Darwin's first 'Queer Youth Prom' gives Top End teenagers an inclusive high-school formal experience this pride month
Fancy dress, a balloon arch and a red carpet to strut down along to the beat served up by a live DJ — it sounds a lot like the formal many of us had to commemorate our time in high school.
But this event is a little different, because it's dedicated to the many LGBTQIA+ people who don't have fond memories of that key coming-of-age milestone.
Attendees aged 15 to 26 can wear what makes them feel confident, bring whoever they wish as their date and enjoy an event that celebrates who they are, with a choir that sings Chappell Roan, a series of drag performers and an array of volunteers who know what it means to live a queer life with pride.
For Jules, the 19-year-old co-organiser of the event, being openly out as queer at her private Catholic high school was an isolating experience with there being a "big stigma" around homosexuality.
"I knew that a lot of teachers had their opinions on queer people, and if they thought it was right or wrong or whatever it was, and that's a lot to hear as a young person trying to figure yourself out," she says.
When it came to the highly-anticipated formal night, Jules brought her then-same-sex partner Kesh as her date but felt "really alone" among her private school peers.
"What was supposed to be one of the happiest days of my life ... it felt really uncomfortable, it wasn't a good time. I went home crying," Jules says.
Kesh — who was assigned female at birth but identifies as a man — says he and Jules were the only queer couple that showed up together, and they both felt like they were "disconnected from everybody" at the event.
"We just felt like we didn't have a community," he says.
"And leading up to the graduation as well, it was like, 'Who's even on our side? Where are our people?'
"Just because we had come out as queer things changed — we weren't the same for them anymore.
"But you know what they say, 'you have to sacrifice your old life to build your new one'".
Knowing their experience wasn't unique the couple decided it was a time to create an event that was catered for Darwin's young queer people.
"It hasn't been done before and usually we find that Top End Pride events are more geared towards older people, which is great," says Jules.
Chair of Top End Pride, Becky Tidman says events like the Queer Youth Prom are an important part of building young queer people up by giving them a space to be "comfortable in their own skin" and role-models to look up to.
"It's just so amazing [for them] to see adults living their life as queer people ... as lawyers and artists and teachers. And so it's that idea that actually they deserve this space," says Ms Tidman.
Ms Tidman says when it comes to the wellbeing of young people, hearing the announcement from the NT government earlier this year that it would look to wind back some of the territory's anti-discrimination laws was "heartbreaking".
In particular, Ms Tidman referenced a change that would allow for religious schools to refuse to hire people outside of that faith.
"To not to have those role models, it makes it so much harder for kids in school ... and then [they] are having to be in the closet because it's not a safe and accepting space within the education system," she says.
Attorney-General Marie-Clare Boothby said at the time the proposed changes would "restore religious freedoms to religious schools".
Speaking to a 15-year-old attendee of the Queer Youth Prom, who the ABC has chosen not to name, the teen says they know all too well the struggle of having nowhere to be their authentic selves.
"[At school] they keep bullying me because [of my sexuality] and I've dressed as my aesthetic ... and I never really tell people my sexuality in public because I get a lot of negative backlash," they say.
"And I can't really say anything at home either, because [my parents] are heavily Christian.
One of the key drag performers for the night, Prawn Cracker Spice, says it was heartwarming to see that things had changed since they were a teenager.
"When I think of my prom and coming here today, it's just such a different energy and a different support and love," she says.
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