Mich. High School Students Fight for a Trans Prom King

A number of seniors at a Muskegon, Michigan high school voted for Oak Marshall as their homecoming king--but administrators refuse to allow him to compete for the title. The reason: Oak is officially registered at the school as a female student.

Like all transgendered individuals, Oak--the name is short for "Oakleigh"-- doesn't see himself as belonging to the gender of his body. His mind and personality--his sense of himself--are male, and he's generally accepted as such by his teachers, who call him by masculine pronouns, reported Grand Rapids news channel WOOD-8 on Sept. 26.

But that acceptance of Oak's gender identity did not extend to his run for Homecoming King. Oak mounted a campaign for the title that the administration of Mona Shores High School quickly shut down.

"I just said, 'Vote for me for homecoming king,' " Oak said of his Facebook-based campaign. "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.' "

Oak is secure in his gender identity, after being in counseling for years. The 17-year-old plans to make the physical transition to male when he's 18. What seems odd is that the school--which has already agreed to allow him to wear male clothing for certain school functions--now refuses to honor Oak's gender identity. "They let me wear a male tux for band uniform, and they're going to let me wear the male robe and cap for graduation," Oak told WOOD-8. As for the Homecoming vote, ""It's the senior class that votes for their representative," Oak noted. "What they did was taking away the voice of the senior class."

But Assistant Superintendent Todd Geerlings told the news channel that Oak is listed as female with the school, meaning that he is ineligible to run for the title of Homecoming King. A visit to the school's principal brought an end to Oak's run for the title. "They told me that they took me off because they had to invalidate all of my votes because I'm enrolled at Mona Shores as a female," he told the news channel.

The ACLU has expressed interest in the case, reported a Sept. 27 follow-up story at WOOD-8, and the teen said that he would be open to the idea. "I'd be willing to talk to them," Oak told the news channel.

The case "raises some concern about how the school has chosen to treat people based on gender," said lawyer Jay Kaplan, who is with the organization's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Legal Project. "Hopefully, they'll reconsider the action that they've taken," Kaplan said of the school.

But the school's principal, Jennifer Bustard, reaffirmed the school's stance. "In order to be eligible for homecoming king, the ballot clearly states you must be a boy," Bustard told WOOD-8. "For homecoming queen, you must be a girl." Added Bustard, "He--as I use the pronoun correctly out of respect--is not a boy."

A Facebook page supporting Oak says that the teenager received a majority of votes for Homecoming King, but Bustard denied this, saying that votes for Oak were not counted once the administration realized who was running. Text at the page also says that in disqualifying Oak, the school "promoted transphobia."

Bustard sees the issue differently. "The school must be consistent when it comes to gender," she told WOOD-8.

Allowing a gay or transgendered student to run for school event royalty would not be without precedent. Earlier this year, two boys at a high school in Hudson, New York, ran jointly for the titles of Prom King and Queen, and won.

The ACLU was involved in the case of Constance McMillen, the lesbian high school student who sued her school earlier this year for refusing to allow her to wear a tuxedo and escort a female date to her school's prom in rural Mississippi. The school canceled the prom rather than allow McMillen to bring another girl as a date to the event; a private prom was then hosted, but McMillen and a handful of other classmates did not attend. They ended up at another, poorly attended, dance at a different location. The school denied accusations that McMillen and the others had been shunted to a "sham prom."