Gay Missouri Teen Crowned Homecoming Queen
Zachary Willmore, who was elected by his peers in a "popularity contest," claps back at trolls and hateful commenters on TikTok.
A gay high school student is clapping back at critics who barraged his social media accounts with nasty comments after he was voted “Homecoming Queen” by his fellow students.
Zachary Willmore, an 18-year-old senior at Rock Bridge High School in Columbia, Missouri, who is a member of his school’s varsity cheerleading squad, became the first male homecoming queen in the school’s history on Friday, October 22, beating out several other students – both male and female – running for homecoming royalty.
Following his win, he was embraced by many of the girls competing for the title, including several of his cheerleading teammates.
Willmore was honored at a football game, receiving the crown while wearing a floor-length, sparkly, gold dress. Video footage of his coronation was shared widely on social media, being viewed more than 3.5 million times and garnering more than 765,500 likes and over 12,000 comments — some positive, some negative.
“Overall, it’s been a really great experience,” Willmore, who boasts more than 1.1 million followers on TikTok, told the Columbia Tribune.
Willmore, who wears makeup and often dresses in a gender-nonconforming style, said he asked his social media followers, when running for the homecoming court, whether he should take the title of king or queen if he should win. Overwhelmingly, his followers suggested “queen.”
“They thought queen could look prettier on the sash,” Willmore told NBC affiliate KOMU.
Willmore’s crowning may be emblematic of a pro-LGBTQ trend, in which younger generations are less concerned about rigid gender stereotypes and more accepting of gender-nonconforming or transgender students. Last month, a transgender girl in Florida was crowned her high school’s first LGBTQ homecoming queen.
Other LGBTQ students have also run, and been elected to homecoming courts at high schools across the nation, although they may run into resistance from school administrators intent on preserving the gender binary. Last year, an Indiana school made headlines after a transgender female running for homecoming queen was listed as a candidate for homecoming king. The school apologized, saying the misgendering was due to a computer-generated program based on the gender marker on students’ official transcripts.
Of course, many social conservatives and gender essentialists — or those who believe in strict, binary gender roles and presentation, based on one’s biological sex — objected to Willmore’s taking of the “Homecoming Queen” title, accusing him of “stealing” a cisgender girl’s dream.
But Willmore clapped back at his detractors in a TikTok video, noting that homecoming court members are nearly all determined by how popular they are among members of the student body.
“Let me just put on my crown that I won fair and square, because homecoming is, quite literally, a popularity contest,” he said, placing the crown he won on his head. “A lot of you guys’ main points in the video of me winning Is that I was ‘stealing some little girl’s dream,’ quote, unquote. It was some little boy’s dream, too, and that little boy was me. You guys are hiding your hatred in homophobia and a thick layer of fake empathy.
“I’m still friends with all the candidates who I ran with for homecoming royalty, which, for the record, there are boys and girls both running. There could only be one winner — it could have been a straight girl, it could have been a straight guy – it happened to be me, which is fine,” he continued.
“The problem is you guys commenting hate under my video, and your inability to let things change,” Willmore added. “You guys weren’t, because of your fixed mindset.”
He later concluded the video, telling his detractors that their vitriol only made him more popular.
“For all the haters on my page, thank you guys so much for boosting my video. Because of you guys I have an interview with NBC. We love, love, love it. See you on TV!”
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