YesWeekly.com – Jordan Green – News editor
Some of the patrons at the Caribou Coffee shop in Friendly Center, an upscale retail area in Greensboro, cast uneasy and quizzical glances at Devon McCauley, whose thatch of jet-black hair extensions, scuffed boots and dual mouth piercings gave her the look of a 1960s girl-group singer with glam and punk-rock modifications.
By expression the 17-year-old Grimsley High School senior indicated the discomfort was mutual, periodically giving the room a vigilant appraisal while maintaining a mask of feigned disinterest and taking pains to avoid eye contact with other customers. Over the past six months, McCauley has been getting thrown out of places like these. She was banned from the Quaker Village shopping center near Guilford College last summer. Then, on Jan. 12, she said a McDonald’s restaurant less than a block away from the progressive liberal arts college told her not to return. The latter decision would be overturned five days later, after the girl’s mother spoke to the restaurant’s franchise owner.
By the time McCauley, who was born into a male body, was adopted by foster parents in the summer of 2005, he had come out as gay. Later, McCauley would take yet another bold step of transition from a male to a female identity.