ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – James Monroe Middle School eighth-grader Xavier Gonzalez is “gender fluid,” and those stodgy school officials just don’t understand.

“Gender fluid is basically when you kind of alternate between male and female,” Gonzalez, 13, told KOAT.

“I’m still figuring it out. But for now, I’m gender fluid until I can figure out what I want to be for my whole life,” he/she told KOB.

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So when the school dance rolled around, Gonzalez felt like female, and wanted to wear a dress. Girls can wear tuxedos, Gonzalez reasoned, so he/she should have no problem wearing a dress.

Wrong.

The principal “told me that if I went to the dance in a dress it would make a mockery of the dance and his school,” Gonzalez told KOB.

“(The principal told me) I’d be sent home and forced to change my clothes and then come back,” Gonzalez said.

And that’s totally not fair.

“There’s equal rights posters all around the school,” he/she said, “and yet they’re not promoting nor are they supporting equal rights.”

“Girls get to cross dress but guys don’t,” Gonzalez complained to KOB. “That just seems really unfair to me.”

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Naturally, Gonzalez launched a social media campaign to #danceforxavier and the support just started pouring in. Friends even painted their nails his/her favorite color blue in a show of solidarity.

“There’s actually people from different schools supporting it,” Lily Lucero, friend of Gonzalez, told KOB. “They have petitions and stuff and there are people from different states supporting it.”

Multiple reporters contacted the school district about Gonzalez’s civil rights fight, but a spokesman said there’s no issue with him/her wearing a dress to the dance if he/she wants to.

Gonzalez told KOAT that his family has not received official confirmation about the dress request. He/she told KOB he/she will be at the dance in a dress regardless.

Gonzalez told KOAT he/she is “not even sure if he(/she) wants to go to the dance anymore,” KOAT reports.

Readers weren’t exactly sure what to think.

“Gender fluid? Now I’ve heard it all,” Leland Sedberry posted to Facebook. “Ridiculous. I support the principal.”

“Government officers should have no say in how society dresses so long as the attire poses no public danger,” Thebes MacLlyr wrote.

Elizabeth Ceder berg said “we’re showing up at the dance with him.”

Jared Kelly thought it was “disgusting.”

“Glad to hear APS is supporting his kid’s choice publicly,” Albuquerque resident Kim Bocaz wrote. “Different isn’t a bad thing. I really wish people would mind their own business.”

Joseph Zamora commented on how Gonzalez’s desire to wear a dress speaks to how times have changed.

“So what. If he’s got the cajones to do it let him do it,” Zamora posted. “I know you would have got jacked up for even talking like that when I was in school.”