Baltimore Community Fellowships
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Baltimore, Maryland
2008
Walking to a sub shop for lunch one afternoon, Cydne Kimbrough was stopped by a police officer who demanded to know where she was going.
After Kimbrough explained, the officer barked, "Well, we're just waiting for a reason to lock you up."
Kimbrough's only transgression? Being transgender.
"It's really sad," said Kimbrough, 31. "There's a huge amount of discrimination based on fear and ignorance."
Kimbrough wants to fight the kinds of discrimination that plague many in Baltimore's transgender community—particularly when it comes to housing, employment, and treatment by law enforcement officials.
She plans to use her fellowship to create an advocacy and support system that will foster tolerance and understanding, and also encourage the enforcement of antidiscrimination laws already on the city's books.
To do so, Kimbrough intends to work with city government offices, the American Civil Liberties Union, and other community-based organizations.
"This is a community that needs help," she said. "And it's not that the resources aren't there. It's just that no one has had the time or desire to advocate for this community." Until now.
Kimbrough has been helping transgender people for nearly eight years, handing out condoms to prostitutes in her free time or distributing fliers announcing programs, events and helpful services. She keeps a close watch on the young people in her own neighborhood, through word-of-mouth, and often is a go-to person when someone needs help. "They've always known I was here for them," she said.
Herself a transgender woman (Kimbrough was born male, but began the process of becoming a woman after high school), Kimbrough feels a special kinship to the 5,000 to 8,000 transgender people she estimates live in Baltimore.
And in particular, Kimbrough has empathy for the 2,500 to 3,000 she says are struggling in the city with abuse, discrimination, drug use, homelessness, and other problems.
"They're not finding jobs and housing so they're forced into prostitution; and a lot who are working the streets are children," she said. "They're 15, 16, 17 years old. Their parents don't understand them and ask them to leave home. They end up not going to school, and that's how they wind up on the street."
To deal with life on the streets, many take drugs. "It's an awful vicious cycle, and a lot of people have turned a blind eye to it because of the stigma associated with even saying the word transgender," she said. "They think a lot of transgender people want to be out on the street. No, they don't."
Kimbrough wants to start immediately helping at-risk transgender people between the ages 14 and 29 develop life skills, find jobs, finish school and locate safe housing. In the long-term, she hopes to secure a facility that will act as both an emergency shelter and transitional housing as well as a treatment facility.
"I want to create a situation in Baltimore city that will reduce bias against transgender people and afford them a better quality of life," she said.
