{"id":1432,"date":"2019-05-25T00:02:27","date_gmt":"2019-05-25T00:02:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/?p=1432"},"modified":"2019-05-25T21:47:28","modified_gmt":"2019-05-25T21:47:28","slug":"the-queer-student-union-brings-prom-to-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/2019\/05\/the-queer-student-union-brings-prom-to-college\/","title":{"rendered":"The Queer Student Union brings prom to college!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“Queer” Balloons at Queer Prom 2019 source: Samantha Harvey<\/figcaption> Photo by Samantha Harvey<\/span><\/figure>\n

For a small group of students at Hunter, Friday night was exceptionally queer. HA. Hunter\u2019s Queer Student Union sponsored a revival of the club\u2019s Queer Prom as a way to demonstrate pride and just show its members a good time. From choreographed dance routines, to the belting out of the lyrics to Ginuwine\u2019s \u201cPony\u201d when the speaker stopped working, Queer Prom demonstrated that Hunter\u2019s LGBTQ+ community was ready to have some fun. Queer Prom was held in Thomas Hunter 105 from 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. and was attended by about 20 people. The event provided attendees with snacks and sandwiches. No DJ here, the club played music from one person\u2019s phone through a bluetooth speaker.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really wanted all of the queer students at Hunter to have a party that\u2019s specifically for them because in high school and college there are all these dances but they\u2019re not specifically for queer communities.\u201d said Kai Whitehead, 19, treasurer of the Gay Man\u2019s Alliance, who planned the event. \u201c[Other events are] just predominantly and assumed to be for straight couples and heterosexual people so I wanted a safe space for the LGBT+ community to come and just be prideful.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Queer Student Union, which consists of LGBT student groups Lesbians Rising and the Gay Men\u2019s Alliance, holds several small queer-positive events throughout the year. Two of the oldest LGBT groups on campus, Lesbians Rising was founded in 1971 and the Gay Men\u2019s Alliance in 1978. QSU also held a clothing swap last month. The goal of the swap was to provide students with free clothing to better fit their gender identity. Events like this and Queer Prom are just some of the efforts the union has made to promote LGBTQ+ visibility at Hunter and provide students with accessible and affordable, if not free, resources.<\/p>\n

Looking back at high school, prom for LGBTQ+ students was rarely a simple affair. For some it was traumatic, for some fun; some did not even attend to avoid the issue altogether.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy prom experience was pretty fun,\u201d said Whitehead. \u201cIt was basically your typical, what you see in a movie, prom. Lots of straight people,\u201d she continued with a jovial laugh.<\/p>\n

In 2017, Buzzfeed hosted its inaugural Queer Prom in Hollywood, California. The event garnered quite a bit of attention online with its YouTube series chronicling eight teens\u2019 preparation for it. The Hunter Queer Prom is not a new idea, but it has been on hiatus for a while.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere used to be a queer prom back in the day but the QSU went through some hiccups,\u201d said Andrew Shkreli, president of Lesbians Rising. Members of Lesbians Rising and Gay Men\u2019s Alliance often overlap, so the gender identities of the officers are of little concern to the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a girl, and I\u2019m not a lesbian,\u201d he explained. \u201cUnless someone has a strong preference, we don\u2019t really care about who\u2019s on where.\u201d<\/p>\n

The original Queer Prom was held at the beginning of the semester, acting as somewhat of a homecoming. The timing was also helpful in recruiting members. For this iteration, members of the union primarily just wanted to create a fun event \u2013 yet something that they see as extremely necessary and important for members of the LGBTQ+ community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are a lot of parties on campus, but I don\u2019t feel welcome there if I were to bring a partner there. I just want a place where people can just go themselves and be incredible obnoxious with their partner and no one cares,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

A partygoer, who attended Queer Prom with her partner, says that the experience was fun and made her feel \u201cvalidated and safe.\u201d She is, \u201cnot out publicly in that way, \u201c and prefers to remain anonymous.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a gay person it\u2019s hard to find places where you don\u2019t stick out or feel judged and I think having events like these give people a chance to be themselves with less anxiety and stigma from others,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The Queer Student Union might rename Queer Prom to \u201cPride Prom\u201d in order to be more inclusive. In the meantime, the organization can be found on Instagram @hunter.qsu and on Facebook at HunterQSU or here on campus in Thomas Hunter room 309. The room is stocked with free period products, condoms for penises and vaginas, and pamphlets with information about safe sex.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t have to ask for them. We stock them on the regular,\u201d said president of the Queer Student Union, Cole Dempsey, 20. \u201cNow I have a relationship with Planned Parenthood and they\u2019re supplying us with dental dams and condoms.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hunter\u2019s Queer Student Union sponsored a revival of the club\u2019s Queer Prom as a way to demonstrate pride and just show its members a good time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":1433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1432"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1465,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1432\/revisions\/1465"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brie.hunter.cuny.edu\/hunterathenian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}