The Prom Story We Should’ve Covered in March…
“You know, I wish that I wasn’t seen differently. I wish that people looked at me and just saw that I was a good person with a good heart. And that wants to make people laugh. And that’s who I am. I also happen to be gay. And I would love to have the same rights as everybody else.”
- Ellen Degeneres
Earlier this year, a teenager from Mississippi named Constance McMillen was barred from attending her high school prom with her girlfriend, and made headlines shortly after when the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) filed a lawsuit against the school on her behalf after they canceled the prom. This week, the lawsuit was settled: The school district will pay her $35,000 and put in place an official policy saying it will not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity in any of its activities. That policy was a first of its kind in the entire state.
Meanwhile, a thousand miles away in Hudson, New York, Hudson High School crowned two gay best friends as their prom ‘king and queen’, voted so by their peers and classmates. While they said that not everyone in their school was so supportive, I’m guessing their attendance wasn’t even in question… a pretty big difference.
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Closer to home, same-sex marriage has been legal since 2005 and anti-discrimination laws have been getting tweaked over the last year or so; “Sexual orientation” has already been added to the human rights act, and “Gender Identity” may be soon to follow. Eight years ago, a Toronto teenager named Marc Hall took the local Catholic school board to court for not allowing him to bring his boyfriend to the prom as his guest.
I haven’t heard any (big) controversy around any of the proms in the area, but does that mean everything’s fine here?… Not necessarily. Does having the permission to bring the date of your choosing mean you’ll be comfortable there?
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For a few years now, Gab Youth in Vancouver has been running Queer Prom at the end of the school year, the likes of which have been gaining popularity in cities across the country, probably because it’s just nice to go and feel comfortable, not just tolerated.
So what do you think it would take for LGBTQ students to feel comfortable at their school’s prom? Is it even possible, or do traditional proms belong in a different era?
