12-Year-Old Girl Beaten Up by Classmates for Having "Boy's Name"

I've always had what many people consider to be a "boy's name." My full name, Alexandra, is clearly feminine, but the name I've gone by as long as I can remember, Alex, is decidedly not. As I've written before, the fact that I would be able to choose to go by a gender-neutral name was a key consideration for my mother.

But for a lot of people, Alex is primarily a male, rather than a gender-neutral or female, name. They assume, seeing the name Alex, that I'm a man — just last week, a woman I was interviewing admitted she was surprised upon hearing my voice on the phone, having expected a male voice. Nonetheless, I've never been bullied over my name, and certainly not beaten up. A 12-year-old girl in Mississippi named Randi wasn't so lucky.

As Dana Rudolph reports on Gay Rights, Randi was assaulted by a group of fellow Hernando Middle School students after a Fellowship of Christian Students meeting. She relates that the four girls and a boy started referring to her as male and unattractive, told her she "shouldn't be in this world," and criticized her for having a "boy name." They then attacked, beating her, kicking her in the ribs, and throwing her against a cafeteria table (the incident was caught by a security camera).

What sense does it make to beat somebody up over a name? Because Randi was deemed to be transgressing an arbitrary gender boundary, she was targeted by fellow students for a collection of letters.

Randi by any other name would still be the same person, but these other students saw any encroachment of a girl on boy territory as a severe problem, even something abnormal that meant she shouldn't exist. This is a case of mainly girls attacking another girl, accepting gender norms as all powerful and seeing anyone who deviates as a threat to their own rigid identity. In an attack like this, the overlap with LGBTQ issues and homophobia involved in gender policing is also clear: as Rudolph points out, Randi does not identify as LGBTQ, yet she was assaulted over judgment regarding her gender expression.

The federal Student Non-Discrimination Act would help prevent against such bullying by including sexual orientation and gender identity — real or perceived by others — as protected categories in schools. You can sign this petition by the National Stonewall Democrats to help ensure that no girl ever gets beaten up for having a "boy's" name.

Photo credit: NatalieMayor