A prom story told from a trans perspective is on the way. According to Deadline, Red Crown Productions is working on a film about Corey Rae, an activist and model who became the world’s first openly trans prom queen in 2010. The production company acquired “Queen,” Harry Tarre’s screenplay adaptation of Rae’s essay “How I Became the World’s First Transgender Prom Queen.”
“To be a prom queen, one must be pretty, popular, well-liked, and most importantly female; but unlike most other prom queens, I was born male,” Rae wrote. “From October 2009 to May 2010, I was able to transition in front of my whole school from male to female and win the most coveted title known to any high school girl.”
Like the article, “Queen” will chronicle Rae’s high school gender transition as well as her journey to prom court. Red Crown’s Amanda Crown — who originally brought the script to the company — will exec produce alongside Rae and Tarre.
Rae and Tarre met in high school and began collaborating on “Queen” in 2016. Their script eventually made the GLAAD List, GLAAD and the Black List’s collection of the best unproduced LGBTQ+-inclusive screenplays. Deadline notes “Queen” is the first GLAAD List project to be fast-tracked.
“The story of a young trans girl who becomes prom queen is the type of film we’d like to see coming out of Hollywood,” said Jeremy Blacklow, GLAAD’s Director of Entertainment Media, “stories about transgender people simply living their lives like everyone else.”
“Corey Rae is an inspiration and we are honored to bring her story to the screen and continue to spread her mission and engage conversation among audiences and communities,” agreed Daniel Crown, founder of Red Crown Productions. “Upon reading the script, we immediately realized the importance of this project and her journey became a priority to share with others.”
Daniel Crown is right: telling trans stories is incredibly important. It’s also something that is still extremely rare, despite the buzz around projects such as “Pose.” Research from USC Annenberg’s Inclusion Initiative found that, among the characters in the 100 top-grossing films of 2o17, not one was trans.
