Each day we negotiate social codes, experience dynamic situations, and affect the spaces we move through in the interactions we share with those around us. Whether stepping into a gender-specific restroom, walking down the sidewalk, or sitting alongside strangers on a subway train, our relation to physical spaces are as unique to the multifaceted identities we both inwardly and outwardly assume. Could we, however, more fully recognize how we relate to others and to the spaces we occupy? Perhaps more often than not, we go about our day-to-day routines with the inability to recognize the detachment one trans-identifier feels when walking into a gendered restroom, or the disconnection experienced by a runaway youth who must negotiate sleeping in a subway cart. Do we, could we, live in a world where we more fully recognize our responsibility for each other?

Consolidated into both a design model and process, We All Matter develops and tests new designed responses that speak directly with community groups. Focused on better understanding the needs of LGBTQ youth populations experiencing homelessness, participatory assessment tools work to engage and empower LGBT young people by allowing participants to more easily identify with one’s felt experiences through empathetic techniques. Design deliverables in response to assessment outcomes are then given back to the community, opening opportunity for LGBT youth to feel better affirmed and see themselves in new, expressive ways. This project is a pursuit for justice; a continual search for a way in which to contribute to a just society that allows us all to freely and autonomously move through everyday spaces. Website: www.jacobphernandez.com