19/08/2026
when makeup becomes a reason for judgment
on wednesday, august 12, i was at school sa loa, standing in line at the gate and waiting to enter. i was wearing my airpods, but i eventually took them off because i wanted to be able to hear the people around me in case someone called or needed to speak to me. there were two female guards checking the students’ bags, and while they were doing their job, i noticed that they were making negative comments about some of the girls’ makeup, including mine. since i was in the girls’ line and i am also part of the lgbtq+ community in our school, the situation felt especially uncomfortable and personal.
what disappointed me was not the act of checking our bags, because i understand that security is important. what hurt me was the unnecessary judgment toward how some students chose to present themselves. makeup is not an invitation for someone to criticize, embarrass, or make assumptions about a person. for many people, makeup is simply a form of self-expression—a way to feel confident, creative, comfortable, or simply more like themselves. whether someone wears a little, a lot, or none at all should not determine how deserving they are of respect.
school should be a place where students feel safe enough to express themselves without being mocked or made uncomfortable because of their appearance. we all have different preferences, personalities, and ways of presenting ourselves, and those differences should be respected rather than turned into something to laugh about. a student wearing makeup does not make them less serious, less respectable, or less deserving of kindness.
i honestly left that experience feeling disappointed and sad because adults in a school environment have the opportunity to set an example for students. a simple comment may seem harmless to the person saying it, but it can stay with the person receiving it. we may never know how much someone has struggled to become comfortable with themselves, so the least we can do is avoid becoming another reason for them to feel ashamed.
at the end of the day, makeup is just makeup. it does not define a person's character, intelligence, identity, or worth. people should be judged by how they treat others, not by how they choose to look. everyone deserves to walk through the school gate feeling respected—not judged for being themselves.
