Cross-Dressing Boy

Thursday October 29 3:25 PM EDT

Feminine Boy Shakes Up Small School

By DAN SEWELL Associated Press Writer

CARROLLTON, Ga. (AP) - Patrick Nelson had heard there was a cross-dressing boy enrolled at his high school. But darned if he could figure out just who it was.

``I looked for him the first couple weeks. The honest truth - I didn't even know,'' Patrick said.

One day, he was talking about the mystery to a friend, who smiled and pointed to the pretty blonde at the desk next to his.

``I said, `No way, that's too weird!''' Patrick recalled. ``Then I thought about it, and I said, `So what's so weird about that?'''

But while Patrick and his friends were willing to accept Matthew ``Alex'' McLendon's feminine appearance and mannerisms, others in this rural, conservative western Georgia community of about 20,000 weren't.

And so 15-year-old Alex withdrew from school under pressure, leaving supporters of the popular, easygoing student wondering what threat they had supposedly been protected from.

``Alex wasn't causing any problems. She got along well with everybody,'' said classmate and friend Meayghan Denkers. ``She wasn't trying to change anybody to be like her or anything.''

After a heated meeting of the board of the small, private Georgian Country Day School on Oct. 6, Alex was ``invited to withdraw'' or face expulsion. Alex, who had enrolled in September after attending public school, was cited for wearing a tongue ring, but had been called before school authorities earlier about his female dress, makeup and hairstyle.

Most of Alex's classmates - including some of the boys - wore bows in their hair in protest until ordered to remove them by the principal. Some indignantly quoted their school handbook, which urges acceptance of ``diversity in opinion, culture, ideas, behavioral characteristics, attributes or challenges.''

``Alex represents something that's way beyond the experience and the comfort zone of the very conservative people we live with,'' said Lori Lipoma, Meayghan's mother and a drama teacher at the school. ``I really think we all lost something very precious that night.''

School officials would not discuss the case.

``We make no comments on students,'' said Rex Camp, chairman of the board of the school, where tuition is more than $5,000 a year for the 50 or so high school students. Kindergarten and elementary students are in a separate building, but one parent of a 6-year-old expressed concern at the board meeting about Alex's effect on younger children.

``I believe in sexual standards in society, and I want my childin a school that holds the same sexual ethics that I do,'' said Craig Neal.

Alex, who speaks in a soft, feminine voice, began cross-dressing two years ago and considers himself ``95 percent girl.''

Larry Harmon, a Dade County, Fla., psychologist who counsels patients on sexual identity, said such feelings appear to fit a rare condition called gender-identity disorder. He said it doesn't necessarily imply homosexuality, and it's difficult to know how many youngsters have it and why.

``I'm not homosexual,'' Alex said. ``I just look like a girl and I dress like a girl. It wasn't anything flamboyant, not sequins or anything. But because I'm a guy ...''

He enrolled in night school but quit in less than a week because he didn't feel the courses offered would help his education goals. He hopes to pursue a career in fashion merchandising and modeling.

Alex said Thursday he's looking into the possibility of home-schooling.

``I do wish I was still at the Georgian School,'' he said.

At the Georgian Country Day School - where Alex said he enrolled to get a better education - he struck up a friendship with Meayghan and was soon invited to spend nights over at her house. The first couple of times, Meayghan's mother popped in on them unannounced just in case.

``They'd be sitting there doing hair, or painting nails, and I said to myself, `This is a girl,'' Ms. Lipoma said.

A few weeks into the school year, he and his father were summoned to a meeting with school officials. They said that parents had complained, and that he had to dress like a boy, Alex recalled. He refused and was sent home. A special board meeting followed.

Under the law, a public school would have had to show that Alex was disrupting education or undermining safety. A private school has more leeway.

Alex's mother died when he was young. He said that his cross-dressing initially caused a rift with his father, but that the older man stood with him in the dispute with the board. Mack McLendon declined an interview.

``School is supposed to be preparing you for life,'' Alex said. ``Parents are trying to protect their kids by covering their eyes. It's going to be a real shock for some of these parents when their kids get out into the real world.''

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