L Word star highlights gay teen homelessness

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Gay and lesbian homelessness among youth is now considered an epidemic in the US, according to the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

OurChart, he lesbian version of MySpace which takes its name from TV drama The L Word, is doing their part to focus some attention on the problem.

The site has created a unique documentary, called My Address: A Look at Gay Youth Homelessness.

The series features Katherine Moennig, who plays Shane on The L Word.

My Address is a five-part series looking at people who have been inside shelters and on the streets because of their sexual orientation and identity.

The series also looks at people from the Hetrick-Martin Institute, America’s biggest non-profit dedicated to GLBTQ teens. The documentary has already been seen over 300,000 times.

The OurChart site, which targets younger lesbians, has taken off since its January 2007 debut, reaching over 550,000 unique visitors monthly.

This makes it the top lesbian site mixing social networking with entertainment.

“It is exciting to see how quickly OurChart’s traffic has taken off and is increasing every week,” said Hilary Rosen, President of OurChart.

“We know now that lesbians want the types of content we are offering.

“Our users are really involved in the site, they keep coming back and they are telling their friends. It’s a loyal and engaged market.”

Another OurChart show, GirlTrash!, also debuted on the site recently.

It features the “criminal underworld of Los Angeles” and focuses on five women in particular.

Margaret Cho, Rose Rollings, Mandy Musgrace and Gabrielle Christian are in the cast.

“When we created OurChart, we wanted to focus on content for lesbians that didn’t exist in the marketplace to date,” said Ilene Chaiken, CEO of OurChart and creator of The L Word.

“And we have been fortunate to work with some wonderfully creative and accomplished people to execute on that vision.”

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