Return of the Holy Crap: Acting Like a Girl Edition
This is gonna piss you off. It is. So prepare yourself.
In Virginia, 8 year old Sunnie Kahle has been expelled from Timberlake Christian School because (okay, deep breath) she doesn’t look enough like a girl. Sunnie, God bless her, did not follow “Biblical standards” on how a girl is supposed to dress and act.
The letter reads in part, “We believe that unless Sunnie as well as her family clearly understand that God has made her female and her dress and behavior need to follow suit with her God-ordained identity, that TCS is not the best place for her future education.”
Yeah, that’s the deal. The school complained that the other students couldn’t tell if Sunnie is a boy or a girl. My question is this: they are 8 years old, why the hell do they need to? Are they dating?
Luckily, Sunnie’s grandmother is a real woman.
“How do you tell a child when she wants to wear pants a shirt, and go out and play in the mud and so forth, how do you tell her, ‘No you can’t, you’ve got to wear a pink bow in your hair, and you’ve got to let your hair grow out long.’ How do you do that?” Doris Thompson said.
Sunnie has been enrolled in public school, where 8 year olds can be 8 year olds. And Sunnie can be whoever God wants her to be.
Thanks to Carl for the heads up.
According to the Timberlake Christian Schools website, if only
1she would tow the mark, she’ll qualify for a 75% discount to
Liberty University. Stepford Wives, anyone?
Religious indoctrination.. ruining our nation one child at a time.
2Heard about his. Could not figure it out. The school officials must have been smoking something strange. Good to know that she is now in an environment that is totally cool with her, thank God!
3And on the 8th day god created pants and skirts and assigned them each to man and woman as he ordained. And all was well with the world. Forever and amen.
4I’ll bet Sunnie doesn’t forget that grandma stood up for her. That’s a lot more valuable than the intolerance that place is preaching.
5Sunnie says she’s a girl. Do we really need to explain 8 year old Tomboys to these cretins?
Good Grief.
6So Jesus was a transvestite?
7First and foremost, Sunnie is a child. Doubt that in all the chapters of WWJD is bullying a child among them. Fine example the ‘adults’ are setting at Timberlake Christian School, thus removing all doubts as to how children learn to become bullies. Wonder what other undesirable skill sets those Xtians are teaching.
8sigh.
9So the child is freed from a bigoted environment and the school loses a bit of money. Sounds good to me. After all, I do have to agree with the school that “TCS is not the best place for her future education”–I just agree for different reasons.
10In the photo, a child with short hair is wearing a necklace with a little heart. I submit that if the child were a boy, TCS would consider the child not boyish enough and gripe about that. They need to go do some charity work and shut up.
11I guess they are too stooopid to realize that God made her who she is and the length of her hair or the clothes she wears does not change that. Most of the men in that culture that I have seen are anything BUT manly. Most of them look like if you poked them with a pin, puss would ooze out. Perhaps they should start criticizing themselves instead of an 8 year old child.
12She’s safe from the school, but she’s still stuck with the grandparents – who have apparently adopted her – who put her there in the first place. So out of the fire, but still in the fry pan.
Has anyone heard where her actual parents are in all this?
13Great material for a novel. And all this proves that all the political T shirts need to have some of the shirts with lady necklines. Right?
14@Kary: If Jesus was a cross-dresser so were all the other male humans of the time. All men wore “skirts” then. Even the Romans thought wearing breeches was barbarian so soldiers wore those little short skirts and tunics in the cold north and froze parts they probably didn’t want to.
15This is about as ignorant as the “If English was good enough for Jesus…” comment I heard about some time ago.
Ah, the Christian policy of exclusion.
16In the piece I saw on TV, she was wearing a Steeler T shirt, so she’s my kind of girl.
Pardon my Pittsburgh.
Good she’s not still at that school. Next thing you know, they’d be beating the masculinity right out of her.
17There sure are a lot of people who think they think like God.
18I hope there is a special section of Hell reserved for them.
First they use dress as justification for rape.
Then they ban clothing that doesn’t show enough.
*face slap*
19A Tomboy, I bet! That kind of girl grows up smart and self sufficient…not exactly what the yahoos have in mind.
I’d bet money she was already being used as a scapegoat and bullied by these people.
20Guess I wouldn’t have qualified either; what with my Davie Crockett coonskin cap and boy’s pin striped dress shirt with cuff links at the same age.
21She may be living with grandparents because they are the ones who care enough about her to see that she has a home, food, and a proper education until that education part turned around and bit Grandma and Grandpa in the butt! Thank goodness, Grandma had the good sense to yank her out of that holier-then-thou so-called Christian school and put her in public school where she’ll just do super dandy!!
I was a whole lot of tomboy growing up but I turned out just fine and dandy … I could and did girl all up, married, had a couple kids, got divorced; married a 2nd time, divorced and now, by God, I’m taking care of me!! So far, it’s worked out great and few to no arguments … ever! LOL
22Wouldn’t you just love to see some childhood pictures of that Ernst lady down on the farm at age eight.
23The news item I read said the school declared her clothing “not Biblical”. So I guess all the other kids are in robes and sandals? I agree with everybody commenting above–she is well out of that silly school.
24Any suggestions on how to embrace this beautiful child and her grandparents without invading their privacy? My wife would love it if Sunnie could know how much love she has inspired. Sunnie may have lost a few friends, but she has gained thousands more. We’d truly appreciate being able to do something concrete to encourage Sunnie and her grandparents in making her future all that she deserves.
25This is a local story for us, so it’s been all over the news here. The first thing I thought of was why the kids at Timberlake weren’t required to wear school uniforms. Most Christian schools do, and Timberlake is associated with Liberty University–not exactly your fundie backwater. Liberty Counsel is even representing them in this.
Sunnie originally had longer hair, but when she was about 6, wanted to donate her hair to a child who had lost theirs due to chemotherapy. She liked her hair that way, and decided to keep it short.
Timberlake didn’t kick her out, but did state that she couldn’t enroll next fall unless she would dress more appropriately. Her grandparents had a fit and they were the ones who removed her from the school.
None of the news stories went into why the grandparents were raising Sunnie (one station said they had adopted her). Sunnie was initially upset, missed her friends, but seems to be settling into her new school.
Good thing, too, because Timberlake is now claiming that other parents were complaining that Sunnie was always talking about getting a sex change operation so she could use the boys’ bathroom. The grandparents are understandably denying these charges. Nothing was mentioned in the letter sent home–only her appearance seemed to be the issue.
Here’s one station’s coverage:
http://www.wset.com/story/25061872/little-girl-taken-out-of-christian-school-after-told-shes-too-much-like-a-boy
There are additional links to followup stories.
26DaddyWasATexan, Sunnie is a child. If Timberlake Christian School had any concerns about her as a child, they should have sought a guardian ad litem or whatever help they could for this child. If in fact there is/was any reason to be concerned about her home life. Instead, these “Xtians” rejected and attempted to shame a child.
There is no getting around their judgmental dismissal of a child. You are right; there are two sides. Those who truly love children and hypocrites who steal money from parents and grandparents seeking a good education for their children.
Timberlake Christian School should be thoroughly investigated. Will the state board of education rise to the occasion?
“Sunnie originally had longer hair, but when she was about 6, wanted to donate her hair to a child who had lost theirs due to chemotherapy. She liked her hair that way, and decided to keep it short.” A child did WWJD by donating her hair, and did what any sane person would do, after learning how much more comfortable her hair was shorter in such a hot humid climate.
Sorry, DaddyWasATexan, but the current score is Sunnie 100, Timberlake Christian School 0.
27“Good thing, too, because Timberlake is now claiming that other parents were complaining that Sunnie was always talking about getting a sex change operation so she could use the boys’ bathroom. ”
I call BS on this. An 8 yr old living with grandparents talking about a sex change operation? Give me a break. It sounds more like the school is throwing crap out there just to see what will stick and make their actions sound justified.
28Didn’t God actually make us all naked?
29That used to be called a pixie cut. Audrey Hepburn and Joanne Woodward both had them from time to time, and not only did no one ever call them mannish, but one of them even married Paul Newman.
30My younger sister was the biggest tomboy anyone can imagine and I was always the “girly girl”. I grew up to work in the legal world, she decided a different route – she joined the USArmy immediately after high school and grew up to be in the last class of the WACS and “graduated” to become the first female Blackhawk pilot in the state. I did not spend 22 years in the Army and I could not pass boot camp, much less fly a Blackhawk. BTW, she still does not wear dresses or make-up and actually wrote to these imbeciles about this 8 yro and she is not one to post comments on the innertubes but felt it was time for everyone to just “get over it”. Nope, not gay, but nobody would care if she was……
31This so-called Christian school may never realize it, and certainly would never admit to it……. but they did this whole family the biggest favor….. ever.
This little girl now has the chance at a normal life. She can be whatever she wants.
Heck…. she’s 8 years old, she can play Little League baseball or softball. If she wants to.
Someday she will thank the sanctimonious idiots who forced her out of a bad situation, because of their ignorance and bigotry.
And, Grandma and Grandpa can spend that tuition money on something else, and make it something fun for the whole family.
Somebody told me once, and I believe it to be true: “Life is to be enjoyed….. not merely endured”.
32In my neck of the woods, the public school standards are being rapidly lowered unless you are one of the fortunate few to get into one of the magnet schools. We’re a major city, so this is just pitiful.
The majority of the private schools in this city are sponsored by a church. Some of them are exceedingly good schools. Some of my friends sent their child to one and made sure the areas where Christianity skewed the school curriculum were covered by conversations at home. I admit I was appalled that Creationism rather than Evolution (mentioned only as “another theory”) was taught, but by the time the boy got it, he already had a healthy skepticism and laughed about it when he got home from school that day, though he was disgusted.
Unfortunately, if you want your child to get a good teacher:child ratio, music, fine arts, higher math and science, and other things missing from the public schools, private schools are the way to go. If you have the money. We’ve just had a major school district drop elementary music from their curriculum, putting one of my friends out of work at the end of the school year. I don’t know about you, but it has been 44 years since I left elementary school and I still remember the name of my music teacher and the things we did there. (God bless you, Mrs. Ruple!)
33Years ago I read an article written by anthropologists regarding cultural clothing standards. In hot climates, both sexes wear robes that could be construed as dresses (middle east, sub-Saharan Africa, Polynesia). In cold climates, both sexes wear leggings or some form of trouser (Inuits, eskimo, Mongolian tribes). Why the dimorphism exists in temperate climates was not addressed. It seems to me this is a Western affectation, a recognition of the practicality of pants coupled with a desire to maintain the patriarchic segregation of women derived of the pastoral cultures prevalent at the genesis of the Abrahamic religions.
34They call themselves Christians? Yeah, right.
35Girls and long hair seem to be unique to the U.S. Where I hail from, Germany, a lot of little girls wear their hair shot.
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