Angela was kicked out of her family home as a teenager and from there, her life only became more unstable. From a brief period in a group home to an abusive relationship to survival sex work to suicidal ideations, her early life was marked with one struggle after another. Fortunately, she was eventually able to find stability in her life, finish school, graduate from college and make amends with her mother - all the while learning some important life lessons along the way. In this episode, Phil and Alex reflect on Angela’s story and discuss her resiliency, as well as the homelessness pipeline for LGBTQIA+ youth - particularly among Black trans women - and the importance of supportive resources for that vulnerable population.
Alex: A content warning to our listeners. This episode explores sensitive themes, including suicide.
Phil: Hey, this is Phil aka Corinne.
Alex: And I'm Alex Berg. And you're listening to the I'm From Driftwood Podcast.
Both: I'm From Driftwood Podcast.
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Alex: On today's show, we are exploring a story about homelessness. Our story comes from Angela who grew up in New York and she knew from a young age that her body did not align with how she felt herself to be.
Angela: Ever since I was born, I knew something was different. I knew I was born in the wrong body, wanting to have a boyfriend and wanting to feel some type of belonging. I ended up being this guy. He lived out in Bronx, New York. I cut school and I went to his house. Long story short, I didn't get home until to about one something in the morning. I walk into the door and Mom's like, “Give him your cell phone.” Every message from my boyfriend, everything from raunchy to Babe I love you, babe I miss you. She's seen everything.
Well, my mom told me, “Well, have a seat in the living room.” I sat. “I love you dearly, but I cannot raise a child who is in this lifestyle. I will give you as much money as you want, but you can't be in this household. Good luck and have a nice life wherever you go.”
Okay, dude. Fine. Bye. You know, I'll come home tomorrow. It's nothing. Unfortunately it didn't turn out that way. I'm coming from a household, coming from your own room or your parents and allowances, to in 24 hours, you're now in a group home. This is an all boys home. I can't be here transitioning, so I will have to be transferred into another facility. Now, mind you, I'm now 18, I'm young, I want to party, I want to hit the clubs, but living in a group home, you have to abide by curfews. And I end up getting kicked out, I got discharged.
I had a boyfriend, who was living in Atlanta. He's a drug dealer, he has money. But once the emotional abuse started, being that I don't have anything and you're supporting me, if you wanted to have sex and I declined, it was an issue. Get out.
You have me in Atlanta. I have no family in Atlanta. I'm 18. I only have a high school ID. And as I was working towards the front door, “Oh no, bitch. I'm going to see you jump off the balcony.” I guess I wanted to just get out and I just gave up. When I jumped off the second floor balcony, here I am and I left everything.
That's when I started to escort. One night I will never forget. I got into a car and the guy was fidgety. He was just so uncomfortable. He pulled up into a gas station, I guess like the cop was just there and just decided to run his license plates. Cop is like, “Get out the car.” So I get out the car and he said, “Just to let you know, this man has a warrant out for his arrest.” He had a rap sheet. Assault, rape, battery. And it continued.
He said, “Do you not know if you went with this man, you would not have came back? Turn around, walk away, don't look back.” And I just never ended up looking back.
I went back to my friend's house. I stayed there for a couple of weeks, one of his friends who was also crashing there. I said, “You know what, Angela, if you want to go back home, I could get you back home.” And he said, “You're beautiful, go to New York, follow your dreams.” And he gave me a pack of cigarettes and 10 bucks.
And I came to New York and it came to point where, you know, I wanted to commit suicide. I told one of my friends and one of my friends told my counselor. They put restraints on me. I remember I was at Kings county Mental Ward. And my counselor said, “I'm doing this to help you, because if you want to kill yourself, I'm going to show you what it really means to be depressed and to feel low.”
She said, “You don't want to be here like them.” She said, “You don't want to be on psych pills. I could sign you out to go home today because there's nothing wrong with you, but I'm not going to sign you out. I'm going to let you sit here for the weekend.”
I was always told you will never graduate. You're a faggot. I graduated, got up to college and I got my diploma. I went home, I rang the doorbell and mama was like, “Hey, how are you?”
I said, “Everything is good.” I said, “But somebody told me to deliver this to you.”
And she was just like, “Wow, you did it.”
And I was like, “Yeah, I did.”
Just always getting up and saying, you know what, Angela, everything's going to be okay.
And I used to say that for so long. Well, everything's going to be okay. I'm going to be fine. And people see me and they're like, Oh, well, you're fine.
My mom passed away. Being at the hospital with my mom every single night we talked and we had all good times and I, you know, just spoke to her and… she's mom. I am smart. I am talented. I am loyal. I am independent. Those are all traits that I got from her.
Live your life. Live. If you're kicked out, so what? There's numerous places to go. Ali Forney Center, Covenant House, Independence Living. They will help you but at the end of the day, you have to find yourself.
Phil: In this story, I had to ask myself, but what does it mean to be like discarded? These moments over and over again where you’re just -every… any bit of safety and security, any bit of home, any sense of that is just ripped away. Not for any other reason than for who you are, for a person being who they are and living in an authentic way. And I just wonder, what does that do to someone, right? What is, how does it shape your sense of self? How do you ground yourself? The place that you need to come back to ground or to find yourself is just ripped away repeatedly. I can't imagine.
Alex: This story, it's so harrowing and it's also, it literally comes down to life or death for Angela of not being able to be who she is and the cascade effect that you have when parents kick out their kids for being LGBTQ. I've covered LGBTQ homelessness before and for queer people and especially for trans people, and then even more so for Black trans women in particular, there is really a pipeline from the moment you are kicked out of your house, to the violence you will experience, to also your interactions with law enforcement.
Phil: Yeah.
Alex: You are almost guaranteed to experience violence or end up incarcerated because you are having to resort to things like survival sex work and these interactions that will potentially end in violence, which we really saw with Angela's story and so it's really like from that moment that your parent kicks you out of the home. It's like the writing it's practically on the wall for what's going to happen.
Phil: Yes.
Alex: And really, I feel like I can't understate just how extraordinary it is that Angela really went through all of these situations where you said she was treated as so disposable. I mean, I even think about ending up in a psychiatric unit, even if you end up in one of these units, the lack of resources in the city to really provide robust wraparound services for people. I mean, there's nothing, you know, you're all but forgotten. All the meanwhile your mom is back in New York City, and this is what you're going through. Just to your point, I mean, absolutely treated as disposable and really like incredible that she stayed the course the whole time and was like, This is who I am. And actually at the end of her story, she really says like, for other people who are watching this and going through this, Live your life, and she actually cited some resources for, for example, in New York, we have a number of different shelters that serve LGBTQ+ youth in particular, like the Ali Forney Center. And she encourages people stay the course and be who you are.
Phil: Yeah, 100%. And, and the thing is, is like, she also, you see that everything she's been through has led to a level of strength that cannot be removed from her. Right? She has had been through the worst of the worst, right? She had a very close call with almost getting in a car, you know, she's was working as a sex worker and she gets in a car with this guy who has this incredible intense rap sheet and she could have been one of his victims. And thank God by some miracle that he was taken in before she went with him, because who knows what could have happened. So there's these situations over and over again. I'm sure when she's sitting and the mental health institution, she's sitting there thinking, “This is the bottom of the barrel for me. Right? I am down. I'm bottom of the barrel.” But the counselor is trying to put her in a place to have her reexamine her life, and decide to live.
Right? That's I think that's what that counselor was trying to do. She's trying to give her some something to show her that it's, that she is worth living for. And so you just see her in these situations and to see somebody come so far. I mean, at the end of the story, you hear talking about going back to her mom and showing her the diploma, but also going to the hospital and being with her mom as her mom is dying.
Alex: Yeah.
Phil: And them reconnecting and Angela obviously forgiving her mom, right? Deciding to move past that point because she realizes that whatever her mom did way back when that isn't who she is, she doesn't define herself by what happened in that situation. She's decided to move past it. And she can see the strength in herself. So, I mean, she's such an incredibly strong woman and to watch her go through these experiences and come out on top like this, you know, she was told she wouldn't graduate. She was told of these things. It's like you said, like for, especially for trans women of color, it's like the writing is on the wall. The odds are stacked against you the second you get kicked out, you can track, this has been tracked a million times. You can see the story has been repeated a million times over and over again. You see it over and over again, that as soon as something like that happens, it's just a bad outcome in many times.
Alex: The reality is no person should actually have to have this much fortitude. Like nobody, I understand you're acting out of survival. You're just trying to get through. Nobody should actually ever have to have this kind of fortitude just to subsist.
LGBTQ youth, I looked up some stats, according to the True Colors Fund, LGBTQ youth are 120% more likely to experience homelessness than their non LGBTQ+ counterparts and it's estimated that about 7% of youth in the United States identify as LGBTQ+, but 40% of youth experiencing homelessness are LGBTQ plus youth. And so LGBTQ youth are obviously hugely disproportionately impacted by homelessness, way more likely to experience homelessness and of course we know this is oftentimes because of familial rejection.
Phil: Yes.
Alex: And or where you live, you can't be who you are and you need to escape really toxic situations.
Phil: Yeah, I mean, family rejection, physical assaults, sexual expectation in shelters and on the streets, you know, it's, this is something that will affect LGBTQ+ youth disproportionately. And it is exactly why it's important to have resources that are strictly for LGBTQ+ youth. Right? So when Angela mentioned the Covenant House or Ali Forney Project or New Alternatives, these are places that deal specifically with LGBTQ+ youth and make sure that they have the services they need, you know, for their lifestyles. So it's just, I think it's really important to have, I mean, because the truth is, is before there were these centers, then you have, unfortunately these… these folks going to places is that maybe had services for homeless people but did not have services that dealt with their specific issues. Right? So it's so important to have that.
Phil: The I'm From Driftwood Podcast is hosted by Phil aka Corinne.
Alex: And Alex Berg and is produced by Anddy Egan-Thorpe. It's recorded as a program of I'm from driftwood, the LGBTQAI+ story archive.
Phil: It's mission is to send a life saving message to and trans people everywhere. You are not alone.
Alex: I'm from Driftwood's founder and Executive Director is Nathan Manske. Its program director is Damien Mittlefehldt.
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Alex: In partnership with the City Council.
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Alex: Thanks for listening y'all.