Once homeless, he’s why trans men of color will soon get their own housing program in D.C. — The Washington Post
On the same day I met Williams, I spoke with 12-year-old Laton Pfeifer Hicks, whose Maryland community of Woodmoor has a group of residents dedicated to making the neighborhood more inclusive. This year, for the first time, the neighborhood raised a pride flag on the community’s flagpole and held a pride parade. Laton, who identifies as LGBTQ and uses the pronouns they and them, spoke at both events.
“In an ideal world, Pride Month would not need to exist,” Laton tells me when we talk. “People who are part of the LGBTQ community would be treated as everyone else.”
The seventh-grader describes feeling free from a young age to discuss gender and sexuality but also recognizes not every family is supportive, not every neighborhood is embracing.
“We need to remind people that the fight is not over,” Laton says. “It’s still very much ongoing. We need to persist because these are human lives and human rights we’re fighting for.”
To hear the Maryland preteen talk is to feel hopeful about what can happen when people are accepted, no matter their gender or sexuality or religion or weight or disability (add whatever descriptor you want to that list). But to only bask in the inspiring examples is to ignore that within the LGBTQ community, there remains economic, geographic and racial divides that can make the difference between sleeping safely in a familiar bed and begging for borrowed space.
Neighborhood residents and friends gather ahead of the first Woodmoor Pride parade on June 6. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)
June Crenshaw sees those who fall into the latter category. She is the executive director of the Wanda Alston Foundation, which has long provided housing to at-risk LGBTQ youth in the District.
Crenshaw credits Williams, who serves as the operations director for the organization, with seeing the need for housing and programming that focuses specifically on transgender men of color in the city. She describes the system that exists as not working for them and too often leaving them out of conversations, even when those conversations are about them.
The hope for the new housing, she says, is that it will allow the men to address their mental health needs and other challenges and leave connected to a job, a support system and a community, so they can eventually find and afford their own homes.
The organization has so far secured two apartments and is looking through applications to decide who gets them. Eight applications already have come in and more are expected. The staff hopes to choose two people by the end of the month.
“This is a pilot program,” Crenshaw says. “It’s starting small, but our hope is to expand it. The need is there, and we’re hoping that we will be able to expand this and provide long-term programming around it.”
