In the beginning of Moving on Nightfall, the protagonist, Jenny, is revealed to be a homeless, transgendered, late-teens prostitute. While I didn’t need to do a lot of research to develop her character or her living situation, I did do some research to make sure that I could give the readers a firm grasp on the small details of her character, her current living situation on the street, as well as the factors that led her there. It was the little details that I wanted to make sure I knew well, so the reader wouldn’t have to stop and question whether something was accurate.

Jenny lives in a big city, so I did some research on queer youth in cities. One of the biggest cities with a very high percentage of GLBTQ homeless youth is New York City, and so several of my links led there.

75 Beds for 1,254 Kids: One third of NYC’s 3,800 homeless youths are LGBT
State of the City’s Homeless Youth Report 2003
Editorial Observer; Helping Them Make It Through the Night
A Life and Death on NYC Streets

There also are some articles on how these kids get to be on the street.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth: An epidemic of homelessness
Throwaway Teens - a 20/20 report on how some of these kids end up on the street.

And I also bookmarked some trans articles on homelessness and its side effects -
Making Change: The Cost of Being Transgender
It’s a trans world
Crossing to Safety: Transgender Health & Homelessness
Engaging Transgender Substance Users in Substance Use Treatment

And also, the book Transparent: Love, Family, and Living the T with Transgender Teenagers by Cris Beam.

None of these will actually go into or give me my story. Rather, it’s like visiting a place to get the feel for it - it will help me to add that air of authenticity of something I already know, but want to make very clear.