A transgender homecoming queen broke down in tears in a video uploaded to YouTube on Saturday after she was apparently criticized for her sexuality after being crowned.
Cassidy Lynn Campbell, a student at Marina High School in Huntington Beach, Calif., was named homecoming queen following the school's football game Friday night, becoming the institution's first transgender student to be nominated and obtain the honor.
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"I wasn't doing this for me. I was doing this for so many others, so many others around the nation,"
Campbell told local ABC affiliate KABC-TV immediately following the ceremony. "If this could help one child or more, or hundreds or thousands or millions, then it was more than worth it."
As happy as Campbell appeared following the crowning ceremony, the teenager anticipated the negative feedback and attempted to preempt the criticism by defending her decision to dress like a girl and compete for the homecoming queen crown.
"They think that I'm just a boy doing this for fun, and I'm just a boy dressing up as a girl and trying to win a crown when that is completely the opposite of what it is," she said. "I've always seen myself as a girl."
Despite her initial brave front, Campbell succumbed to the many criticisms, from both fellow students and online commentators, and broke down in tears during a nearly nine-minute video she posted to YouTube on Saturday.
"i am usually a very strong and confident person, but i have my moments too. although there was alot was positive feedback, there was alot of negative too, and the negative affected me more than it ever has before," Campbell wrote below her YouTube video titled "i should be so happy..."
"i recorded this because i didnt know how else to vent," she added in the video description. "i didnt want to talk to anybody."
Born Lance Campbell, the 16-year-old homecoming queen had lived as a boy up until three years ago when she decided to wear women's clothing and go by the name Cassidy,
ABC News reported.
Campbell claims wearing makeup and women's clothing is not a choice, but something that she has to do.
"It just hurts so bad because I feel just as much of a girl as all of them do," Campbell said through tears in the video.
"I am just as much of a human being as they are," she added. "The fact that these other people can say the things they say, and act the way they act, and think the way they think is just inhumane."
After pausing several times in an apparent attempt to gain her composure, Campbell said in the video, "sometimes I wonder 'is it even worth it.' ... And I should just go back to being miserable. ... And just be a boy, and hate myself and hate my life, just so everyone can just shut up and leave me alone."
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