Risking it All to Find Safety

JULIUS’S SHEER POWER is just unsettling. It starts with the 22-year-old’s evident beauty—the bright smile, the cherub-like innocence of his round face, his smooth, dark skin and baby dreads—all of which work alongside a sharp, speedy mind and a disarming charm to concoct a potent, volatile brew. His physicality is unquestionably male—he’s nearly six feet tall, with square shoulders and rounded if unsculpted musculature that he shows off in tight shirts and tank tops. But he wields his manhood in an overtly feminine way; where other guys strut, Julius swishes. And this recasting of male form in female style creates a gender play that’s more take-no-shit diva than nelly boy. Julius is cut out for big things and knows as much. But there’s no telling exactly what the nature of his large-scale acts will be on any given day—he’s equally capable of stunning achievement and devastating self-destruction. When I met Julius, he was one of a group of transient queer youth crashing in a little white house at the northern end of Crystal Street in Brooklyn’s rough-and-tumble East New York neighborhood. He was confused about many things in his emotional life at the time, but on one thing he was clear: he didn’t fit in. “I’m always dressed up like, you can tell that child’s a faggot from a mile away,” he sighs. “From the way I walk, you can just tell.” The old, two-story fixer-upper on Crystal Street has a warm hominess that mitigates the swirling chaos it often hosts. The living room and kitchen are splashed with bright, bold, defiant colors—oranges, yellows, reds—and a giant mural depicting an underwater wonderland covers a long stretch of wall connecting the two big open spaces. Beadwork designs of moons and seascapes cover the cabinets. The bedrooms upstairs are cramped, sure, but also cozy. The basement’s been converted into a comfortable but cluttered office, its walls lined with books and posters bearing the slogans of social change movements. SOURCE:COLORLINES