A high school is not usually the place where the norms of gender expression and identity are challenged. In the struggle for acceptance, many teens hide who they are to “fit” in. That is not the case with Connor Ferguson however. 18-year-old Fergusen attends the Trenton High School in Ontario, Canada. As an out transwoman, Ferguson has experience her share of discrimination and harassment; but luckily in her school, Ferguson has also found a multitude of peers and educators who support her for who she is. This respect culminated in a wonderful expression of acceptance at her high school’s end-of-the-year prom: Ferguson was crowned as prom queen. In a high school story that is far too rare, but is becoming more common day by day, Ferguson’s peers accepted her for being herself – no more, no less. As one student at the prom said, “I voted for Connor because anyone who has been through as much as she has and still exudes so much class and confidence deserves a royal title, and not just on prom night.” Congratulations Connor!
Read below for an excerpt from the HuffingtonPost.ca story:
It’s not many schools that can say they struck a blow against discrimination by naming its prom queen, but for Trenton High School in Ontario, their end-of-year party ended up meaning much more.
Connor Ferguson, an 18-year-old transwoman who was born male, received the crown at her high school on June 22, reports the National Post.
“I was really surprised,” she told The Trentonian. “It was pretty surreal actually. If I remember correctly my jaw hit the floor and we all started laughing because it was so crazy. I walked up and the crown didn’t fit my hair, so I had to hold it.”
Ferguson, who has lived as a transwoman for four years, emphasized the support and acceptance of her peers and teachers at school in helping her live normally. Still, she notes, it wasn’t perfect.
“A couple of the older students would yell stuff at me in the hallways, but I definitely didn’t care,” she told QMI Agency. “I didn’t feel the need to waste teachers time with telling them about it if it didn’t make me upset.”
While Ferguson expressed a lot of surprise at receiving the prom queen vote, it comes on the heels of a far more public contest involving a transgender contestant — Jenna Talackova’s bid to become Miss Universe Canada. Though Talackova did not win the competition, her questioning of the terms “natural born woman” opened up the option for other transgender people to pursue their dreams in this area. . . .