How Trevor Wilkinson rocked a rainbow manicure and led a queer teen revolution
It’s a late Thursday afternoon and Trevor Wilkinson is doing what college students love doing, but with a twist for which he is today well-known.Chilling in his cozy dorm room, the 19-year-old is showing off his meticulously painted — and boldly colorful — fingernails while recounting his journey to teenage activism.
A first-year pre-law student at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, Wilkinson is at once youthful and wise beyond his years — still very much a kid but clearly comfortable stepping up and leading political battles many young people could hardly imagine.
Wilkinson rose to national leadership in 2020, when he was repeatedly suspended from his Abilene, Texas, high school for refusing to remove the polish from those same nails that he’s proudly displaying via Zoom.
Outraged at his treatment by school officials — and embolded by his own research into Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools — Wilkinson organized an online petition titled “Allow males to wear nail polish”:Hello, my name is Trevor Wilkinson and I am a senior at Clyde High School.
