Max Hightower, a transgender professional and senior in high school at Sherman High School in North Texas, was denied permission to perform his guitar in the school’s creation of the 1943 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Oklahoma! earlier this month, according to the Texas Tribune.
Hightower, a transgender child, was unable to portray Ali Hakim on his own, according to the school district’s policy that individuals could only play roles that matched the gender that was assigned to them at birth. Instead, Oklahoma!‘s “youth edition” was to be performed by the students. This edition, intended for students in middle school,
