February 9 will mark the 10-year anniversary of this column. It’s been a decade of fabulous people and interesting conversations, but more reflection about that next week. I decided to wrap up the first 10 years with a young advocate who gives us hope for the future of the LGBTQAIP … community.
Phantazia Washington is a genial, thoughtful, soft-spoken young woman — but don’t let that fool you. She’s been a warrior for LGBTQ youth since she was 15 and was named youth grand marshal of the Pride parade in 2012. Not bad for someone who just celebrated her 23rd birthday.
PGN: I understand a bathroom wall started your life as an activist?
PW: Yes, absolutely. In 2006, when I came out as a lesbian during my freshman year of high school, I realized that my school climate was not a supportive one. The staff and administration were rather homophobic: They would give students in-house suspensions for anything from actual, to perceived, lesbian activities. A simple hug between two girls could warrant a full-day suspension. When I noticed this happening, I joined the school’s GSA [Gay-Straight Alliance], only to find that it was very limited. The administration did a lot to block them and I felt powerless. While the staff was not supportive of LGBTQ individuals, most of the students in my school were, so I decided to write a message on the back of the bathroom stalls, where I figured everyone would see them. I basically declared that there were more of us students than there were staff members and, as such, we held the power to make changes that would affect and control the way we were being treated. It was a school of 2,000, but the vice principal came to me and said, “We know it was you.” Luckily for me, she did try to do her best to counteract the homophobia coming from other school officials and staff and essentially let me go. There were repercussions later but, in that moment, I was thankful.
PGN: How long was your manifesto and did you handwrite it in each stall?
PW: It was a nice little paragraph. And yes, I hand-copied it in just about every single stall. I guess it wasn’t that hard to figure out that it was me; I did have a bit of a reputation for being a radical and an activist.
PGN: Where did you get your activism?
PW: I’ve just always been loud about the things I felt were wrong. I’d get myself purposefully suspended just to point out how ridiculous things were.
PGN: How did that go over with the folks?
PW: Well, for a while I was able to hide it, but when my mother found out, as you might expect, she was incredibly upset. I also wasn’t out to my mother in high school, which was why I wasn’t very vocal about what I was doing or why I was doing it. In retrospect, after coming out to her and her being amazingly accepting, I realize she probably would have had my back.
PGN: Where and how did you grow up?
PW: West Philadelphia. I have a half-sister, Jada, who’s 4. She was born when I was 18 so I was basically raised as an only child. I’m mixed: My dad is white and I’ve never known him. My mother is African-American and she raised me. We have a very small, close-knit group. Even my extended family only has about 20 people. I was always very fearful about coming out to them, only to find that they were some of the most accepting folks imaginable. I don’t even think my Nana knows what transgender means, but she knows to use male pronouns with my partner.
PGN: What’s an earliest memory?
PW: Probably my first kiss. It was behind a bush with a little boy in my class. It was in pre-school and I remember thinking I was being very secretive but everyone knew about it before it was time to go inside.
PGN: What were some of your favorite things to do as a kid?
PW: I was always very femme, for lack of a better word, so I’d dress very dramatically, but I was also very rough. So I’d wear my large, poufy Christmas dress to a friend’s house and climb trees.
PGN: In high school?
PW: I was very involved in stage crew and, of course, the GSA, and I was involved with the school’s anime club. A friend of my mom’s used to watch “Dragon Ball Z” when I was a kid and it got me into it. The animation is so beautiful and the stories so unique.
PGN: Higher learning?
PW: No, I was always a good student when I went to class but I was a little rebel with a cause. I ended up dropping out at 15 and started working at a thrift store.
PGN: So you dropped out of school, which must have thrilled your mother; how did you get to where you are now?
PW: When I was in the GSA in high school, I learned about The Attic and started going there when I was 15. I went there steadily for several years and then tapered off a bit. I started coming back when I heard about an opportunity for young people who had experience with homelessness, housing insecurity or had entered the juvenile-justice system to be involved in a youth-run training team teaching the Transitions framework. That’s a program that looks at the various changes that LGBT youth encounter when they are placed. I applied for the position and trained for four months learning the framework and facilitation skills and then went into the field, training child-welfare professionals.
PGN: What is your job now?
PW: I am the Bryson Institute trainer and my primary function is going out and doing trainings, as well as all the other things necessary for the trainings, such as creating the presentations and eval crunching, and research is a huge part of it.
PGN: What did The Attic mean to you when you first got there?
PW: I think, like most of the kids who go to The Attic, it was the first time in my life that I’d been in a space that was totally accepting. It was the first time I’d ever encountered LGBTQ adults …
PGN: [Interrupts] Wow, I never even thought of that aspect of the center!
PW: Yeah, I’d never met an LGBTQ adult. I didn’t even know they existed as a child. Coming from my high school, I was surrounded by homophobic adults from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and then got to go to The Attic and interact with grownups, straight and gay, who accepted and embraced you and told you that you were OK. It was pretty amazing.
PGN: What are some of the challenges specifically faced by LGBTQ foster kids?
PW: Non-LGBTQ youth enter the system for a variety of reasons, but a majority of LGBTQ youth are in the system because of family rejection. There’s a slew of concurrent changes when a child is placed; oftentimes they need to move to a new neighborhood or school so there’s a loss of friends, a loss of their support system, separation from siblings, etc. And so what looks like a single event — being kicked out of the home — often results in immense changes.
PGN: What was a statistic that surprised you?
PW: LGBTQ youth are only 4-10 percent of the population, but about 40 percent of the national homeless youth are LGBTQ. Most people say, “OK, that’s nationally, that’s not here in Philadelphia,” but it’s 36 percent in Philadelphia, which is striking.
PGN: Where do these kids go?
PW: That’s the other thing, out of the national budget for homelessness, only about 1 percent is dedicated to youth and zero percent is specifically dedicated to LGBTQ youth. Some of them enter shelters, but that’s not always safe. Often they couch surf and many are just out on the street. Young people in particular are very savvy and they know the conditions in the child-welfare system are not always safe, and they do what they need to do to stay away. Just turn on the TV and you’ll see terrible stories of what can happen to kids placed in the system and it’s even worse for LGBTQ kids. So they find ways to stay off the radar. But then we think that, because we don’t see them, they don’t exist.
PGN: So if someone is 15 and found by the state, they’re going to place them in a center or foster home not knowing if it’s safe for an LGBTQ child or not. Sheesh, and it seems that a lot of people who do this work come from faith-based backgrounds that aren’t always the most open-minded.
PW: Yes, and sexual identity or gender expression is not one of the questions asked when making placements. There’s nothing in place to keep them from being put in the care of a homophobe.
PGN: You’ve done work with the police. What were some of the issues brought up? Right now the police are not in the best public favor.
PW: It’s interesting, doing these presentations you have to be very diplomatic. But all of the things we touch on are from actual youth’s experience. So we touch on things like incorrigibility. All a parent has to say is, “This child is not following my house rules so they can no longer live here!” But those rules may be, “I’ve asked them not to dress a certain way,” or “I’ve told them they can’t be LGBTQ living under my roof, but they insist on being it.” So if the parent thinks you’re disobeying them, just being LGBTQ can be enough to land you in the juvenile-justice system. We also look at things like condom laws and profiling around prostitution. In Philadelphia, if you have a certain number of condoms, it can be used as evidence that you were soliciting. If you’re in certain neighborhoods that have a history of sex work and you have more than three condoms, it can be a reason to take you into custody. Even for folks doing outreach, passing out condoms, they often call the districts ahead so that police don’t think that they’re engaging in prostitution.
PGN: Yikes, I have some condoms that someone gave me at a Pride event. I was going to give them out but perhaps I’ll rethink that. I’m learning so much from you! Let’s learn more about you. How did you meet your partner?
PW: [Laughs] OK, his name is Lique and we met at The Attic at the annual Halloween party. I was dressed as a cat and he was way too cool for costumes — in his opinion. We actually recently calculated and figured out that we met Oct. 22, 2006, and started dating about four years ago. We just moved in together last July.
PGN: Is there a story behind your name?
PW: My mother is a huge fan of “The NeverEnding Story” and the land that they live in was called Fantasia. My mother was an English major so she enjoys playing with language and decided to name me Fantasia with a “Ph” and a “z.”
PGN: What was the best thing about being grand marshal of the Pride parade?
PW: All of the people I was able to meet as a result, including the mayor and Rep. Brian Sims.
PGN: I know you like accessories; did you get a big sash?
PW: No, but I got the rainbow medal and the Liberty Bell medal.
PGN: Any pets and, if so, what questions would you ask them?
PW: I have a pit-bull terrier named Brindle at my mother’s house. I’d ask him if he was happy. Dogs’ expressions are always written on their faces but are they truly reflective of how he feels? I’m very maternal with him so I’d want to know what he needs, what dog food he likes best, if he likes his name, etc.
PGN: What do you miss most about summer?
PW: I absolutely miss summer clothing. I miss my short-shorts so much. They’re just wonderful. I miss not needing six or seven layers, and I miss my flip-flops.
PGN: Our family claim to fame is …
PW: My nana’s macaroni and cheese.
PGN: Tell me more about her.
PW: She’s the most supportive person ever. When I was going through some problems at home as a teen, she let me stay with her. I was super-lucky growing up in that I had my mother and her mother (my grandmother), my great-grandmother and my great-great-grandmother in my life. We all lived together until I was 11. We had to get creative with the names so I called my grandmother Nana and my great-grandmother was Grandma and my great-great-grandmother was Sweetie Pie. A very matriarchal household.
PGN: And what about Sweetie Pie?
PW: Oh, my Sweetie Pie. She had that name for a reason. She was the sweetest woman in the world. She was the one always trying to feed you. She loved the movies “Dirty Dancing” and “E.T.” She’d eat peanut brittle even when it made her teeth fall out and she was incredibly driven. She didn’t care what anyone thought as long as her loved ones were happy.
PGN: Pen or pencil?
PW: Oh my gosh, there is just something about a sharp pencil that … it’s just the king of writing utensils.
PGN: If you had to describe yourself as a traffic sign, what would it be?
PW: I’d probably be a yield sign. I like the authority that rings from a yield sign.
PGN: Scariest thing you’ve done for fun?
PW: That tree-climbing adventurous child is still inside of me. I live near Cobbs Creek and I love walking in the woods. Last Thanksgiving we went for a walk and it was a really weird day; first we got chased by a pit bull that came out of nowhere in the middle of the woods and then we came across a huge buck with giant antlers. It was only about 10 feet away from us and it was terrifying and beautiful at the same time.
PGN: What Olympic sport would you want to compete in?
PW: I never really got into sports, though I played a little soccer as a kid. Something that defies gravity, maybe gymnastics.
PGN: What one rule did you always disagree with growing up?
PW: I didn’t like curfew, it was not my thing. And my mother was pretty lenient, but I still pushed it.
PGN: What else should I know about you?
PW: Well, in the area where I used to live, not so much where I live now, there seemed to be a lot of stray animals and a lot of dead animals. I’d call the city to have them removed but it would take forever and there were a lot of kids on my block. That’s not OK, so I took to cleaning up the dead animals myself and burying them. I then later began digging them up and making jewelry out of the bones. And that’s my hobby!
PGN: [Laughs] Sorry I asked! So when they arrest you for carrying condoms and dead animal bones, I’ll make sure they read this column to explain it.
PW: Ha! I’d appreciate that.
For more information on The Attic Youth Center, visit atticyouthcenter.org.
To suggest a community member for Family Portrait, email [email protected].