England
Mother shares photo of her son in evening dress on LinkedIn – the network deletes the post
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16-year-old Justin Sedgwick plucked up his courage and wore an evening dress instead of a suit to his school prom. He met acceptance everywhere – unlike his mother, who shared photos of the event on LinkedIn.
For a year, 16-year-old Justin Sedgwick pondered. At 15 he realized that he was gay and didn’t think much of classic gender roles. He enjoyed crossdressing, liked himself both in classic men’s outfits and in women’s clothes. He told his family all of this openly – and met with absolute acceptance. Justin’s mother Jade is proud of her son: “We’re a pretty open family anyway, we’re all human, so there wasn’t a big announcement or anything like that. We were sitting at the dining table and one evening he said, ‘By the way, this is, what I’m feeling ‘and we said,’ Okay, all right. ‘”
Just in front of his classmates: Justin didn’t want his coming out so quickly and unprepared. He thought carefully about when and where would be a good time to do it – and decided to make a statement at the end of the tenth grade prom. Instead of wearing a black suit, as is usual with the boys of the year, he wanted to go in an elegant black evening dress. He was inspired by a photo of Angelina Jolie, who had attended a gala in a similar dress.
Justin’s family knew about it a long time ago
Justin told Metro newspaper: “I thought to myself, I would just wear a dress. That would show everyone that I can do this and that I am not afraid to be myself.” Nevertheless, the 16-year-old was nervous, because it is well known that young people, especially at this age, are not necessarily tender with one another. “I was definitely excited in the weeks leading up to the event. The whole time I thought, what if someone says something? I thought some people would react very negatively or feel repulsed.”
But it turned out differently. To the delight of Justin Sedgwick and his family. The boy says: “It was overwhelmingly positive! The school staff and the other students were so nice, I felt really welcome. That surprised me a little, but it was wonderful to see that people accept me. “
Young people reacted more relaxed than adults
While Justin was accepted for who he was and no one reacted rude or derisive to the 16-year-old in the evening gown, his mother had a different experience in the adult world – which left her stunned. She shared photos of her prettily dressed son on the social network LinkedIn with the sentence: “I am so incredibly proud of Justin Sedgwick that evening; I was concerned that he would get hostility from stupid people, but he just said, ‘It doesn’t matter , I am who I am!'”
However, when Jade woke up the next morning and tried to access her LinkedIn profile, she did not succeed – the network had not only removed her post from the previous evening without comment, but also blocked her account. Stunned, she complained to the operators. They informed her that the post with the photos had apparently been reported as “offensive” by several other users. “It’s really disappointing,” said the mother. “It’s crazy when you think about how open and warm all those children were who didn’t even blink an eyelid. And then grown-up people feel offended by it and report such a post so that it can be deleted.”
LinkedIn apologized
Meanwhile, LinkedIn responded. Jade’s account has been restored and the prom photos are back. There was also an apology: “That was our mistake – the post should not have been deleted. We’re very sorry we did wrong, but we’re happy you and Justin had so much fun at the prom. We are happy that he had a great evening. “
Source: “Metro”
This article originally appeared on stern.de.