Jay Alfie

Officials at Allen High School have agree to call a transgender senior by the correct name when he walks across the stage to receive his diploma Friday night.

Although Jay Alfie had been told at the beginning of the school year that school officials had no problems using his correct name at graduation, when he checked again a couple of months ago, Jay was told that school officials would only use his legal name, which at this point is the female name he was given at birth.

With his parents and sister helping, Jay has been fighting to get school officials to change their minds, and now they have.

In a written statement released to the media, Allen ISD Supt. Scott Niven said:

“The school district’s practice at Allen High School graduation is to read the student’s legal name at the ceremony. This allows for consistency as the names of our 1,556 graduates are read. The practice of reading a student’s legal name at graduation is not specific to transgender students. It also applies to nicknames and names that are commonly used in place of the student’s legal name during the school year. If a student’s name is legally changed, the school district will make those changes accordingly.

The Alfie family has been in the process of obtaining a legal name change for several months. Due to circumstances beyond the family’s control, the legal process will not be completed before graduation on June 1. Therefore, since the family has filed legal papers to change the name, the request to change the name at graduation will be honored.”

The announcement came this week after the family went public with their battle and Jay’s story was featured on several news media outlets, after his sister Isabella created a MoveOn.org petition that garnered more than 5,000 signatures and after Jay’s parents met with the school’s graduation coordinator on Tuesday.

Jay Alfie began transitioning more than a year ago, according to Isabella, but had chosen to delay having his name changed legally. She said that after going through the required therapy, at the end of the last school year Jay had been given permission to go ahead with top surgery and testosterone therapy. At the start of this year, she added, he began the name-change process.

But, Isabella said, she and her brother and parents are still citizens of Mexico, which means that since he is now 18, Jay will have to go to Mexico himself to have his name and gender markers on his birth certificate changed.

— Tammye Nash