Homofactus Press making history one book at a time

Sylvia’s Place

Published on 20/12/07
by Sassafras

The door to Sylvia’s Place NYC

Glitter, leftovers, and flying clothes were the first things that met my eyes when I entered Sylvia’s Place, a shelter in Manhattan. Sylvia’s Place, named after the transgender revolutionary Sylvia Rivera,exclusively serves the needs of LGBTQ homeless youth and provides them with a warm place to sleep, food, referrals to other programs, and a thousand other tiny things that sustain the life of many of the queer community’s most forgotten. As I entered the building from sub freezing temperatures and icy sidewalks, I was enveloped into the chaos and warmth of youth and staff, fights over stolen ipods, complaints about chores, and hopes of future employment. The energy was electric as the youth finished dinner and sounded like a room filled with any other teenagers, until as they began setting up the folding chairs for their weekly house meeting. Then I noticed the sleeping bags, the suitcases, and the towers of canned goods-green beans, corn, peas-next to the meager Christmas tree draped in rainbow ornaments.

I’ve had the privilege of being invited to the shelter to talk with the youth about Kicked Out to lead a writing workshop later in the week to help them develop their submissions to the anthology. I was at their weekly meeting in order to explain the project to the youth and let them get to know me a little bit before diving into the meat of the workshop on Wednesday. When I was kicked out and homeless I was in a fairly rural setting that lacked shelters of any kind,let alone ones catering to queer folks This fact made me all the more interested in taking part in an evening at the shelter. I was so curious about how their experiences of being kicked out in the nations largest city (some are from here, while others have made their way here) differed from my experiences several years ago in Oregon. The meeting began with each youth in attendance sharing a little about what was going on for them this week, if they had met their goals from the week before, and what they hoped to accomplish in the week to come. These are youth who know what they want out of life. They have goals and dreams for the future, and plans to make those dreams a reality. They spoke of apartment hunting, of being promoted to a managerial position at the store they work at, of straight A’s on their finals, and of waiting for SAT scores. These youth are so much more than the stereotypes, which many others dismissively place upon them.

Despite things becoming slightly chaotic as I left (I narrowly missed being in the middle of a fist-fight between two youth) I was thrilled with the experience I had at the shelter and so grateful for being invited in to witness a little bit of what a normal day is like at Sylvia’s Place. When I spoke about the anthology, a staff member passed out flyers with information about the call for submissions, as well as the writing workshop, and nearly every youth wanted a copy of both of them. I’ve spent the last few days honing my workshop plans and am both nervous and eager to go and meet with the youth again. One of the big things for me is making sure that I out myself as someone who was also kicked out. I don’t want them to think that I’m this random adult who has no idea what it’s like to be them - I very vividly remember what that was like and it’s something I’ve sworn I would never do. I’m going to be updating again after the writing workshop and sharing how it went!

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