26 November 2013
To My Trans Family With Love
[OPINION] Editorial Director Kierna Mayo recalls her journey from ignorance to consciousness about the transgender community
By Kierna Mayo Editorial Director,
EBONY.comhttp://www.ebony.com/news-views/to-my-trans-family-with-love-987#axzz2mzhGeSqtTo My Trans Family With Love
Many lifetimes ago I was in between jobs when a friend who was employed at the Ali Forney Center in New York City, offered me an opportunity to make a few bucks as a fill-in counselor for a couple days. The catch was, I'd have to take the overnight shift.
The Ali Forney Center is a refuge for LGBT homeless teens and young adults. Disproportionately displaced by their families and often made outcast and shunned by their school communities, many of these young people seek emotional and physical shelter through the center during their most desperate times. New York City can be a brutally cold, hard town but especially so when the adults who are supposed to shepherd you, straight throw you out to the wolves.
My friend who worked there "got" me, which is to say, he understood that I was born intensely sensitive to the plight of others, and yet as a Native New Yorker with a fair share of warriorheart, I am pretty much tough enough to deal with kids of any stripe from the 'hood. I had the right qualities. He needed someone quickly and I was game.
But the first night rocked my world.
