Trans Formed: To Be Homeless & Transgender

Nowhere to go: The author found that transgender people face -- often bravely -- hostility and other obstacles that complicate their homelessness. (By Chris Mcgrath -- Getty Images)

Thousands of them make their way to New York City looking for a safe haven after coming out to unhappy receptions at home. There are only about 100 beds in the city designated specifically for this population, who often experience abuse in other shelters, such as one resident who said he was urinated on. Mainstream churches are beginning to open their doors, including the year-round transitional shelter at my church, Trinity Lutheran, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

The 55 youths who have stayed there for varying lengths of time have come from all over the world: Amsterdam, Nevada, Alaska, England and the Bronx. We have heard some of their stories: the teenager who took to the streets at age 13 after he was stabbed with a fork by his mother when he told her he was gay; the girl who was raped by her father's friend to "straighten her out" after she confessed to liking girls.

I coordinate the volunteers who relieve our shelter monitor on his night off. These days I do my occasional overnight alone. The young people who come to our shelter are screened and referred from other shelters in the city. Residents are required to be working, actively seeking employment, or in school. Living in a church basement is no one's idea of an end goal, yet sometimes it is enough to help a marginalized young person grow into the "independent, positive and productive adult" envisioned in our mission statement.

One henna-haired woman changed my view of our church basement as a dead end. This young woman passes out leaflets for a Rite Aid in Queens. She calls me "Miss" and enthusiastically identifies herself as bisexual. "It's so great, Miss, 'cause I have boyfriends and girlfriends! I love everybody!" She loves everybody to a fault, buying clothes and phone cards for her friends. We give her a weekly fare card so she can get to and from work, but saving her own money has been a challenge. As we made apple pie together one night, I commented on her apple-slicing technique. She confided that she learned to peel and slice apples during two years in prison. For her, our shelter was definitely a step up.

Often, however, living there is not enough to repair deep wounds: A sensitive 21-year-old man from the Bronx who was studying for his GED disappeared. A delicate Latino woman from Arizona, who plays the piano beautifully, was arrested by an undercover cop for selling drugs and entered an endless string of court dates that felt like a vortex from which she would never emerge.

I no longer juxtapose my life against theirs, as I did on that first night, but try to see them more on their own terms. More often than not they are philosophical, cleareyed and remarkably resilient in the face of the most intense rejection imaginable. Acronyms and labels are dissolving as individual faces become distinct.

At dinner with my colleagues, I tried to articulate how these young people affect me when I arrive for an overnight: They have no family support and no permanent place to stay, I tell the other teachers, and yet they ask me how I am.

It's hard to explain -- just as the spectrum of gender is hard to explain. Parents' and society's rejection of children who don't fit the norm is hard to explain, too. But most confounding of all is the forbearance these young people have in the face of intolerance and cruelty. They go -- like the definition of trans-- "across, beyond and through" preconceptions. They are unlike anyone I have encountered before.