April 22, 2009

Big Gay Things

Last Friday was Day of Silence. My GSA failed to get anything together for it; I ran around looking (unsuccessfully) for rainbow ribbon to make participant bracelets the night before, and in the end we just passed out speaking cards on printer paper in the morning before school. My little group was mostly silent, passing notes and exchanging gestures, but one friend of ours decided that she would spend the day making gay jokes and talking about how Day of Silence is pointless. She supported the idea behind it, but insisted that taking a vow of silence for a day failed to make any point at all. And also thought it was fun to poke us when we couldn't tell her to stop.

So this is what was going on in Creative Writing. Our class is a pretty tight-knit group, having been together for four years, but we have some pretty clear dividing lines in that there are two separate groups that always sit together. So me and my other silent friend and our friend who was picking on us were at one table, and the rest of the class was at the other table, having their own conversation and only half-privy to the conversation.

"Oh, is it that silence day?" someone asked finally.

I nodded and handed around my speaking card. "It's so pointless!" my friend interrupted.

The table of preppy heterosexual girls proceeded to leap to our defense, making really awesome points why something like Day of Silence is important even after our friend had gotten bored and stopped bothering us.


Saturday was the gay prom I've been planning with my church. It was pretty fantastic - not as many people showed up as we were expecting, but those who were there stayed on the dance floor all night, dancing in typical scandalous high school fashion with everyone regardless of gender. "Are you proud of yourself for creating a den of debauchery?" one of my friends asked when we took a break for punch. I definitely was.

Our church has gotten anti-gay protestors before at events a few years ago, but this year there was not so much as a negative internet comment in sight, and we got a positive article on the front page of the local paper. Even little old Confederate towns full of civil war antique stores have to lighten up eventually, I guess!

Also, on a related note, my dress was super-cute. That is all.

1 comment:

akaRebecca said...

Your dress was indeed super cute and you did an awesome job plannin gay prom <3