Young members of Ottawa’s queer community dressed up to dance and celebrate diversity at the second annual Queer Youth Prom and Masquerade Friday.
The event at Falldown Gallery in Ottawa’s Gay Village comes towards the end of the Capital Pride festival, uniting many who had faced discrimination.
“I’m here to celebrate who I am because I come from a very Christian, conservative family,” said John Medina. “This is the first time they’ve allowed me to go to something like this, so it’s really exciting.”
“At my prom, I was actually kicked out of the after party,” said Brandon Timmerman. “(One guy) actually kicked me out because he wasn’t OK with homosexuals, he pinned me against a tree.”
Some said they’ve noticed increasing acceptance for the GLBTQ community in Ottawa.
“We won cutest couple this year out of our whole school, so that made our diversity go up we think,” said Angela Brown.
Timmerman said a way to help things get better would be for gay-straight alliances to be in all elementary schools to help raise awareness and tolerance from a young age.
“My belief is that people aren’t homophobic, they’re just homo-unaware – they don’t understand the lifestyle,” he said.
Prom-goers said it also didn’t hurt that they could feel comfortable and express themselves in that sort of environment.
“I’m bisexual, a lot of people don’t understand that especially family members,” said Kyra Boudreau. “There’s a lot of hate towards it so I want to stop it, plus it’s fun to party.”
“I think people should really support that when you love someone that they can be together,” said her friend Jade Bacon. “This is what prom is for.”
Capital Pride runs until Sunday.
With a report from CTV Ottawa’s Katie Griffin
