For years at Athens Drive HS in Raleigh, NC the tradition has been to crown a Homecoming King and Queen off the Student-Voted Homecoming Court. While this tradition helps to bond the student body and create school spirit, how will members of the LGBTQ+ community, more specifically students of non-cis gender identities feel bonded with their peers, if they're not even allowed to participate in a way that reflects their gender-identity?

This discrimination became more apparent this year, 2021, when Veronika Juylova, who identifies as non-binary and goes by any pronouns, ran for Homecoming King, and was put on the Queen ballot for students to vote. When confronting this problem, Veronika was told by our Senior Advisor, Mr. Remaley, and our Principal, Mr. Mares, that they could not run for King, and if they wanted to run for Homecoming Court at all, they would have to run for Queen, or they would be forced to resign from the running. They eventually were let into the running due to student outrage, and actually did end up being 1/10 of the people running for Homecoming King. Veronika felt that running for Homecoming King identified more with their gender identity, which is why they ran in the first place, but this raises the question, if someone were to not identify with neither King nor Queen, how are they supposed to run?

The answer to this is changing the traditional and non inclusive Homecoming Queen and King as we know it, to just Homecoming Royalty. Students will run for just Homecoming Royalty, and the top 10 voted students will be on the court. On top of this, traditional straight relationships should not be pushed on the students who'd like to run, and with this new system of Homecoming Royalty, new types of pairings should be encouraged as well, as straight relationships are not the norm., not the only relationships, and never have been.