The Kicked Out anthology has brought together the voices of more than twenty incredible people and organizations who are dedicated to ending the epidemic of queer youth homelessness, and breaking down the silencing that those who have been kicked out face in mainstream society and also in much of our modern LGBT community.
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A sample of the voices included in Kicked Out:
Sassafras Lowrey
Kicked Out Editor
is an internationally award-winning storyteller, author, artist, and educator. She believes that everyone has a story to tell and that the telling of stories is essential in the creation of social change. Sassafras is the editor of the Kicked Out anthology (coming soon from Homofactus Press), which is bringing together the voices of current and former homeless LGBT youth. She is a monthly columnist for Curve magazine, and her prose has been included in numerous anthologies. Sassafras regularly teaches LGBT storytelling workshops at colleges and conferences across the country and lives in NYC with her partner, two cats, and a princess dog. To learn more about Sassafras and her work, visit www.PoMoFreakshow.com
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Judy Shepard
mother of Matthew Shepard and Executive Director of the Mathew Shepard Foundation
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Nat Roslin
I’m a genderqueer femail presenting lesbian, who chooses words over fists. I can be in femme mode one minute and boi mode the next, finding my place as one of the boys at work or a so-called fag hag with a lot of gay male friends. I’m as happy surrounded by drag queens with feather boas and sequinned dresses as I am sitting on the beach, reading and not being amidst the attention.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that family is what you make it. Sometimes your friends are the only family you can rely on. And thankfully I have a fair few in the queer community and several outside of the queer community who have helped me through some difficult times. I’ve always been encourage to write, to let my feelings out in a way I feel comfortable. Poetry, prose, anything that enables me to get my message out. I’ve learned the hard way that words have power. I believe that if we want to change the world we have to fight for what we believe and share our experiences with others. It’s only by sharing our knowledge that we’ll get to where we want to be.
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Sabine T. Vasco
In 3rd grade, Sabine T. Vasco won her school’s creative writing contest with whimsical tales of her desire to grow up, move to Asia, and shoot tigers–with her camera. The following summer, her grandmother destroyed her Wham! Make It Big cassette by launching it into a nearby construction site, which she attempted to recoup by enlisting the aid of her cousins. It was never recovered.
At the age of 19, finding herself far from Asia, she wondered if perhaps photographing people could be just as fascinating as photographing tigers. She devoted herself to documenting the quixotic characters she encountered in her travels throughout the U.S., Amsterdam, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Mexico with her trusted 35 mm camera.
Sabine has since worked in television and documentary productions for CNBC, PBS, and the Sundance Foundation, hunting for the perfect shots as a photo and film archivist. She continues on her quest for tigers and the meaning of “growing up,” but lives each day gloriously fueled by the words of Tom Robbins, “It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.”
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Kestryl Cael is a performer, activist, culture-maker, and gender revolutionary. When forced to choose a label, he identifies as a transgender butch. Kestryl Cael has appeared at conferences, colleges, festivals, and local theatres across North America . Whether on-stage or behind a podium, he considers it his artistic duty to engage his audiences in provocative dialogue without letting them take him (or themselves) too seriously. Kestryl was a member of “The Language of Paradox,” a performance ensemble founded and directed by Kate Bornstein. His writing appears in anthologies such as Kicked Out (Fall 2009, Homofactus Press), and he is half of the performance duo, PoMo Freakshow. His one-queer-show, XY(T), has been described as “provocative,” “brave,” “appealingly wry,” “heartfelt,” “profound,” and “essential.”
Tommi Avicolli Mecca
Tommi Avicolli Mecca is a radical, southern Italian, atheist, queer who has published many works since high school in the late 60s when he was the favorite poet featured in his neighborhood South Philadelphia newspaper. His books include Between Little Rock and a Hard Place (1993), Hey Paesan: Writings by Lesbians and Gay Men of Italian Descent (1999, co-edited with Giovanna Capone and Denise Nico Leto), Avanti Popolo: Sailing Beyond Columbus (2008, co-edited with three others), and an anthology in progress about the early years of gay liberation (which will be published by City Lights Books in 2009). He is a regular contributor to beyondchron.org, and currently lives in San Francisco. His website is www.avicollimecca.com.
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kay ulanday barrett
kay ulanday barrett is a performer, poet, educator, and martial artist. kay
connects life as a pin@y-amerikan trans/queer navigating struggle, resistance,and laughter in the u.s. In Mango Tribe and in solo work, kay has featured in colleges, cafes, and stages internationally. honors include: venus zine’s featured reader, LGBTQ 30 under 30 awards, Crossroads Fund individual activist award, finalist in The Gwendolyn brooks Open-Mic Award, a feature in the documentary film BAKLA/TOMBOY: Filipino Gay & Lesbians in the U.S. and most recently, a contribution in the anthology Kicked Out released by Homofactus Press in 2009. for kay’s online swerve see: kaybarrett.net
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Nik/ Mx. Mirage
I don’t think I could ever live without my writing. It doesn’t matter if other people hear me or I lose my sight, my words are always with me. The queer community has given me so much strength, I once thought I was invincible. I no longer believe so, but when you catch a group of us together, we are one and we are a force to be reckoned with. I am a radically queer trannyboi with a big mouth. I flip flop between being femme and not being femme. I believe in queer youth. Yeah, it seems cliche to say that, but really, I have high standards for the next generation. Hell, I have high standards for my own generation! I see so much potential, so much persuasion and love and rebellion. That is just a big old cauldron of crazy waiting for us to stir it up! So, this is my call to the (potentially) radical queer kids and adults of the world. Come out, come out, wherever you are!
love and solidarity,
Mx. Mirage
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Angie Guerra
In 2001, Angie Guerra graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mass Communication and Journalism.
Through her work with Visit Milwaukee, Milwaukee’s Convention and Visitors Bureau, as a member of their LGBT Advisory Team, Angie soon discovered her passion for working within the LGBT community.
This led her to seek a career in working full-time for the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center. There she served in a number of different roles, starting as the first Director of Development. As the Center grew, so did its staff. Her position then blossomed into two roles, and Angie became the Director of Development and Marketing, and eventually the Director of Communications.
Angie also spent her free time volunteering for a number of different organizations promoting the community at large. The Women’s Fund of Greater Milwaukee, where Angie served as the co-chair on the Lesbian Fund, the Hispanic Professionals of Milwaukee and as a member of the 41/26 Venture Committee, which was formed as a way to recognize LGBT leaders. Through this opportunity Angie helped develop the “Gay Neighbor Billboard Campaign” to address issues such as being denied marriage rights, facing job discrimination, lack of domestic partnership healthcare coverage, adoption and parenting issues, as well as being targets of attacks based on perceived sexual orientation or gender non-conformity.
Most recently Angie is serving on the Sedona-Verde Valley Gay Pride Association Membership Committee and is living and writing full-time in Sedona, Arizona.
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Tenzin Chodron
Tenzin Chodron (born Jeanne Norris) is a transmale Buddhist monastic, proud parent, transgender activist, member of the Interfaith Dialogue group of Eugene, Oregon and the Religious Response Network, and former AIDS activist and hospice worker. He graduated summa cum laude from the Religious Studies program at the University of Oregon in 2007 after numerous interruptions in his education throughout years in foster care and while living on the streets. Cultivating compassion despite an intimate acquaintance with the more pestilential side of humanity has been a lifelong and rewarding challenge.
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Booh Edouardo
Booh Edouardo often walks his dog through the hills near his home in San Francisco, California. As a child, he became permanently disabled after repeated assaults from members of his family. Consequently, Booh began a lifelong journey working to secure the civil rights of children, people with disabilities, and members of the LGBTQ community. Booh has been involved in theater and visual art for many years with work featured in such venues and publications as Axis Theater, Barnsdall Art Park, Ohio State University, San Francisco Public Library, Slate Magazine, University of California at Riverside, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. He received a BFA and MFA from California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), is a MA candidate at San Francisco State University and a tutor at City College of San Francisco. His piece, A Rock and a Bird is scheduled to be released in the anthology WHY ARE FAGGOTS SO AFRAID OF FAGGOTS?: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification and the Desire to Conform (edited by Matilda a.k.a. Matt Bernstein Sycamore).
Organizations that have supported and/or contributed to the anthology include:
The Matthew Shepard Foundation
PFLAG-National
Sylvia’s Place
Family Builders
The Task Force
The Circus Project
