Two news stories

[firstfrost]

Earlier this year, there were news stories, and an ACLU battle, over Constance McMillen wanting to take her girlfriend to the prom; she sued, they cancelled the prom, then they uncancelled it and sent her and the students with learning disabilities to one prom and all the other students went to a different "unofficial" prom. It was disappointing, both the school behavior and the behavior of the other students, who mostly seemed to think that McMillen was just causing trouble.

Last week, I read about a trans student, Oak Reed, who was elected homecoming king; the school decided to give the job to the runner-up because he was "enrolled as a female". So, the other students formed a Facebook group, and wore t-shirts saying "Oak is My King" in protest.

If it had just been "trans student voted homecoming king", I'm not sure it would have even made the news - it seems to take the steps backwards to see the steps forward.

Comments

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it would have made some news, but it would have been news you were less likely to encounter, because you probably don't read the publications that would write "Trans Student Voted Homecoming King! ACORN Vote Tampering Suspected!"

[arcanology.livejournal.com]

Oh except of course they wouldn't use "trans".

[izmirian.livejournal.com]

Yeah, both of these should be nonissues. I don't know much about either case but it sounds like the school administrations are doing a nearly optimal job of getting bad national press.