Gay High School Basketball Star Excluded From Team's Yearbook Page Says He Was 'Devastated' - The New Civil Rights Movement

Unfortunately, other members of his own community have done everything in their power to try to cover up the story about the attack from the opposing team and have reportedly harassed him over his sexuality. The final slap in the face during his senior year of high school came when the yearbooks were released to students.

Outsports first reported that on his team's basketball page spread Maldonado's profile was the only one not included. After seeing this, he took to Facebook to express his thoughts over the last year and how he felt being excluded from the school yearbook.

"My family didn’t, and doesn’t, support me being gay as many don’t," he wrote. "We have had countless arguments over my sexuality, and they do not want me bringing my boyfriend around (when I have one.)

However, they weren’t the only ones who didn’t like me coming out. My school also didn’t approve. I would hear things that teachers would say, and many media outlets would say I 'claimed' this happened in spite of the pictures and text messages I had from my coaches as proof. Then I had a person officiated with the school tell me what they had learned about the school attempting to cover up the whole stor[sic]. I recently saw my senior yearbook, I flipped right to the sports basketball page only to find my senior basketball picture missing…which devastated me."

Gay High School Basketball Star Excluded From Team's Yearbook Page Says He Was 'Devastated' - The New Civil Rights Movement

Update 8/14/2015:

This story developed quite fast with the school district stating the following:

NCRM reached out to Cassandra Akers, Dalton's principal at Betsy Layne High School in Kentucky. She had been a basketball player at the school when she was a student, so hopefully she would understand how Dalton was feeling.

But the response to our email was from Dr. Henry L. Webb, Superintendent of the Floyd County Board of Education.

Dr. Webb writes, "the assertion there was a deliberate attempt to harass the student athlete by omitting his photograph from the yearbook, that claim is totally false and without merit," and calls the omissions "unintentional errors." He says that "several different individuals" were involved in reviewing the yearbook, yet "the omission was not found." And Dr. Webb says the school will republish the pages with Dalton in them as inserts students can request later, adding, "we apologize to him and his family for the error."

Dalton, however, doesn't appear to buy Dr. Webb's explanation of what happened.
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"I refuse to let this happen again!," Dalton writes. "I was a senior point guard who had played for three years, and I was even in the center of the team picture. I don't care if I was in other parts 100 times, my individual picture wasn't in there! I find it unbelievable that their 'investigation' took less than one whole school day and once again they're just letting it go! I will not stop fighting this. No one deserves this, and I'll make sure no other LGBT teen in Floyd Co has to face this type of discrimination!"

I have to agree with Dalton, you just don't forget an important member of a team sport when "several" individuals are responsible for the final product.