Happy Ending for Trans Youth

Remember Oak Reed, the transmasculine high school student in Muskeegon, Michigan who was stripped of his Homecoming King crown because his high school record listed he was female?

"I just said, 'Vote for me for homecoming king," he recalled. "I don't see why there's any reasons why someone who's different shouldn't be on court. I thought, 'Hey, why not put myself out there?' I have just as much qualifications as anyone else in the school...They told me that they took me off, because they had to invalidate all of my votes because I'm enrolled at Mona Shores [High School] as a female," Reed said.

Well in this happy news update from the Advocate, Mona Shores High School updated the the antiquated and heterocentric royalty court titles to gender neutral ones. I'm not sure what these are, but they're likely better than King and Queen.

“I’m so glad that the rules have been changed,” Reed said in a statement Tuesday. “All I wanted was a chance for all students to participate and be heard. Now my classmates and I can just focus on having a great time at our school dance.”

Good on the Mona Shores school community for making a change that not only makes school better for Oak, but for all trans, gender-nonconforming and queer students who will attend the school.