First The Good News

This is a story of both good and bad of a teen coming out in school as a trans man. First the good news…

Canadian High School Football Team Welcomes 1st Transgender Player
ABC News
By Avianne Tan
September 15, 2016

A Canadian high school football team is welcoming its first transgender student player, who recently transferred after he said he felt unaccepted and lonely at his former school.

The team is "very family-oriented," Kennedy Cooley, a senior at Halifax West High School in Halifax, Nova Scotia, told CTV News.

"You feel like you’re a brother, you don’t feel like you’re a player," the 17-year-old, who plays wide receiver, said. "They’re just so open and they accept you for who you are."

The welcome has been a pleasant surprise for Cooley. At his former school, the teen said he felt some of the student body "wasn't very accepting of the LGBTQIA community."

But after transferring to West Halifax, however, he said he's found the opposite to be true.

Though Cooley was initially "really nervous" to try out for the football team and scared "maybe somebody wasn't OK with me being transgender," he was proven completely wrong.

"Everybody has been welcoming and just treats him like one of the other guys," his mother, Pam Reinders-Cooley, told CTV News.

Wow! That is really great!

However, sadly his story doesn’t end there.

This transgender teen was allegedly fired from McDonald's after getting media attention
MIC Network
By Mathew Rodriguez
September 24, 2016

This injustice is super-sized.

Only about two weeks ago, Kenny Cooley, a transgender teen and high school football player in Halifax, Canada, received international media attention for being an out transgender football player on the Halifax West High School football team. Now, Metro reports, he says he has encountered backlash after his moment in the spotlight: He's been fired from his job at McDonald's.

Cooley, who was profiled by ABC News,  told Metro that only two days after his story appeared in the Canadian newspaper, management at his McDonald's called him in and said he was being terminated, "one because of the media, and two because we had some schedule mishaps," Cooley told the paper.

Bob Smith, owner operator of the McDonald's where Cooley works, told Mic in a statement that he was "shocked by these allegations as they are simply not true."

I tend to believe Cooley more than the manager, I believe that the manager fired him because of the reasons he said and the manager didn’t think his firing of Cooley would be covered in the news media and now he is making up excuses.

And here is the take on Cooley by a conservative religious news site (Make sure you have taken your blood pressure pills first!),

Girl Who Identifies as Boy Becomes First ‘Transgender’ Allowed on School’s Football Team
Christian New Service
By Heather Clark
September 23, 2016
HALIFAX, Canada — A Canadian girl who identifies as a boy has become the first “transgender” player allowed on her school’s football team.

Kennedy Cooley, 17, transferred to Halifax West High School after students at her previous school made her feel “unaccepted” for identifying as a boy. She had heard that Halifax West would be more accepting, but was still apprehensive.

“I’d heard that a lot of the guys are like family, they really get along together, they all know each other, and they’re really close friends,” Cooley told CTV News. “I was just really nervous about going in there and maybe, somebody wasn’t okay with me being transgender.”
[…]
“He’s never been afraid of challenge, and we’ve always supported him as much as we could,” Robert Cooley told ABC News. “It isn’t always easy, but at the end of the day, your goal as a parent is to make sure your child is a productive citizen in society, and when we look at him, we see that he is a good kid.”
Halifax Head Coach David Kelly said that Cooley hasn’t played on a football team before and so she is still learning.

“He’s very new to the sport, so I think he’s still in the process of learning the game,” Kelly explained.