- Do you have any BuzzFeed personalities that
you would want to meet?
- I think that everyone who watches BuzzFeed
has a crush on Eugene.
"Oh my God, Eugene, oh my god he looks so good."
- Well I never read any of those comments.
We just might have to hang out at queer prom together
'cause you're gonna be flown on to LA and you are
part of our official prom court.
(upbeat music)
- Queen prom intro interviews, scene five, take one.
- That's good.
Growing up in Philly was difficult, I would say.
My entire junior and senior year were, not like hell,
I wouldn't say they're hell, but they were exhausting.
There was a lot of interrogation.
There was a lot of wrong name on the role call and then
when I would say, "That's not my name."
They were like, "Uh, what's that mean?"
A lot of side comments, very dismissive.
Tell me all the slurs, I know every single one.
I know them all.
And I know all the tones you could say it in to make
a teacher think that you weren't being hateful,
just making a joke.
High school is hard for everyone, I'd say,
but when you're trans people expect you to have
endless patience and endless kindness for their
bull(beep).
They want you to explain everything very calmly
and when they get it wrong they want you to comfort them.
So this is where I live now.
I moved to Santa Cruz like two or three weeks ago.
I was moving out of a rocky household.
On the outside someone looking in might not say
my family is supportive as I think they are because
I still get misgendered, I still get dead named
and I still am asked a lot of really invasive questions.
I came to live with my father and his partner with
my best friend Lee.
- Growing up in Cape Town is different.
I come from a township, which is like very poor
black community and everyone is usually below the
poverty line depending on where you live.
Being a black trans or queer person in South Africa
is kind of like you are very closeted because it's
like a violent and repressive society.
The slam poetry community is much better here
in America than it is in South Africa so we have
this competitive slam poetry like youth international
competition and so we both made the Philadelphia team.
And Poetry is very intimate and very, you know,
you just spill out all your feelings.
Like, "Oh my God, this hurt."
And so you kind of have to be there for each other
and that's like we basically became friends like that.
- California is easier than Philly to be trans in,
at least for me, because there's a lot more options for
trans healthcare and there are a lot more trans
people in general just walking around with piercings
and (beep) and I'm just like,
you and I, on the same page.
I've never gone to prom.
Everyone else has gone to prom.
I don't have money to get a suit, are we kidding?
A rental maybe, maybe.
But my mom and I, I wouldn't say that we're poor,
but we're very low income and she didn't want to
spend money on something that's frivolous, you know?
And prom was considered something that was frivolous,
it was extra.
But it wouldn't have happened anyway because cost
and then, you know, (beep) went down at my house
and I had to leave very quickly.
But even then I don't think that my prom was
a completely safe space.
- Chris, you better pack your freaking swimsuit
'cause you are coming to BuzzFeed's queer prom.
- Yay!
- Hello, my name is Christopher Underwood,
I live in Detroit, Michigan, I'm queer, I'm here
and I'm going to queer prom.
Pretty excited, whoop whoop.
As you can see, I'm pretty feminine so when I was
younger a lot of kids would bully me for it and
say things like faggot, fag, gay.
Black people tend to be very religious oriented so
it wasn't very talked about, other than like to make
fun of somebody or to insult somebody.
This is my school, you've got to kind of be careful
when you're walking to and fro because there's
gonna be geese poop everywhere.
- Oh yeah, they don't care about us.
I feel like a shark, stop.
- Patrician was one of many friends that I've had
that supported me and encouraged me and made me
feel as though I could be gay.
I knew that if I did decide that I was gay or whatever
or felt as though I changed my mind about that,
then I could tell them and not fear that I would
be ostracized or alienated.
- That hurt too.
That he told everybody at school before us.
Because I asked him, you know,
does anyone know? Things like that.
And he said, "Everybody."
- For a long time I didn't want to tell her just because
I thought that she was very homophobic because she's
also a pretty religious person.
And sometimes when we would talk about LGBT type
issues she wasn't the most knowledgeable like I was,
before coming out.
- He shut me out completely.
No family anything, not eating together, no nothing.
And that's been a battle ever since.
- My thinking was, "Oh if they're really homophobic
"then I'll just forget about them or whatever,"
because, yeah.
- And I thought that I was a great person to talk to.
I even went and got a degree in social work,
go figure that.
Could counsel anyone on the streets,
but my son don't even trust me to come to me.
It's different for me.
- I just assumed that she was homophobic,
but I feel like looking back she just didn't know
and I regret not telling her sooner.
- Hug it out.
Watch this.
That's another thing.
His huge are hideous.
We'll be like all in hug thing.
And he'll be like.
Proper hug or I'm a bop him on TV.
See that, see that, did you see it?
- My friend's going to queer prom,
I'm so excited for him.
- I have lots of girlfriends and a lot of straight
guy friends and I love them all so much,
but sometimes I feel like I want somebody else
that could completely relate to me.
So I feel like I want to find that here in Los Angeles
at queer prom.
- I apologize for any connection issues,
I'm in the car on the way to Chipotle.
- Important.
- Even though these stories were incredible,
we had to take out those stories where they were
closeted because BuzzFeed's such a public platform
we didn't know if it would be dangerous for them,
we didn't know if their communities would be
accepting.
- That's all you're gonna be paying for next weekend
'cause you're gonna be here in LA for BuzzFeed's
queer prom.
- We wouldn't want to bring somebody into the fold
and then send that back to a community that was unsafe
or to a family that wouldn't be supportive.
- Not everyone's parents were accepting so we just
had to make sure that we brought out people that were
really embraced and had a loving community.
Yeah, or people who were 18.
- We are filming for BuzzFeed.
The people who are sending me to Los Angeles.
My parents always told me from the moment that I was
actually able to comprehend that I was adopted,
that I was adopted.
- Have you got a bra on?
- Yes I do.
- Who put that in there?
- Oh it's in there.
I did not see eye-to-eye with my parents on literally
every level.
- We stopped to meet at the fence between our houses
because we were neighbors and we called it fencing.
And then slowly we graduated to pole dancing in
her basement.
- It really formed me as a person.
- It did.
So we had elementary school together and then
I transferred into her Catholic school
for my sophomore year.
I was ready to shoot my brains out so I left,
but took you an extra year or two.
- Well wasn't really by choice, but--
For my first three years of high school I went to
a Catholic school in Massachusetts and they kicked
me out just this past summer when they found out
I was trans.
And I went to a public school and at that public school
I have been so blessed.
I came here literally not knowing I was going here
only four days--
Look at this display of affection.
I love you.
Everything has been very very nice.
My father over there.
- Hello.
- So on my dad's birthday I came out as gay to them
and my dad took it well, but my mom completely freaked.
I tried to repair the relationship as best as I could
and we've been making progress ever since.
But then I came out as trans almost a year ago now
and that put an even bigger splinter in our relationship.
- Like I knew her situation and I knew it wasn't
really good at home for her, so I kept pushing and saying,
"Why don't you just move into my house?"
So I started introducing the idea to my parents
and finally Ms. Stubborn decided to listen to my advice
and make herself happier and decided to move in.
- I've got a dress on, got my fake titties in,
the bitch is ready to slay the day.
I have recently been taking some steps towards
finalizing and making concrete my transition.
I plan on going to town hall pretty soon when I get
back to start the name change process then go to
Fenway Health, which is in Boston,
and they're known for their transgender healthcare.
So I'm gonna go there and I'm gonna hopefully
start on HRT.
- It's very nice because I never really had a supportive
system around me.
Like in middle school or whatever I didn't really have
friends, let alone friends that would accept me.
I've never been able to be fully open with anyone
other than Quinn.
- I've always been so focused on, like I said,
everyone else or maybe school and academics
and all of these things that I was getting caught up in.
And finally it feels like all of the struggle with
gender, sexuality, other aspects of my life,
has been leading up to this.
Feel full circle.
- I have some bad news.
I can only invite Sage to prom because Sage,
you have to invite Caitlin yourself.
- [Woman] They're hugging.
- Caitlin and I are both super involved in theater.
This is the backstage.
Caitlin wasn't really like out-out so we like
were on the low like talking for a little bit.
And then when we decided it was time and Caitlin
dyed her hair red, that didn't really have
anything to do with it but--
- Shaved the back of my head.
- Yeah, Caitlin got an undercut just to go all out.
We went to a photo booth in the mall and took a
picture where we were kissing, we were like,
"This is it, we're so gay."
- [Caitlin] We posted it on Twitter.
- We posted the picture of us kissing on Twitter
and we were like--
- This is gonna be epitome moment.
- We're gonna be like the talk of the school.
And nobody talked about us, we just thought it was
a lot cooler, I guess.
This is probably one of my favorite views of the city.
All down here you can see one of the main roads into
Beloit and then that's the Rock River and that's the
school that Caitlin and I go to.
So I grew up in a totally conservative family
and I didn't have any outlet to any type of gay
community or anything, I remember just sobbing.
I was just like sobbing in my room.
And my mom was like, "What do you want to talk about?"
And I was like, "I think I'm gay."
And my mom was like, "What?"
Then when I talked to her about the BuzzFeed thing
I was really nervous because we haven't really
talked about that, you know.
She was mowing the lawn, I made her stop the lawn
mower, I was like, "Mom, stop mowing, I have great news."
And I like come over and I'm so excited,
school just finished, I'm like,
"And I got accepted so I'm going to LA,"
and I was like, "isn't that so exciting?"
And she was like, "Honestly it makes me want to throw up."
And I was like, "I make you want to throw up?"
And she was like, "Not you, homosexuality makes me want
"to throw up."
And I was like, "But mom, I'm a homosexual,
"so homosexuality, I make you want to throw up then."
And we got in a big fight about it because we kind of
had to just make a line and you're not gonna know
about things, you're not gonna talk to me about
things, I'll keep that part private from you
and we have to respect each other and respect that
we're gonna stay separate and do our own things.
So we basically made that commitment and then we
didn't talk about it again until I left.
Can we do our handshake really quick?
- [Eugene] Yeah, please, I don't know what that is but.
- Ready?
Yeah, my dad is here, he's pretty chill.
I talked to him about it, I was like,
"Can you come with me? Would you be down for this?"
And at first he thought it was a scam.
- I said, "Girl, I don't know if I can get off of
"work, change my schedules in six, seven days."
- I said, "You've got to do it, this is the chance."
- It's really important, you've got to be there.
And when things are important to her,
you just make it work.
- Me and my dad don't talk about it a ton,
I mean, we've talked about it more than ever here
being around other kids he's asked me more questions
about pronouns and things.
- Do I totally understand now? No.
But am I learning? Yes.
No matter where in life she goes or what choices she
makes, I want her to know I'm there.
No matter what.
- I'm excited 'cause there's gonna be all gay people
and we were one of the only couples like that
at our school.
And I'm excited to wear exactly what I want
and to be feeling really confident next to Caitlin
and knowing that she's feeling good.
- Also, at our school proms it's just a grind pit,
that's it.
There's no other dancing happening.
You're either grinding or you're sitting at the
tables.
- We sat at the tables a lot.
- So I'm hoping that there will be different types
of dancing.
- You are Rowan right?
- I am.
- Well you are definitely on the VIP guest list,
congratulations, you are coming to Los Angeles
and you will be at our queer prom.
- What a time, relatable teenagers.
My high school looks like a mall.
- It really does.
- Bit me.
I mean, I went through the whole deal with my school
and they told me that I wasn't able to use the
men's room anymore.
So after that I went home and just started educating
Connecticut's non-discrimination laws and really
putting myself into that situation.
And I had a lot of help from my friends, as well,
and we really worked towards getting, figuring out which
bathrooms we wanted to have unlocked and how we
were going to unlock them.
Getting the bathrooms in the school was the hard part,
learning to accept that people are going to use them
for other things was, it was a lot,
I don't know.
Sometimes I'm not even able to get in here out of
our gym clothes or into our gym clothes
because it's occupied because people like to
make out in here.
So it's just kind of like hit or miss when it
comes to this one.
But we at least have a space and that's what I wanted.
- Rowan is my fiance's step child from his previous
marriage.
Sort of mom. - Sort of mom.
- Nikky being curious and wanting to learn more about
what I had to say and what I had to say for myself
just helped me open up more as a person and it
encouraged me to do more than I thought that I was
able to do.
My Connecticut parents, though they're very loving
and very much there for me, they're a little bit
unaccepting when it comes to my gender and that's
been a struggle with me with them for the past two years.
- There are people that are related by blood that
aren't really family at all and people that have
zero connection to you as far as DNA goes that
you walk through fire for.
So you make your own family.
- Or you fly to LA for them.
- Or you fly to LA for your own family last minute
when your sort of kid tells you about it three
seconds before it happens.
- Okay, Eugene told you about it, it wasn't me.
At the senior meeting they tried to tell us that
for your diploma it had to say what it said in
school records to bless up I just changed my name
in the school so I don't have to have the dead name
on the school, on the diploma.
I'm not going to my own prom because, I mean,
the school itself like the administration and faculty
are very accepting and have become very accommodating
to trans students after a multitude of different
situations.
But the students of my senior class don't exactly accept
me for who I am.
A majority of them just aren't nice to me and it's
just not a safe situation for myself to be in.
So I just, I'm gonna keep myself out of that
situation this year and, I mean, queer prom is better.
- Rowan is like the least reactive person in the world.
I know that sounds terrible, but there's just never
much emotion there, right?
So I'm constantly like, "Rowan isn't this great?"
And, "Mhmm," just typically teenager no reaction.
And so when you popped on camera,
the reaction I saw out of this one I didn't know
existed.
I was like, "There's emotions inside!"
So seeing that, I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow.
- I'm going to be in California like soon.
I'm packed, it's happening.
- We're flying them all out to Los Angeles where they
have no idea what's about to happen next.
We still have a few surprises up our sleeves here
at BuzzFeeds queer prom.
You are the official queer prom court.
Best friends for life, right?
Vogue, Vogue, Vogue.
Vogue!
- I can't do it.
- We have fun.
(upbeat music)