Here is an episode from actor Kate Moenning's project "My Address: A Look at Gay Youth Homelessness." There are several projects similar to this one that are listening and documenting the voices of queer youth who are both currently or were formerly homeless. In the video they discuss being "in the system" and what home means to them. I put up this specific video because the individuals, predominantly queer people of color, give their responses to questions like 'Why are LGBT children homeless?,' and as one teen, Jamila says "A lot of families, or people in general believe that for the problem to go away, the person needs to go away." The video shows that for the 7000 LGBTQ youth in New York City, "there are only 25 emergency shelter beds available."

'Coming out' to their families about their sexual identity has been the predominant reason that these youth have left or been kicked out of their homes and put into the system. They describe how their realities become unreliable, unaccustomed ones with an overall lack of comfortability.

"Arguably, lesbian and gay teenagers continue to be the single most unrepresented and under served population of young people in the United States. The issues that they face within a larger community, unfortunately still characterized by discrimination against adults, means that kids get it even worse."

Sassafras Lowrey & storytelling as cultural creativity

From an interview with Sassafras Lowrey about their anthology Kicked Out published by Homofactus Press, which includes a collection of writing by current and formerly homeless queer youth:

"I believe that one of the most fundamentally radical things that a person can do is to tell their story, and to keep telling it. Stories have the power to put a face to an issue that might otherwise be completely abstract. On a really core level I believe that everyone has a story to tell and that people, especially those who have been marginalized have an opportunity through the telling of their personal stories to alter the way people, communities, and ultimately society as a whole feels about an issue. No two people see the world in the same way, and as such the only way we will ever truly understand differences is through sharing our embodied experiences of the world around us. I’m especially interested in the ways storytelling has been used within queer culture to subvert dominant discourse about life, love, family, and survival."

Link to the interview: http://www.campusprideblog.org/blog/interview-sassafras-lowrey-kicked-out

Roke Noir speech about supporting queer homeless youth

the video that Noir is referencing is this one, put together by the organization Operation Shine America:

discussing 'beyond marriage' and support for homeless queer youth as a priority for the LGBTQ movement

On the agenda of national LGBT organizations within mainstream politics has been the legalization of gay marriage. A statement from beyondmarriage.org (associated with the radical organization againstequality.org) titled "Beyond Same-Sex Marriage: A New Strategic Vision For All Our Families and Relationships" argues that the LGBT movement "has recently focused on marriage equality as a stand-alone issue" and while it "may secure rights and benefits for some LGBT families, it has left us isolated and vulnerable to a virulent backlash." They are calling for radical alliances "across issues and constituencies" whose "strategies must be visionary, creative, and practical to counter the right's powerful and effective use of marriage as a 'wedge' issue that pits one group against another." In his book, The Trouble with Normal: Sex, Politics and the Ethics of Queer Life, Michael Warner critiques the institution of marriage as implicitly privileged:

"Marriage sanctifies some couples at the expense of others. It is selective legitimacy. This is a necessary implication of the institution, and not just the result of bad motives or the high-toned non sequiturs of Henry Hyde. To a couple that gets married, marriage just looks ennobling, as it does to Hyde. Stand outside it for a second and you see the implication: if you don't have it, you and your relations are less worthy. Without the corollary effect, marriage would not be able to endow anybody's life with significance. The ennobling and the demeaning go together. Marriage does one only by virtue of the other. Marriage, in short, discriminates" (Warner 1999:82).

The "politics of shame" that Warner continues to discuss in his book, I think, work to show how a society protective of heteronormativity constructs a sexual hierarchy, while a LGBT movement centered around marriage equality desires a subsumable relationship to that hierarchy. It is important then to ask, as Shannon Moriarty does in the article "Who is Advocating for LGBT Homeless Youth?" why national LGBT organizations are not putting priority on the large numbers of homeless queer youth in the struggle for equality. Moriarty writes,

"Given the estimates that 2-3 percent of the American public identifies as LGBT, it's troubling that this population is so disproportionately represented on streets - and at such a young age. After coming out to their families, many are running away, being kicked out of their homes, or - even worse - being assaulted by a member of their family, according to the NGLTF report. And that's just the beginning. Life on the streets is hard and cruel, particularly for LGBT youth. 'I don't think there is any other situation where so much oppression and persecution and cruelty is happening to people because they're gay,' Carl Siciliano, who runs a shelter for LGBT youth in New York City, told the Indypendent. 'These kids are bearing the brunt of homophobia in our society.'"

1.6 million homeless youth, 20-40% LGBTQ

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), reports from the 2007 study, "Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth: An epidemic of homelessness" that "Of the estimated 1.6 million homeless American youth, between 20 and 40 percent identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT)." The publication writes:

"Why do LGBT youth become homeless? In one study, 26 percent of gay teens who came out to their parents/guardians were told they must leave home; LGBT youth also leave home due to physical, sexual and emotional abuse. Homeless LGBT youth are more likely to: use drugs, participate in sex work, and attempt suicide. Also, LGBT youth report they are threatened, belittled and abused at shelters by staff as well as other residents."

Link to NGLTF report: http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/reports/reports/HomelessYouth_ExecutiveSummary.pdf