New Queers for Economic Justice ED Kenyon Farrow Talks HRC, AIDS and More
Posted by , December 14, 2009 at 10:07pm
Kenyon Farrow
New executive director of Queers for Economic Justice Kenyon Farrow sees his organization growing and expanding to meet the needs of low-income LGBT people. He’s more skeptical about the future of other LGBT groups.
“I have a lot of questions about what’s going to happen with the mainstream LGBT movement,” Farrow said. “The Matthew Shepherd Law, which QEJ opposes, passed; ENDA will pass; the military ban will be lifted; and if Obama is elected a second time, they will probably lift the Defense of Marriage Act. But there will still be poor people. There will still be people without access to health care.”
Farrow was appointed last week to his post, after serving as Queers for Economic Justice’s interim director since July. QEJ organizes and advocates for queer New Yorkers on public assistance and in the New York City shelter system.
The group also fills an important niche moving the broader discussion of LGBT rights nationally as part of its “Beyond Marriage” initiative, which seeks to “to reframe the narrow terms of the marriage debate in the United States” and not prize marriage over other forms of of family and community. Farrow was part of the group that drafted the document that served as the movement’s manifesto, and through his writing and other work, Farrow has become voice in the gay marriage debate.
Farrow isn’t shy about discussing why mainstream LGBT groups, particularly Human Rights Campaign, often prize gay marriage over racial and economic justice issues faced by much of the LGBT community.
“Human Rights Campaign’s donor base is wealthy white gay men, and some lesbians, for whom marriage is it. Marriage is the last issue towards full white male citizenship,” Farrow said. “For the rest of us that won’t solve a whole lot.”
AIDS as an economic justice issue
Farrow first became involved with QEJ in 2005, three years after the organization’s founding, when he volunteered to lead resume-writing workshops for LGBT people in the New York City shelter system, and saw 30 queer and transfolk motivated to succeed. “They were there and completely engaged. I was impressed with QEJ having the base they claimed to have,” Farrow said.
Before taking his current post, Farrow worked with the New York State Black Gay Network to deal with the social drivers of AIDS. As a former Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project (CHAMP) staffer, Farrow became known for his work around HIV/AIDS, work that is relevant when dealing with queer poverty.
“For me there’s no way to do racial and economic justice within the LGBT community and not think about the AIDS epidemic,” Farrow said. ““I’m not the first to say it, but the AIDS epidemic is an epidemic about poverty and race that largely affect gay and bi men and trans women and a disproportionate number of lesbians.”
Broadening the coalition
Despite its reservations about the goals of HRC and its ilk, QEJ does work with other gay rights groups, such as the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. But Farrow wants to coalition-build beyond the usual suspects to work with economic justice groups that don’t always have a queer focus.
“We’re in an interesting moment,” Farrow said. “Five years ago I would have had a much more difficult time in other progressive spaces, talking about queer issues. I feel less of that now, and I hear more organizations interested in looking for linkages.” Farrow is currently working with the for Center for Popular Economics to host a seminar about the impact on the economic meltdown on LGBT people.
The group’s other big next step is rolling out a campaign combating LGBT violence in the shelter system. In 2006, QEJ successfully lobbied for the New York shelters to allow gender nonconforming people to choose to either stay in male or female shelters. Unfortunately, Farrow said, this policy is not always being implemented on the ground and discrimination and harassment exists.
“We had a transperson call the other day and say to enter the shelter system this person had to submit to a breast exam,” Farrow said. “Even once folks can get into shelters, there’s a lack of sensitivity among other shelter residents and among shelter employees.”
QEJ is working to get staff and shelter resident to be sensitive to the needs of queer shelter residents.
“New York is the only state in the union where people have right to shelter. But what does it mean to have a right to shelter when it implicitly bars trans and gender nonconforming folks?” Farrow said.
For more information about Farrow and Queers for Economic Justice go to q4ej.org
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