NY Times: After Working the Streets, Bunk Beds and a Mass

Every Sunday morning in a second-floor apartment in Astoria, Queens, the Rev. Louis Braxton Jr. rouses a half-dozen sleeping bodies from bunk beds in two cramped rooms littered with stiletto heels and skimpy dresses.

The groggy young adults reach for their makeup kits and fight for the lone bathroom. Once their makeup, hair and clothes are just right, they trudge into the living room, holding handbags and teetering on high heels, and sit facing an altar set up by Father Braxton.

An Episcopal priest, he says Mass and prays for their souls. He makes passing references to sins of the flesh, appropriately enough, since his flock has spent the previous night working as prostitutes on the “tranny stroll” near Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, where men go for quick sex with men who look like women.

Read it all here.