With colorful lights flashing and 1980s dance hits bumping, about 75 people danced in the ballroom of the Red Lion Hotel Eugene on Saturday night during the annual Queer Prom.
Like every prom, when the DJ played Sir Mix-a-Lot’s 1992 classic “Baby Got Back,” everyone in attendance packed the dance floor except for three attendees who sat around a table looking nonchalant.
“This is my prom, years later,” said Gretchen West, a student at Pioneer Pacific College.
With the event’s “Pretty in Pink” 1980s theme, several of the community members and students in attendance sported 1980s-style prom dresses.
That’s what University junior Danielle Baker did.
“I’m here because I’m queer,” Baker said.
Baker, a member of the Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Alliance, which sponsored the event, said the prom is a good, fun way to meet people and that it’s one of the group’s biggest events of the year.
Zadok Taylor, one of the event’s organizers, said that most high schools orient their proms toward heterosexuals, attendees bring dates of the opposite gender, and men wear suits while women wear dresses.
Taylor said LGBTQA organized the event not only to give space to queer-identified students, but as an excuse to have a dance party.
Prom-goers packed the dance floor again during Vanilla Ice’s “Ice Ice Baby,” some snaking through the crowd in a conga line.
One participant shouted “Who wants a ride on the sex train?”
Others performed a choreographed dance to “Time Warp” from the Rocky Horror Picture Show. A photographer took candid photos in the crowd and posed shots in front of a blue tapestry. Because the prom was free and open to the public, security guards flanked the entrance to the bar, blocking underage dancers from sneaking beer, wine, cocktails or shots. Plates of vegetables and fruit slices sat next to a punch bowl on a table lining the far wall, and dancers snacked in between songs.
LGBTQA member Steven Wilsey said the prom allowed students to dance with whomever they choose and wear whatever they want without fear of reprisal.
“It’s not meant to make a statement or anything,” Wilsey said. “It’s just a chance to have a good time.”
Angela Messerli, the group’s co-director, said at her high school prom the school only sold tickets to mixed gender couples. She went with a young man when she would have preferred to go with a young woman. Saturday’s prom, she said, allowed people to be themselves.