Meet Cherry McCutchen, Director of Learning and Development

June is National Pride Month, which commemorates the 1969 Stonewall uprising and recognizes the impact and contributions of individuals who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ+). In honor of Pride Month, we’re highlighting the work of NYCHA’s LGBTQ+ employees.   

“I’m ‘Cherry.’ I don’t ascribe to labels or pronouns. If someone asks how I identify, the answer is: ‘I’m Cherry.’ I happen to be same-gender-loving but that’s just a part of me, that’s not all of me,” explained Cherry McCutchen, NYCHA’s Director of Learning and Development.

While Ms. McCutchen became a NYCHA employee 12 years ago, her NYCHA story began at birth.

“I was born and lived in the Forest Houses,” Ms. McCutchen said. “My parents were sharecroppers; they picked cotton and migrated to New York from the South. They used to live in Harlem, and the NYCHA apartment they finally were offered was like a promised land. My grandparents, parents, uncles, and aunts all cycled through our two-bedroom NYCHA apartment in the Bronx at some point. After I left for college, they moved out of housing.

“I knew relatively early in my life that I was same-gender loving. As a young kid growing up in NYCHA developments in the 70s, I didn’t often see queer people around. There were one or two individuals that people would whisper about, but it wasn’t anything that you saw regularly. My family is Christian, and we went to the church a lot. There weren’t a lot of affirming churches at that time, and I had this duality of Christianity and God opposed to my identity, which probably kept me from living out loud earlier.”

Speaking about her experiences as a queer person, Ms. McCutchen compares her youth with the freedoms that young people enjoy now: “I am always very enamored by the young folks nowadays who are out and live proudly. I’m happy they have that experience. I can’t say that was my experience. It wasn’t something that I was ready to share until I was in my early 20s.”   

Years later, Ms. McCutchen discovered that everyone around her knew before she officially came out: “I think and I feel that when you have a family who loves you and cares about you – they know. They may not always be very accepting, but they know. I was very fortunate to have a family who loves me, cares about me, and probably asked me a billion times. I just wasn’t ready to share that truth. And, of course, every time they asked, I said ‘no.’”

When she finally came out to her family and friends, none of them were surprised; they were instead frustrated that she shared it so late: “In college, I started feeling like I can’t live this untruth anymore. I remember feeling so compelled and so convicted by my identity that I went to my roommate – whom I was close to – crying and revealing who I am, and she’s like, ‘I know, and I love you. Now get out of my room, I need to sleep.’ I came to my parents and said, ‘Hey, listen, Mom, Dad, this is who I am.’ And they said, ‘Yeah, we kept asking you, but you kept saying ‘no.’”

Realizing that she’s one of the few who was not discriminated against, Ms. McCutchen feels very fortunate: “My parents love me; my family loves me. I can’t tell you that every single one of them is in 100 percent agreement with my lifestyle, but they love me, they love my wife and have always been supportive of me,” she said. “They don’t treat me any differently; they never have. I never felt left out; I feel extremely cared for and loved around my identity. If there’s been any conversation, it was always around my safety.”

Ms. McCutchen doesn’t do a special Pride celebration during June. “I celebrate Pride every month,” she explained. “Every day I wake up and I’m breathing, I’m happy to be alive. I’m happy to be who I am. I don’t relegate it to June similarly to Black History Month – I don’t relegate being Black to February. What happens in July? I don’t have pride anymore? I can’t wear my rainbow t-shirt in August? I celebrate humanity every day – I’m proud to be a human.”