A transgender high school student in Texas has lost his lead role in a theater production of Oklahoma! allegedly due to the school’s gender policy.
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In recent years, transgender youth have been faced with hundreds of bills nationwide as conservative lawmakers have been moving to limit LGBTQ people’s rights to access health care, use bathroom facilities, and participate in sports in places such as Texas, Florida and Virginia. Additionally, several schools and school districts have also adopted policies on transgender students including removing accommodations for transgender students, such as preferred pronouns and access to facilities and activities consistent with gender identity, along with proposed bills that would require schools to out trans students.
Meanwhile, in Sherman, Texas, high school senior Max Hightower has been a member of the Bearcat theater group throughout his years at Sherman High School and recently landed the lead male role in the play Oklahoma!.
However, according to local news outlet KXII, Hightower was shortly replaced when Sherman High School Principal, Scott Johnston called to tell the student’s father, Phillip Hightower about a new gender policy for students.
“Actors and actresses could only play a role that was the same gender they were assigned at birth,” Hightower told KXII, detailing his conversation with the principal.
As the student identifies as a transgender male, this meant he could no longer be cast as the male lead, despite the senior being previously allowed to dress up as a male, something Hightower says has been a part of theater since the start.
However, as noted by Hightower, his son previously played historically female supporting characters in Sherman theater shows.
Newsweek has reached out to Johnston via email for comment.
In a statement, according to KXII, the Sherman Independent School District said the show needs to be postponed because of sexual content and profanity and added there is no policy on how students are assigned to roles, but for this production, the gender of the role as identified in the script will be used for casting. This may not apply to future productions.
Newsweek has reached out to the Sherman Independent School District via email for comment.
Despite the many policies and bills facing the LGBTQ+ community, many are continuing to fight against it as a judge in Southern California previously halted a school district from requiring schools to notify parents if their children change their gender identification or pronouns at school or use a bathroom of a gender other than the one listed on their official paperwork.
In Alabama, Sylvia Swayne, the 26-year-old transgender Democrat running for the vacant role in Alabama’s House District 55, wants to prove to the rest of the country that there is more to the state—a key battleground in the Republicans’ culture war on trans rights—than its reputation would suggest.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.