Nika Bartoo-Smith
Underscore Native News + ICT

PORTLAND, Ore. – Around 300 high school students dressed in gowns, costumes and elaborate makeup danced until their feet hurt to music from DJ Aspen blaring through the speakers, their smiles and laughter filling the air at this year’s annual Queer Prom.

The Native American Youth and Family Center’s Two-Spirit program has hosted the event for four years since taking a hiatus during the pandemic.

“My ultimate goal with this is creating a space for queer youth, especially Two-Spirit and Indigenous LGBTQ+ youth, to be unabashedly themselves, to truly not have to worry about the way that they’re being perceived, but just be able to celebrate themselves, celebrate each other, and to showcase the fact that we’ve always been here — Indigenous, trans, queer, we’ve always been here. We’re not going anywhere,” said Kiara Wehrenberg, Tlingit and the Two-Spirit program coordinator at the center. Wehrenberg coordinates Queer Prom.

As prom season is well underway, Queer Prom is a space built for students from all backgrounds to have a space centering joy, in Portland.

“Queer Prom is so unique and so special,” said this year’s emcee, Dr. Poison Waters, an iconic Portland drag queen. “There are people in this country that wish they could come to a Queer Prom.”

Planning Queer Prom

Wehrenberg worked with youth from the center’s Two-Spirit program to find a theme and organize a prom built for them. The group made pamphlets for a swag table during the May 15 event, that offered a resource guide, information about the term Two Spirit and a list of Two-Spirit powwows across the country

This year’s prom theme was “Superheroes vs. Villains Edition” and students showed out in all kinds of costumes. From Captain America and the Joker to fantasy inspired looks include elf ears and elaborate makeup. The theme extended beyond dress as projected graphics all around the room feature comic book inspired illustrations.

Food, catered by Brittinie Love and her company Cooking with B. Love, took the superheroes versus villains theme to the next level. The menu featured items such as “Gotham Fire Beef Skewers” and “The Green Goblin Spring Rolls” with mocktails like “Radiant Recharge” and “Arctic Blast.”

Planning for Queer Prom began as soon as last year’s ended, according to Wehrenberg. This began with reaching out to vendors and event venues, such as AVENUE Portland, where this year’s prom took place.

“I think Queer Prom is just a beautiful place for connection,” said Marvin Colbow, whose drag name is Marvin Killboy, a senior at Benson Polytechnic High School. “I just went to my own prom, and I did not feel the same amount of connectivity that I feel here with my fellow transgender and queer people.”

Wehrenberg reached out to Queer-Straight Alliances and Indigenous Student Unions across Portland and beyond to open up the event to youth across the city, beyond youth at the center’s Many Nations Academy.

“Queer specific spaces are necessary across the board,” said Ellen Whatmore, a teacher at Franklin High School and the school’s co-advisor for the Gay-Straight Alliance. “Having an opportunity to shine and be in the spotlight and be celebrated is unparalleled.”

Whatmore attended Queer Prom dressed in a Medusa-inspired look, as an event volunteer and also helped advertise the event to Franklin students after receiving an email invitation from Wehrenberg.

Guest Appearances

A few hours into the dance, students were interrupted from tearing up the dance floor when Dr. Poison Waters invited two other drag performers from Darcelle’s XV out onto the dance floor.

Dressed in a big, blonde wig with hot pink heeled boots and a matching hot pink ruffled robe, T’Kara Campbell Star made her way onto the dance floor. As “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus filled the speakers, she shed her robe to reveal a bright green body suit and matching sun hat decked out in fake flowers. Her performance was met with cheers as students formed a half circle around her. At the end of three songs, T’Kara Campbell Star invited a student dressed as Maleficent to the center of the floor to dance with her.

Following her performance, Ilani E. Nova made her way onto the dance floor, decked out with a black feather boa, thigh high leather boots and a black and tan body suit. She danced with the students, lip syncing to a compilation of Abba classics.

And of course, Dr. Poison Waters herself also performed, moving from stage to the middle of the dance floor.

As the night wore on, the dance floor remained full as laughter and song sing-alongs drifted through the air, mixed with the beats spun by DJ Aspen.

“I just see so much queer joy in our youth and I’m so happy and honored to be a part of this,” said Mitch Saffle, Citizen Potawatomi Nation, a chaperone at Queer Prom and a data and evaluation support specialist at the center. “I’m so grateful to see that a space like this exists for our youth. Not only our queer youth, but our Indigenous queer youth.”

Later on in the evening, Yin Glossier, Dior Glossier and Deity 007 from PDX Ballroom brought vogue to the dance floor as students sat in a circle around the three performers, completely engaged.

Following their own performance, Yin Glossier explained a bit about the ball scene which started in Harlem in the 1920s, expanding in the 1970s and 1980s, when Black and Brown drag queens were not allowed to be at White drag queen pageants.

“So, as Black and Brown people do, we make our own shit,” Yin Glossier said. “In that, we have the birth of ballroom.”

They then explained some of the main categories that “Houses” of the ball scene compete in: fashion, body, sex appeal, face, vogue.

Students were then invited to compete in ballroom style, lining up to compete for “best dressed.” A hard decision on the part of the judges, composed of performers from Darcelle’s XV and PDX Ballroom. Ultimately a student dressed in a Master Shake, from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, costume took home the prize: a pair of rainbow beaded earrings donated by the center’s Two-Spirit program.

For Wehrenberg, Saffle, volunteers and students an event like Queer Prom is so crucial for the community.

“Being able to have a space like this is really important because it provides an opportunity for us to come together in community and celebrate queer joy,” Wehrenberg said.

Wehrenberg expressed that so often when Indigenous and 2SLGBTQ+ stories are told in the media, it is through a lens of oppression and tragedy.

“It is also really important to highlight and tell stories of resilience and love and joy, because we all deserve to be seen as we are here, queer, trans, Indigenous, proud, strong and fully human, because only telling the stories of oppression and tragedy, in a way, strips us of humanity because it doesn’t highlight or show any understanding of the fact that we have whole lives and joy and love surrounding us too,” Wehrenberg said.

This story is co-published by Underscore Native News and ICT, a news partnership that covers Indigenous communities in the Pacific Northwest.

The post Queer Prom: A space for queer youth to be ‘unabashedly themselves’ appeared first on ICT.

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