The day after Utah state legislators passed a law that bans transgender kids from playing school sports, overriding Gov. Spencer Cox’s (R) veto, students at a charter school in Ogden provided an unintended counterpoint to the controversy.
Unlike the GOP lawmakers, the students eschewed bigotry and held a queer prom that allowed LGBTQ and allied students to dance some of their cares away.
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Originally planned for the previous year but delayed because of COVID precautions, the event went off with a hitch – and with plenty of support from both the community and DaVinci Academy of Science and the Arts officials.
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“Dances have really heavy stigmas around them,” organizer Jocelyn Anglesey said. “A lot of schools don’t even allow like same-sex couples to come in.”
“We are all very lucky to live here, and yet a lot of people don’t get the privilege of feeling safe in their own homes, or at school,” former student Bliss Van Der Venter said. Then a senior, Van Der Venter was the original organizer for the event last year.
“I mentioned it one time to Jocelyn and she was like, ‘that is the coolest thing ever. I want to do that so bad,’ and she just took it and ran with it.”
While they originally thought the dance would be small, word spread quickly and the RSVPs began to pile in as the state continued to demonize transgender students. The event went off without a hitch.
