Images from the first "Shine" event held at Westlake Park (lower image) and elsewhere in Seattle in May, at the start of a journey throughout the country to shine a light on the needs of homeless queer youth. Photos via PrideWalk2009 Facebook group

Late last month, Chloe Michelle Noble, Jill Hardman, and Nicole Tomlin embarked on a 6,000 mile cross-country journey. The Salt Lake City women plan to walk at least half of the way, live out of their backpacks, and document their trek through video, and blog updates, Facebook photos, and Twitter posts.

They plan to speak in cities and towns along their route in parks, at gay and transgender community centers, and other forums about the struggles and needs of queer homeless youth. 

In March, Noble told QSaltLake magazine, “We are walking because we believe that our youth should not have to live on the streets, sleeping in the cold, wondering where their next meal is going to come from.”

She explained that she is interested in helping homeless queer youth in part because she spent periods of her 20s on the streets.

Noble, who came out at age 20, said that her devout Mormon parents could not accept her sexuality or her interest in “bending gender norms.”

Youth often end up on the street, she told QSaltLake, because being homeless is often safer than staying with family who are physically, emotionally, or sexually abusive when a youth comes out as gay or transgender.

Noble told Seattle Gay News that educating parents is a core cause of their journey. “The parents need to understand there is nothing wrong with their child and that with the right amount of nurturing and support they can thrive,” said Noble.

Nationwide walk shines light on needs of queer homeless youth [contd.]

In a March 20 blog post to the walk’s Web site, pridewalk2009.org, Noble explained, “So to leave home was an empowered choice, but not entirely. For I had no where else to go but the streets. Inside of me lived a fire that was determined to shine against all odds. I would do whatever it took to make it on my own.”

And “shine” is what she and Hardman and Tomlin are hoping to do in a more visible way with their advocacy stroll along American highways.

Every major city they walk through will host a media event known as Operation Shine to increase public visibility around the issues facing homeless queer youth.

Late last month, they started their journey as homeless youth often do – with a long bus ride. They traveled by Greyhound bus from Salt Lake City to Seattle where they held the first public “Shine” event of their journey. From Seattle, they traveled down the coast to San Francisco. From there, they plan to head east to Boston, New York City, and then Washington, DC. From there they will move southwest to New Orleans, La. and end their journey in Austin, Tex, according to Seattle Gay News.

In Seattle on May 23, during the first stop on their long journey, guest speakers from YouthCare, Seattle Office for Civil Rights, Social Justice Movement Advocates, and homeless youth spoke about issues facing LGBT homeless youth, according to SGN.

Noble, who now runs a small business along with her partner in Salt Lake City, recalled in the March blog post that her own experience allowed her to see how difficult life can become for homeless youth. “[W]ho would I turn to when I needed safety and appropriate guidance? How would I get my own basic needs met?,” she asked. “There were no adequate youth centers to provide any form of information or support. Needless to say, I lost my clarity and fell back into old patterns just to survive. I became a statistic again in a different environment.”

Tomlin, who is walking across America with Noble, told Seattle Gay News that LGBT homeless youth form their own communities after they find each other in the different cities they pass through.

“It’s a human characteristic to want to fit in and be accepted,” Tomlin told SGN during the first stop in their journey. “For these kids, they've found acceptance in the streets. We've found that they [LGBT homeless youth] evolve into a subculture that many people don't know exists. If you’ve been hurt so bad by society, why rejoin it? They feel the new group they belong to is better.”

Before setting out on the journey, Noble told YouthNoise magazine in May “Going to coast to coast telling our stories will help the coastline communities to take a look at what's going on in the small towns and vice versa. This will give cities, towns, and regions the chance to learn from each other and grow by leaps and bounds. We all have a lot to learn. We want to shine a light on all of the good work people are doing across the country.”

On her Twitter account yesterday, Noble said “We are walking thru california on the 101. The ocean is absolutely beautiful.”

She told YouthNoise in May that she was looking forward to many aspects of their advocacy journey. “We don't have much money, but we'd like to check out the coastlines and different city sights that we don't get to see in Utah,” she said. “We'll also be hosting sit-ins, which should be a lot of fun. At the sit-ins we'll have speakers, entertainment, food, art projects and lots of fun stuff going on.”

Like Noble, Jill Hardman also grew up in a devout Mormon family, learning that there was only one way to live.

She told QSaltLake that her family made it clear to her that her own dreams were unworthy and that her sexuality was the result of hanging out with “the wrong people.” She she often considered taking her own life as a youth – experiences that have made her sympathetic to the struggles queer homeless youth face.

“I relate to their feelings of self-doubt, anger, abandonment, and fear,” she told QSaltLake. “I understand what it feels like to be overlooked, misunderstood, devalued, and unfairly judged, because of my sexual orientation, unique spirituality, and desire to live my life according to my own standards.” 

“I want their story to be heard and I want to be part of their recovery,” she said. “This is my dream.”

Jude McNeil, director of Utah Pride Center’s Youth Program in Salt Lake City explained to QSaltLake in April that queer youth make up a widely disproportionate number of homeless youth. McNeil said that 42 percent of Utah’s homeless youth population identifies as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, while one percent identifies as transgender. Those trends are common among the entire nation’s estimated 1.3 homeless youth, she said.

As if these numbers weren’t troubling enough, McNeil noted that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender youth make up “only about three to eight percent of the youth population.”

“Something’s not matching up here,” she told QSaltLake. “LGBT people are coming out younger and younger and our systems of care and schools are having a hard time keeping up and [finding out] how to serve LGBT youths.” Social taboos about youth sexuality, she noted, may be part of the reason.

“Our schools and youth-centered environments are often uncomfortable addressing issues of sexual orientation and gender identity, so our youths are falling through the cracks,” she said. And what does falling through the cracks entails not only homelessness but many of the things that accompany it: drug use, attempted and successful suicide attempts, self-mutilation and even pregnancy. Despite their sexual orientation, McNeil noted that queer female homeless youth were “three times more likely to get pregnant” than their straight peers, thanks to internalized homophobia.

Noble has set up a non-profit foundation, Noble Echoes Foundation, and plans to produce public service announcements with LGBTQ youth in the Utah area, using the footage they bring back from their walk. These PSA's are intended to launch a multi-media web site, that Queer youth can use to express themselves and empower others through personal, local, national, and international activism. Noble says about the web site, according to a post at PFLAG’s blog.

“It is our intention to unify LGBTQ youth through artistic expression, and to teach them how to become mutual mentors in a process of self-awareness and collective healing.”

Noble and Hardman told QSaltLake that they hope to help put Salt Lake City on the map as a truly progressive city when it comes to helping homeless queer youth. Although Utah has received much negative attention in the past few months thanks to the LDS Church’s campaign to re-ban gay marriage, Noble told QSaltLake that this negative attention can be turned into something good.

“It’s a hot zone right now and we want to use that hot zone to do something positive,” she said.

Provo, Utah resident John Rasmussen donated all of the supplies the women needed for their trip, including sleeping bags, backpacks, and other gear, QSaltLake reports. the Pride Center’s McNeil also gave them $600 worth of handmade wristbands to use, said Noble, as “street currency” and to give out to the homeless youth they meet.

“Many local and national organizations and private citizens, have also donated their time, talent, energy, and education to make Homeless Youth Pride Walk 2009 possible,” said Noble.

(If your city wants to participate in OPERATION SHINE contact Chloe at noble.echo@gmail.com or Matt Rouse at matt@pridewalk2009.org. Homeless youth, and youth of all kinds, and homeless citizens are strongly encouraged to participate.)

Source: Walking for a Dream | QSaltLake
Homeless Youth Pride Walk, 2009 | YouthNoise
Operation Shine Seattle begins | Seattle Gay News
Homeless Youth Pride Walk 2009 | PGLAG Blog

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