and voting scenario configured under the new royalty titles and encouraged the student body to nominate and vote for individuals vs. a vote that would fulfill a traditional gender quota. After the official nomination of individuals, the royal nominees then completed a form identifying their preferred pronouns and crown style such as a tiara.
Lathrop High Leadership pose together during Homecoming Week
Lathrop High School Adopts Gender-Neutral Royalty Homecoming Goes Gender-Neutral
“We need to be allies and more inclusive of everyone,” shared Phalina Nim, Lathrop High School senior, homecoming committee chair, and MUSD’s student board member. Lathrop High School’s homecoming court has dethroned the traditional “King and Queen” and “Prince and Princess”, opting instead to crown seniors as “Legacy” and sophomores as “Halo” regardless of gender. The benefits of a gender-neutral court may not be obvious, but they’re impactful. The most obvious being that any student, identifying as any gender, can be a candidate. Along with this, the two winners can be any gender, meaning the court relies solely
on how many votes they receive as individuals. To Phalina and her leadership class, their philosophy is simple: homecoming court needs to be ungendered in order to give all students an opportunity to be represented and to feel royal. The leadership team cannot help but notice that “students on their campus tend to stray away from getting involved because they don’t feel like they fit in with the ‘norm’,” said Phalina.
Lathrop High School aims to curate a safer, more insulative campus for all students alike, and this new adoption amended standards for recognition allowing LGBTQIA+ students to feel safe and welcome on campus.
Lathrop High’s Legacy Couple
Though the 2021 winning homecoming royal couples were traditional female and male couples, Phalina expressed, “We just knew we had to do it; we took a big first step and we feel very proud.” And to other high schools in the district, county, or state, “I hope they can recognize the needs of their student body population, and not live in fear of taking steps to become advocates and allies,” she urges. Lathrop High School joins several universities and high schools throughout the nation taking intentional steps toward campus inclusivity.
Under the advisement of Allison Birakos, educator and school activities director, the students underwent intricate planning to develop a system for the student body to vote for homecoming candidates without consideration of gender. The school used an app to create a custom nomination
“I hope they [other schools] can recognize the needs of their student body population, and not live in fear of taking steps to become advocates and allies” - Phalina Nim, Homecoming Committee Chair, Student Board Member Lathrop High’s Halo Couple
