My Advice for the Idaho Student Barred From Graduation for Saying 'Guys Are Guys and Girls Are Girls'

With June comes Graduation Season. We had one granddaughter walk this year, and that was in another state. My wife went and I stayed home to watch the dogs. I’ve always been ambivalent about graduations.

I loathed high school and was just glad to be out. The end of college meant that I would need to find gainful employment and wait for my first student loan notice to arrive in the mail. But I know for many people, graduation is a big deal, not just for the graduates but their families. Graduation was probably a big deal for Travis Lohr, a senior at Kellogg High School in Kellogg, Idaho.

There is a tradition at Kellogg in which graduating seniors pass on bits of wisdom to underclassmen. Seizing the moment, Travis decided to depart from his pre-approved remarks and said, “Guys are guys and girls are girls. There is no in-between.” Now back during the Pleistocene when I was in high school, we would have wondered why someone needed to even bring this up since it has pretty much been a truism since life developed beyond single-celled organisms on this planet.