“This is where we socialize, we mix and mingle… we discover new things, we explore ourselves.” So says Desean Irby, a young man caught in the precarity of homelessness, when asked to describe the significance of New York City’s Christopher Street Pier. For many homeless queer and trans youth of colour, the Pier is both living room and work place. Some have been living and surviving amidst the city’s West Side for nearly a decade, and we learn how they function on a dime and build strong kinship in the process.

Elegance Bratton’s character study bears major likeness to Jennie Livingston’s Paris is Burning—you might recognize the spontaneous vogueing, the ballroom scenes, the brief visits to peoples’ cramped, make-shift apartments—but Pier Kids is concerned far more with the direct effects of homelessness and homophobia in these young folks’ lives. New York is as tough as ever, and Bratton’s film is a testament to the resilience and joy that can still be found on the street, within the city’s most marginalized communities. -SB

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