Zander Moricz, the first openly gay class president at Pine View School in Osprey, Florida, spoke about his experiences and activism during the graduation ceremony on Sunday, although in his commencement address, he never said he was gay. Instead, he used his curly hair as a term for his sexual orientation
The 18-year-old Pine View class president made his feud with the school administration public on Twitter earlier this month, claiming that the school’s principal, Stephen Covert, had called Moricz into his office and threatened to take away his microphone if he mentioned his activism during his graduation speech. Hundreds of thousands of people liked and shared his Twitter thread.
Youngest plaintiff
Moricz called the choice to censor his speech “dehumanizing,” but he didn’t want to jeopardize the ceremony for his peers.
“There are going to be so many kids with curly hair who need a community like Pine View and they won’t have one,” Moricz said in his speech. “Instead, they’ll try to fix themselves so that they can exist in Florida’s humid climate.”
Moricz is the youngest plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Florida’s parental rights and education law, dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and has been vocal about his objection to the law and how it would affect kids.
Gay replaced by Curly hair in speech
He didn’t use the word “gay” once throughout his address. He instead said Curly hair.
“I knew that the threat to cut the mic was very real, so I wasn’t gonna let that happen. I just had to be clever about it”, Moricz said in an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America on Monday.
“But I shouldn’t have had to be because I don’t exist in a euphemism. I deserve to be celebrated as is.”
He added in the interview that he would not have come out if the law had been in place when he was a freshman.
“It effectively takes away the only guaranteed safe space from the majority of the entire LGBTQ population here,” Moricz said.
Members of school board came in support of “Curly hair”
The Sarasota County School District published a long statement on May 10 in response to Moricz’s tweet. Thus, admitting Covert met with him but noted that the content of his speech had not been reviewed.
Some members of the school board have expressed support for Moricz. At the Pine View School graduation ceremony, Chair Jane Goodwin, Vice-Chair Tom Edwards, and Karen Rose all sat on stage.
Moricz deserves to be acknowledged for who he is, according to Edwards, who is openly gay.
“I don’t want him to be a victim in this,” Edwards says. “I want him to be celebrated for his accomplishments while being true to his identity.”
Goodwin expressed her support for Moricz after his Curly hair remarks.
“We have to make sure that we understand and we keep every child safe and respected in our school district,” she said.