Md. school elects gender-neutral homecoming court

BETHESDA, Md. - Homecoming is a time-honored tradition at high schools across the country. It often coincides with football season and is usually a spirited event. Most schools hold dances and usually pick students to be the homecoming king or queen. But this year, Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Maryland took a different approach for its homecoming court that many say is more welcoming than in years past.

At Bethesda-Chevy Chase's homecoming game Friday night, the students elected a gender-neutral homecoming court. The student body got the opportunity to vote for having either a male and female, two males, two females or two transgender students as the pair for each graduating class to receive a homecoming crown.

Many students FOX 5 spoke with said they are proud of this decision and believe it will encourage other schools to follow suit.

"Our student leaders, the student government officers, really took the lead on this initiative and it was all really about making sure that we don't have any structures at the school that don't include all of our students," said principal Donna Redmond Jones. "It's about promoting inclusion."

"It's a very progressive thing for us to do and it's good for a big public school to do something like this first," said a B-CC student.

But some students also said that they saw posts on social media from students in opposition to the idea.

Redmond Jones said she did receive calls from some people supporting the decision while hearing from others who did not like the idea so much. But she said she was going to leave this up to the student body leaders.

This year's homecoming game was played at Walter Johnson High School as renovations are taking place on Bethesda-Chevy Chase's football field.