Posted on 04/03/2009 7:27:06 AM PDT by Zakeet
Twelve years heading the Salvation Army's downtown homeless shelter had done little to prepare Janeane Schmidt for the recent night when a soft-spoken biological male transitioning into a female walked in.
Schmidt didn't want to refuse someone in need. Having seen few such cases, however, and with limited space that winter night, she wasn't sure where to place the transgender woman. The shelter has space for homeless men and women but not anyone in between.
"Rather than turn them away, we give them a cot," said Schmidt, whose staff allowed the woman to stay a week in the shelter's lounge — the only space they could find.
"I don't even know of another shelter that takes the transgendered" in Atlanta, Schmidt said.
Nationwide there are plenty of holes in the safety net of shelters that catches men and women who have fallen on hard times. Activists say help is even harder to find for the transgender homeless, whose nontraditional gender status raises questions about sleeping arrangements and shower facilities.
The people who run the shelters are taking note.
From Phoenix to New York, shelters have fine-tuned policies to recognize preferred gender over birth gender, as they balance the needs of their mainstream clients with those of an unconventional segment of the homeless.
Activists point to the deaths of homeless transgender women in Atlanta and Austin, Texas, to underscore the need for shelter for all. Shelters in both cities are revamping acceptance policies and weighing the creation of trans-friendly space.
The Atlanta Union Mission is considering expanding one or more of its six area shelters, in part to accommodate transgender people.
"We don't know if we need an entirely different facility," spokeswoman Voloria Pettiford said. "We don't know how to meet that need, but there's a need."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
In the old days a democrapic President meant no homeless stories. Times have changed I guess.
“...biological male transitioning into a female...”
One can not change one’s sex. One may simply alter one’s appearance. In spite of the appearance, this creature is and will always be, male.
It looks like the doctor may have attached a breast in the wrong place.
And as always in “journalism,” activist translates to assh*le.
so a gay sex change prostitute is allowed in the shelter? great, now the whole place needs disinfecting. them folks are walking infections, for the sake of the non-preverts in the shelter, this “thing” should be kicked out.
Yeah, a whore with a sex change reeks of taxpayer funding.
the sex change should have been made at the neck!!!yuck, puke!!!!
What’s she doing in Atlanta? I thought she was in Europe......
Jeese, finally this major social problem gets the attention it deserves. It’s something I’ve been worried about forever. I lay awake nights wondering where all the homeless transgendered people are sleeping.
If s/he comes in looking, dressing and talking like a woman, how would they know the difference? Reva should have shut ‘her’ mouth and went to the women’s area. Or perhaps whatever the drivers license said. The difficult point is that this person is in the ‘transitioning’ stage, meaning... well, it could mean a lot of things.
You mean that the Tranny lifestyle isn’t fabulous???
Who would have thunk it!
It obviously costs considerable money to have gender reassignment surgery. So if these people are homeless and could thus be assumed to be impoverished, it begs the question of how did they pay for their gender reassignment surgery? I would assume that the taxpayers likely footed the bill through Medicaid.
Beautifully stated.
Indeed, if more time and effort were spent working out the science of why this happens so we can help those few affected by this and less time pandering to the political action pressure groups of the LGBT “community” the better off we would be as a society. Because that group really does nothing but use people as tools for their own political agenda.
It would would be nice if we could have some sorta test we could use to find these brain structural changes early in childhood and correct them either by surgery or drugs, thus sparing them a lifetime of unpleasantness. This is for those who are truly affected and not the fetishists.
For starters, the City of Atlanta should build a big beautiful shelter just for transexuals, and provide all the amenities of a luxury condominium complex. :>)
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