Young, Homeless and LGBT (EDGE)

excerpt from EDGE:
"If you come out in an accepting environment, certainly that’s more healthy than hiding your sexual orientation," Siciliano said. "If you come out [of an] area [where] you are like spawn, and you are thrown out of the house that night with your belongings in garbage bags and have no way to support yourself except through prostitution, that is a catastrophe."

...The U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services estimates there are between 575,000 and 1.6 million homeless and runaway youth between 12 and 24 in the United States. The National Lesbian & Gay Task Force further concluded in a 2006 report titled "LGBT Youth; Epidemic of Homelessness" that between 20 and 40 percent of these youth self-define as LGBT....

"What if you had to eat from dumpsters, had to sleep on the train [or] had to turn to sex work to survive," she asked. "That’s not something people want for themselves - or for their children - even if they can’t stand what that child does."

My story (link) at EDGE onLGBT homeless Youth in NYC