BELLEVILLE (WWJ) — A transgender student in the Van Buren School District will graduate this month under the identity he assumed as a freshman. Sebastian Newell fought and won the right to graduate as Sebastian and not the name on his birth certificate, Maura.

“I am the first transgender student at Belleville High School to walk though commencement as the gender they identify with as a name that they identify with,” Newell said.

Newell said that being called Maura would have been painful, because it is a reminder of an unhappy person whom he left behind.

“I didn’t want to walk, I didn’t want to participate in commencement. Just walking with that kind of name that is associated with the opposite gender was terrifying — I don’t even feel comfortable when a substitute teacher says it out loud, so I can’t even imagine someone whispering it into a microphone in front of thousands of people,” Newell said

Newell said that he changed his mind and wanted to set a good example for other transgender students.

“I didn’t want to be their horror story, their invitation to hide and not walk for commencement,” Newell said.

District superintendent Michael Van Tassel said that the initial decision to use the name Maura was not about gender, rather the policy that a student must use a legal name and the district agreed to use the name ‘Sebastian’ after getting the approval of Newell’s parents.

“We have 400 students … and there is just no way that we can just read names off because somebody, for instance, has decided that they want to be called something different,” Van Tassel said.

Van Tassel said that the district is discussing whether or not to do away with the tradition of separating boys and girls at the ceremony.

“The times, they are a changing — and there’s nothing wrong with that,” Van Tassel said.