Senior Prom

For many attendees, the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center event was the prom they couldn't have in their youth.



Last weekend “senior prom” took on a new meaning in Los Angeles, as the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center held a prom especially for LGBT senior citizens, who wouldn’t have been able to take a same-sex date to their high school proms.

“For many, the senior citizen prom was the one they couldn’t have when they were younger,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

One of those people was 88-year-old Robert Clement, who, for his school prom in Pennsylvania in 1942, bought a corsage that he gave to a staffer who organized the event, as he “didn’t have anyone else to give it to,” the Times reports.

“Proms are a rite of passage,” Clement told the paper. “A heterosexual rite of passage. ... But it wasn’t mine.” Clement didn’t have a date for the Gay and Lesbian Center event, as his longtime partner died 10 years ago, but he enjoyed spending time with friends there.

http://www.advocate.com/society/2013/07/05/la-lgbts-celebrate-senior-citizen-prom

This really hit home for me.