Kentucky High School Leaves Out Openly Gay Basketball Player From Yearbook
In DepthDalton Maldonado was the starting point guard for Betsy Layne High School in Kentucky. But even though that’s an important position, Maldonado was omitted from the school’s two-page spread devoted to the basketball team. Why? Because he had come out as gay during his senior year.
Outsports reports that the soon-to-be college freshman was devastated when he got his yearbook and found that while all the other seniors were featured in a tribute to the sports team, he had been removed. And while one could speculate that the school just fucked up (my own high school printed that my future plans included “going out with cartoon animals” instead of “outwitting them” due to a typo), based on the treatment Maldonado’s received from his school in the past, it’s unlikely that this was just an oversight. In fact, Outsports has reported on Maldonado’s harassment at the hand of others—he was bullied at a basketball game—so extensively that it’s difficult to think that this was just a mistake someone made and more likely a punishment for Maldonado’s sexual orientation as well as his refusal to accept that the people around him would treat him badly for it.