first week of practice, the coach implied to me that Ben's male anatomy might be moving around. I told her I would get him a jock strap to resolve this potential issue. I was ignored. However, because Ben's ordered uniform had some sort of manufacturing issue, his coach did indeed go and get him a really nice shirt, which she had embroidered, etc. With the warm up pants from his football cheer team and the shirt, he looked like a cheerleader. The shirt was long and the pants were close enough. I went to the first game, and Ben did most of what the girls were doing. He was happy, and therefore, so was I. That was the whole point… that he was doing something that meant a great deal to him.
Since then, apparently, he’s been kept from performing. What is the harm in this kid cheerleading? It’s very sad that this kid can’t just do what he dreams of doing because a bunch of people are worried how it might look.
