Trans Formed: To Be Homeless & Transgender

The night my church opened its 10-bed homeless shelter for 18-to-24-year-olds, I volunteered to supervise them. A novice to any kind of shelter experience, I was nervous as I dragged my red cart with pillow and blanket to the church, and grateful that Mina, an elegant, 70-something social worker, also would be there.

Six young people arrived in a clump at 10 p.m., clutching pillows and belongings and, in one case, a teddy bear. They came from Sylvia's Place, an overcrowded downtown shelter. One woman, wearing a do-rag under a baseball cap, surprised me with a quick hug. In the coming months, she would outline the danger she felt in our relatively safe-seeming Manhattan neighborhood, how every time she walked outside she'd hear some comment, how she was hit in the face just waiting for the bus.

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By Lydie Raschka

Special to The Washington Post

Monday, July 28, 2008