LGBT and High School

A couple weeks ago we talked about LGBT and all during the lecture all I could think about was how my highschool handeled and treated students who were homosexual and or bi sexual. There were two incidences both times being over dates to prom that I remember most disinclty. The first incident took place back when I was a freshemen in highschool. It was sometime during the beginging of spring, roughly two months before the years Junior/Senior prom. I remeber being up at the office with a headache and one of the upper classmen guys came storming in yelling about how our school was being discrimitive and that he had the right to bring his boyfriend to the prom. I left the office before I could hear what exactly had happened, but when I go to the lunch room my friends were waiting to tell me all about it. They said that Shawn had turned in his date paper for prom with his boyfriend Tim's name on it. Apparently what had happend after that, was the pricipal had called him out of class to tell him that he would not be able to bring his date to prom. He told him that if he had planned on attending the dance that he would either have to go alone or bring a date of the oppsosite sex. We didn't really hear much about it after that day but when prom finally came everyone noticed that he had come with a female date, walking through the parade he just looked so sad. This was my first time witnessing this kind of discrimination.
The second time, was my junior year of high school when two girls a year a head of my wanted to attend that years prom together as a couple and walk through the parade together. Just as with Shawn the two girls were denied, but this time they didnt let if go and it was taken to the school board so that they could have the final say on the matter. When it was brought before the school board they had told the two girls that in order for them to go together as a couple they were required to provide evidence that they were really in a realtionship. In order to dp this they were told to get five singned statements from people other than classmates confriming that they were indeed in a committed realtionship and that both the girl's parents were required to appear and also confirm the realtionship.
I found this to be absoultely appaling and maybe one of the most horrible cases of discrimination I have seen in my lifetime. This whole incident caused so much hurt and pain for these girls as I am sure it did for Shawn years before. What bothered me the most was that one of the two had yet to tell her parents and her coming out became a public ordeal in front of poeple she did not want to share her most intimate life with. The other girl had a father who did not approve of his daughters relationship, therefore he refused to stand up for her and confirm said realtionship, making it so that they were not allowed to attend the prom as a couple. This whole thing that my high school has going on when it comes to sexual orientation, is insane. They the school have decided to put in thier hands the love lives of the students that they teach, not stopping ever to consider and to think about how they would feel if they were persecuted for who they love.
The conclusion I came to after having witnessed all of this was that I can not imagine what it must be like to feel so unsafe and judeged at a place were i spend more time then at my own home. I found myself feeling very proud by the end of that school board meeting that those two girls fought for thier rights even if they were wrongly denied and in fact....There stance against the school board gave me the courgage to fight againts the school board the following month to be able to gradaute a year ahead of time!