This trans teen is so close to being crowned prom queen
An 18-year-old in Indiana is very close to being voted prom queen at her high school.
Dakota Yorke is one vote away from being crowned with the honour at her Portage High School.
The Chicago Tribune reports that the prom queen will be crowned on Saturday, and that Yorke hopes to be given the honour.
She told the paper that she wanted to enter the competition in order to be visible, and to show that she can do it no matter who she is.
“For other transgender teens, this is about following your dreams and being who you are, not who people think you are,” she told the Tribune.
Yorke’s mother Dawn told the paper that she is very supportive of her candidacy for prom queen.
She says: “To us, Dakota is just Dakota. I never cared how she identified regarding her gender, as long as she was a good person who was kind and respectful to others.”
However she said “middle school was rough” for the teen, especially before she came out as trans.
The prom queen hopeful spoke in a video posted to YouTube saying she had hoped to be crowned with the honour since she was small.
“I saw my name on the bulletin board and I cried,” she recalls.
In previous years she attended proms wearing a tux, including in 2015.
“I felt embarrassed”, she says.
“Fear gets you nowhere. I’ve learned that honey,” she adds, saying: “Follow me on the path to laughter happiness and positivity and don’t let anybody, anybody, anybody, get you down.”
Check out the video with Dakota below:
