Homelessness is not only an issue for LGBT/Q youth. A 2010 survey of 165 lowincome LGBT/Q and gender non-conforming adults in New York found that the majority (70 percent) had been homeless at some point in their lives; data from 2011 show that 19 percent of trans people have been homeless at some point in their lives. Job, health, and housing discrimination and harassment all produce inflated rates of homelessness among queer and trans adults. Homelessness also leads to increased interaction with the criminal justice system. This increased criminalization means that LGBT/Q workers are disproportionately hurt by the mandatory background and credit checks required for many jobs.
[…] In spite of the economic precarity these statistics demonstrate, the mainstream LGBT movement has veered away from poverty, class, and economic justice, dismissing the relevance of the economic crisis to LGBT/Q lives as though “economic justice is simply ‘not a gay issue.’