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McMillen made headlines in the spring when she asked to attend her prom wearing a tuxedo and escorting a girl. Her school district in Itawamba County canceled the prom entirely. (On Tuesday, McMillen is in the spotlight again as she travels to the White House to meet President Obama at a ceremony recognizing the contributions of LGBT Americans.)

The superintendent of the Itawamba County school district told CNN that she couldn’t comment on the case while the case is pending.

Around 250 miles away in Wesson, Sturgis wore a tuxedo, instead of the traditional drape or dress, for her senior portrait. She believes that she was penalized by being omitted from the senior section in her yearbook.

Neither the principal nor the school’s superintendent would talk with CNN. After repeated calls, the district office administrator told CNN, “We’re done.” In October, the principal told a Jackson TV station he wasn’t able to comment “on that particular situation.”

“Everything happens for a reason,” Sturgis said in an interview with CNN’s Soledad O’Brien. “This is the start of something new. I think that this can be the change for gay youth. One day it’s going to be different. And somebody has to start it, and why not us?”

The two women have become a support system for each other, connected, in part, by the Mississippi Safe School Coalition. The group is made up of mostly college and high school students who are working to make schools in Mississippi safer for, and more accepting of, gay youth.
McMillen reached out to Sturgis after viewing a Facebook site the MSSC set up to promote Sturgis’ cause.

In 2004, the national gay rights group GLSEN — Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network — issued a report that said of all 50 states, Mississippi had the most hostile environment for gay youth.

“Even starting a GSA (Gay Straight Alliance club) at your school or taking a same sex date to prom is a revolutionary act,” explains Izzy Pellegrine, a gay youth activist and 19-year-old sophomore at Mississippi State. “Just being out in your high school… you can be the only LGBT person that anyone in your high school has ever met.”

Pellegrine is a board member of the group that has hosted training sessions in how to start gay-straight alliance clubs, lobbied for anti-bullying bills and started a “prom-watch” to identify schools where they think kids might be discriminated against.

McMillen transferred schools and completed the final weeks of her senior year in Jackson, Mississippi. She says the stress was just too overwhelming. “At one point I was walking through the lunchroom and there were people booing. I’ve gotten a lot of hateful text messages.”

In March, a federal judge ruled McMillen’s first amendment rights were violated when her school district refused to let her attend her prom in a tux with a girl and canceled the prom. The judge didn’t order the school to host the prom because parents had already planned a parent-sponsored prom.

McMillen believes the alternative prom she was sent to was a sham because only a handful of people attended. “A lot of people were talking about how it was a joke just set up for me,” she says.

The ACLU has filed a complaint in response and another court hearing is pending. The school district denies it directed McMillen to a fake prom.

McMillen says despite the difficult times, she wants to return to Itawamba and begin studies at the local junior college. She wants to be near her high school girlfriend. She says it won’t be easy. “My best friend — we had been friends for like seven years — has not spoken with me since the day they canceled prom,” she says.

Sturgis says her classmates are more accepting than McMillen’s classmates, but that didn’t lessen the sting. “Let’s say we put [my tuxedo picture] in the yearbook. Would anybody hurt like I hurt since I’m not in the yearbook?” she says tearfully. “It wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

She says she’s considering suing, but knows that won’t get her picture in Wesson’s 2010 yearbook.

“Hopefully it will help somebody else in my same situation,” she says. “And that’s what I’m really aiming for. I don’t want anyone else to go through what I’m going through. This was a lot to handle in one year. I think people should be able to wear what they want to wear for their senior picture. It’s not hurting anyone else and this yearbook is for them. It’s not for the teachers.”

But it was the President’s message, in his official Father’s Day Proclamation, that has generated controversy. In it the President openly acknowledges gay parents, noting that some children have two dads.

The proclamation states, “nurturing families come in many forms, and children may be raised by a father and mother, a single father, two fathers, a step-father, a grandfather, or caring guardian.”

Tony Perkins, from the conservative Family Research Council, called the President out. In a pointed statement he said “…proving that nothing is sacred - not even fatherhood - the President couldn’t resist a shout-out to his homosexual base, marring what should have been a powerful acknowledgment of the family’s importance in American life.”

While not directly responding to Perkin’s comments, White House Deputy Spokesman Bill Burton said the President was “just trying to be inclusive of all sorts of families, just like he was on the Mother’s Day proclamation.”

For Maryland State Sen. Rich Madaleno, the President’s message is a welcome change. Madaleno, an openly gay white father who married his partner in 2001, adopted two African-American boys at birth.

“I think it shows his [President Obama's] commitment to celebrating all of America’s families…Families come in all, shapes and sizes, instead of your standard mom and dad,” Madaleno said. He was invited to the president’s afternoon Father’s Day Mentoring barbeque at the White House, thrown for about 150 high school kids and a group of prominent mentors.

Madaleno said the change in attitude has really made a difference. “This feels great…This is a President who doesn’t just tolerate us but welcomes us. This is an amazing transformation over a very short time.”

John Sowers, who attended the President’s Friday morning speech, applauded the President for his leadership on the importance of fatherhood. Sowers - who runs a Christian mentoring group out of Portland, Oregon, that trains Christian youth mentors – said he didn’t object to the inclusive proclamation. “We pretty much work with Christian churches. We pretty much have a conservative base. We engage in faith based Christian training, based on love. We don’t discriminate. We focus on the kids. We stay clear of all that. It’s controversy we don’t need.”

Sowers’ focus on training mentors for kids comes from his personal experience as a child. His parents split when he was two years old, and his father moved away. Sowers, who wrote a book “Fatherless Generation,” said he relates to President Obama, who was abandoned by his father. “I had a father-shaped hole in my heart. The Bible says God is father to the fatherless. Psalm 68:5. One of the main ways God fathered me is through mentors. That’s why I applaud Obama. I’m thrilled he would take time in this wild landscape of DC to focus on this. Oil spill, economy, wars. He takes time to say this matters. I’m pumped, I’m celebrating. I’ll advocate for him all day long, advocating for the fatherless.”

President Obama told the audience the one key message they should remember is that “our children don’t need us to be superheroes. They don’t need us to be perfect. They do need us to be present. They need us to show up and give it our best shot, no matter what else is going on in our lives.”