This archive report was first published on 29 June 2019.
On June 29, 2019, Nyakundi Report is revisiting a Bronx story about how a small L.G.B.T.Q. center became a refuge for people who had been pushed out of family, housing and safety. For some, Destination Tomorrow was not just a service provider but the first place that felt like home.
That was especially true for Shyloh Mugler Curet, a transgender woman who lives in a Bronx apartment with her 83-year-old grandmother. She said relatives rejected her after she came out as gay, telling her, “Keep it to yourself.” After she was robbed and sexually assaulted while heading home several years ago, she left New York for a time and stayed in Florida and Massachusetts before returning to the Bronx.
When she came back, she found Destination Tomorrow, a center in the South Bronx that had been serving the borough’s gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community for nearly a year. The nonprofit, which has transgender leadership, opened its office to fill the gap left after the closure of the Bronx’s previous L.G.B.T.Q. center.
The organization offers counseling, computer programming classes through the “Haus of Code,” video game groups, crystal healing sessions and a place for people to gather, talk and listen to music. Mugler Curet, 23, said the space gave her something she had not found elsewhere: “You don’t have to explain over and over when you’re in a place that understands,” she said. “It’s a sense of home, a sense of safety, a sense of comfort, a sense of acknowledgment that we exist.”
Sean Coleman, the center’s founder and executive director, said the need remains urgent. “The most marginalized are still being harmed,” he said. “In some respects, we still don’t get it. We still don’t understand some of the needs of some community members.”
That concern was echoed by the broader context around the center. In 2018, Glaad counted 25 transgender people killed in the United States, the vast majority of them minorities. The New York Police Department also recorded 51 hate crimes in the city last year involving the L.G.B.T.Q. community, including 11 against transgender people.
For many who come through Destination Tomorrow, the issues are not abstract. Some have faced homelessness, substance abuse, harassment and entrenched poverty. Others talk about the criminal justice system and cases such as the death of Layleen Polanco, a transgender woman who had been jailed on Rikers Island because she could not afford bail on misdemeanor assault charges. Authorities said she was found unresponsive in her cell, and investigators have not found evidence of foul play.
At the center, those pressures sit alongside moments of affirmation. Tyanne Walker, 28, told the group, “I’m proud of who I am,” adding, “You can’t closet this no more. I’m black. I’m queer. I’m here.” Walker had recently come out as a lesbian to her family and said she still noticed disgust and disapproval from strangers when she held her girlfriend’s hand in public.
Jahaira Gonzalez, the center’s director of outreach and the support group moderator, said the hostility is familiar. “If you go through that drama, imagine a trans woman,” she said.
Mugler Curet said she comes to Destination Tomorrow on Mondays and Thursdays for high-school equivalency classes and sometimes stops in for Hot Meal Mondays. Last year, when she needed a winter coat, she got one from the center’s clothing drive. She described her transition as a butterfly still in a cocoon, saying, “The metamorphosis has to take place.”
She also said the Bronx remains central to her identity. Raised by her grandmother in the Mitchel Houses in Mott Haven, she said, “There is no home like the Bronx. It’s home. It’s the best. You just have to know how to move around.”
Blu Ruby Diamond, who goes by Ruby, offered another example of the center’s pull. A street rapper who began transitioning when she was 49, she said her life had been marked by drugs and homelessness before she embraced her identity as a transgender woman. “My life as a boy was so hard,” she said. “As a woman, I do everything right. Bad people, bad habits — none of that. I’m proud of who I am.”
Ruby said her mother accepted her transition, telling her, “Well, that’s between you and God, but you’re my son and I love you.” Her brothers accepted it too, though her daughter struggled with the change and worried, “I don’t have a father.” Ruby answered, “I’m your dad. Nothing on earth is going to change that. I could look like Wonder Woman, but I’m still your dad.”
She said a former landlord refused to renew her lease after she started transitioning, prompting her to hire a lawyer. Still, she quickly found community at Destination Tomorrow, where she sang “If You Don’t Know Me By Now” and was joined by staff and other visitors, including Nia Reid, the center’s intake specialist, who sang backup as the room filled with music.
