Oliver Baez, a 12-year-old middle school student, was preparing to play a character in a school production who confronts another student for bullying a gay student, resulting in them taking their own life.
After much rehearsing and preparing for this play, officials suddenly canceled the production, saying that the play did not follow the school’s values.
Unfortunately, this is a continuous problem across the country. Following the 2022 midterm elections, many states have enforced laws that targeted the queer community such as banning books, “don’t say gay” bills, and even banning LGBTQ+ teachings and plays.
Wyoming is known as an ultra-conservative state with a mostly republican population. Over 25 years ago, the state made headlines after 21-year old University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard was murdered for being gay.
After all of these years, however, such bans show that the state of Wyoming has a long way to go when it comes to discrimination. Wyoming, along with South Carolina, are the only states to not have discrimination laws in place, making it easy for people to get away with discrimination because there is no law barring them from doing it.
The principle made the situation worse by compensating students with $5 gift cards to a local convenience store instead of offering a more educational alternative.
This isn’t the only thing that is shaking Wyoming’s queer community, however. There is a legislation that, if passed, will mandate that one can only be referred to by the gender they were assigned at birth, regardless if the person identifies as trans.
Naturally, the schools decision angered Baez, as he isn’t being backed by the district or the school board on issues that are important and need attention. The school board cited that this decision was not received negatively by the city, providing evidence that they did not take the students’ outrage into account.
However, this story does not end in a negative way. Following all the trouble regarding the play and the school district, a local theater group called Platte Theater Group was able to salvage the rights and perform the play, providing some relief to those left brokenhearted by the school’s insensitive actions.
