Written by My nephew, a Senior and my niece, a Junior are celebrating that high school right of passage known as “Prom” tonight. Prom’s are going on across not only much of Ohio, but all over the U.S. Tonight teenagers will dress up and step out for an evening of both formal and informal fun. Most of them will anyway…
My niece and and nephew are straight. They’ll be going with traditional dates of the opposite sex. Their school is a small, country school. I know many of their classmates. One young woman in particular I know is gay. She’s not out for all of the obvious reasons living in an area like she does. She’ll be going tonight. She won’t be taking a female date. It’s too bad but I get it. In her community, like so many, it just isn’t done. Oh, the administration probably wouldn’t ban her from taking a same sex date, but she and the young woman brave enough to go with her would be ostracized for a very long time. Even their families would feel the wrath. Why?
Linda Goodman, a former school guidance counselor and an adolescent therapist wonders the same thing. She wrote, Coming Out, Coming In: Nurturing the Well-Being and Inclusion of Gay Youth in Mainstream Society
