Transcripts

[MUSIC PLAYING] MARIANNE COMBS: It's about a half hour into prom night, and the guests are flowing in steadily. The Calhoun beach club is filled with flowers, and balloons, and fuchsia, and teal, and the walls are sprinkled with stars. A few couples are dancing, but most are mixing on the side, sitting at tables with friends, or getting their photos taken in the next room. It looks a lot like a high school prom, except people seem more relaxed, and the dresses are better. For a lot of people here, this evening is a chance to take part in a rite of passage they missed out on the first time.

SPEAKER 1: I remember all the cheerleaders talking about going to prom and who was going to be their date and what they were going to wear and all that. I knew that I wasn't going, and I felt a little bad. It was a little hard because you felt a little left out. But I was with women at that time, and I knew that wasn't an option.

MARIANNE COMBS: Don and Deb have been together for nine years. Neither one of them went to their high school prom. They were already sure of their sexuality and knew that as lesbians, they weren't welcome at the dance.

SPEAKER 2: I was never interested in going to prom I thought that it was a very pretentious event, and I was out at the time and so I was definitely not interested in going into a straight, organized, hoopla, pretentious event. And they wouldn't have let you. [LAUGHS] Not with a woman, anyway.

SPEAKER 1: Yeah.

MARIANNE COMBS: Both Deb and Don agree that it's going to be a while before gay teens are accepted at high school dances. But one prom attendant, Greg, believes that even for heterosexual kids, prom is an event that does more harm than good.

SPEAKER 3: I don't know if I'd have them at all. I think it's too much pressure at that age to not come out being warped and weird in some way for most of the people that want to attend or go. So I would change the whole focus of it and make it much more inclusive and less date oriented. And that's how I would do it.

MARIANNE COMBS: The staff at district 202 think it is important for teenagers to have that big date at the end of the school year, no matter who it's with. So this year, the center sponsored the first annual prom for gay and lesbian teens. Co-chair Bill Veney got to chaperone.

BILL VENEY: And it was really exciting because they were all dressed up. The guys were wearing tuxes, the girls were in long dresses, and they took it very seriously. And it was at a hotel in downtown Minneapolis. And it was your typical youth prom, much like any high school would have. There was dancing, and there was some drama here and stuff like that. But it was real exciting to see them out and to be with people who they feel very comfortable being themselves around.

MARIANNE COMBS: Over 100 teens attended the prom. Some of them came all the way from Iowa, a sign of success in Benny's eyes. And remarkably, there was no indication of a negative reaction to the dance. No phone calls, no protests, not even a stare from the hotel staff. Based on this year's success, District 202 plans to make their youth and adult proms an annual event, and will keep it going as long as gays and lesbians feel like dancing. For Minnesota Public Radio, I'm Marianne Combs.