At Cearra Sturgis’s Mississippi high school, the graduating boys wear tuxedos in their grad pics, and the girls wear drapes (insert The Sound of Music soundtrack here). When openly gay Cearra wore a tuxedo for her 2009 picture, not only did her school exclude it from the yearbook, they excluded her name, too!
I guess the school was following Schrodinger’s cat theory. If we can’t see the dyke, does she exist?
Thankfully, Cearra ain’t takin’ no Southern bullshit, which is why she filed a lawsuit against her piece-of-shit school — and came out victorious!
“The district has agreed to adopt a policy that will require all students to wear a cap and gown, rather than require boys to wear tuxedos and girls to wear drapes,” ACLU said in a statement.
Cearra’s picture will also be featured in the school library.
“I’m thrilled that my photo will join [the class pictures],” Cearra said. “It’s important that nobody else will ever be forced to wear something that doesn’t reflect who they are. Hopefully no other students will be excluded from this rite of passage simply for expressing themselves. Copiah County School District has done the right thing by changing the yearbook policy so no students have to feel as if they’re out of place.”
Equal rights for y’all!