Should Homecoming Courts Be Gender-Neutral?

She’s the king. (Image: Giphy)

The stereotypes associated with the high school roles of prom and/or homecoming king and queen are well documented in pop culture. (See: Carrie, Mean Girls, Never Been Kissed, She’s All That … and basically every other teen rom-com from the ’90s.)

But a new trend is emerging that might turn all these assumptions on there head. Stories have emerged recently about two high school (one in Maryland, one in Texas) going — or at least attempting to go — gender-neutral when it comes to homecoming court.

At Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, Md., this year instead of electing a king and queen, students may instead vie to become “homecoming royalty,” thus letting people of any gender identity, including gender-nonconforming, seek out these highly coveted titles.

And at Texas City High School in Texas City, Texas, two young women were both nominated for the title of homecoming king — but school officials told them that only males may compete for that title. They were told that as women, they were eligible to run for only homecoming queen. The young women agreed to the terms — sort of. They said they plan to attend the homecoming ceremonies both dressed “as kings” in preparation for one of them possible winning the title of queen. They have announced that they both intend to run for prom king this spring.

Such news can’t help but be read as encouraging, a promising note that the kids are, in fact, all right — or at least more than doing their part to make the world a more inclusive place for all people, regardless of gender identity.

Significant strides have been made in the past year in terms of making universities gender-neutral. Harvard University; American University; the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee; the University of Vermont; and the University of Iowa have all adopted the practice of letting students select, and be officially referred to by, their own pronouns, including gender-neutral and gender-queer ones such as “ze,” “per,” and “they.” Princeton University has banned all gender-specific words from its human resources department to deconstruct the notion of the gender binary and create a more gender-inclusive work environment. And universities such as Brown University, Brandeis University, and Kent State University are just three of the 150 colleges and universities that have made gender-neutral housing available to students, thereby allowing students to feel comfortable in university housing outside the confines of being identified as either male or female.

High school environments, however, have thus far been slower to adapt toward more-inclusive measures, with battles about something as seemingly simple as letting students use the restroom that aligns with their gender identity or even installing gender-neutral restrooms. Earlier this summer, the Supreme Court blocked a lower court’s order that would have allowed a transgender student in Virginia to use the boys’ restroom at his school. The student in question, Gavin Grimm, identifies as male. Grimm’s journey through the legal system began after he sued the Gloucester County School Board for implementing a policy stating that students may use only the restroom with the gender designated on their birth certificates.

This summer also saw a federal judge in Texas issuing an injunction barring federal government agencies from taking action against school districts that fail to follow the Obama administration’s guidance on transgender restroom policies in schools. The administration had said that per Title IX, the federal law banning sex-based discrimination in schools, colleges, and universities, that not allowing people to use the restroom that corresponds with their gender identity would be a violation of this law. But the Texas judge said otherwise, stating that students’ right to privacy was potentially threatened by the administration’s interpretation of Title IX.

Which is why the news of students taking matters into their own hands and making change on a social level from the ground up is particularly encouraging. Language matters, and the way the people — and young people especially — are allowed to identify and express their gender identity, and have that identity recognized by others, is essential to feeling respected and valued as an individual in the world. Decades of research show the world is a more dynamic, smarter, and successful place when we function as groups of diverse people.

So it’s not insignificant that one school is telling the world loud and clear that gender identity doesn’t have to fit into a binary system and that students should be excluded from such routine and emblematic high school experiences as homecoming court because of how they express their gender — and the fact that they simply want to live in the world where others respect that expression. And this is why it’s likewise important that the young women in Texas are staging their own quiet protest, dressing as “kings” after being told that because of their gender, that was a title they could not hold.

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