I've been following the story of Constance McMillen, a teenager who was denied access to her high school prom for daring to be an out lesbian, with interest. (Readers may recall that I've briefly commented on the situation previously.)
Constance's story and nerve is an inspiration to us all. It truly illustrates that teenagers from marginalized groups can be powerful self-advocates. Given the rank bigotry and harassment she has been subjected to from many of her classmates, it's certainly important for those of us who believe in equality and justice to publicly express our support for Constance. I suspect that she has inspired other young people to speak out against injustice. While unfortunately the high school and its surrounding community stubbornly refused to allow Constance to exercise her civil rights, I hope this highly publicized incident will cause other high schools to think twice before sanctioning "No Gays Allowed" events.
But Constance wasn't the only student who was excluded by being sent to a segregated prom. As her account of the separate-and-unequal prom indicates, at least two students with learning disabilities were among those who received inequitable treatment. Unfortunately, too many accounts of the situation are focusing exclusively on Constance, a non-disabled student (presumably), while paying little or no attention to the disabled students who were also excluded.
Ableism and homophobia are both harmful, oppressive systems in need of being combated. Everyone has the right to be fully included in society. It's time for people devoted to dismantling bigotry to focus on all forms of oppression and exclusion.
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Excellent find. I'm not surprised that the commenters to the Advocate's article made no reference to the fact that the disabled students had separate proms. When it comes to developmental disabilities, every group is prejudiced, however, some groups get more attention than others and the developmentally disabled are crapped upon by all groups, including other disabled groups as well.
I cannot believe this kind of BS is still going on in 2010. Has Harvey Milk not made it clear enough? Have people not learned to look at the disabled as people too?
I think Constance has gotten the bulk of the publicity because she was the one who sought it--that is to say, the disabled students may not have been originally subject to discrimination in this particular case, but were more "collateral damage" (because, you know, it's not like they're human or anything and would care, right?). Constance's girlfriend is apparently a sophomore at the same high school, and she has also not had any publicity (and, really, I'm pretty concerned for her--Constance is at least graduating and going to college, but her girlfriend has 2 more years of high school to live through).
What I understand about the fake prom situation, and please do correct me if I'm wrong, is that the school district agreed to host a "real" prom, with teachers as chaperones, and all students (including Constance and her girlfriend) were invited. However, the other students organized a second prom to be held elsewhere, which was advertized only by word of mouth (it's unclear if school officials or parents were involved in helping organize this, or if actual invitations were printed). Everyone who was told about the secret prom attended that one. Constance and the other attendees at the real prom were never invited.
So it wasn't that the disabled kids were not invited to prom from the beginning, or barred from attending, like Constance, so much as their classmates appear to be ablist as well as homophobic, so when the fake prom was put together in secret, no one considered inviting them. I'm not sure that's much better, really, but wanted to clarify.
@Kent Adams - Actually, several of us who commented on The Advocate's article mentioned the disparity for the disabled kids, too. It's probably buried a few pages back.
I've read some blog posts from Constance's classmates who said (paraphrasing), about the developmentally disabled kids in question, "nobody talks to them so that's why they didn't know". I thought that was really sad.
Ali is right - the media attention is on Constance because she is seen as the instigator; because homophobia was the primary motive and the others were just along for the ride. Still, it takes the situation from merely homophobic to just plain bigoted and evil. From what I've read on the LGBT sites, that aspect has certainly not been lost of our community.
True.
Did you know there's also a student named Juin Baize, who was forced to leave the school and state because of anti-trans bigotry?
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