Many of the people who attended Queer Prom Saturday night were not able to take the date they wanted to their high school prom.
It's a place for a bunch of queers to get together and have a good time
said junior Rodney Harber, male co-chair of Open Doors. He said he possibly would have brought a same-sex date if his high school had allowed it.
The first Queer Prom was last year in the Baker Center Ballroom, but this year the Rotunda at Walter Hall had a more prom-like atmosphere, Harber said.
Senior Nneka Ogunnaya, a resident assistant at Bromley, said she attended because she is queer and her friends would be there. Queer is an umbrella term including lesbians, gays, transsexuals and bisexuals, said Ogunnaya, who identifies herself as bisexual.
The prom was sponsored by ALLY, a group of heterosexual and gay people that strives for equal treatment of minority groups, mainly focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. This year the group is comprised of mostly gay males, said Malinda Handy, a prom committee member who helped start ALLY, which is in its third year as an official student organization.
The prom was free, but donations were accepted to help cover the cost -which was approximately $1,000 -for catering, the dance floor and the DJ. ALLY had fund-raisers such as Midnight Pancakes and also received funding from SAC.
As a heterosexual, Handy, a graduate student in cultural studies and education, felt the need for an organization fighting for social justice, especially for gay rights. Many of the LGBT groups overlap, but the more organizations you have the better off you are Handy said.
Justin Maxwell, president of ALLY, said he wishes he had been out in high school like many of his current friends were. He took a friend to prom.
Handy considered Queer Prom her real prom, since she did not attend it in high school -mostly because she did not enjoy dressing up, she said.
Dressed in everything from poofy dresses to paisley prints and jeans, the LGBTs and friends enjoyed music and ho-ho cake. Just like prom, there was a king and queen, pictures and candlelight.
Ironically, the prom king and queen, sophomore Arienne Acuff and freshman David Litsky, were a heterosexual couple who met on campus and attended the soiree because they have a lot of gay friends. The king, queen and court were chosen randomly from a ballot box where they were nominated. Acuff and Litsky nominated themselves and ended up winning.
It was exciting to be king and queen since neither of them were in high school, they said. I'm the band nerd. We never got nominated
Litsky said.
In high school if people brought same-sex dates they were shunned
if they were allowed to bring them at all, Acuff said.
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Katie Buskirk, left, an Ohio University sophomore from Chillicothe, and her girlfriend Ally Layman, from Huntington, W. Va., dance at the Queer Prom at Walter Hall on Saturday. Layman and Buskirk, who have been dating for a month, met at Wall Street, a cl
