Point Source Youth

For youth consultant Marco, Paris Is Burning was more than a film. It was a glimpse of q***r joy, chosen family, and possibility. It also helped him connect LGBTQ+ history, immigration, and youth homelessness and the urgent need to reach young people before crisis becomes homelessness. “There is hope,” Marco reminds us.

“If an issue is invisible, it is not dealt with.”

For PSY board member Ronald Johnson, Pride has always been about visibility — and visibility is how movements make change possible. In the next video in our Pride series, Ronald reflects on the early work to bring LGBTQ+ youth homelessness into public view, including a 1987 conference focused on youth homelessness and LGBTQ+ young people.

The same forces Ronald names — homophobia, racism, economic discrimination, stigma, and isolation — still drive youth homelessness today. This Pride Month, we honor the people who refused to let LGBTQ+ youth remain invisible.

PSY Youth Consultant Koda reflects on the pre-colonial sacred stones of the Kapaemahu, the history of māhū identity in Hawaiian culture, and what it means to grow up in a world that turns sacred identities into slurs.

Koda shares how isolation, discrimination, and trauma contributed to becoming homeless at 16 and again at 19 — and how the uplift of LGBTQ+ identity during Pride can help young people move through powerlessness and toward stability.