Tonight’s queer prom, an affair for vampire costumes and zombie costumes and splattered, fake blood galore, is the stuff of dreams.
Ximena is beaming.
On a Saturday afternoon in late June, the 18-year-old swaps their System of a Down band T-shirt for a gothic, Lolita-style black dress with tiered ruffles.
A metal necklace, whose coiled curves evoke the slithering snakes of Medusa’s hair, found at a yard sale.
A stack of spiky bracelets.
“This is the jewelry I wear, like, every day,” they say, along with what’s currently pale pink-orange hair. “I kinda like being, I think the term is, an eclectic person.”
Ximena is comfortable in this second skin.
Right now, the teenager’s cosmetic ritual isn’t a solo act.
Ximena primps next to their good friend Stef. The 17-year-old is super chill, flaunting a paper-thin black shawl resting over her shoulders, and a blue necklace borrowed from Ximena. In Stef’s words, her aesthetic is sparkly and dark.
She’s wearing, once again, her lacey, floor-length gown with a scalloped hemline — the same dress she wore to a previous high school prom.
In her experience, the mainstream version of the hyped-up, endlessly immortalized youth milestone celebrating friendship and school spirit wasn’t all that fun. There was an image of elegance and conformity to uphold.
She didn’t feel comfortable. She felt disconnected from her classmates.
Tonight, hopefully, will be different.
The moody jams of the Smiths, the Cure, and Joy Division wail from a smartphone as the friends apply makeup and finalize their looks inside a bathroom at Durfee Innovation Society, an old school building turned community hub on Detroit’s west side.
The youth are taking over.
The prom will commence here later this evening — another chance to connect with friends, forge memories, escape the day’s troubles just for a little while.
Ximena and Stef are two-thirds of a core trio comprising the leadership of the Lavender Society, an LGBTQ+ club headquartered a few miles away in the predominantly Latino community of Southwest Detroit.
They asked that only their first or middle names be used for privacy reasons.
The club organized this year’s queer prom, its second. The planning, a youth-led, democratic process, included months of collecting suggestions, online shopping, and lots of emails.
All the headlines and airwaves and newsfeeds broadcasting the tsunami of anti-LGBTQ+ bills, local governments banning Pride flags on city property, vandalized Pride flags, protests of drag brunches, the push to erase queer stories from school curriculums across the country, can feel demoralizing.
The news can provoke sadness, fear, frustration.
The kids need a break.
The queer prom, a convening of kindred spirits, is a rare and healthy distraction. Community spaces dedicated to LGBTQ+ youth help them feel safe and less alone in the world, but they’re uncommon in the city. All Ximena sees are bars for grown-ups.
Tonight, the stage is set to let loose and let go.
“I’m excited,” Ximena says. “I mean, I’m excited for everybody’s outfits.”
“I feel like they’re obviously going to top our outfits,” Stef quips. “I like when people go on theme and try something cool.”
Tonight, hopefully, will be special.
The little joys count. Hopefully, the prom will make everyone happy.
Safe havens
A few days earlier, the final plans for the queer prom began to brew inside a little beige house on Hedwig Street.
Bianca Meza is keeping busy.
The third core member of the Lavender Society, the 18-year-old devotes the next few hours coordinating the club’s signature event.
The RSVPs have poured in.
Dozens plan to come.
The club collected information on food allergies, emergency contacts. Bianca shoots an email to Avalon International Breads, who promises to donate some cookies.
They peruse the Amazon website, hunting for last-minute decorations. This year, “Dance ‘Till You’re Dead,” is the top vote getter of an online poll on Instagram, edging out Western and intergalactic-themed options.
The results aren’t a surprise to Bianca — a lot of Zoomers like scary stuff.
“I think teenagers are very drawn to the old Addams Family, where it was very black and white and gothic,” they say.
What about the viewers for the cultural phenomenon Wednesday on Netflix?
“The new one, I think it’s more, like, little kids and millennials,” they say.
A space for dream-making, hope-building, and self-exploration, the Lavender Society, a youth program of the Southwest Detroit nonprofit group Congress of Communities, has been privy to the trends and desires of youth since the club’s formation in late 2021.
The trio, who attended Detroit high schools, had surveyed the current scene of student-led, queer youth clubs known as gender-sexuality alliances. They felt a little left out. Those spaces didn’t feel inclusive. “They’re very white-dominated,” Bianca says.
While allies are welcome, The Lavender Society is specifically centered for LGBTQ+ youth of color. Bianca, Stef, and Ximena are queer and Latinx. Together, they can talk through how to navigate multiple identities, private and public spaces, and cultures. Write new chapters. Joyful, less lonely ones. Interacting with digital avatars online isn’t enough. Sometimes, the club picks specific dates, Bianca says, to vent about sad stuff. The rest of the schedule is preserved for the good times.
The club’s membership ebbs and flows, but the core trio keeps the activities going. They regularly meet on the upstairs floor of the beige house, a youth-driven, community space operated by Congress of Communities.
The cozy room is filled with Candy Land and Apples to Apples and Guess Who? board games. A mini-library of social justice books.
A little painting of Hello Kitty.
A navy bean bag chair.
A private cubby, strewn with a string of tiny white lights, that a person can crawl into, calm down, and rest.
This place feels like home. Alive with love.
Bianca, Stef, and Ximena are big on organizing happy events, like last February’s brunch and the queer prom — a much needed reprieve from a seemingly nightmarish, crisis-riddled reality.
“All the stuff that’s going on right now kind of puts everybody down,” Stef says. “And there’s nothing you feel excited about at all. It’s just feeling sad about your own identity all the time.”
These days, Ximena tries to avoid political news. Especially what’s happening in Florida. “It makes you sad. It makes you scared,” Ximena says. “Michigan is a relatively safe state, but still, what could happen?”
Months of planning and donation hustling bore visions of creativity: a drag performer booked to dazzle the auditorium dance floor; local businesses serving spooky-themed coffee drinks; tables decorated with spooky-themed flower bouquets; shiny black streamers; a bunch of cobwebs; plastic bats and plastic spiders; a scary backdrop of black gates and barren trees for peacocking and posing and duck faces and photo glam shots for the ‘gram.
Ximena hopes the prom DJs will play songs by their beloved noughties emo bands. My Chemical Romance. Panic! at the Disco.
Here’s the big-hearted mission for the prom: transforming an old school building into a ghoulish, welcoming safe haven for queer youth and allies ages 14 to 20 traveling near and far — so they’ll have somewhere to hang out without a veil of judgment. So they can express themselves, be creative and not feel weird and out of place.
The prom, by design, throws the traditional rules and pressures away. “We want people to feel comfortable in their own skin,” Bianca says.
Alive with joy
Midway through the evening, the star entertainer drops her maroon robe, revealing a light brown two-piece skirt set. She stomps around the floor sprinkled with black and red and purple balloons. Making a wave. Making a statement with her pointy, black boots. The brown wig flows down her back like a waterfall. Cue the sultry Beyoncé track. Check her technique.
Jezebel’s Inferno has entered the queer prom. An encore performance.
Bodies form a semicircle around the drag artist. They tip her with dollars. They whip out smartphones to record her. They scream, holler as she lip syncs the lyrics. Whenever she points her gloved finger. Step. Step. Step. For the finale, Jezebel’s Inferno performs RuPaul’s “Cover Girl.”
Afterwards, prom attendees rush to the spooky backdrop to snap pics with the performer. They squeeze her tight. They blow kisses toward the camera. More jumping. More screaming. Ximena and Stef are among the spritely fans posing for photos.
The auditorium has undergone a ghoulish transformation. Yellow caution tape is wrapped around white folding chairs. The black walls are dressed in cobwebs.
The DJs P1x1edu2t, part of Seraphine Collective, a femme/nonbinary DJ network, have played songs all night. Local businesses Cafecito Alvarez and Las Tres Cunadas have been serving haunted-inspired and fruity beverages, respectively. A “blood bucket” espresso drink with strawberry drizzle and whipped cream. Pineapple sunrise aguas frescas.
Around 9 o’clock, empty cups are peppered across the tables. The dumplings in the aluminum tray are almost gone.
A few prom goers play Pac-Man in the arcade room. A black and white striped hallway reminiscent of a Beetlejuice suit leads to a room that used to hold a swimming pool, but now three friends are playing the Exploding Kittens card game.
Kip Gilbert, a 17-year-old sporting a vampiric look with a bat chain and “ass-kicking” boots, already scooped up a bunch of the prom’s free merch, including the rainbow flag pins. They have a good support system of friends. Still, hearing all the negative news can be damaging. “It’s hard to deal with,” Kip says.
They drove two hours from their hometown of Midland, with a short pitstop at Cracker Barrel, to come here. They also came with friends. These kinds of events are rare back home.
“It’s a really cool opportunity,” they say. “I like being exposed to queer culture and stuff, because I feel like it's such a big part of my identity. Like, being able to be surrounded by other people who share that feeling. It’s very empowering.”
Chinelo Onuigbo, the youth program director of Congress of Communities, has been dancing along with the youth all night. She got lit up seeing the youth cheer for Jezebel’s Inferno.
For some attendees, the live drag performance was a first. Others got a little education, asking about pronouns. She’s proud of Bianca, Stef, and Ximena for putting the prom together.
“We need space. We need joy,” she says. Queer “people are whole people with highs and lows and beautiful things and ugly things. All the in-betweens. So I think it's crucial that we don't neglect that part.”
For the Lavender Society’s core trio, the promises of adulthood are on the horizon. In the fall, Bianca, Stef, and Ximena are off to college. Bianca plans to major in data science. Stef is studying neuroscience. Ximena is pursuing a degree in illustration.
They’ll still be involved in the Lavender Society in some way. They hope to grow the membership. Stef wants to help more queer teenagers living on the streets. They could use a club like this. Ximena isn’t sure where their career path is headed. Maybe an artist. Maybe one day.
In middle school, the teenagers used to be teased, barraged with invasive questions about being queer. Stef was taught to keep her identity “hush hush.” The defensive pattern, she observes, reverberates across Black and brown family cultures. She once felt ashamed about herself.
The club got Stef excited about all of life. Stef’s not hiding anymore.
“It's like, the corny thing that's always said, like, ‘It Gets Better,’” she says. Stef’s starting to believe it could be true. “You can still have happy moments without feeling guilty about it.”
And these days, Ximena finds evidence for hope in TikTok videos. They’ll watch older trans people and lesbian couples leading happy and successful lives. “A fulfilling life is possible,” Ximena says. “That dream is possible.”
Bianca wasn’t able to make it tonight, due to an unfortunately timed summer bridge event, but Ximena and Stef had fun. Stef’s thinking of visiting schools to promote future proms.
As the evening winds down, the DJs finally play one of Ximena’s favorite songs. “I Write Sins Not Tragedies,” by Panic! at the Disco. Ximena is headbanging near a person with green, poofy hair like cotton candy. The frills of their gothic, Lolita-style dress are bouncing. Ximena scream-sings the lyrics.
With a sense of poise and rationality
Again
They aren’t alone in the world. They aren’t the only ones.
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