'We can go through it together': In a challenging world, Trans Solutions empowers Hoosiers

There’s a difference between a house and a home.

A house is a shelter; a roof over one’s head. A home is a feeling — a sense of safety, family or love. A tethered connection no matter where you go.

Marissa Miller knows what that looks like. It’s the vision that lived in the back of her head for years. Where every detail is intentional. Where someone greets you when you walk in. Where everyone has room to breathe and just be.

The house is bright blue with white trim and black shutters. Surrounded by a white picket fence, it's the kind of place you’d find in the neighborhood where Beaver and Wally grew up.

In the spring, flowers fill the window boxes. A door frame in place of French doors opens into a living room with enough space for the whole family.

This house exists because not everyone has a home.

Most in the transgender community have experienced trauma usually paired with a lack of support through transitioning, said Miller, who founded the Trans Solutions Research and Resource Center last year.

“Our hope was that people would feel like this was their house,” Miller said.

The center is making a home for transgender and gender non-conforming people in Indianapolis to heighten visibility and empower the trans community to take control of their own stories and celebrate themselves.

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It’s not just a home. Those in the community can make success plans, go through job opportunities and decide what to do about their future under the watchful eye of those who have seen a lot of what they have been dealt.

While the center does not currently provide housing on location, and they hope a project of their own will come to fruition soon.

“This is their grandmother's house,” Miller said. “This is their cousin's house. This was a family member's house where we just happened to be able to receive services from.”

Making a home on 38th Street

Miller didn’t set out to become an advocate. Rather, advocacy work found her.

In 1990, while serving a six-month sentence in the Plainfield Correctional Facility, Miller tested positive for HIV.

At that time, she said Indiana Department of Correction policy dictated she be placed in a cell by herself and eat alone. She said they called it “medical deadlock.”

She filed a grievance about her isolation. She was eventually moved to a different facility. Miller was eventually released but later returned to DOC custody.

This time, she was allowed to remain with the facility’s general population. (An IDOC spokesperson told IndyStar they no longer have access to policies from that time period.)

"I was fighting for my rights," Miller said.

Miller has since worked in HIV/AIDS outreach, nonprofits and other service agencies like AIDS United. She spent time in Washington D.C., where she helped build a national effort around services for transgender and gender-nonconforming people, eventually becoming involved with the National Trans Visibility March.

Advocacy is about teaching her staff to stand up for themselves and advocate for others like them, Miller said — with a pinch of activism. Activism is necessary in order to be heard in marginalized communities, Miller said.

“We're going to raise our voices, we’re going to cuss and we're going to pump our fists and we're going to talk about Black and brown bodies,” Miller said.

Mya Moore, who works at the center, said Miller has taught her to be strong. Moore first met Miller when she was around 15 years old. Miller's been part of her transition since the beginning.

"She's such a big inspiration to the community," Moore said. "She's a great influencer."

From advocacy to groundwork

Growing up in East Chicago, Indiana, Miller’s family raised her in a devout Pentecostal faith. So much of her life, she said, was being told what she could not do.

“I certainly didn't start out (with a seat) at the table and I certainly didn't start out advocating and being part of the national trans community,” Miller said. “I started out in prison. I started out as a sex worker. I started out as a drug user. I started out as one of those young people who might not necessarily have that outlet to have those conversations.”

Miller has no regrets about her past – not prison or her drug use – and that makes her a stronger advocate, she said.

“It actually is the fuel that I use in order to make sure that other people like me don't have to go through what I have to go through,” Miller said. “If they do have to go through it, then we can go through it together.”

When you don’t fit into the boxes people put you in, she said, the world isn’t always a kind place.

Many transgender people struggle through homelessness and face housing discrimination, according to the National Center for Transgender Equality.

The Human Rights Campaign found the highest number of fatalities in a single year for the transgender community came in 2020, and the violence disproportionately impacted Black women. Additionally, studies have shown that trans people historically experience a higher rate of unemployment in addition to health-related disparities.

During this year’s legislative session, several bills were filed aiming to impact transgender Hoosiers, including a bill that would ban transgender girls from playing girls' school sports that was vetoed by Gov. Eric Holcomb this week.

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At Trans Solutions, they don’t avoid those conversations about transgender rights.

However, Miller said so much of their process is flooded with reaching those that don't have the privilege of following what's happening in the legislature.

“Where's the legislator to protect Black trans women who are disposable … what we do is we find space to stay in our lane to create liberation for everybody,” Miller said.

Those they help are trying to worry about navigating life, she said.

“It is two very different worlds, one is called privilege and one is called oppression,” Miller said. “It's not about what we're fighting for. It's about the world that we live in.”

Addressing the whole person

Trans Solutions Center opened its doors last fall, and they have since rolled out programs this year offering social and health services, mentorship and career development.

With primarily Black and transgender women leaders on staff, they zero in on inequity within the LGBTQ+ community, acknowledging shortfalls and developing strategies to combat it.

"The most exciting part about being Black and having a 90%...Black and brown staff is we have the opportunity to go take care of our people," Miller said.

Miller said they are hearing directly about needs and wants in the space, questions many were likely never asked — rather, they were told.

Miller said equity is about the people who need the most, getting the most but equality is about recognizing those people. There’s a need to address both, inside and outside the LGBTQ+ community, she said.

“My fear is that you'll never be able to get over the fact that I'm Black and trans,” Miller said, “which means that you'll never be able to see me the way that I see you.”

Miller said there are no restrictions for who they help, but services are focused on the trans community.

The house is welcoming with places to sit and talk. There’s privacy for those who need it and community rooms to facilitate collaboration. A harm-reduction center, where HIV testing is hosted weekly, awaits drop-ins in one wing of the home. In the other wing, tables are set up for GED classes and job courses.

Negativity imposed on trans people limits their successes, Miller said, and the organization is working to empower visitors to the center.

Miller wants to make the center as inviting as possible, focusing on someone's personhood and goals rather than their gender identity.

“All of trans peoples’ lives, they've had conditions placed on them about how they could be and what they could be," Miller said.

Time and again other environments for transgender people are sterile, rigid and unwelcoming, Miller said.

“There's no program out there that addresses the whole person,” Miller said.

One way they do that is through VISION, which stands for value, independence, success, initiative, opportunity and necessary education.

The training, life skills and mentorship program lets the person decide their own destiny and share what they want to focus on, Miller said, from job prospects to health care.

Tanji Bailey, director of programs at the center, said self-love comes first.

A self-described healer, Bailey said she will teach those in her programs to be selfish — in the best sense of the word — and focus on what they need in their care.

“We definitely want to provide resources, we want to have a safe haven but we also want it to be about being comfortable in loving yourself,” Bailey said.

Both Bailey and Moore said they are excited about hearing more from the community and welcoming them in.

Moore now helps run workforce development programming, reintegrating formerly incarcerated people into society by bringing them back to "where they potentially left off and try to help them to get to where they want to be."

Miller said they don't punish people who seek out the center. Rather, they let them be part of decisions of what they need and want.

“The community that we serve tells us what feels good and what doesn't feel good and we respect the word ‘ouch,’” Miller said.

In the name of a departed friend

Ke'Yahonna “YaYa” Stone never made it to her first week at Trans Solutions.

Early in the morning of Dec. 26, Stone was shot and taken to a hospital in critical condition. Days later, she succumbed to her injuries.

Friends say she tried breaking up a fight, and the result was a devastating loss.

Her case is still under investigation and remains unsolved. IMPD has asked anyone with information regarding this case is asked to contact the homicide office at 317-327-3475. Anonymous tips can also be shared with Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-262-8477.

Leslie Tidwell, her friend of more than a decade, said Stone was the kind of person to look out for everyone else, especially in her community.

“At the end of the day, she was stern but she opened her door to you,” Tidwell said. “She was almost like a safe space.”

There was a side to her that always had a guard up, Tidwell said, and she would teach others to stand up for themselves.

“She was my hero,” Tidwell said. “Everything about her.”

Stone was to help the center serve formerly incarcerated people. Her death left a hole for staff. To fill it, they started thinking about what the community needs: transitional housing.

“You touched so many lives during your time on this earth and your memory will forever remain with us,” the center wrote in tribute to Stone.

YaYa’s House, named for Stone, will be a place for transgender and gender-nonconforming people to live while completing Trans Solutions Center programs. The intent is to bridge services for those who might otherwise be left behind if they have no place to stay amid development programs, Miller said. It also seeks to provide the next steps for those who need housing.

The project will honor Stone and the work she could not complete.

Work on YaYa’s House is slated to begin later this month, coinciding with the International Trans Day of Visibility on March 31st. They plan to open by June but are still shopping for a property.

All of this work not only serves those in need of a hand now, but Miller said she hopes it inspires the next generation to take control of their own futures.

“The biggest hope for me is that this building and the other buildings that are to come from this dream will change the trajectory of someone's life,” Miller said.

Contact IndyStar's general assignment reporter Rachel Fradette at rfradette@gannett.com or follow her on Twitter: @Rachel_Fradette.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Transgender Hoosiers find community, empowerment at Trans Solutions