A Beyoncé music video plays on the TV, chore charts and teamwork
posters plaster the walls, and a rainbow pride flag hangs above the
couch – a reminder that the home is a safe place for the four young
women living there.
The brick home is a shelter for homeless
gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender youth between ages 18 and 21 and
is run by Promise House, a nonprofit that shelters and helps about 1,700
homeless youth and kids a year. No placard hangs on the door. Its
address, in a quiet neighborhood in southern Dallas, isn't publicized.
The organization doesn't reveal the women's names to protect their
identities and keep them safe.
The foursome has become a family.
They divvy up chores, share family meals and budget for their groceries.
Their home is a safe place away from the glare of discrimination and
glares in the outside world.
Liz McGowan acts as mom, sister,
friend and case manager to the women. She said she wants to be the
mentor she wished she had at their age.
Some have been rejected
by their families for their gender identity or sexual orientation. And
like many LGBT homeless youth, they don't feel safe in regular shelters.
"It's not only that your family doesn't accept you; the world
doesn't accept you," said McGowan, case manager for the LGBT
Transitional Living Program at Promise House. But the brick home is a
safe haven from all of that. "They're allowed to be kids in the house,"
McGowan said.
Service providers estimate about 40 percent of
homeless kids self-identify as LGBT nationally. But there is no count of
how many of Dallas' estimated 1,200 homeless kids and teens identify as
LGBT.
Local nonprofits are planning a Dallas census of youth
homelessness. The problem is often hidden, because many kids live in
cars, couch-surf or stay in cheap motels.
Sometimes the teens
have been told by relatives they can't come home until they change their
"lifestyle," said Johnny Humphrey, community programs manager of Youth
First, one of the groups that will take the census. "The term lifestyle
isn't even appropriate. It's not a lifestyle," Humphrey said. "Your
orientation, your gender identity is really your identity, who you are."
Living on the streets can be especially dangerous for transgender
teens and youth. They are at risk of being physically and sexually
assaulted. And many transgender people don't feel safe going to a
homeless shelter that puts them with their birth gender and not with
their identified gender. Sometimes volunteers and security officers
might make abusive remarks even at inclusive shelters or social
services.
"Most shelters are organized around a strict binary
concept of gender," said Nell Gaither, president of Trans Pride
Initiative. "An agency will claim to be affirming, but that doesn't
translate into all of their operations."
In the midst of the
politicizing of transgender rights – from bathroom bills to serving in
the military – Gaither said many people forget the daily struggles of
trans people.
Many don't go through the expensive and laborious
process of legally changing their name and gender to match who they are.
Going to the doctor is fraught. Even getting dressed for the grocery
store is a task. "Most trans persons, every time we go out, we tend to
think, 'What is our risk for going out? Do I need to do something
different?'" Gaither said.
That's why shelters and social
services dedicated to LGBT people are important, she said. And though
four beds at the Promise House shelter is a step forward, Gaither said,
she believes she could fill a shelter with up to 30 transgender people
in a month.
The Promise House program lasts 18 months. For now,
the four women living there are planning their futures, applying for
college and technical training programs and finishing coursework to
graduate high school. One young woman hopes to be a veterinarian. Two
others want to be nurses.
The women learn to be self-sufficient for the day they're able
to live on their own.
By Tasha Tsiaperas
29 July 2017
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/social-justice-1/2017/07/28/homeless-lgbt-youth-allowed-kids-promise-house-shelter-dallas
