Ceyenne Doroshow with community members at the grand opening of G.L.IT.S 1 South, November 2020
About Us
G.L.I.T.S is a Black trans-led advocacy and direct services organization that is dedicated to fighting systemic discrimination against marginalized communities, in New York City and beyond.
With a focus on housing justice, community empowerment, long-term success, harm reduction, and our fundamental human rights, we:
Provide immediate crisis support for transgender sex workers, asylum seekers, and other marginalized people, with an emphasis on meeting the needs of TLGBQIA+ and BIPOC community members
Secure stable housing for transgender individuals to help break the cycle of disenfranchisement
Meet the healthcare needs of transgender sex workers, given the profound need for safe sex supplies and affordable healthcare
Advocate for the inclusion and wellness of the communities we serve, while combatting stigma and criminalization
Founded in 2016, G.L.I.T.S addresses barriers faced by community members at the intersection of gender, race, and class through direct services, advocacy, mass mobilization, media engagement, and public education. Our initiatives include sustainable housing projects and plans for a dedicated health clinic, all documented as pilot projects for broader application.
Our Founder and Executive Director, Ceyenne Doroshow, is an internationally recognized activist, speaker, and human rights defender who has championed her communities for decades.
Initiatives
GLITS 1 South
After raising more than $1 million during Pride Month in 2020, Ceyenne Doroshow realized a dream 30 years in the making and bought a building for the community, G.L.I.T.S 1 South: a 12-unit apartment building in Queens that is not only dedicated to housing predominantly Black trans community members but is Black trans-owned, as well, making it the first multiple-unit housing complex of its kind. Residents are selected through G.L.I.T.S’ Leadership Academy, a program that not only ends their housing insecurity but transforms them into the community leaders of tomorrow by supporting their continued education, career ambitions, artistic talents, and other long-term goals. In addition to the 12 housing units, G.L.I.T.S 1 South offers a community space that hosts guest lecturers, workshops, and other programming.
Emergency Housing
After our incredibly successful trans housing pilot program that culminated with the purchase of G.L.I.T.S 1 South, it became clearer than ever that we need more trans-operated emergency housing programs. These programs not only allow for a temporary respite to formerly incarcerated and/or otherwise unhoused BIPOC trans people, but provide tenants with the tangible tools and community care necessary to transform their lives. In G.L.I.T.S’ housing program, tenants will receive access to free emergency housing, long-term rental subsidies and assistance, financial consulting, tenant rights education, housing placement services, and access to additional G.L.I.T.S programming and services.
Study & Work
GLITS has proudly supported countless community members in finding sustainable employment and completing their degrees. Between this and our various housing initiatives, G.L.I.T.S has changed the lives of many high-risk community members, transforming their material conditions so that they can regain control of their futures. While we outsource many programs that we send our community members to (job training, career counseling, GED and other college prep classes), these programs are predominantly cis and straight, and the intense transphobia that our community members face in these environments often prevents them from completing their training. To remove this barrier to our community members’ success, we will build a new learning center in the basement of G.L.I.T.S 1 South where tutors, teachers, and consultants will be able to offer courses in an academically rigorous and trans-affirming environment.
Wellness Centers
Poverty, mourning, partying, and protesting are often the only reasons why trans people come together en masse. G.L.I.T.S imagines so much more. That’s why we’re working to create two trans-owned wellness and retreat centers where community members will be able to unwind, rest, farm, heal, and so much more together. The first center, to be opened at Brooklyn’s historically queer Riis Beach, will provide employment and a safe haven while protecting the space from gentrification and privitization, all the while working to achieve state-recognized landmark and landtrust status for this vital community space. The second center, to be located in Upstate New York, will be a retreat center for personal and collective care, where trans organizers, artists, and survivors can gather to support each other while building the tools to grow and develop their relationship to nature and the land.
Harm Reduction & End of Life Support
State violence, transmisogyny, anti-Blackness, and capitalism have plagued our community with untimely, preventable deaths. Contrary to widespread belief, death does not have to be our destiny. G.L.I.T.S understands this and works to ensure that our surviving community members continue to do just that—survive—by providing harm reduction and safety training around drug use, sex work, suicidality, and street safety. Simultaneously, we offer support to the friends and family of those we’ve lost by ensuring respectful funeral arrangements, gender-affirming burials, and sustainable wills and life insurance policies, while advocating for legislation that decriminalizes our existence and prevents our dehumanization after we are gone.
Emergency Fund
While working towards its long-term initiatives, the core of G.L.I.T.S’ work involves responding to our community members’ urgent and emergent needs. As such, we strive to maintain a budget that allows us to provide whatever support is needed in those moments of emergency, whether that’s warm clothes for winter, bail support, medical assistance, safe transportation, nourishing food, mental health services, or any other assistance. We do what we can, when we can, to keep fighting like hell for the living.