Making A Difference

Sometime the small thing make a big impact, things like a photo in the school’s yearbook can have a big impact or having your gender confirmed.

Transgender Iowa teen will be allowed to attend Boys State
By Linh Ta
April 3, 2018

A transgender Iowa boy will be allowed to attend Boys State, an American Legion's high school program, after the state board first denied him acceptance into the program.

Emmet Cummings, a transgender high school student from Center Point, said he was denied by the organization's state board of directors March 19 after he was nominated by his local post in November to attend the weeklong governmental educational program.

Michael Etzel, president of the American Legion Hawkeye Boys State board, said they announced they were going to make an exception for Emmet on March 26. He referred questions regarding the exception back to the American Legion of Iowa headquarters.

Daniel McClure, one of six members of the legion's board of directors, previously told the Register that the board was reinforcing its decades-old rules when it emphasized: You must be a biological male to attend Boys State.

For Emmet this is a big win in confirming his gender. Let us hope that now trans people can serve (at least for now) and there are trans veterans that the American Legion changes their rules and allows trans people to attend the program without the need to grant acceptations.

Meanwhile another student can use their photo in the yearbook,

Transgender student's photos can appear in Caddo high school yearbook
Shreveport Times
By Nick Wooten
April 3, 2018


A transgender student's senior photos in which she is dressed as a girl will be published in the school yearbook even though the Southwood High School principal initially told her no.

Kami Pham, a 19-year-old Southwood senior, also will be permitted to participate in graduation wearing makeup, a wig and heels.

Pham said in an interview Monday that Southwood's principal originally said pictures taken of her over the summer would not be allowed in the school yearbook and on the senior wall because they violated the school dress code. She was told they were too feminine, she said.

She had the students behind her…

Cotton helped organize a social media campaign to allow Pham's photos to be included in the yearbook and on the senior wall. Supporters also wanted Pham to be permitted to walk at graduation dressed as she chooses. Cotton said many Southwood students were supportive.

The apparent reversal came during a meeting Tuesday morning attended by Roberts; Pham; Pham's mother; Deborah Allen, a leader in Shreveport's LGBTQ community; the Southwood counselor; and the student body president, Allen said.

Little wins for us but major victories for them, all the little wins add up into a major movement. Sometimes it not the court victories that move us forward but it is the small battles because the school and the American Legion realize that they were on the losing side of history.