Out Spotlight

Today's Out Spotlight could be called an accidental activist, but she is also the part of the future of the LGBT community. Today's Out Spotlight is Constance McMillen.


Constance McMillen became a poster child for LGBT rights after asking permission to bring her girlfriend to her high school prom. When her school responded by cancelling the prom, she took legal action.

As a senior at Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton, Mississippi,  she challenged the prom rules forbidding same-sex couples from attending and girls from wearing tuxedos. When the school cancelled the prom, students responded by harassing McMillen.

 She just wanted to go to the prom, like any other high school senior. Only difference: Her date was a girl, and Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton, Mississippi, objected. The girls were told they couldn’t come as a couple, couldn’t walk in holding hands and certainly couldn’t show up in the tuxedos they’d planned to wear.

“I was raised to always be proud of who you are,” McMillen had said then  age 18.  She called the American Civil Liberties Union to report on what had happened to her. The result was not what she’d expected: Faced with a lawsuit, the school canceled the dance, angering many of her classmates. (One girl’s T-shirt: “Thanks, Constance, for ruining prom.”)
 
“I didn’t want everyone to hate me,” said McMillen, who was raised mostly by her dad and learned at age 10 that her mother, Denise, was a lesbian. “But sometimes you got to do what you got to do. The easiest way is not always the best way.”

Encouraged by her mom, she  confronted the injustice, and by doing so set an example for the world.

While some in her hometown were upset with her,  she found widespread support nationally—and even internationally. Thousands of grateful teens sent her messages on Facebook, and Ellen DeGeneres gushed on her show, “I just think you’re so brave and amazing.”

The ACLU filed a lawsuit requesting that the court order the school to hold an inclusive prom. The case was settled when a U.S. District Court ruled that McMillen’s First Amendment rights had been violated. The Itawamba County School District consented to a judgment in which it paid McMillen $35,000 and $81,000 in attorneys’ fees.

 After the settlement, the school held a prom. Only McMillen and seven learning disabled students attended. Parents organized a separate prom that all other students attended, but to which McMillen was not invited.

The school district agreed to implement policies that would prevent future discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity for extracurricular and educational activities. This was groundbreaking for a Mississippi school district.

“Constance stood up to foolishness and inequity and irrational unfairness, sending a signal that this battle should be fought at every level,” says former U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson.

McMillen’s story received national attention. Glamour magazine named her Woman of the Year Award in 2010, and she appeared on national television shows including “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” where she received a $30,000 scholarship.

She was invited to the White House and served as Grand Marshal of the New York Gay Pride Parade.

McMillen transferred to another high school school in Jackson, Mississippi, and graduated in 2011. She enrolled at Northeast Mississippi Community College to study psychology.

She  plans to keep speaking out, hoping to spread tolerance—and maybe even save lives. “I heard, growing up, that gay people can’t go to heaven,” she recalls. “Even my grandma didn’t agree with [my lesbianism]. But she said, ‘If that’s who you are, I’ll be here. I’ll love you regardless.’”

 “Stand up like I did. It was hard but it was worth it.”