Lesbian couple banned from going to prom together
(merary melchor/facebook)
A lesbian couple has been denied the chance to go to prom.
Merary Melchor, a senior at John Tyler High School in Texas, was allegedly told that she could go to the event – as long as she didn’t bring her girlfriend, Sydney Aparicio.
The couple applied twice for tickets, but got rejected even after getting permission to attend from a school administrator.
(merary melchor/facebook)
Melchor told East Texas Matters that she had been “really excited” to go to prom with her partner of two-and-a-half years.
She had been looking forward to walking in hand-in-hand with her girlfriend, wearing a dress which she said “really fit me very well and it’s very beautiful.”
Aparicio expressed her anger with the situation, saying: “We struggled a lot just to scrape up all the money we could just to get everything we have.
Merary Melchor (merary melchor/facebook)
“It’s highly upsetting.”
The school has claimed that Melchor missed a deadline to apply which would have let her partner come to prom, but Aparicio’s mother, Jessica Aparicio, said this wasn’t the case.
She recounted how she asked authorities at the school: “‘Are you discriminating against them?’
“And they said: ‘No, absolutely not, she can go.’ They said they didn’t want any gang fights.
Merary Melchor (merary melchor/facebook)
“I said: ‘Gang fights?! They’re gay! If that’s the case, you’re discriminating.’
“They said: ‘Oh no, she’s more than welcome to find somebody else to go with.'”
Some lesbian couples have been more fortunate. One pair went viral in April with their adorable prom photos, captioned with the message: “my better half, my saving grace .”
(macydanley22/twitter)
People loved them – so much, in fact, that the post has attracted around 130,000 retweets and likes.
The couple even used each other’s accent colours for their nail polish, which is a whole new level of cute.
And a transgender teenager made history when she was crowned her school’s prom queen.
(WCMH-TV)
Nikko Nelson was shocked when she found out that she’d won the contest at Homestead High School in Wisconsin, recalling: “My friend was in the hallway and she came up to me and she said: ‘They said you won prom queen.’
“I was like: ‘Are you being serious?’”
But she dismissed the idea that her win could inspire other trans people, saying that she doesn’t see herself as a pioneer of trans rights.
(WCMH-TV)
“I just like to think of myself as a normal person, but at the same time I realize that I do have a different quirk to me,” said Nikko.
“I didn’t win prom queen for being a transgender girl; I won prom queen for being Nikko Nelson.”
