Kings and queens of the prom

The Girl Jock
Summer Lee
Aragon High School
San Mateo, Calif.
Class of 1993

I went to my junior prom with my boyfriend at the time. He was always pressuring me to have sex, and I almost lost my virginity that night. But I totally just didn't feel moved by him and I knew you were supposed to feel something more. So I faked starting my period!

Before that I kind of thought it might be him, but after that I was like, Okay, maybe it's not him. Maybe it's me.

A few months later, I happened to go to a cafe, and a bunch of dykes were there smoking. One of them winked at me, and I wanted to faint. The friend I was with -- who's straight -- looked at me and was like, "Are you gay?" And I'm like, "Oh my god, yeah." And she's like, "My dad's gay."

At my school, there was also a lot of pressure to fit into a certain mold and dress a certain way, kind of preppy. And I think before I came out I fit that mold: I had long hair, but not too much makeup; you didn't want to be too slutty. I ended up cutting a lot of my hair off right before coming out. And when I came out, I cut even more off. Plus, the girlfriend I was dating at the time was very militant and dykey. And so, I started wearing combat boots -- before, I was wearing little loafers.

So that was really noticeable to people. But nobody really said anything, except once in a while these guys that nobody liked would say, "Oh, are you a San Francisco dyke?" But they were kind of on the margins of our high school anyway, so everybody was like "Whatever!" And I would just laugh or say, "Fuck you."

I never really gave it too much thought, but clearly some of the adults noticed something was going on, too. My sister, who is two years younger, was called into the office at my high school by a school counselor -- she was this busybody lady -- and she's like, "What's going on with your sister? Is she gay?" And my sister is pretty evolved and she was like, "Why are you asking me? Ask her!" So then the counselor called me in and was like, "Summer, is there anything going on in your life that you want to talk about?" And I was like, "I'm fine. Thanks. Ba-bye."

I was able to use my coming out as sort of an excuse for things. I was a 4.0 student, and my senior year I wasn't doing as well. I ended up getting two Bs or something. And one of my teachers saw me drinking a beer with one of my new gay friends and I'm underage. So the next day at school, she was like, "I saw you drinking in public and I am appalled; you're senior class president and it's See Red, Say No Week" -- that was Barbara Bush's thing; she thought that if we saw red, we would "say no" to drugs; everybody was supposed to wear red or put red posters up. I had nothing to say to my teacher but, "I'm gay." And she was like, "Oh, honey," and gave me this big hug. She was hugging me so hard I was choking; so she thought I was crying.

For a minute, I think my girlfriend and I were gonna go to the senior prom. We even talked about what we were going to wear -- "Should we do the drag thing or what?" -- but I think it came down to that there was a good girl party, G-spot, going on that night and, because I went to a bougie high school, prom tickets were like 180 dollars for a couple or something really outrageous. I also sensed that she was more freaked out about the prom than she would have fun with it.

So we went to G-spot instead. It was really happening: it was a young, hip crowd. To me, this was where "lesbian chic" was coming out of at the time. Even the music was cutting edge. I mean, they're still playing "Push It," that stupid Salt-N-Pepa song. But it was cool then.

Obviously nothing at G-Spot was going to resemble the prom, but I remember telling people, "Okay, this is my prom night. Let's have fun and let's all get along," because I was in a group of particularly dyke-drama people. And I remember drinking more than I usually do just to say "it was my prom."

There was some of that "fuck prom, fuck them -- this is where I'm at." But I think that was a front for deeper feelings of sentimentality about losing something that was precious. And my friends from high school were pretty disappointed, too. I think it was a signal that we were all changing away from each other a little bit. And it wasn't going to be the same.

Summer plays on a women's golf team and is an aspiring screenwriter. She and her partner recently wed in San Francisco.

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