A New Harlem Renaissance?

If you ask almost anyone living in New York City to name a "gay neighborhood", you will probably hear "Chelsea" or "Jackson Heights".  Those who are LGBT, or have ties to the community, will probably mention Astoria (where I now live), Woodside and possibly Bushwick.

If you ask someone my age or older, or someone who studies LGBT history, he or she will probably mention "The Village", Park Slope (where I lived before I moved to Astoria), Brooklyn Heights--and Harlem.

Most people don't realize that at the same time the area around Christopher Street was turning into a "gay ghetto," Harlem was also developing its own LGBT community.  It can be argued that queer people--lesbians and bisexuals in particular--did much to make the Harlem Renaissance possible. 

Another thing most people realize--and many people don't want to admit--is that LGBT people have never left Harlem.  More precisely, there have always been a lot of gays,lesbians and transgender people living there.  

One reason for that is that Harlem has long been home to people of color from every social and economic class, and from the entire spectrum of human endeavor.  Even in its worst times, the neighborhood could claim to be the residence of artists, entrepreneurs, entertainers, scholars and other creative and educated people, as well as every other type of worker imaginable.  With such diversity, it's not surprising that there would be a gay presence there.  

And, another reason why so many LGBT people, mainly of color, call  Harlem (as well as other uptown Manhattan neighborhoods, and the Bronx) home is that neighborhoods like The Village, Park Slope and Chelsea have gentrified, so many people of color simply cannot afford to live in them.  There is also a reason people in those neighborhoods and Caucasian LGBT people will almost never talk about:  People of color feel, or sometimes aren't, welcome in those neighborhoods.

Finally, even when LGBT people of color meet sympathetic white people, there are some things they simply couldn't talk about, even if both sides were willing.  I can empathise, at least to some degree, with anybody who has experienced prejudice; I've been told that I'm "not like other white people".  If only that last statement were true!  The fact is that whatever prejudice I've experienced is, in some ways, different from what someone experiences on account of the color of his or her skin.  And I simply can't imagine what it's like to experience that at the same time one is incurring hate over his or her sexuality or gender identity and expression.

As much as I appreciate The Center and Callen Lorde (They were my lifelines as I was looking into, and started, transitioning.), I have long argued that Harlem and the Bronx need equivalents to them.   Not surprisingly, Carmen Neely, the president of Harlem Pride, feels the same way.  

So, she and her group have started an online petition to garner support for the creation of what she calls "The Community Pride Center."  Although she's spearheading the drive for a center, the center itself will not be a project of Harlem Pride.  She says the center will be the effort of collaborative work between several LGBT groups and leaders.  They hope to have the center open by 2015.

"Our time is now," she says.  "It's needed in this community.  It's been way too long."


 

Turned Away By An LGBT Organization

Every time I think the world has become  a more hospitable, or at least a  less hostile, place for trans people, something happens to shake my faith.   

It's bad enough when hateful, ignorant or simply rude words or treatment comes from the sorts of people from whom we expect it.  At least then we can see it coming.  However, it's more distrubing, and more distressing, when we are treated badly by those whom we thought to be allies--or at least who previously seemed to be working on our behalf.

A friend of mine is having such an experience.  She went to an organization that is ostensibly dedicated to helping transgender people with various legal issues, including civil rights violations and access to health care.  In fact, that organization's founder litigated a case in which I had been involved, and was settled when the judge ordered the defendant to make contributions to LGBT organizations on behalf of me and the other plaintiffs in the lawsuit.  After that, I would volunteer for that organization, join their board of directors and write a guidebook, which they distributed in print and online, to help transgenders gain access to the health care we need.

That organization--the Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund--took over Lambda Legal's name-change project.  I used its free services and, even as a complete novice to the court system, I had no difficulty.  When TLDEF took it over, I thought it might be a good thing, as TLDEF is (or, at any rate, was) an organization centered on transgendered.  Plus, TLDEF's director, Michael Silverman is a first-rate lawyer. No less than the lawyers who opposed him, and a prosecutor, said as much.

In any event, my friend went to a TLDEF name-change clinic and was treated rudely, and with hostility.  Then the person who was supposed to help my friend instead invented a reason, called it TLDEF policy, and used it to keep my friend from using their services.

My friend, at least, is canny and persistent, although obviously upset with the treatment she received.  Now that this friend has found out that the rule that would have disqualfied her, had it existed, she is all the more upset, though still fighting.