The importance of prom.

When Los Angeles--area high school student Lisa Loitz, 17, attended her then-girlfriend's winter formal last year, it wasn't the sweet and romantic experience she had dreamed about. "I felt like we were being watched," Loitz says. "It was like [everyone thought] we were a time bomb waiting te explode."

Under pressure from gay rights groups and the parents and friends of gay and lesbian students, high schools across the country are opening their proms to same-sex student couples. But stories like Loitz's have kept many gay students away. Wanting a positive experience for their once-in-a-lifetime dance, they are opting instead for off-campus queer proms.

After her school prom, Loitz attended the LGBTQ Youth Prom, a dance specifically for gay teens sponsored by the Friends of Project 10, a nonprofit group that funds programs for queer students in the Los Angeles area. The queer prom was one of "the best experiences I've had in the LGBTQ community," Loitz says. "We weren't afraid, which is a wonderful feeling. I wish everyone would have a gay prom."

This year's LGBTQ Youth Prom will take place May 19, and 20-year-old Ty Thomas, who has attended regular high school proms in the past, says he can't wait to show up with his boyfriend. "I can Lake whomever I want, instead of taking a female as a cover-up," he says. "I know I will actually have a good time. I will be able to be myself."

Queer proms for high school students are taking place at local community centers, on college campuses, and in hotel ballrooms all over the country this year. In Chicago's heavily Latino neighborhood of Pilsen, local gay-straight alliance clubs and Homofrecuencia, a Spanish-language radio program for queer youth, are sponsoring the second annual Noche de Arco Iris, a Latino queer prom, on May 26. And at the Klugow Hall community center in rural Tracy, Calif., on April 13, queer promgoers faced protests and made local headlines as they came together on the dance floor. "I know that standing up for what I believe may jeopardize my safety," says Justin Daley, who organized the Tracy prom. "I am willing to risk my safety to help people broaden or change their thinking."

New York City high school student Rachel Ruzzo, 17, said she has heard about local queer proms sponsored by gay community centers in New York, but she's not going to them. "I don't think a gay prom is the same," she explains. "It's a good alternative for people who can't go to their own prom, but it adds to the separation."

Ruzzo plans on going to her school's official prom with her girlfriend this year. "I'm not really even into school functions, but prom seems really special," she says. "When I realized I was gay, it didn't change what was supposed to happen; it just changed who was in the picture with me."