Tucked away at the end of a long line of car repair shops in Fort Lauderdale, The McKenzie Project looks from the outside like it might be just another small South Florida business. Inside, the neon-lime green walls tell a different story.
The McKenzie Project, founded by Jasmine McKenzie, serves as a vital lifeline for Black, trans youth in South Florida despite cuts to federal funding and philanthropy to LGBTQ organizations.
McKenzie, 36, sits proudly at the front desk. It’s a space she herself needed when she was growing up in Miami.
“I didn’t have a space when I first came out into my transition. It was rough and tough. I had to do a lot of fighting growing up: homophobia, slurs, and then they went from homophobia to transphobia.” McKenzie said. “When I was 14, I got kicked out — nowhere to go.”
The McKenzie Project has emerged to “uplift individuals aged 14 and above.”
This is not only an age that reflects McKenzie’s own personal experience, but it also reflects trends she has observed within her community.
“From what I’ve seen in Black communities, that’s the starting age range that we have seen Black people transition,” McKenzie said, sitting under a mirror. “A few years ago, [there was] a young, young trans girl. She was 14 years old. She was attacked twice at school. We were an organization that stepped in to help support her.”
Violence against trans people in Florida has become a growing issue in the state. According to the Human Rights Campaign, Florida is ranked as having the second-highest murder rate in the country for trans people.
“There are so many trans girls, even trans men that are being murdered. So many are under the age of 21. They don’t even get to see what life is like,” McKenzie said.
Survival sex work
Many moments felt like life or death for McKenzie, especially as she was experiencing homelessness as a teen after being kicked out by her family. Familial rejection is unfortunately not unique.
A study conducted by the Trevor Project, a national organization whose mission it is to help LGBTQ+ teens, found that 26% of Black LGBTQ have experienced homelessness or housing insecurity in their lifetime.
McKenzie often sees these statistics of familial and social rejection playing out in the real lives of young trans people today.
“Even when I was working at other organizations, there were young [people] at 14, saying stuff like ‘I’ll be 14 this week, but my Mama just kicked me out.’ It’s a tough thing," McKenzie said.
While experiencing homeless as a teenager in Miami, McKenzie was pushed into survival sex work — defined as sex that is done to fulfill basic needs like food and shelter.
According to a study from the Chicago Alliance Agaisnt Sexual Exploitation, homelessness can make youth three to seven times more likely to be pushed into survival sex work.
“When you hear [about] trans people, especially Black trans, the first go-to thing is sex work. A lot of the girls who do sex work don’t even know that they have God-given talents and gifts,” McKenzie said. “And I say that because I was a person who engaged in survival sex work.”
It is through this experience that McKenzie has made it a mission of her organization to diminish the reliance on survival sex work in her community. This was once the circumstance for Nikolette Wimberly, Community Consultant at The McKenzie Project.
“At the time I was doing sex work, and I was so over it. Like I just did not want to do it anymore,” Wimberly said. “I told Jasmine that I need to find a job. Next thing you know, I got an email about work at The McKenzie Project.
“It put me in a place to know really what I was worth, and what I could do if I put my mind to it. It just made me know, like there is something else for trans people other than sex work,” added Wimberly.
Of course, the experience of survival sex work is not ubiquitous throughout the Black trans community in South Florida. But many trans women report feeling sexualized because of their gender identity, according to a 2020 study on gender-based violence and dating. But The McKenzie Project stands in contrast to these dehumanizing views.
“I want to let Black trans girls know that it’s okay to remove yourself from sex work,” McKenzie added. “It’s okay to start a business. When I was engaged in survivor sex work, I had a website, I had flyers, I did photos, I did edits. All that already is a job within itself. So if I could do all that, why can’t I do that for a company?”
Empowering others
When McKenzie began to provide assistance to her community, she was in the midst of working through an HIV diagnosis. Though she initially hid her diagnosis and took her medication in secret, she eventually shared her story and empowered others to come forward. “Because of that, I think I probably was able to get like, 494 girls connected to services,” McKenzie said.
McKenzie sees her community through different eyes: dignified eyes. This is the perspective that she has injected into her organization, which now has four main goals: eradicate homelessness, diminish the reliance on sex work in the community, combat the HIV epidemic in South Florida, and promote joy and liberation within the trans community.
Camille Lewis, Program Director at The McKenzie Project has watched McKenzie’s journey up close.
“I met Jasmine before there was Jasmine,” Lewis said, next to a wall with a pride flag painted on it. “The McKenzie Project for me is a full circle moment for helping her in the midst of her journey. Jasmine always said to me, ‘You are a force to be reckoned with.’ And to this day she reminds me about that because sometimes I forget.”
Recently, The McKenzie Project acquired a house for their “The House of the South” initiative. This will be a supportive housing program for trans people who don’t have income. McKenzie described what she envisions: fruits, vegetables, flowers, chicken to lay eggs, and four beds. The McKenzie Project plans to use community gardens throughout Florida to feed people sustainably.
This is all part of McKenzie’s larger goal, which is to promote joy and liberation in her community. This is what she imagines that to look like:
“It looks like a space where we don’t have to question ourselves. We don’t have to question community. Having equal and fair employment opportunities and being able to see a doctor without being turned down or getting your insurance canceled because you want to do gender affirming surgeries,” McKenzie said. “I see a world with all that. We no longer have to hide who we is. We don’t have to disclose who we is. We don’t have to do risky things for survival."
This story was originally published by CommunityWire.Miami, an independent, community news outlet in the School of Communication at the University of Miami. The news service, staffed primarily by graduate journalism students, provides informative and interesting coverage of the university’s nearby cities.
