Bigotry Killed the Prom - But Justice Will Bring it Home

This week in Itawamba County, Mississippi an 18 year old student, Constance McMillen, requested to be allowed to wear a tuxedo to prom while escorting her girlfriend who is also a student at the school. She was told she couldn't arrive with her girlfriend, that she could not wear the tuxedo and that the couple could be asked to leave if it made other students uncomfortable. Ultimately the school district opted to cancel the prom.

The reason cited by the district for the cancellation was that by allowing the lesbian couple to attend it would be a distraction to the education process. As if the recently filed lawsuit against the district by McMillen and the ensuing media firestorm coverage is in no way distracting the educational process? Not to mention that the district has now effectively punished all of the students who were going to attend prom.

This behavior by the school district only serves to illustrate the impudence with which individuals and entities today still flaunt their bigotry. These actions continue to impress upon LGBTQ/SGL youth and young adults that their lives, needs, hopes and dreams have no place in our hetero centric society. It also criminalizes Constance and her girlfriend to their peers, making them the scapegoats for the prom being canceled.

It is heart breaking to see this kind of discrimination continue to rear its ugly head and to be allowed to continue.

School's already tough enough; youth are trying to graduate, dealing with peer and societal pressures, trying to navigate their transition into adulthood while also working on learning how to have healthy relationships.

As a young person in the 70's I was constantly impacted by the poisonous effects of homophobia. School was hell, like sharks who can smell blood from miles away, other students and some teachers honed in on my "difference" and they were brutal.

I didn't have an opportunity to attend prom, there was no dating, no possibility of a girlfriend. In fact there were precious few friends. I didn't learn how to negotiate relationships. I was alone and all that I did know was an unceasing terror that someone would find out my deepest secret, that I was a lesbian (for the record I still am). So I kept people at bay lest I be discovered and for years I was isolated, lonely and scared beyond belief.

In the meantime what I did learn was how to lie, hide and manipulate and it made me utterly and wretchedly miserable to have to do this as an everyday part of just being alive in this world.

So, I started getting high, a lot. And ultimately my life spiraled out of control. Eventually I was institutionalized; first in a juvenile facility and then a mental institution and lastly a religious girl's school. My crime, my illness? Being a dyke!

Once free from these institutions my downward spiral with drugs and alcohol continued for many years. This caused untold suffering to myself personally as well as to many who were in my life. My child was especially impacted by my struggle. It was a horrific price to satisfy the discomfort of others homophobia.

All these years later it's true that I have seen things change that I never thought to see. There are now states with legal marriages, there are cities with inclusive ordinances on employment, domestic partnerships, civil unions, housing and public accommodation access. LGBTQ people live much more openly, owning and operating businesses. We now see greater depictions of ourselves in the media. We have indeed come a long way baby! Why our families now roll Easter eggs on the White House lawn.

And while all our progress is wonderful, it is Not Enough! I repeat, it is Not Enough! Bullies still abound; in pulpits, legislatures, homes, schools and communities. Tender hearts every day are bruised and broken by homo/trans phobic families and society at large. Physical and emotional battery and murder is still very much a reality. Suicide still takes too many of our young people. Equitable access to employment, housing and public accommodations continue to be largely unprotected across the nation. There are no uniform civil rights protections. LGBTQ people are not allowed to serve openly in the armed forces. Parents still send their children against their will to Jesus camps to try and "heal" their queerness.

As an activist I am often so tired and so exhausted from not only fighting the good fight, but also from trying to cajole, beg, push, pull and drag LGBTQ community members to be engaged in participating with their own liberation. It at times is so demoralizing that I think to give this work up. So, it does my heart good to see this young dyke in Mississippi stand up to the school district and her whole town and fight for what is just, for what is right, for what is equal! Way to go Constance! It also does my heart good to see others across the country standing up with her and offering help.

Here in Arkansas and anywhere the reader may call home - remember this; whatever we may have today as queer people, it IS NOT ENOUGH! We must stand tall, stand strong and we must fight, every single day, we must fight!