Earning Points on their Gay Cards – West Valley’s Gay Pop Culture Night

By Avi Vieira

Glendale

This week, one n ten West Valley tested the pop culture knowledge of our youth with a series of fun and challenging trivia questions spanning decades of LGBT related movies, television, music, and history with volunteers serving as judges and awarding points for correct answers, and occasionally providing hints to stumped participants.

With the promise of “fabulous prizes” to tempt them; our youth answered individual questions ranging from events and people from the 1950’s and 60’s through 2012 drawing on gay icons such as Judy Garland, Dolly Parton, Freddie Mercury, Rachel Maddow, and Kathy Griffin, and events impacting LGBTs such as Lawrence v Texas, Proposition 8, states allowing same sex marriage; and even tested LGBT related terminology such as defining pocket gays, fruit flies, and lesbros.

The evening was lively as youth tried to answer quickly, then stump others by picking older decades and more obscure categories.  In the end, when scores were tabulated, a rainbow round was held to determine the final prizes, which as promised, were fabulous gift cards to Cold Stone and Barnes and Noble and a special prize of the hardcover Encyclopedia of Gay Pop Culture as encouragement for further research. As a bonus that was the highlight of the evening for the youth was the presentation of “Official Gay Cards” for their demonstration of LGBT knowledge; which both reminds cardholders to love, honor, and respect each other, and come with a “3 Strikes and you lose” clause for offenses.

The evening served as both a learning opportunity from the trivia portion, but also allowed the youth to feel validated, empowered, and connected to the greater LGBT community. While the concept of a “Gay Card” brings a chuckle, and a smile to older members of the community, it was simply magical to watch the pride our youth had as they left for the night, with those cards in hand and smiles on their faces.