Dances with princes

Someday my prince will come -- but if my 3-year-old niece has any say, I won't be dancing with him at the ball.\nMy niece loves Cinderella, and on a recent trip to visit my family, she instructed us to pretend that we were all attending Cinderella's ball. So I asked, "Can Uncle Jonathan have a turn dancing with the prince?"\nShe swiftly responded with an emphatic "No!" I asked why I couldn't, and she told me, very matter-of-factly, "Because you are not a princess. Only princesses may dance with a prince." (I wondered if her response would have been different if she'd seen me in Miss Gay IU two years ago.)\nIn her defense, it's not her fault she's only 3 and already teeming with heterosexism. Nor is anyone else in the family responsible for filling her with such silly ideas of exclusion. During pregnancy my sister wore a T-shirt that proclaimed "Gay Friendly Womb," accompanied by a big rainbow. My parents serve on the planning committee for the Gay Pride Parade in their city. My niece is fully aware she will have four fabulous uncles (my brother is gay, too). In short, she is immediately surrounded by overwhelming acceptance and inclusive messages about sexuality.\nIf any little girl would let me dance with the prince, my niece would ... except that she's an unwitting victim of a heterosexist culture. And clearly the socialization has already worked its magic.\nAfter all, she's grown up watching Cinderella, Snow White, Aurora, Jasmine and others fall for their respective princes. She's watched Donald and Daisy, Mickey and Minnie, even Maria and Luis on "Sesame Street." My niece already internalized messages about what counts as a normal relationship or who should be dancing with whom. Most strikingly, she has learned to make negative judgments about supposed deviations from the status quo, as evidenced by her strong "No!" to my request for a slow dance with Prince Charming.\nFortunately, I'm not worried about my niece. She's in extremely good hands -- amazing parents and grandparents (and a gaggle of gay uncles) who will teach her acceptance, love and inclusion.\nSadly, not everyone receives lessons in how to resist heterosexist programming -- and many still stand by narrow worldview in which Aladdin would never take me on a magic ride and later show me a whole new world. But thankfully, occasions for such tales and romances are on the rise. This weekend, Bloomington's PRIDE Film Festival taking place at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater will offer our largely heterosexist culture a nice slap in the face.\nGay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender film festivals offer valuable sites for both resistance to heterosexism and celebration of sexuality. A place where Snow White and Sleeping Beauty can snuggle together in the same bed in the castle, while the princes bump and grind to a divalicious dance remix of "Once Upon a Dream."\nI can't wait to take my niece to such a film festival one day. And I'll even let her cut in for one waltz with my prince.