Gender-neutral Homecoming court: a step back for gender equality

Every autumn, thousands of high schools across America celebrate the tradition of Homecoming court, honoring students deemed worthy of queenship or kingship. Since the 1950s, the Homecoming court tradition has symbolized part of the American high school experience.

Recently, Monta Vista High School announced its change to a gender neutral Homecoming court. Instead of dividing the nominees by gender, the two who acquire the most votes are selected as the reigning royals. The new court was in part established to allow for gay and lesbian couples, but with this dramatic change poses some drawbacks.

The long-established approach of awarding the title of queen and king supports gender equality, since a male and a female are equally represented. The transition to a process that selects the top two students who have garnered the most votes means one gender could be excluded altogether.

Those who oppose the traditional system argue that it discriminates against transgender students. As shown by Mona Shores Public Schools in Norton Shores, Minn., the prejudice against transgenders comes not from the system, but from the discriminatory rules against them.

In 2011, Mona Shores’s switched to a gender neutral court after a transgender student named Oakleigh Reed was earlier prohibited from running as the gender he identifies with: male. The administration there acted according to the official Homecoming guidelines and discarded the ballots voting for Reed, saying that because Reed was enrolled at the school as a female, he violated the rule that the nominees for king must be male.

Undoubtedly, the administration was at fault, since it failed to promote an open and safe environment for Reed and other transgender students.

However, to alleviate the media uproar instigated by the administration's backwards decision, Mona Shores decided to implement a gender neutral Homecoming coronation. In doing so, the school overcompensated and failed to correct its actual mistake.

The problem lay not in the tradition of a gender-separated Homecoming royalty, but in the school’s Homecoming selection process.

By removing the “official” code that marginalized and discriminated against transgender students, the administration could have effectively resolved the issue at its source and continued with the traditional mode of Homecoming royalty.

The ideal Homecoming court welcomes both transgender and non-transgender students while continuing the long-established “high school experience,” ensuring that both males and females have a well-deserved spot on the podium.