+
upworthy
More

A transgender student was told he couldn't run for prom king. He fought back and won something better.

A transgender student was told he couldn't run for prom king. He fought back and won something better.

A Georgia high school has adapted gender-neutral prom court terminology, after receiving public backlash for telling a student he could only run for prom queen because he was born a woman.

Dex Frier, who has identified as transgender since his sophomore year at Johnson High School in Gainesville, Georgia, was seriously ecstatic when he received one of six coveted nominations for senior prom king, an honor he was beyond excited about. "I was jumping up and down. Me and my best friend were losing our minds, we were so excited," Frier told CBS affiliate WGCL.

However, school officials told him that because he was assigned female at birth, he could only run for prom queen. He — along with his friends, the student body and others around the world — were not okay with that decision.


Frier and his friends started an online ballot challenging the school’s decision.

“Allow transgender boy to run for Prom King,” they dubbed the Change.org ballot, which quickly amassed over 32,000 signatures in a week from individuals around the world supporting their plea for inclusivity.

“Just because I’m not legally male I was going to get excluded from something that every guy has the opportunity to be in high school. It was really upsetting,” Frier, who is often referred to by his teachers with male pronouns, told BuzzFeed on March 21. “As a student I felt I had the right to be put on the ballot.”

He continued: “I don’t know of many trans people who go to this school [but] I don’t want anyone else to have to go through this. It hurts being told you don’t deserve the same rights as someone else because you’re not the same as them.”

The administration was hesitant to make the change, but eventually they came to their senses.

On March 23, the school struck a compromise with the student body. They agreed to change the terminology from Prom “King” and “Queen” to simply having two “Royal Knight” seniors, who could be voted in regardless of their gender identity.

“This plan was one of compromise on both sides, and we would like to thank administration, both at the school and county level, for listening and welcoming our concerns ― and most importantly, implementing a plan to address them,” Frier’s friend, Sam Corbett, wrote about the victory on Change.org. “We hope this petition has not only pushed society further towards human rights equality, but also inspired someone to do the same for an issue in their community.”

He continued: “Not only is that number a symbol of the united support of human rights, but also a testament to the power of the individual.”

Unsurprisingly Frier was named one of the Royal Knights of the evening. Instead of being given the traditional crowns and tiaras, he received a feathered mask.

[rebelmouse-image 19480146 dam="1" original_size="640x269" caption="Photo via Pixabay" expand=1]Photo via Pixabay

“It was amazingly overwhelming to win,” Frier told NBC. “They called my name, and all I could hear were my friends cheering for me. I just smiled extremely wide, and when I got to the bottom of the stairs, all of the people that had helped make this happen were either sobbing hysterically or smiling so wide I thought they would hurt themselves.”

Dex Frier’s experience isn’t just a personal win though. It’s a win for inclusivity. But we still have a long way to go.

Despite the reality that more and more teens today are identifying with non-traditional gender labels, many high schools and educational institutions have failed to adapt terminology and gender policies accordingly. However, there has been some progress made in recent years, signifying that things might be headed in a more gender-inclusive direction for children and teens.

Some of these include an Oregon high school introducing six gender-neutral bathrooms in 2013, a Kansas City school district deciding to go fully gender neutral when they renovated their elementary school bathrooms in 2018 and a Burlington, Vermont school debuting a gender-neutral locker room earlier this year.

At the university level, both Northwestern and Purdue have adopted a gender-neutral homecoming court, and the Chicago Tribune points out that many Chicago area high schools have also eliminated gender from their homecoming courts.

This latest triumph at Johnson High School clearly represents movement toward a more gender-neutral educational system. We can only hope that other schools can adapt their policies accordingly, and don’t have to wait for a situation like this to occur before taking action.

Community

How to end hunger, according to the people who face it daily

Here’s what people facing food insecurity want you to know about solving the hunger problem in America

True

Even though America is the world’s wealthiest nation, about 1 in 6 of our neighbors turned to food banks and community programs in order to feed themselves and their families last year. Think about it: More than 9 million children faced hunger in 2021 (1 in 8 children).

In order to solve a problem, we must first understand it. Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, released its second annual Elevating Voices: Insights Report and turned to the experts—people experiencing hunger—to find out how this issue can be solved once and for all.

Here are the four most important things people facing hunger want you to know.

Keep ReadingShow less
Pets

Family brings home the wrong dog from daycare until their cats saved the day

A quick trip to the vet confirmed the cats' and family's suspicions.

Family accidentally brings wrong dog home but their cats knew

It's not a secret that nearly all golden retrievers are identical. Honestly, magic has to be involved for owners to know which one belongs to them when more than one golden retriever is around. Seriously, how do they all seem have the same face? It's like someone fell asleep on the copy machine when they were being created.

Outside of collars, harnesses and bandanas, immediately identifying the dog that belongs to you has to be a secret skill because at first glance, their personalities are also super similar. That's why it's not surprising when one family dropped off their sweet golden pooch at daycare and to be groomed, they didn't notice the daycare sent out the wrong dog.

See, not even their human parents can tell them apart because when the swapped dog got home, nothing seemed odd to the owners at first. She was freshly groomed so any small differences were quickly brushed off. But this accidental doppelgänger wasn't fooling her feline siblings.

Keep ReadingShow less
via Pexels

A teacher lists his class rules.

The world would be a much better place if humans weren’t so … human. We all fall short of perfection. Common sense is, sadly, not too common. And there’s one guy out there who always manages to screw things up when things start getting good.

Call it Murphy’s law. Call it the great “reason we can’t have nice things.” Call it entropy. It feels like a whole lot of pain could be avoided if we all had just a little bit more sense.

But what if there was one rule that we all agreed to follow to make everyone’s life better? What would this magical rule be?

A Reddit user who goes by the name P4insplatter came to this realization and asked the AskReddit subforum, “What simple rule would fix the world if everyone actually followed it?” They received dozens of simple rules that if everyone got behind would make the world drastically better.

Keep ReadingShow less
Sandra Maria/Youtube, Official Lives & Music Videos/Youtube

You can't not sing this song.

The music of Queen has a profound visceral effect on everyone. Few pieces of art can cause complete strangers to put aside their differences and come together in song, but by golly, “Bohemian Rhapsody” is one of them. It would be cheesy if it weren’t so absolutely beautiful.

This pertains even to non-English-speaking countries, it appears. Recently, thousands of Harry Styles concertgoers in Warsaw, Poland, began cheering as those iconic beginning piano notes penetrated the air.
Keep ReadingShow less

Movie critic Roger Ebert speaking his mind at the Sundance Film Festival.

It’s been ten years since the world lost Roger Ebert to cancer, and his voice is sorely missed. Ebert had a pure love of cinema, and even though he was a film critic in a sweater with a Pulitzer Prize, he wrote and spoke in a way accessible to every man.

He didn’t care if a film was a Hollywood blockbuster or art-house fare; what mattered was whether it deserved his highly-coveted “thumbs up.”

Ebert was an extremely gifted communicator whose interests went far beyond film. In his later years, he often mused about music, politics, and American cultural events with the same eloquence, thoughtfulness and wit.

Keep ReadingShow less
@over40slbmom/TikTok

Feeling nostalgic yet?

It seems like so many iterations of unfettered joy from our childhood haven’t made it to the modern age, and playgrounds are no exception.

Gone are the days of metal slides that scorched the derriere in the summertime, seesaws that doubled as human catapults and the notorious merry-go-rounds that separated the weak from the strong. Good old fashioned character building—safety be damned!

As it turns out, a few of these old relics are still standing. And footage of kids playing at one of these bygone parks is filling adults—particularly Gen Xers—with sweet nostalgia.
Keep ReadingShow less

A couple shares why they decided to leave the United States.

Although it is difficult to tell if there is a trend of Americans moving out of the country, rough estimates show that around 8 million currently live in other countries—double the 4.1 million living abroad in 1999.

The most popular countries for Americans to move to are Mexico, Canada and the United Kingdom, in that order.

A big reason why some are leaving the U.S. is that an increasing number of employers allow people to work abroad. Others are choosing to leave because of cost of living increases and “golden visa” programs. Golden visas offer the chance to get a foreign residency permit by purchasing a house or making a significant investment or donation.

Keep ReadingShow less