This project aims to raise awareness of the needs and vision of the advocacy efforts for community-ownership; and to inform the Narrative Description that will be part of the nomination process to qualify Riis Beach as a National Historic Landmark through the Office of the Interior. jah elyse sayers will engage members of the LGBTQ communities through an oral history project in partnership with community researchers, including story collection at Riis Pride event. Researcher-collected oral history and archive materials will be transcripted, coded, and analyzed.
About Partner
G.L.I.T.S. has been led to change systemic and economical oppressions of systemic and financial discrimination not only in NYC but also globally when it comes to our marginal communities, We approach the health and rights crises faced by transgender community members and the sex worker community, holistically using harm reduction, human rights principles, economic and social justice, along with a commitment to empowerment and pride in finding solutions from our own community. The first issue we address is that of immediate need/crisis support for transgender sex workers and the TLGBQIA and Bi Poc community members from the NYC area, across the US and globally through supporting asylum seekers from our priority communities. The next issue we address is health care and health resilience for transgender sex workers. We need to address this issue because our community is hype marginalized and has a profound need for safe sex supplies and free/low cost health to address both trans specific and holistic needs. We currently work on housing since so many in our G.L.I.T.S.’ community are without stable housing, deepening the cycle of disenfranchisement. G.L.I.T.S. also advocates and educates to ensure health, wellness and inclusion of transgender people in our society and to address the stigmatization and criminalization of trans people because of anti-prostitution/anti-sex work laws.
G.L.I.T.S. creates holistic solutions to the health and housing crises faced by TGBLQIA+ individuals experiencing systemic discrimination at intersecting oppressions impacted by racism and criminalization, through a lens of harm reduction, human rights principles, social justice and community empowerment, imbued with a commitment to empowerment and pride in finding solutions in our own community. Centering Black trans leadership, G.L.I.T.S. is committed to building future community leaders and is grounded in a multi-generational approach to growth. G.L.I.T.S. uses advocacy as well as press and media appearances to educate the public about health, wellness and inclusion of TGBLQIA+ people in our society and to address the stigmatization and criminalization. G.L.I.T.S. holistically addresses the barriers the TGBLQIA+ community experience particularly at the intersection of gender, class and race identities. G.L.I.T.S. first faces immediate need and crisis support including for transgender sex workers, and incarcerated community members, in the NYC area as well as globally through supporting TGBLQIA+ asylum seekers. G.L.I.T.S. recognizes housing as a cornerstone of health and wellness and has created sustainable stable housing through G.L.I.T.S. I SOUTH & The Leadership Academy including 12 individual apartments with leadership, healing and educational services.
Finally, G.L.I.T.S. address disparity in health care and health resilience for the TGBLQIA+ community through our preliminary work to establish a dedicated health clinic co-designed with health practitioners and TGBLQIA+ community members. G.L.I.T.S. initiatives are groundbreaking and each is being documented to serve as a pilot project exemplifying approaches that can and will be applied in other cities around the country and the world.
In addition to providing leadership to this project, founder Ms. Ceyenne Doroshow is an international speaker and media figure addressing the many issues facing Black, POC, trans and TGBLQIA community members , and is a powerful advocate fighting discriminatory policies
Team
PAR Fellow: Jah Elyse Sayers (they/them) directs their creative energy toward Black queer and trans liberatory placemaking using research, writing, construction, and artmaking. Jah Elyse moves between New York City and Philadelphia and is currently a PhD candidate in environmental psychology at CUNY Graduate Center, participatory action research fellow with the People's Beach Land Trust, member-worker with Housing Reparations Philly, and artist/researcher with Trophallaxis Study Group. Their academic research focuses on the articulation of racialized, gendered, and sexualized private property logics in public space management and the ways Black queer and trans and queer and trans of color gathering challenges those logics and produces otherwise possibilities.
