Sat Aug 04, 2012 at 08:49 AM PDT
Suddenly Homeless 23–Homeless LGBT Face Even More Problems Than Do Straightsby
Charley JamesTransgendered For instance, 29-year old Hillary Donovan knew when she was six or seven that although born a boy, she should be a girl. When she decided to come out to her parents and begin her transition at seventeen, her father threw her out of the house although Hillary's mother kept in contact and helped as much as she could. After graduating from high school, she moved to New York from Dallas and got work where she could find it. Hillary was a waitress for a few years before spending two years as an escort and professional dominatrix where she earned enough money to pay for laser hair removal and implants.
"I hated sex work even though the money was decent," Hillary says. "The hours were awful and the clients were creepy but I had to pretend each guy was my boyfriend that I'd love forever.
"It wasn't glamorous and I didn't feel like Belle," the high priced escort played by Billie Piper in the British-made TV drama Secret Diary of a Call Girl. "I sure as hell didn't live like her."
To change her life, Hillary attended school to become a make-up artist so she could work in the theater and on movies. But jobs in show business are hard to find and the gigs she landed on low budget, independent films or way-way-off-Broadway shows barely paid for the subway ride in from the one bedroom apartment in a six floor walk-up she shared with two roommates in the far upper reaches of Manhattan.
