For LGBTQ high school students, prom is often not the enchanted evening that inspires thousands of teenagers across the country to dress up in tuxedos, dresses, corsages and boutonnieres and dance the night away.
"Some people weren't able to be out in high school," said Irene Rojas-Carroll '15, the director of the Queer Alliance Community Committee. "They couldn't slow dance with someone of the same sex, and other things. We want to change that."
The Queer Alliance Coordinating Committee is organizing a prom, called PrideProm, to offer students who identify as queer the opportunity to celebrate in the kind of open, romantic environment their high school proms failed to provide them.
"It will take the best parts of high school prom and leave out the worst parts," Rojas-Carroll said. "There will be no royalty, no pressure to find a date. We don't want to leave anyone out, and we're not going to turn anyone away, even though we're making sure we're targeting to the queer community."
Though PrideProm is still in its initial planning stages, Rojas-Carroll said she envisions elegantly-dressed attendees dancing to live local musicians and socializing around chocolate fountains.
The atmosphere will be different from that of SexPowerGod, another event organized by the Queer Alliance. "If there's a message that I want to get across, it's that this is not like SPG," Rojas-Carroll said. "We already have an SPG. Not everyone is comfortable with the kind of event that SPG is. We want something that can appeal to a broad audience."
Rojas-Carroll also said she hopes the prom will help break down barriers within the LGBTQ community, something she said she feels SPG fails to accomplish.
"We want this to be for the benefit of the entire queer community," Rojas-Carroll said. "We don't want people to feel that they're excluded."
"SPG originally started out as a queer dance for LGBTQ students," said Jake Leavitt '15, a co-coordinator of PrideProm. "Then it slowly grew, and everyone on campus went to it. It lost its identity as a queer event. The goal of PrideProm is to create a new space for LGBTQ students."
The event will take place March 16 in Andrews Dining Hall, where SPG was held in November. The spring equivalent to SPG, which has been called Starf*ck and Flashbang in the past, will likely not be held this year, Leavitt said.
