On Friday, November 18th, New York City’s first LGBTQ+ owned and run housing complex opened in Queens, 30 years after the owner said she first thought of the idea.
Ceyenne Doroshow, a trans woman who is the founder and executive director of Gay and Lesbians Living in a Transgender Society, or GLITS, bought the housing complex, which has 11 apartments spanning three floors in the Queen’s Woodhaven neighborhood.
“Thirty years of a dream, of doing something like this,” Doroshow said at the opening ceremony. “But not just doing it, putting us in an area, in a location where we don’t have to run.”
Doroshow said the building’s basement is being converted into an educational and learning center, as she considers education to be “the key and the base to everything you need in this world.”
“This was created out of love,” she said. “Each apartment will have and be — created, and painted and styled — by a designer, an interior designer. The apartments are painted by volunteers. The art and everything has been donated. The furnitures were donated from Disney hotels. This is an act of love.”
Doroshaw added that GLITS’ mission has always been to help people internationally, especially her own LGBTQ+ community.
“My community is being hunted all around the world,” Doroshaw said. “If I’m going to have a mission and a statement, my mission has always been to change the lives of my community, to infuse and get young people to rethink what a career is, to invest in ourselves so we can see a better future.”