Tranny True Story: Transgender honored for her courage
What a better way of recognizing a person who truly deserved to be honored regardless of gender. It’s heartwarming to know that equality exists.
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/pa/8199157.html
Transgendered, she fought bias. Woman honored for her courage
By Joseph A. Slobodzian
Inquirer Staff Writer
A University City resident is one of four sexual minorities awarded a $10,000 “courage grant” from the Colin Higgins Foundation.
Kiya Morton, 20, a transgender person who was born male, was honored Monday night at an awards ceremony in New York.
“This is really a big help,” Morton said yesterday. “It’s going to help me go back to school.”
Morton said she had been studying photography at the Art Institute of Philadelphia but had to withdraw because of money. She has since been working temporary jobs.
The Colin Higgins Foundation was founded in 1986 by the director and screenwriter to support gay, bisexual and transgender communities. Higgins, who died two years later of AIDS, was known for such films as Harold and Maude and Nine to Five.
This is the eighth year the foundation has selected several young people for its “Youth Courage Award” for “building bridges between disparate communities, showing courage in the face of tremendous obstacles and transforming the world of LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] advocacy.”
“It’s nice to know that somebody appreciates all the times I’ve been strong in uncomfortable, awkward situations,” Morton said.
Born in North Philadelphia to Latino and African American parents, Morton said the abuse she experienced as a child because of her sexual orientation led to her leaving home and living on the streets as a prostitute.
Arrested three times as a juvenile for prostitution, Morton said she was placed in juvenile detention, where other youths “really put me through the ringer.”
Morton said probation required her to see social workers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. It was those social workers, she said, who ultimately nominated her to the Colin Higgins Foundation for the courage award.
The other winners of this year’s awards are Ali Abbas, 19, of Chicago, the son of Lebanese Muslims, who works to bring understanding between Muslims and sexual minorities; Raquel Evita Sarawati, 23, Boston, a lesbian and a Syrian Muslim who also wants to change Muslim attitudes toward lesbians and gays; and Ryan Bowker, 20, Rapid City, S.D., an American Indian who grew up gay on a reservation and wants to “recover Native traditions of respect and equal treatment” of sexual minorities.
In addition to the $10,000 grants, each will get expense-paid trips to the national Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s “Creating Change” conference next year in Detroit.
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