Finding her voice

Posted on March 31, 2008
Filed Under Gay News Blog

WHEN I first met Nicole Von Valkenburg, she was sitting in front of a mirror, intent on her morning grooming ritual, which involved tweezing, applying makeup, parting her dark blond hair, and fitting her long streaked blond wig over her head. When she was finished, she emerged as another person, a diva who had stepped from a ’70s movie, ready for a night out.

Nicole lives at Carmen’s Place, a shelter in Astoria, Queens, for homeless gay and transgender people in their late teens and early 20s.

The Rev. Louis Braxton Jr., an Episcopal priest, opened the shelter five years ago in the basement of the nearby St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church. When the church shut for financial reasons, Father Braxton used private donations to rent a two-bedroom apartment in Astoria, which is now home to a dozen young people, among them Nicole.

See Finding her voice
New York Times