Gaydream believers scoop queen's crown

David Smith
Sunday November 28, 2004
The Observer

When the Monkees sang, 'Oh, what can it mean/ To a daydream believer/ And a homecoming queen,' they were thinking of Sleepy Jean. But on today's American campus, the homecoming queen is increasingly likely to be Sleepy John.

The age-old American ritual of the student homecoming, in which a male is crowned king and a female takes the queen's tiara, is in jeopardy because of growing challenges by gay and lesbian students to bend the gender rules.

Homecoming kings and queens have traditionally attracted student votes for their personality or academic achievements, but now the wearing of drag is an electoral asset. According to the New York Times, however, the trend has sparked America's latest culture clash, with high schools and universities debating whether to scrap the convention altogether.

The argument reached a peak earlier this month after Everett Moran, a gay student at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, failed to win election as queen, but was voted on to the homecoming court. There was uproar among traditionalists when, at a red-blooded college American football match, the 21-year-old appeared at the sidelines in an empire-waisted black dress with elbow-length red gloves, complete with the homecoming yellow sash.

Moran, 21, said: 'We always get Mr Heterosexual Vanderbilt and Ms Heterosexual Vanderbilt to be the perfect king and queen.'

Last month students at St Cloud State University in Minnesota elected their first male homecoming queen, 22-year-old Fue Khang, prompting a storm of phone calls and emails from parents and former students.
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Evan Mayor, editor of Vanderbilt's student newspaper, said: 'I guess the politically correct thing to do is scrap it.'

david.smith@observer.co.uk