An uneasy Thanksgiving

Lifestyle clashes keep Sara Stone from returning to her family in Missouri

by Hannah Winsten
Published November 23, 2009

http://nyunews.com/life/2009/nov/22/lgbt/

Sara Stone sits in the second-floor lounge of the Kimmel Center, immersed in "The Norton Anthology for British Literature." Sporting a black bandana and cut-off jeans, her blood-red heels kicked off onto the floor, the CAS junior looks like the epitome of the edgy, heady literature buff.

Stone will not be heading home for Thanksgiving this week. Her family resides in Carthage, Mo., nearly 1,000 miles west, but it's not the distance that's keeping her away. Since her parents divorced when she was 16, Stone has lived a nomadic life of homelessness. What's more, her queer sexuality and flirtation with the possibility of gender reassignment make her an uneasy (and often unwelcome) visitor within her family.