Thursday, August 13, 2015

UPDATE Dalton Maldonado Still Suffering Anti-LGBT Bias ... This Time From His Own High School

I first wrote about Dalton Maldonado — the Betsy Layne High School basketball player who was harassed and threatened and chased by a rival team because he is gay — back in April [HERE] but now it’s his own school that is accused of homophobia.

This year the Kentucky high school had a two-page spread in the yearbook where they featured every single senior of the basketball team … except one.

Dalton Maldonado.

Oh sure, it’s Kentucky, not exactly known for tolerance and acceptance and understanding, and, apparently, intelligence, but still it’s a slap in the face to Maldonado who deserves the honor and the respect that every other team member received. And not only is his photo missing from that picture spread, but his name isn’t even listed as being a member of the team.


Maldonado confirmed that every player on the bottom of the page was a senior, and that he was the only player omitted:
“I had a person [affiliated] with the school tell me what they had learned about the school attempting to cover up the whole story [of the harassment by the rival school]. I recently saw my senior yearbook, I flipped right to the sports basketball page only to find my senior basketball picture missing...which devastated me.”
And the school’s response to the question of why one player, one player who happens to be gay, was left out of the tribute?

Silence … from Principal Cassandra Akers … because bigots cannot justify their bigotry.

 Luckily Dalton Maldonado is graduating so he will no longer suffer the indignities he’s endured by rival schools and his own high school. This fall he starts school at the University of Louisville, which already has provided him with a support structure. But still, in 2015, high schools, even ones in Kentucky, edit out gay people as if we don’t exist.

The march does go on …
story and photos via Outsports

4 comments:

  1. Hang in there, Dalton! You are going to do great things and be a person who anyone would be proud to know. We already do here at Bob's. xoxoxox

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  2. I hope college opens up a whole new (better) world for him. He deserves it.

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  3. Upper left - yes. The rest.......eh. not so much.

    My niece uses "haha" after every facebook entry even when it's not a funny. I find lots of younger folks are doing this. "just got to the theater haha!". It reminds me of Daffy Duck as Robin Hood.

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  4. The school should be closed down and re-opened under a management that believes all pupils are =

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Say anything, but keep it civil .......