Corey uses her Instagram account to educate followers about trans issues and share her inspiring story, and her wedding day was no different (Instagram: @imcoreyrae)
Corey Rae, who is believed to be the first transgender prom queen, recently married her partner in a “magical” ceremony just one year after getting engaged.
Corey, an activist and model, and Lyle Seebeck, a senior technical account manager, picked 15 June to tie the know because it is Pride Month, her birthday month, and also eight years since she publicly came out as transgender.
Speaking to People, Rae said: “We are two very different people from two very different backgrounds. I’m a Jewish, trans woman born in Los Angeles and raised in New Jersey by an at-times single mother, and money wasn’t steady in our household.
“Lyle is a Midwestern boy with strong southern roots, born into a more wealthy family, and had never knowingly met a trans person before me. We are an ‘unlikely’ pairing, but we fell in love because of our differences and our similarities, and all the highs and lows that we’ve both gone through that have shaped us into the people we are today.
“Our yin and yang balance is what makes up the perfect match.”
Corey Rae and Seebeck first set eyes on each other at a Rüfüs du Sol concert in November 2021. He proposed at the Exposition Park Rose Garden in Los Angeles in April 2023, close to the concert venue where they first met.
About 175 people gathered at Seebeck’s family estate in Chicago for the wedding, with Rae calling it a “magical property that’s been the setting of many of Lyle’s most precious memories”, adding: “Everyone felt it, it was perfection.”
When asked what marriage meant to them, Rae said: “It means committing to the person who makes me feel my best and [who] I want to be the best for. It means for ever thinking of others, and carrying on a family legacy.
“It means success. It means unifying our families. It means becoming one and making it known. It means growing and evolving together, as one.”
And she wants other trans women to see that they “can be and do anything”. She and her new husband “prove that the now-clichéd ‘love is love’ is true,” Rae added.
Corey Rae’s early life
Rae began to transition in October 2009. In an essay shared on her website, she wrote: “Throughout my entire life, my family and I have known that something about me was special.”
But it was a cover story in People magazine about someone transitioning from female to male that led to Rae realising that she was also transgender. By May 2010, she “passed as a girl in almost all situations” which led to her campaigning to fulfil a “dream” and be nominated for prom queen.
“At prom, I was nervous, but I had an underlying feeling that my dream would come true. And then my world changed for ever. Our class president said: ‘And our junior prom queen is… Corey Wagner’.
“The whole room went wild screaming and applauding. I had never felt more loved by my peers in my entire life. The night was perfect: I couldn’t have been more proud of myself and my high school for being so accepting and open-minded,” she said.