Twelve Year Old Stands Up for Bullied LGBTQ Kids, Won’t Be Cancelled

The school play he rehearsed for two months was cancelled, but his message is reverberating far beyond his local community

It was awful for the school to cancel it, it’s like saying that ‘LGBTQ should not be included in a society.’ Which is really awful and cruel.

— Oliver Baez

Warning: mention of suicide and suicidal ideation

And a little child shall lead them

Oliver Baez, who is 12 years old, lives in the small Wyoming town of Wheatland, population 3,627. Before and after the Christmas break, he spent about two months rehearsing a school anti-bullying play that included several skits. His parents say they’re proud of how hard he and his middle-school friends worked to bring their lines (and their compassion) to life.

Then at the last minute, the school canceled the entire play, especially because of Oliver’s role. He was shocked, sad, and angry — which I think you might be too when you hear the details.

“It was sad the principal couldn’t stand up for what was right and got misguided by old mindsets,” Oliver’s mom Cassie Baez wrote in an email to reporters, beginning a chain of events that led to a real triumph.

So what was all the fuss that got the play canceled?

Very, very, very little.

In a short scene that would surprise exactly no young person in the U.S. today, Oliver’s character steps up when another student is eulogizing a boy who took his own life. He challenges her to take responsibility for the fact that the boy had been bullied for being gay and that she had been one of his bullies.

The play featured several other skits about bullying, but district officials said Oliver’s scene was “especially problematic.”

Details are unclear, but local reports say Oliver’s principal canceled the anti-bullying play at the last minute because Oliver’s scene “does not conform to community values.”

Here’s Oliver’s drama teacher explaining what happened (my transcript):

So, the principal said … [Oliver’s scene] was promoting LGBTQ community, and that was not ‘in the values’ of Platte County School District. When I explained it wasn’t necessarily promoting the LGBT community, it was about not bullying children to the point that they commit suicide, he said that’s ‘still not in our view.’

— Drama coach Stephanie Bradley, a lifelong Wheatland resident and school-district alumna

When contacted by reporters, district officials doubled down, backing up the principal by complaining that Oliver’s scene amounts to “controversial social values” and explaining that “nobody in the community” had complained about the cancelation.

(In fact, many people complained, but district officials aren’t counting Stephanie Bradley, Oliver, his parents, other cast, and cast-member families as community members. I guess it’s easy to enforce your viewpoint if you define people who disagree with you as outsiders.)

The district superintendent says he wanted more entertainment value. “In my view, a play is supposed to be entertaining, that’s why I go,” he told reporters, adding: “It seems to me this is more of a kind of, stir up some social issues, maybe, instead of kind of like being more entertaining.”

Queer Wyoming youth desperately need Oliver’s message

Local papers and the Associated Press have reported on the cancelation, but I haven’t seen anyone link to the following data, which I believe is critical to understanding and telling the story. Here are sobering numbers compiled by Wyoming Public Radio, the Wyoming Department of Health, and the LGBTQ youth crisis hotline Trevor Project in 2022, the last year full data was available:

• Almost 45% of LGBTQ youth in Wyoming had seriously considered suicide in the past year
• 17% of LGBTQ youth in Wyoming had attempted suicide in the past year
• The rate of suicidal ideation among LGBTQ youth in Wyoming had been rising steeply each year for the past three years
• The suicide rate among youth aged 10–24 year-olds was significantly higher than the national average and keeps rising
• The suicide rate for 15 to 19 years olds was more than double the national average.

Do those numbers shock you?

Would you be shocked if I explained that LGBTQ Wyoming youth say bullying and lack of family/community connection is the primary cause of mental health crises, self harm, and suicide attempts?

I wish officials at the Platte County School District would feel a little shock, and then some compassion and empathy.

I’m not sure what sort of “community values” and “entertainment” the district superintendent is looking for, but I urge him to really hear Oliver, whose message is simple:

Don’t bully kids for being gay or trans. They don’t deserve that. They deserve love and support from the Platte County community. They deserve to be nurtured, embraced, and truly welcome.

They deserve to have fellow students and school staff care about them, their mental health, and their state’s rising LGBTQ youth-suicide rate.

And let me tell you, Oliver’s message triumphs in this story!

No, the school district did not relent, but as they say, ‘the show must go on.’ A local community theater group, the Platte County Players, has a contract to stage its shows at the high school. When they heard about the cancelation, they approached Stephanie with a proposal: Get your kids together, start rehearsing again, and let’s do this thing.

Then on Friday, January 12, the show went on! On the exact same stage as originally planned.

At first, the kids were pretty disappointed because a bad storm and icy roads limited the audience to only about 50 people, mostly family members. Then they enjoyed meeting a special guest, Jeran Artery, a former director of the LGBTQ advocay group Wyoming Equality. He told them how he rehearsed “The Lion In Winter” at Wheatland High years ago when he was a student, only to see it canceled because of a single gay character.

Sara Burlingame, the present director of Wyoming Equality joined Jeran in encouraging the cast and thanking them for being a force for love and positive change.

Some other special guests watched the play too — with lights, cameras, and microphone booms.

A video crew from the Associated Press showed up and filmed the entire performance, plus interviews with Stephanie, Oliver, his mom, and other cast members.

Together, they sent out a plea to not just Wyoming residents, but to people all over the world.

I first learned about what was going on when Prism & Pen editor Esther Spurrill-Jones sent me a link the AP story in the Toronto Star. Digging into the story, I saw that many major news outlets in North America picked it up.

Oliver’s message of love, which his principal and school district tried to censor, has made its way all over the globe.

Will it reach its intended audience? Sadly, some of Oliver’s teachers and fellow students oppose his message, saying that it’s “confusing” or “inappropriate” and that the play should have been canceled.

I wish they would take a dive into the mental-health reporting I linked to above. Kids should not be self-harming and thinking about suicide because they feel rejected for who they are.

I think acceptance and love are community values everyone can get behind.

And a little child shall lead them. Oliver is leading. Who will follow?

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, call or text the U.S. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988. If you’re an LGBTQ young person in crisis, click here to reach Trevor Project counselors, any time of the day or night.

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