Libs of TikTok harassed a teenager for being elected homecoming queen

A high school in Missouri elected a transgender student as homecoming queen, and Libs of TikTok is decrying the great injustice of trans people being liked by their friends. While Libs of TikTok brands itself as a protector of children, the series of outraged social media posts amounts to dragging a literal teenager through the mud.

On September 15, Oak Park High School in Kansas City, Missouri announced that Tristan Young had won homecoming queen. This marks the second time students have elected a trans homecoming queen, the first occurring in 2015.

Chaya Raichik, owner of the Libs of TikTok account, seized on the celebratory moment to publicly vilify the teen, mocking her appearance with transphobic language.

“One of these people is a male with an adam’s apple who won homecoming queen in @NKCSchools and 4 others are young girls who had their dreams crushed by a man. Can you guess which one is a male?” she wrote to her over 2.5 million followers.

A follow-up post on the Libs of TikTok substack read, “Oak Park High School students in Kansas City, Missouri just got sent a message loud and clear: boys are just better at things than girls are. Even at being a girl. Tristan Young, a male student who identifies as a female, was crowned the homecoming queen this week. He beat out four lovely female candidates because actually identifying as the gender that you are is like, sooo 2010.”

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A spokesperson for the school claimed that the presentation did not meet “state standards.”

In tagging the school, Raichik seems to direct blame on administrators—as though it wasn’t the student body who voted for Young. To be fair, when your brand is scaremongering, earning popularity by being likable can be a hard concept to grasp.

But the whole point of Libs of TikTok isn’t logic—it’s projected grievance against imaginary enemies. As usual, the account has long since moved onto targeting hate towards other random queer people.

Fortunately for Young, the community has fully stood behind her. Chair of the Kansas City LGBTQ+ Commission Justice Horn joined the high school in celebrating Young’s victory. “I want to pause and congratulate Tristan for being crowned Oak Park High School’s Homecoming Queen!” Horn wrote.

“I uplift this against the transphobic comments against this young person who was named queen by their peers. I’m thankful the next generation of Kansas City is so kind.”