If you didn’t care about blue lives before black lives mattered, you really don’t care about blue lives, you just can’t stand the idea of black lives mattering.
If you didn’t care about white history before black history month, you really don’t care about white history, you just can’t stand the idea of black history having one month on center stage. The same holds true for Native American Heritage Month and Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
If you didn’t care about a Straight Pride Parade before LGBTQ Pride Parade began, you really don’t care about straight pride, you just can’t stand those________ (you know what you call them) walking around, in public, without being afraid, even for a day.
And while we are on the subject of parades, 91.99% of every parade in the history of the United States of America has been a straight white parade, in one aspect or another, even if people of color have been allowed to participate.
What does any of this have to do with LGTBQ Teens having a prom?
Everything! Our country has a long history of treating our fellow citizens as second class citizens. We will find a difference to exploit, some do it intentionally, others are so blinded by privilege they fail to see, while others choose not to see, and some just don’t care about ‘those people”.
The latest “those people” to be targeted in our community are LGBTQ Teens who were supposed to attend The Storybook Pride Prom at Willowbranch Library tomorrow night.
Over the weekend Ohio based The Activist Mommy – Elizabeth Johnston, a self titled Activist Vlogger, christian extremist/homophobic hate monger decided to sick her cult on the “Storybook Pride Prom” and the Jacksonville Public Library.
JPL Director Rogers didn’t need much of a push to cancel the event, and Johnston was more than happen to oblige, urging her followers to call and complain and on this past Monday morning, Director Rogers cancelled the LGTBQ Teens Prom. FULL STORY HERE.
So, out of town fanatics were able to shut down a local prom for local kids.
If they had shut down Lee’s Prom, or Ribault’s, Sandalwood’s, Terry Parker’s or Ed White’s there would be parents, teachers, students, and alumni, raising hell. But it’s just “those people” it’s just LGTBQ Teens, so other than for those directly impacted, their allies, some folks who hate bullies, some feisty librarians and a few thousand keyboard warriors, nothing but a raised eyebrow or two, here or there.
And questions. There are always questions.
Why can’t “those people” go to the normal prom?
They would love to go to the “normal prom” but in most cases the normal prom has no love for them.
Prom night is a custom where high school juniors and seniors dress in formal attire and participate in activities surrounding a dance. Prom activities vary across the United States, but most traditions involve dates, prom dresses, tuxedos, dinner and dancing.
Prom dresses and tuxedos.
Some girls spend months, longer even, planning what they are going to wear to prom, looking for the perfect dress. Most boys spend less time on a tux. Then there are “those people” a LGTBQ Teen that society may feel should be wearing a tux but that teen knows, in their heart, they need to wear a dress. They need to wear a dress to be true to their heart.
Another LGTBQ Teen that society may feel should be wearing a dress but that teen knows, in their heart they need to wear a tux. They need to wear a tux to be true to their heart.
Another LGTBQ Teen that society may feel should be wearing a dress or a tux but that teen knows, in their heart they need to wear a dress or a tux but they are not sure which, or they may think they know which but have to change from one to the other or back, or back and forth. They may not know whether they need to wear a tux or a dress to be true to their heart until ___________________. And yes, I know I left that blank. That’s the best I can do to show you the struggle some LGBTQ Teens are going through.
One day, someone, probably a LGBTQ Teen, will invent a dress tux, or a tux dress, or a tux that can turn into a dress, or dress that can turn into a tux.
And they will sew it together themselves! If that doesn’t make your heart smile, you don’t have much of a heart.
And even after a LGBTQ Teen has decided on what to wear (if they have decided)
Next is who they are taking, or going with, who will they dance with?
There are damn few schools within Duval County that allow a student that society may feel should be wearing a tux to wear a dress, or vice versa, and even fewer that allow same sex dancing.
Oh it’s cool if it’s a couple of jocks dancing together in the lunch room …as a joke.
It’s funny as hell if some dudes dress up in women’s clothes for spirit week, or because they lost a bet, or whatever, as long as it falls in the “it’s a joke” category
But when it’s done to be true to one’s heart it’s not funny. And even if a LGTBQ Teen can “get away with it” Some time the next day, or the next week “those people” will have to pay. 78% of LGTBQ Teens are bullied in school
But why have a prom for “those people” at the library?
Open to All
After the Great Fire Andrew Carnegie offered Jacksonville $50,000 to build a new library provided the city appropriated at least $5,000 a year for library support. There was a citywide referendum, which passed by 15 votes (vote people!) and Jacksonville agreed. The new library was designed by architect Henry John Klutho. It was named the Jacksonville Free Public Library. It was the first tax supported library in Florida and marked the birth of the Jacksonville Public Library.
The library bore the words “Open to All”, as does our main library downtown, today.
Taxes keep JPL’s doors open but it’s charitable contributions that keep library programming running.
The majority of those contributions come from the LGTBQ community, their allies and others who, while not necessarily allies, are not hatters either. Nowhere is this more true within JPL than at Willowbranch Library in Riverside, arguably the heart of the LGBTQ Community in Jacksonville.
Jacksonville, by population density, is home to the largest LGTBQ Community in Florida and 16th largest in the USA.
JASMYN has a 25 year history working with Willowbranch Library to give LGBTQ youth safe space,
Open to All
Churches, Mosques, Synagogues, Bikers (motorcyclists), Bikers (cyclists), Boy Scouts of America, Girl Scouts of America, Daughters of the Confederacy, Daughters of the American Revolution, Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Ku Klux Klan Southern National Congress, The League of the South – Neo-Confederate group, ACT for America – Anti-Muslim, New Black Panther Party – Black separatists, Global Crusaders: Order of the Ku Klux Klan, Stedfast Baptist Church – Anti-LGBT, Israelite School of Universal Practical Knowledge – Black Nationalist, Nation of Islam – black separatists.
Just to name a few of the groups, groups that not only use the library to read, and or checkout books, or other materials, but groups that have reserved meeting rooms within the JPL system to hold meetings, services, and other events.
Some of our citizens are fine with JPL being “Open to All” with regard to the KKK but when it comes to LGBTQ Teens it’s time to draw a line and make a stand.
And, they’re absolutely right! The only problem is some of y’all are on the wrong side of that line, and you will be on the wrong side of history.