There’s a story I heard growing up about a man walking along a beach covered in starfish. He started picking them up, one by one, and throwing them back into the ocean.

Someone stopped him and looked down the beach at all the starfish he could never possibly reach. “Why are you doing that?” they asked. “You can’t save them all.”

The man picked up another starfish and threw it into the water.

“Well,” he responded. “I saved that one.”

I think of this story when people ask me—a 49-year-old straight Midwestern woman—why I keep opening my door to queer and trans youth who need a safe haven.

You see, I grew up in Joplin, in the southwest corner of Missouri, deep in the Ozarks. It was a very, very conservative place. In 2024, 72% of the populationvoted for Trump, and conservative Christianity was at the center of almost everything.

As such, I was a church kid. At youth group, everything was about Jesus. And when nearly everyone around you believes the same things, you don’t realize there are other ways to see the world.

I always thought being gay was a choice. And being trans wasn’t even on my radar. A lot of what I believed was left unchallenged until I left for college and started meeting queer people. 

When I arrived at Truman University in Kirksville, Missouri, I met the first openly gay person I’d ever knowingly laid eyes on. And I was shocked that his sexual orientation was just a part of who he was. He was a music major who was involved in Bible studies and whose dad was a Lutheran minister. 

And I quickly realized how misunderstood queer people were in Missouri.

So the answer is simple when people ask, “Amanda, why do you let people you barely know stay in your tiny apartment? Why is there always another young person sleeping on your couch? Another friend of a friend who says they just need somewhere safe to land?”

I know what it feels like when there isn’t a door open for you.

More than a decade ago, at 37 years old, my marriage fell apart and I lost my home. I tried to get a job, but it didn’t pay enough to cover the bills for my son and me. For the next four years, I bounced from place to place, couch surfing and sometimes sleeping in a tent.

I remember desperately wishing someone would notice that I was drowning. I didn’t need someone to fix my life, but I needed someone to see me.

Eventually, I found my way back into stable housing. I still remember sitting in my car outside the apartment complex in Kansas City, Missouri, after they approved my application. I screamed and cried harder than I had in years, thinking, “Oh my God, I did it! It’s over.”

A few months later, someone posted on a Free Mom Hugs Facebook group about two transgender girls who had been kicked out of their home because of their gender identity. Immediately, my heart lurched for them. They had found a shelter, but there wasn’t room for them for another two weeks. People were trying to raise enough money to keep them in a hotel until a bed opened up.

I remember reading the post and thinking, “No.”

They don’t need another fundraiser. They need somewhere to sleep tonight. They need someone to show them that they cared.

That one decision changed my life.

Over the next seven years, my apartment transformed into a sanctuary for those left behind and overlooked. It has become a revolving door for trans teenagers and young adults escaping unsafe homes, people who just needed a place to catch their breath for a few days, and even the occasional stray pet. Some stayed one night. Others stayed for months.

But each one of them has reminded me how close any of us can be to losing everything.

A few years later, in 2025, Hayden and Grayson, two trans teens in foster care, came to stay with me after running out of other options.

They were understandably exhausted. Like many other trans youth, they’d been put through the wringer of America’s foster care system. The youngest, Hayden, told me that they had been through over 150 homes in the 10 years they were in the system. In one home, they said they were forced to eat outside with the dogs because they were exhibiting gender nonconforming behavior.

So when they arrived, I made it a point not to give them a list of rules or start asking what their plan was. I told them to sleep. 

They normally woke up early, but that first morning they slept until noon and immediately started apologizing. I remember telling them, “I’m not going to yell at you. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

It took days for them to believe that.

Hayden especially took a while to warm up. A few days after they arrived, we sat on my bed and talked. They shared with me photos and videos of them as a kid, and it crushed me when I saw how innocent and sweet they were. It hurt even more when they told me they were the only sibling out of 10 who was never adopted.

I cried and told Hayden, “I’m sorry it took me 19 years, but I’m here now.”

After giving them time to rest and recover, I started helping Hayden and Grayson look for jobs to get them back on their feet. After two months at my house, they decided to move back to Texas to try again with Hayden’s mom. We loaded up the car with as much as we could—it was next-level Tetris—and they were on their way.

Over the last seven years, I’ve hosted over 15 people. My now 13-year-old son, Sam, is always so welcoming and open to my bonus kids. Each time, I think to myself: What would happen to these young souls if they didn’t have a place? If they didn’t have someone to care for them?

I remember the most recent teenager I hosted read an article from Uncloseted Media and learned that 45% of fostered LGBTQ youth have attempted suicide.

She was shocked. And scared. 

“That’s why you are here,” I told her. “I know that statistic by heart, and that is why you are here.”

A couple of weeks ago, a friend started renting their house out to me and all the youth we take in. We feel stable because the rent is based on our actual income—if I lost my job tomorrow, the rent would be $0. The kids still ask, “Is this real?”

In 2026, I am acutely aware of the situation for queer and trans kids. In addition to the suicide rates being so high, queer and trans youth struggle with anxiety, depression and housing instability.

Whenever I think about how massive a problem this is, I return to thinking about that beach.

I think about every one of the 15 kids I’ve helped: the two kids in foster care who had somewhere to sleep that night; the teenager who got a few weeks to breathe; the person who knew there was at least one door they could knock on.

And I think about the ones I didn’t know were lying there. There are still starfish on the beach.

And I’ll keep picking them up, one at a time.