Jackson High School student seeks support for preferred names at graduation ceremonies

Jackson High School senior Leighton Berry is seeking support to allow students who identify as transgender to be recognized by their preferred name at the school's graduation ceremonies.

An online petition he began has collected about 1,000 signatures. The petition states, "There are many students who have preferred names. This petition is to change the school board's opinion on announcing those preferred names during graduation ceremony. This is one of the most important days of their lives and should be fair to honor them for working so hard through school by announcing their names as they wish."

Berry said school officials said it was school policy to use the student's legal name in such proceedings. Berry said he looked through the school's policy but was unable to find an entry addressing the issue.

A representative of Jackson School said school policy is to use the legal name printed on the student's birth certificate and that is what is printed on the student's diploma and announced at the ceremony.

Berry said, outside the student population, he did not feel supported by the faculty and staff at the high school regarding his gender identity.

"The students were very supportive. I had a friend who started the gay-straight alliance club at Jackson," Berry said. "But, a lot of teachers would let other students who aren't so accepting call you mean slurs and say mean things about me in class or would refuse to call my name. It took a very long time to get teachers to call me my preferred name."

He also mentioned one principal told him he was lucky he could wear black at all. Jackson males wear black, females wear red at the ceremony. Berry said out of his graduating class of around 400 students, 20 to 30 students identify as transgender.

Berry pledged to boycott his graduation ceremony if the policy remains unchanged.

"I feel like that it's not that hard to announce your name, and I want other kids to know that even if you feel like a nobody — I felt like I was a nobody in school and didn't really have many friends — but that doesn't mean that you still can't make a difference. Like as long as you put your mind on something, you can really do anything that you want," he said. "If I can't change it this year, I'm still going to keep pushing to change it for next year and the year after that. It's not about me, it's about every kid everywhere."

The online petition may be found on www.change.org and is titled "Preferred Names Used Announced at Graduation (Jackson R2 Schools)". Berry has paired the petition with the hashtag #SAYMYNAME.