Sarah & Ian Hoffman

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Tell Your Story

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It’s time to talk about what’s happening to our kids in school.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will convene a hearing on May 13, 2011 on peer-to-peer bullying in K-12 schools. The Commission will look at verbal or physical assault, teasing, bullying, and any other form of harassment.

If your child, or a child you know, has been bullied based on their perceived sexuality or gender expression, please share your story with the Commission by writing a letter.

Your letter does not need to be formal; it should be in your own words and as personal as you are willing to make it. Let the Commission know about the kids and families involved, what happened/is happening, and how the people involved are impacted. You can make suggestions about how parents, teachers, school administrations, and communities should intervene to stop the bullying and prevent it in the future. You may choose to be anonymous, although please provide at least one initial and your state, if not your city, so that the Commission can get a sense of where problems are occurring in the country.

Our stories will become the heart and soul of this report, and will inform how national anti-bullying policy is created and implemented in the future.

Please send your stories by Monday, May 2, by mail or email, to:

Kim Tolhurst, Esq., Acting General Counsel

c/o Alec Deull

U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

3102 Krueger Road

North Tonawanda, NY 14120

deullusccr@gmail.com

The final report will be released in September 2011.

Please, tell your stories. And spread the word, so that all of our voices are heard.

Because telling our stories can change the world.

 

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Toemageddon 2011

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Yesterday 7,718 people painted their toenails pink to commend Jenna Lyons and J. Crew for celebrating pink boys (and to protest the brouhaha over their brave choice). How cool is that?

And today I was walking down the main street in our neighborhood and came across a guy with a cast on his leg–in hot pink. I told him I was going to write a blog post about Paint Your Nails Pink Day and Toemageddon 2011 (as Jon Stewart so fabulously called the brouhaha), and he said that the pink cast was his tribute to The Day. That? Is super cool.  (Plus, he let me photograph him, which makes him Cool Supreme.)

If you didn’t paint your nails in time for yesterday, paint ’em today. If you break your arm? My condolences…and get a pink cast. Smashed your car door? Paint the new one pink. And tell the world why you’re painting things pink: because you can. Because girls can wear blue jeans, and boys can wear pink tutus, and casts don’t have to be white. And because standing up for the right for everyone to be their own interesting selves is the coolest thing of all.

 

 

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Thank You, Jenna Lyons

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In addition to the email I wrote to J. Crew and the comment I left on the Fox News site, I’ve written a note directly to J. Crew’s Creative Director Jenna Lyons. I encourage you to do the same. I’m sure she’s getting lots of hate mail, and I hope we can balance it out with love mail. Her email address is jenna.lyons@jcrew.com.

Here is what I wrote:

Dear Ms. Lyons:

I am a writer and the mother of a “pink boy,” a long-haired almost nine-year-old boy who wore pink nail polish and dresses when he was younger. For magazines, radio, and my blog, I write about the joys and challenges of raising a boy who is different.

I want to thank you for your brave, bold choices to celebrate your son’s penchant for pink, and to publicly show your support for who he is. I am sure you are well aware of the double standard in our society that favors masculine girls and demonizes feminine boys.

Parents from around the world write to tell me of their struggles with school bullying, rejecting family members, and the health and mental health consequences of such challenges. And men who were pink boys when they were young (now gay, straight, or transgender adults) write to share their lonely, painful experiences growing up in even less accepting times than these–making me thankful for all the change we’ve seen in recent decades. Thank you for what you have done to make the world a better–and safer–place for boys who are different.

I’ve written a blog post about the controversy surrounding the ad (and my gratefulness to you and J. Crew!).

Thank you. What you’ve done means so, so much to many, many parents around the world.

All the best,

Sarah Hoffman


 

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Praise for our books

“…a wonderful celebration of all that is good in childhood.”

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Melissa Atkins Wardy, author of "Redefining Girly: How Parents Can Fight the Stereotyping and Sexualizing of Girlhood, from Birth to Tween" February 7, 2014

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