I'm Boycotting Jamaica

No love
It's not right
If you're gay in Jamaica
You get beat down on sight
(sung to the tune of Bob Marley's 'One Love')


TRELAWNY, JAMAICA - A cross-dreser was set upon and severely beaten by a mob in Falmouth's Water Square yesterday morning.

Police who were called to the scene had to fire warning shots to disperse the stone-throwing, stick-wielding mob, which succeeded in tearing off the man's black-and-white form-fitting blouse and jet black wig.

According to eyewitnesses, the man was spotted at approximately 8:30 am in the town centre apparently waiting for transportation. He was wearing heavy make-up, high-heeled shoes, a long pair of shiny earrings, a black leather jacket over a snug black-and-white blouse, a tight-fitting pair of jeans, a black wig, a pair of sunglasses and a handbag slung over his broad shoulders.

It was not clear yesterday how the alarm was first raised. However, the Observer was told that the assault began as soon as someone in the busy square shouted that the person was actually a man wearing female attire.

The news of the man's presence in the community spread rapidly and in a matter of minutes scores of angry residents converged on the scene and began to rain blows all over the cross-dresser's body with sticks, stones and whatever weapon they could find. "Where is the police station at?" the frightened man screamed.

During the melee, the wig the man was wearing fell off and wads of newspaper stuffed in a brasserie to lift the man's chest dislodged, while a cosmetic kit containing lipsticks of varying colours was thrown from a bag he was carrying, much to the amusement of the large crowd who stood watching.

"B***y boy fe dead," persons among the mob shouted. The sentiments were echoed by the rest of the riled-up crowd.

"Falmouth no pet no b***y boy. We no want none a them bout here," one woman yelled.

After the mob dispersed, the victim was whisked off in a police service vehicle, much to the disapproval of the crowd who rushed upon the vehicle demanding the man's release. "If you ever did see him. Him dress hotter than you and me," one young girl was overheard telling her friend.

"Nu worry man, we gi him a proper [beating]," one man said proudly.

The man was admitted to a hospital. However, a police spokesman said last night that a group of people, who wanted to beat the man on his release, were waiting outside the hospital, which, he said, could delay his release from the health facility.

Yesterday's beating was the second such in a month in western Jamaica.
In the previous incident, several men alleged to be homosexuals were chased, beaten and stabbed, resulting in one of them being hospitalised, during the Supreme Ventures carnival on Gloucester Avenue, Montego Bay. The men were said to have gone onto the stage and gyrated on each other, angering the patrons.

-------------------------------

Sadly, this is not an isolated incident in Jamaica these days.

When is someone in the Jamaican government gonna step up to the plate and state the obvious? It's not okay to beat down or kill your fellow citizens simply because you ASSUME they are gay, don't like who they sleep with if they are, or look better in a dress and heels than you do. It's also bull feces to hide behind religion to justify your naked bigotry.

Until Prime Minister Portia Simpson or someone in the Jamaican government makes that simple declaration, I propose that GLBT people worldwide initiate an immediate economic boycott of Jamaica.

Maybe hitting them in the wallet will get them to stop the madness.

The sad part is that Jamaica is one of my top ten places in the world that I would love to visit. But since they're beating and killing GLBT people on the streets and probably aren't taking the time to ascertain whether they're tourists or locals, I'm not going to the most homophobic place on Earth.

As of today I refuse to spend any more of my hard earned dollars on potential Jamaican vacations, Jamaican products, Red Stripe or Jamaican rums until they come to their senses. If I'm on a cruise and the ship stops in a Jamaican port I'm not going ashore to support the local economy.

If Jamaicans will not make room for my GLBT brothers and sisters to live peacably in their homeland and continue to viciously attack them and kill them, then why should my dollars support their naked bigotry and hatred?

Thank you Bishop Noel Jones. You and your cohorts in the Jamaican Anglican church have the blood of the Jamaican GLBT community on your hands for not only fostering the climate of hatred, but lobbying the Jamaican parliament to keep the anti-gay laws in place that are one of the root causes of the violence.

Arsenioooooooooooooooooo Hall!

AC and I were talking politics one day over dinner. During the course of our discussion the Arsenio Hall show appearance of Brother Bill came up. I smiled when I remembered the nights I used to eagerly tune in to watch Arsenio.

Through 1,284 shows aired from January 3, 1989 to May 27, 1994 Cleveland-born Arsenio Hall gave Johnny Carson, David Letterman and Jay Leno major competition in the late night talk show arena. His show pulled a 3.9 rating at its peak which was remarkable considering it was syndicated and it varied in the times that it aired in various markets.

Some of the elements of Arsenio's show were timeless. He had a band led by Michael Wolff and he opened his show with a monologue. But it was a hip and cool talk show geared to my generation, the MTV generation and my culture.

It was groundbreaking as well. Before the end of the year people were barking and pumping their fists in the air mimicking Arsenio's shout outs to the 'Dog Pound' section of his studio.

He didn't have a sidekick or an anchor desk. He did have couches to give the guests the feeling as if they were sitting in his living room. He put a multiethnic cross section of artists, musicians athletes, comedians and other personalities on his stage who weren't normally invited to other late night shows.



To realize just how groundbreaking The Arsenio Hall Show was you have to see old videotapes of it (or just check out the TransGriot Video). Every major act of the 90's from MC Hammer to TLC to Mariah Carey performed on that stage. The rap world got a major boost from various artists being spotlighted on his show. Even old school artists like James Brown and Prince came on Arsenio to perform.

He also used the show as an education platform as well. Magic Johnson made his first public appearance on Arsenio's show after disclosing he'd contracted HIV. He did one commemorating Dr. King and his legacy. Jesse Jackson, Sr. made an appearance. Nation of Islam leader Minister Louis Farrakhan was one guest that caused controversy along with Andrew 'Dice' Clay. Then presidential candidate Bill Clinton came on Arsenio in a surprise appearance that many pundits agree probably won the 1992 election for him.

Hall received two NAACP Image Awards in 1991 and a Key of Life Award for his work as “a crusader in the fight of human rights."

Since 1994 the late night talk show world hasn't been the same without Arsenio around. Here's hoping that one day he'll grace our late night TV screens again with his presence.

I Am NOT A 'Queen'

Me and my homegirl Sharron were having another one of our marathon phone conversations the other night. (despite the fact I've been battling a nasty bug for the last few days) She's an intelligent biowoman with a very enlightened outlook on things and fun to be around. Her friends encompass a diverse spectrum of people, including the TransGriot.

She's been instrumental in helping me understand the way Louisvillians think. She's been a major ally in terms of getting me to see that femininity is between your ears, not your genital configuration. Sharron also doesn't hesitate in checking me when I start whining about how I wish I'd been born female from jumpstreet. At the same time I've spent more than a few nights helping her decipher the mysteries of biomale behavior.

During our chat she relayed a conversation that she had with a gay male in which she was discussing me and a friend of mine. She objected to the gay male's constant references to transwomen as 'queens' and called him on it. The gay male dismissively said to her, "If they still have a d--- they're queens to me."

News flash to any gay or straight male, straight female, lesbian or anybody else who harbors that assumption. No disrespect to peeps that may think of themselves that way but I'm nobody's queen. I have friends who do shows. I occasionally judge pageants if asked but I am NOT a drag queen. I am a transwoman.

That condescending attitude is what causes major problems between the gay male and transgender communities. It's that Jim Fourattesque dissing of us that has been around since Stonewall that we regularly have to call peeps on.

Fouratt was one of the founders of the post-Stonewall Gay Liberation Front. He's also in some transpeeps eyes the third most hated person in the transgender community behind Janice Raymond and Germaine Greer. His views that transwomen are just 'misguided gay men who undergone sexual mutilations' enraged many of us. He has a long history through the 80's and 90's of liberally eating Hater tots when it comes to transpeople.

Unfortunately his views are still shared by many peeps of his generation. They continue to be espoused by some gay peeps from the elite upper echelons of it to the working class gay clubs. Fouratt described transgender transitions as a socially-forced "cure of homosexuality that were submitted to by confused, crazy queens". This wildly incorrect and distorted image of us was unfortunately accepted by many gay men.

That false image negatively impacted relations between the transgender and gay communites for over two decades. We fought a decade long battle with elements of the Houston Gay Lesbian Political Caucus just to get included in that influential organization. The time we wasted fighting each other distracted us from the bigger issue of the radical Religious Right-Republican takeover of Harris County and Texas. We still have echoes of this drama when you hear some GLB activists claim that we aren't part of 'their' movement or that we shouldn't be participating in 'their' pride parades.

The late Sylvia Rivera (who I had an interesting chat with during a New York vacation in May 2000) was a Stonewall Vet and founder of STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries) She had this to say in 2001 about Fouratt which is apropos to this post.

"You and others must realize that as many of you were born gay males we are born Trans. Stop speaking for me and my sisters and brothers of the Trans Community. We can speak for ourselves. Neither you nor anyone else can know our lives and our feelings."

That's one reason why this blog exists. Too many misconceptions are around about transgender peeps, especially transpeeps with my ethnic heritage. In many cases the myths and misperceptions are promoted and spread by folks who are supposed to be our allies.

Do me and other transpeeps a favor. Honor Sylvia's memory by letting us speak for and define ourselves.

NTAC Lobby Days May 15-17

I'm going to be pulling the blue and black power suits out of the closet, packing my black flats in my bags and heading to DC next month to take part in NTAC's portion of Transgender Lobby Week May 15-17.

NTAC, NCTE and GenderPac are all hitting the Hill that week to lobby in support of HR 1592, the transgender inclusive Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevetion Act that has been introduced in the House by the CBC's Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) and in the Senate by Sen Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and Sen Gordon Smith (R-OR).

Yesterday the Employment Non-Discrimination Act was introduced in the House by Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA), Deborah Pryce (R-OH), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Christopher Shays (R-CT). NTAC is currently examining the bill language to ascertain if the proposed legislation actually covers transgender people. If it does then the lobbying effort will be expanded to advocating for passage of that bill as well.

I haven't been up there since 1999 and I'm looking forward to it. This trip to DC will have a different feel to it. In addition to this being the first time I've participated in a lobby day when the Dems were running thangs on Capitol Hill, we actually have a damned good shot at making some history happen.

If you're interested in participating and haven't lobbied before, no sweat. A training session will be held on May 15 and we will have some experienced peeps to pair you up with. Lobbying is not just the province of DC based law firms, 527 orgs or corporations. You do the hiring and firing of these congresspeeps by exercising your right to vote. It is your right and duty as an American citizen and constituent to see what your congressmember is up to.

If you're worried about what to say, don't. You are more persuasive than any K Street pro in the eyes of your congresspeeps. All you have to do is stand tall, dress professionally and simply tell your story.

If you want to help make some history and participate drop AC a line at agcasebeer@bellsouth.net or hit up the NTAC website at www.ntac.org

You don't have to be transgender to participate. If you simply want to help I'm sure Ethan, AC and company will greatly appreciate any time or assistance you can give them in terms of making this lobby day a fun, prductive and successful event.

TransGriot note: I'm definitely planning on giving y'all the 411 on what happened while I was on the Hill exercising my constitutional rights to visit my lawmakers. I hope some of you can join us as well.

In Iraqinam

sung to the tune of 'Village Ghetto Land' by Stevie Wonder)

Would you like to patrol with me
Down this Baghdad street?
Would you like to come with me
To Iraqinam?

See the soldiers kick down doors
While insurgents kidnap and steal
Car bombings and IED's
Taking lives, legs and hands

Firefights break out everywhere
It's a chaotic scene
Killing plagues the citizens
In a Baghdad less serene

Our troops need to come home now
The American public understands
Neocons laugh, get rich and drink
While ignoring our demands

America should stay the course
Says the commander in chief
Iraqis and us burying our dead
While we all express our grief

Neocons say we should be happy
'Cause there's no more Saddam
Tell me would you be happy
In Iraqinam?

Is the Lone Star State Turning Back To Blue?

I've been saying for several years now that the current GOP dominance of Texas is a temporary thing because of the Lone Star State's longer history as a bastion of progressive populist politics and the cyclical nature of politics in general.

A recent DSCC poll conducted from April 11-15, 2007 of 800 registered likely voters has some interesting findings. The polls plus-minus error rate was 3.5%

*Texas voters give President George W. Bush a negative job rating (47% positive – 51% negative) and they are split in their opinion as to whether their family would be better off with a Democratic or Republican majority in the United States Senate (41% Democrats – 43% Republicans).

* A strong plurality of Texas voters believes the country is headed in the wrong direction (34% right direction – 49% wrong direction). Voters give President Bush an even more negative job rating on his handling of Iraq (41% positive – 57% negative).

* Republican John Cornyn has lower than expected name recognition for an incumbent US Senator, with 40% of the electorate unable to rate Cornyn either favorably or unfavorably. Overall, Senator Cornyn’s favorability rating is 41% favorable – 19% unfavorable.

* Senator Cornyn’s re-elect vote preference against a generic Democrat is under 50% (47% Republican John Cornyn - 38% Democratic candidate - 15% undecided).

With 2008 being a presidential election year could Texas finally be carried by a Democrat for the first time since Jimmy Carter accomplished the feat in 1976?

Cornyn's plummeting popularity coincides with a long overdue resurgence in the Texas Democratic Party. In the November 2006 elections they sent former US reps Nick Lampson and Ciro Rodriguez back to Congress. The most delicious part of Lampson's victory is that he now represents the congressional district of the man who in 2003 Delaymandered him and five Democrats out of office during an unprecedented and contentious mid-year partisan redistricting.

That midyear redistricting resulted in the Democratic House and Senate contingents relocating to Oklahoma and New Mexico in order to deny the Republicans a quorum to conduct business. The GOP-controlled Lege couldn't come to consensus on what to do about Texas public school financing system despite being under a court ordered deadline to fix it, but Governor Rick Perry in order to do Delay's bidding called two special sessions specifically for the redistricting issue over the objections of many Texans.

Six new Democratic state representatives were elected to whittle the GOP margin down to 81-69 and put them within striking distance of regaining the Texas House. They also swept local, judicial and county races in Dallas and Hays counties. Last weekend a DSCC fundraising event in Austin raked in an astounding $1.1 million from supporters throughout the state. Back in my home county, according to the most recent credible polling data more Harris County voters call themselves Democrats than Republicans by a 43% to 33% margin.

It's positive trends like this across the state that have Texas Democrats energized. They are determined to take the Lone Star State back from the peeps that ruined it in the first place.

Many Texans are weary of 13 years of total Republican control of state government that has brought massive debt, scandal, reactionary policies and inaction on many issues. They remember how the late Ann Richards as governor from 1990-1994 efficiently erased a $6 billion debt, turned it into a $2 billion surplus, had the most inclusive administration in Texas history and through her magnetic personality got several major companies to relocate their corporate headquarters to Texas in just a single term.

Texas is also considering legislation to move the 2008 primary date up from early March to February 5. With Texas being a major electoral vote rich state, moving up the primary date would force presidential candidates of both parties to spend more time actually campaigning in The Lone Star State instead of treating it like a political ATM machine.

For national Democrats to continue their momentum toward becoming the majority party they have to get Texas back in the game. The Texas Democratic Party has to channel the spirit of great Texas women such as Ann Richards, Billie Carr and Barbara Jordan. They also need to combine it with the political courage of Ralph Yarborough and Barbara Jordan's rock solid ethics. They've also got to be in it to win it. Texas Dems can't be 'scurred' to articulate their mesaage against peeps whose 'proven conservative leadership' campaign mantra only proves how well they muck up things and gay bait to cover it up. Never again should an election happen in which every top statewide office went uncontested as it did to my disgust in 2000.

It looks like they may finally be doing just that. It couldn't have happened at a better time.

Why I Can't Stand The NRA

No sooner than I'd hit the SAVE button on my Virginia Tech post did the National Rifle Association chime in with their bull feces assertion that if the students had been armed the tragedy wouldn't have happened.

Just what I want to see. Drunken fratboys indiscriminately firing 9MM pistols at campus gatherings.

I believe if you want to have a gun, that's your prerogative. My dad owned one and so did my grandfathers. I owned a BB gun and was taught how to properly use it by my grandfather. Like 73% of the American population I want common sense restrictions on guns. I don't think anybody should have AK-47's, Uzis or M-16's since those weapons are only designed for one purpose: to kill mass quantities of humans as quickly as possible.

My dislike of the NRA actually started in February 2000 when I came to Frankfort to help lobby for passage of a civil rights bill. We were done with our appointments by 1 PM and decided to sit in the gallery and watch the Kentucky House session play out on the floor. I'd noticed Lexington and Louisville police officers meandering in the Capitol building and discovered they were there in support of a bill that then state rep Eleanor Jordan (D-Louisville) was sponsoring.

The Louisville and Lexington PD's were seeing the same guns repeatedly being confiscated in commissions of crimes and were destroying them after the criminal cases were disposed of. Injunctions were filed to stop it after it became public knowledge that's what was happening to those guns. Rep. Jordan's bill would simply give them the authority to do so.

You would think that a bill that helps the police do their jobs more effectively and takes weapons out of the hands of criminals would be a slam dunk with 'law and order' Republicans, right?

Not in GOP Bizarro World. For some reason this was seen as 'gun control legislation' that got a full frontal assault from the NRAoids in the Kentucky House. I and the Louisville and Lexington officers in attendance watched dumbfounded over the next ninety minutes as this bill was attacked. The surreal nature the debate took at one point made me wonder if I was watching aTwilight Zone episode. One rural Kentucky legislator suggested in response to one of Rep. Jordan's points about the different ways rural and urban peeps view guns that the NRA come into the 'hood and do gun safety training.

Rep. Jordan pointed out along with other urban legislators that the kids could probably teach the NRA instructors a few things about guns they didn't know. They turned deaf ears on the concerns of urban legislators about the toll gun violence was taking on our kids and forced votes on two amendments that went down urban-rural/suburban lines. The amendments basically gutted Rep. Jordan's bill to the point where she ended up voting against the bill she authored. To add insult to injury the amendments not only contained language banning Kentucky police departments from tracking the serial numbers on confiscated weapons but ordered then to be turned over to the state police for sale at auction. As the urban legislators feared two of those confiscated weapons sold at a state police auction were used in commission of a series of murders in Louisville later that year.

Rep. Jordan was majorly upset about what happened to her bill along with the police officers in the gallery and let them have it on the floor. Little did any of us know that when she attempted a few months later to become the first African-American elected to Congress from Kentucky a snippet of the news film of her excoriating the NRAoids was used in an Anne Northup attack ad aimed at her.

Like many issues in this country gun control has the volatile element of race in it. Your attitude about guns in the United States depends on your race, gender and where you live. If you're white, male and a suburban/rural dweller nine times out of ten you probably have an NRA sticker on your car. If you're a city dweller like I am you most likely won't.

The NRA knows they have a serious image problem in my community. Various NRA leaders such as Charlton Heston, Wayne LaPierre and Ted Nugent have made racist statements over the years and that perception crystallized over the last decade thanks to their overwhelming support of GOP candidates.

The NRA trotted out Karl Malone and former US House Rep JC Watts (R-OK) several years ago in an 'I'm The NRA' ad campaign attempting to counter the views of many African-Americans that they are a racist organization. They are still deafeningly silent on the issue that matters most to African-Americans: ratcheting down the level of gun violence in our communities. Their simplistic 'buy more guns' spin doesn't wash.

I'm sick of the myopic attitude that the gun peeps have toward sensible gun legislation. Unfortunately the NRA lobby has become a powerful one on the Hill and in many states that many politicians on both sides of the aisle are loath to cross. Anyone who criticizes them is labeled an 'anti-gun extremist'. If that criticism comes from a celeb or a media pundit they are bombarded with sometimes profane e-mails from the pro-gun zealots. If by some miracle politicians get some cojones and pass sensible legislation like the Brady Bill, it gets attacked and watered down and the politicians who passed it find themselves either threatened by the NRA or in a political race with a well funded opponent in the next election cycle.

For years people have worked to have peeps with mental illnesses added to the National Registry of peeps banned from purchasing guns. The NRA has opposed that.
Now a person with a history of mental illness passed a watered down gun check and used those weapons he purchased to kill 31 peeps and himself on the Virgina Tech campus. While those students were grieving, a man who got a bad performance review killed his supervisor and held a woman hostage at NASA's JSC campus in Houston. This incident ironically took place on the seventh anniversary of the Columbine High School tragedy.

How many more lives must we lose before the NRA gets over their fetishistic love affair with guns and hiding behind the Second Amendment to justify a gun culture that is making us less safe?

By the way, when is Vice President Cheney scheduled for his NRA gun safety training class?

Happy Birthday 'Lufer'

With all the negativity that April 20 is associated with in terms of the Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado and it being Adolf Hitler's birthday I thought it was time to point out something positive that happened on this date.

Luther Ronzoni Vandross was born in New York City in 1951.

Boy do I miss 'Lufer' as one of my friends used to pronounce his name. I remember when I first heard him singing during the disco era on Change's 'The Glow Of Love and Searchin' tracks and my reaction when I walked into Soundwaves and saw his Never Too Much album being sold.

There are very few artists that I buy their albums, much less debut ones without listening to it first but I did in this case. I wasn't disappointed.

From that point on every time he released an album or CD I was plunking down cash on the counters of my local record stores to purchase them. I attended EVERY Luther Vandross concert during the 80s and up until 1991.

Yeah, I'm a huge Luther fan. The man could SANG. The 25 million albums sold, the 14 albums ithat hit either platinum or multi-platinum status, eight Grammy Awards and other awards he won over his career are a testament to that. He had much success in the commercial jingle arena as well. It's also impossible to count the number of people who got busy to his music or how many children were conceived as a result of their parents listening to Luther's romantic songs.

Even the 1999 movie The Wood alluded to this when two of the characters, Alicia and Mike ended up slow dancing at a junior high school dance to Luther's 'If This World Were Mine'. They later remembered the moment as high school juniors. They were in Alicia's bedroom when the song played on the radio just before she and Mike lost their virginity together.



It's ironic that the lifelong bachelor who became synonymous with love, romance and relationships was himself always in search of them. He was consistently dogged by gay rumors which he vehemently denied during his lifetime. He was posthumously outed after his death due to the complications from the debilitating stroke he suffered in April 2003.

He was interviewed in May 2004 on Oprah and at the end of it sang "I believe in the power of love" in reference to his 1991 hit song 'Power of Love'. I cried for ten minutes after hearing that and hoped like many Luther fans that he was on the road to recovery. Unfortunately he took a turn for the worse a year later and passed away July 1, 2005.

Luther is no longer here with us, but his music, the fond memories I have of those concerts and the memory of his Oprah television appearance will stay with me forever.

Nikki Giovanni's Encounter With Cho

Professor Had Expelled Gunman From Class

By ALLEN G. BREED
AP National Writer

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) -- The mood in the basketball arena was
defeated, funereal. Nikki Giovanni seemed an unlikely source of
strength for a Virginia Tech campus reeling from the depravity of one
of its own.

Tiny, almost elfin, her delivery blunted by the loss of a lung,
Giovanni brought the crowd at the memorial service to its feet and
whipped mourners into an almost evangelical fervor with her
words: "We are the Hokies. We will prevail, we will prevail. We are
Virginia Tech."

Nearly two years earlier, Giovanni had stood up to Cho Seung-Hui
before he drenched the campus in blood. Her comments Tuesday showed
that the man who had killed 32 students and teachers had not killed
the school's spirit.

"We are strong and brave and innocent and unafraid," the 63-year-old
poet with the close-cropped, platinum hair told the grieving
crowd. "We are better than we think, not quite what we want to be. We
are alive to the imagination and the possibility we will continue to
invent the future through our blood and tears, through all this
sadness."
In September 2005, Cho was enrolled in Giovanni's introduction to creative writing class. From the beginning, he began building a wall between himself and the rest of the class.

He wore sunglasses to class and pulled his maroon knit cap down low
over his forehead. When she tried to get him to participate in class
discussion, his answer was silence.

"Sometimes, students try to intimidate you," Giovanni told The
Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday. "And I just
assumed that he was trying to assert himself."

But then female students began complaining about Cho.

About five weeks into the semester, students told Giovanni that Cho
was taking photographs of their legs and knees under the desks with
his cell phone. She told him to stop, but the damage was already done.

Female students refused to come to class, submitting their work by
computer instead. As for Cho, he was not adding anything to the
classroom atmosphere, only detracting.

Police asked Giovanni not to disclose the exact content or nature of
Cho's poetry. But she said it was not violent like other writings
that have been circulating.

It was more invasive.

"Violent is like, `I'm going to do this,'" said Giovanni, a three-
time NAACP Image Award winner who is sometimes called "the princess
of black poetry." This was more like a personal violation, as if Cho
were objectifying his subjects, "doing thing to your body parts."

"It's not like, `I'll rip your heart out,'" she recalled. "It's that,
`Your bra is torn, and I'm looking at your flesh.'"

His work had no meter or structure or rhyme scheme. To Giovanni, it
was simply "a tirade."

"There was no writing. I wasn't teaching him anything, and he didn't
want to learn anything," she said. "And I finally realized either I
was going to lose my class, or Mr. Cho had to leave."

Giovanni wrote a letter to then-department head Lucinda Roy, who
removed Cho.

Roy alerted student affairs, the dean's office, even the campus
police, but each said there was nothing they could do if Cho had made
no overt threats against himself or others. So Roy took him on as a
kind of personal tutor.

"At first he would hardly say anything, and I was lucky to get, say,
in 30 minutes, four or five monosyllabic answers from him," she
said. "But bit by bit, he began to tell me things."

During their hourlong sessions, Roy encouraged Cho to express himself
in writing. She would compose poems with him, contributing to the
works herself and taking dictation from him.

"I tried to keep him focused on things that were outside the self a
little bit," said Roy, who has been at Virginia Tech for 22
years. "Because he seemed to be running inside circles in a maze when
he was talking about himself."

He was "very guarded" when it came to his family. But she got him to
open up about his feelings of isolation.

"You seem so lonely," she told him once. "Do you have any friends?"

"I am lonely," he replied. "I don't have any friends."

Suitemates and others have said Cho rejected their overtures of
friendship. Roy sensed that Cho's isolation might be largely self-
imposed.

To her, it was as if he were two people.

"He was actually quite arrogant and could be quite obnoxious, and was
also deeply, it seemed, insecure," she said.

But when she wrote to Cho about his behavior in Giovanni's class, Roy
received what she described as "a pretty strident response."

"It was a vigorous defense of the self," she said. "He clearly felt
that he was in the right and that the professor was in the wrong. It
was the kind of tone that I would never have used as an undergraduate
at a faculty member."

She felt he fancied himself a loner, but she wasn't sure what
underlay that feeling.

"I mean, if you see yourself as a loner, sometimes that means you
feel very isolated and insecure and inferior. Or it can mean that you
feel quite superior to others, because you've distanced yourself. And
I think he went from one extreme to another."

When the semester ended, so did Roy's and Cho's collaboration. She
went on leave and thought he had graduated.

When she and Giovanni learned of the shootings and heard a
description of the gunman, they immediately thought of Cho.

Roy wonders now whether things would have turned out differently had
she continued their sessions. But Giovanni sees no reason for people
who had interactions with Cho to beat themselves up.

"I know that there's a tendency to think that everybody can get
counseling or can have a bowl of tomato soup and everything is going
to be all right," she said. "But I think that evil exists, and I
think that he was a mean person."

Giovanni encountered Cho only once after she removed him from class.
She was walking down a campus path and noticed him coming toward her.
They maintained eye contact until passing each other.

Giovanni, who had survived lung cancer, was determined she would not
blink first.

"I was not going to look away as if I were afraid," she said. "To me
he was a bully, and I had no fear of this child."

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved

The Virginia Tech Tragedy

College is supposed to be an overall positive experience. You're finally getting to sort everything out in terms of what you want to do in life, where you're headed and learning and growing as a young adult while having some fun in the process.

For many peeps it's the first time you get to step out, live away from home and get your first taste of adulthood. It's the last time in your life when the only responsibilities you have are to get up, go to class and study your butt off unless you also have a job you're juggling to help pay your tuition.

I guess it's why I enjoy walking around on various college campuses when I do follow Dawn to various fencing tournaments. It takes me back to my own college days in that respect. It's hard for me to imagine what it would have been like to have that peace of mind shattered by a gunman suddenly popping up in one of my classes, firing shots at me and my classmates, then to discover a day or so later that he was a classsmate that peeps had been seeing disturbing behavior patterns about for two years leading up to that horrific incident.

Even the folks who weren't in those Norris Hall classrooms that morning are haunted by 'That could have been me' thoughts. I can only imagine what was going through people's minds as their buildings were on lockdown wondering if the incident was over of if their building was next on the shooter's target list.

What about the peeps who for some reason decided not to go to class that morning? I know they feel just as hurt as the gun shop owner who sold Cho the weapons he used.

How would I feel about that? How do you put that behind you and move on with llfe, if you ever do? It's also tough at that age to lose a classmate because up until you get past your college years and your ten-year high school reunion you have this false feeling of immortality. You walk around in your late teens and 20's with this attitude that you have plenty of time to accomplish the things you want to do or get your life together.


There are 32 people that have been tragically taken from us including Cho. But to the Virginia Tech students who may be reading this blog, life does go on. In 1966 The University of Texas suffered a similar tragedy. It took a while but people eventually forgot until Monday that a deadly shooting occurred on its campus. It brought back the flood of memories in Austin and on the UT campus of what Charles Whitman had done almost 41 years earlier.

It was interesting to read Nikki Giovanni's account of her 2005 encounter with Cho in her writing class she was teaching at Virginia Tech. I think what needs to happen in the wake of this tragedy is to strenghten the ability of college professors and administrators to compel folks with disturbing behavior patterns to undergo counseling once its verified.

Would that have prevented the shooting? That's a debatable question. As far as the gun issue I'm going to deal with that another time. In this post I want to continue focusing on the 32 people we lost, the folks at Virginia Tech and their families who are grieving and trying to make sense out of an irrational situation.

We will never know what types of contributions those fallen people would have made to our society and others around the world. We can only guess about that as we mourn them, memorialize them and sadly have to move on.

"The Revs" DO Speak For Many African-Americans

I continue to be amused and amazed by the vitriolic hatred that comes out of many conservapundits mouths whenever "The Revs" are asked to comment on issues like the recent Don Imus flap.

"The Revs" I'm speaking about are the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. It seems that many whites can't conceal their outright hatred for these gentlemen. I even heard Evan Cohen on Fox Sports Radio rant repeatedly for three hours during a third shift show early Monday morning about his 'disgust' as he put it for Rev. Jesse attending the Jackie Robinson memorial event in Los Angeles. (News flash, Evan. Rev. Jackson preached the 1972 funeral for Jackie Robinson and is a friend of the family, so explain to me why shouldn't he be there?)

It seems as though these peeps have selective memories when it comes to The Revs. In Rev. Jackson's case they never fail to bring up the 1984 'Hymietown' comment but their memory banks suddenly get fuzzy when it's mentioned that in 1983 Rev. Jackson traveled to Damascus, Syria to rescue a downed US Navy pilot, ran for president in 1984 and 1988 and rescued hundreds of hostages Saddam was detaining in Iraq in 1990.

Rev. Sharpton constantly has the Tawana Brawley case thrown in his face, but he too has run for public office and has been a thoughtful and eloquent spokesperson along with Rev. Jackson on various issues. I guess y'all forgot about the thunderous speech he made at the 2004 Democratic Convention calling out the Bush misadministration.

What, y'all gonna withdraw your support for Senator Barack Obama and take back everything you said about him if The Revs come out and openly support him in his presidential bid? Then again I wouldn't be suprised if that happened considering the level of the negativity spewed at Reverends Sharpton and Jackson.

The bottom line is that no matter how much Hateraid you drink and spit back at The Revs, they have much love and respect from many African-Americans. They have been on the frontlines for decades doing the African-American community's civil rights grunt work. That's more than we can say for the Negroes that are constantly trotted out by right-wingers as examples of peeps THEY think should be our leaders and THEY think we should listen to like Condoleezza Rice and others.

You don't get to make that call, we do. As long as Condi and company are supporting positions, people and politicians that work against the interests of African-Americans, they'll continue to have zero credibility in our eyes.

If you're distressed that The Revs have that status, then your media outlets need to start calling the peeps that are the African-American community's ELECTED leaders in the Congressional Black Caucus to appear on the Sunday morning talk shows and other events. They need to talk to the next NAACP president. That person has juice as the head of one of the oldest civil rights organizations in our country and has a membership that crosses the spectrum of Black America. They need to talk to Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League which encompasses our business leaders. You need to have frequent chats with Cathy Hughes, the head of Radio One, the seventh largest radio corporation communications company in the US, the heads of the various Divine Nine fraternities and sororities, the editors of Jet, Ebony, Essence and Black Enterprise magazines, et cetera.

But since the media likes controversy, they'll continue to call on "The Revs" for their opinions on various issues. Bear in mind as you throw things at your TV that they DO speak for many African-American most of the time on many issues.

Sometimes they even speak for the TransGriot as well.

Identity Construction Among Transgender People Of Color Study

TransGriot note: I met Kylan during TSTBC 2005 and have participated in his research project. There is a huge need to get information out there about African-American transgender peeps and other t-peeps of color.

f you are a trans identified person of color I would love to hear from you and have you share your experiences. I will be traveling the US (Midwest, West Coast, and Southwest) and Vancouver, Canada in May and June, as well as New York in August. I will also be conducting phone interviews over the next year.

I am a FtM, queer, and anti-racist identified graduate student in Sociology at SIUC. My research is in the area of gender and racial stratification, how this is experienced in the transgender communities, and how this affects perceptions of self.

My research project is called "Identity Construction Among Transgender People of Color". If you have any questions about me or my research please contact me at kylan.devries@gmail.com or my faculty advisor, Professor Rob Benford at rbenford@siu.edu

This research explores the stories/narratives of Trans People of Color
(inclusive term to include all identities on the transgender
spectrum), how you perceive yourself, and how others perceive you. I am particularly interested in how racial identity affects perception of self during and after transitioning (I recognize that transitioning is subjective and may not have an end for some). Participation is completely voluntary and confidential

To participate please contact me:
Kylan M. de Vries
kylan.devries@gmail.com or kylan33@siu.edu
(618) 303-4767


This project has been reviewed and approved by the SIUC Human Subjects Committee. Questions concerning your rights as a participant in this research may be addressed to the Committee Chairperson, Office of Research Development and Administration, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, IL 62901-4709. Phone (618) 453-4533. E-mail: siuhsc@siu.edu

Say It Loud: I'm Elite And Proud!

Why is the country run by people who celebrate mediocrity and recruit from Pat Robertson's law school? Because the right-wing crusade to demonize elites has succeeded.

By Bill Maher
From Salon.com

Say it loud: I'm elite and proud! The right-wing crusade to demonize elites has paid off. Now the country's run by incompetents who make mediocrity a job requirement and recruit from Pat Robertson's law school. New rule: Now that liberals have taken back the word liberal, they also have to take back the word "elite." By now you've heard the constant right-wing attacks on the "elite," or as it's otherwise known, "hating." They've had it up to their red necks with the "elite media." The "liberal elite." Who may or may not be part of the "Washington elite." A subset of the "East Coast elite." Which is influenced by "the Hollywood elite." So basically, unless you're a shitkicker from Kansas, you're with the terrorists. If you played a drinking game in which you did a shot every time Rush Limbaugh attacked someone for being "elite" you'd almost be as wasted as Rush Limbaugh.

I don't get it: In other fields -- outside of government -- elite is a good thing, like an elite fighting force. Tiger Woods is an elite golfer. If I need brain surgery, I'd like an elite doctor. But in politics, elite is bad -- the elite aren't down-to-earth and accessible like you and me and President Shit-for-Brains. But when the anti-elite crowd demonizes the elite, what they're actually doing is embracing incompetence. Now, I know what you're thinking: That doesn't sound like our president -- ignoring intelligence.

You know how whenever there's a major Bush administration scandal it always traces back to some incompetent political hack appointment and you think to yourself, "Where are they getting these screw-ups from?" Well, now we know: from Pat Robertson. I wish I were kidding, but I'm not. Take Monica Goodling, who before she resigned last week because of the U.S. attorneys scandal, was the third most powerful official in the Justice Department of the United States. Thirty-three, and though she had never even worked as a prosecutor, she was tasked with overseeing the job performance of all 95 U.S. attorneys. How do you get to be such a top dog at 33? By acing Harvard, or winning scholarship prizes? No, Goodling did her undergraduate work at Messiah College -- home of the "Fighting Christies," who wait-listed me, the bastards -- and then went on to attend Pat Robertson's law school.

I'm not kidding, Pat Robertson, the man who said gay people at DisneyWorld would cause "earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor," has a law school. It's called Regent. Regent University School of Law, and it shares a campus with Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network studios. It's the first time ever that a TV network spun off a law school. And that's all America needs -- more Christians and more lawyers. You see, years ago Pat became concerned that our legal system was coddling criminals, forgiving them instead of meting out that Old Testament "eye for an eye" justice Jesus Christ never shuts up about. So Pat did what any red-blooded, Hindu-hating, gay-baiting, glue-sniffing Christian would do: He started his own law school. And what kid wouldn't want to attend? It's three years and you only have to read one book. The school says its mission is to create an army of evangelical lawyers, integrating the Bible and public policy, and producing graduates that provide "Christian leadership to change the world." Presumably from round back to flat.

U.S. News and World Report, which does the definitive ranking of colleges, lists Regent as a tier-four school, which is the lowest score it gives. It's not a hard school to get into. You have to renounce Satan and draw a pirate on a matchbook. This is for the people who couldn't get into the University of Phoenix.


But there's more! As there inevitably is with the Bush administration. Turns out she's not the only one. Since 2001, 150 graduates of Regent University have been hired by the Bush administration. And people wonder why things are so screwed up. Hell, we probably invaded Iraq because one of these clowns read the map wrong. Forget religion for a second, we're talking about a top Justice Department official who went to a college founded by a TV host. Would you send your daughter to Maury Povich University? And if you did, would you expect her to get a job at the White House? I'd be surprised if she got a job on the "Maury" show. And then it hit me: This is why Bush scandals never catch on with the public -- they're all evangelicals of course, and nobody is having sex.

So there you have it: It turns out that the Justice Department is entirely staffed with Jesus freaks from a televangelist diploma mill in Virginia Beach. Most of them young women with very little knowledge of the law, but a very strong sense of doing what they're told. Like the Manson family, but with cleaner hair. In 200 years we've gone from "We the people" to "Up with people." From the best and brightest to dumb and dumber. And, come on, America is a big, well-known, first-rate country, and when we're looking for people to help run it, we should aim higher than the girl who answers the phone at the fake abortion clinic. It's not just that this president has surrounded himself with a Texas echo chamber of war criminals and religious fanatics. It's that they're sooooo mediocre. This is America. We should be getting robbed and fucked over by the best.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asked at a hearing, "Should we be concerned with the experience level of the people who are making these highly significant decisions?" But in the Bush administration experience doesn't matter. All that matters is loyalty to Bush and Jesus, in that order. And where better to find people dumb enough to believe in George W. Bush than Pat Robertson's law school. The problem here in America isn't that the country is being run by elites. It's that it's being run by a bunch of hayseeds. And by the way, the lawyer Monica Goodling just hired to keep her ass out of jail went to a real law school.

Bill Maher is the host of HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher.

Roseanne Has A Point

While interviewing Jasmyne Cannick as a guest host for a radio show on KCAA-AM in San Bernardino, CA last week, Roseanne Barr made the following comments about gay peeps.

Never once in my 54 years have I ever once heard a gay or lesbian person who’s politically active say one thing about anything that was not about them. They don’t care about minimum wage, they don’t care about any other group other than their own self because you know, some people say being gay and lesbian is a totally narcissistic thing and sometimes I wonder.

I’ve never heard any of them say anything except for “accept me ‘cause I’m gay.”
It’s just, it’s screwed. It’s no different than the evangelicals, it’s the same mindset. They want you to accept Jesus and you guys want us to all believe it’s ok to be gay. And a lot of us, a lot of them, I do, I don’t give a damn who anybody has sex with, as long as they’re not underage and an animal. I don’t give a damn, it’s none of my damn business. I’m just sick of all the divisiveness, it’s not getting any of us anywhere.

The Victory Fund swiftly released a statement condemning remarks and quickly trotted out openly gay Alabama state legislator Patricia Todd and her work to establish a state minimum wage as a example of a gay person who does care about the issues she raised. Here in Kentucky Louisville's Fairness Campaign has consistently lent its voice to a wide range of causes beyond its primary focus on GLBT civil rights issues.

But Roseanne does have a point. There are too many gays who selfishly don't care about any issue other than their own civil rights. Unfortunately there are many African-Americans and others nodding their heads in agreement with her. The transgender community has experienced that attitude all too often since Stonewall and over the last 13 years.

We have a running battle going on with elements of HRC and some gay activists over transgender rights issues. We've been dismissively told by some of them 'it's not our turn' or 'wait until we get OUR rights and we'll come back for you' as they cut transgender peeps out of 'their' hate crimes and employment bills over the last decade at various levels of government. Some have even loudly complained we shouldn't even be part of 'their' movement while getting indignant over African-Americans flipping the script on them. Their panties get all in a bunch when African-Americans say that the GLBT rights movement is not the same as the 60's Civil Rights Movement and they need to stop hijacking 'our' movement.

African-American GLBT/SGL peeps have long had drama with the selfish white gays over racism in the community and their double standards about it. Gay peeps justifiably fumed, ranted and raved over Tim Hardaway's and Isaiah Washington's comments. They generated reams of press releases condemning them while the selfish ones flocked to watch a white gay man named Chuck Knipp do a demeaning minstrel show that African-American peeps have been loudly protesting since 2002. They then have the temerity to tell us to 'get over it'. When we call them on their double standard they spew racist invectives at SQL's African-American critics to defend the gay man doing the minstrel show.

Ain't that a switch.

Black gays, y'all ain't off the hook on this, either. There are many of you who only care about where's the next fabulous party, pageant or ball than being engaged and involved in the community. Before y'all start tripping I know that there are many African-American GLBT peeps who ARE active in various organizations and doing wonderful work to uplift the race. Unfortunately the perception out there is that we're not and don't care.

Roseanne apologized for the statement, but it's that perception and the actions of some gay peeps that led her to make it in the first place.

Black Peeps HAVE Been Discussing Negative Rap Lyrics-Y'all Been Ignoring Us

One of the things that I was amused and pissed to hear during the whole Don Imus flap was the pathetic attempts of conservatives to shift the blame to the African-American community.

The African-American community has been decrying negativity in hip-hop for over a decade. Y'all haven't been paying attention.

In 1993 C. Delores Tucker was calling hip-hop "pornographic filth" and saying it was demeaning and offensive to Black women. She was slammed in 1994 when she objected to nominating Tupac Shakur for an NAACP Image Award.

In 2004 students at Spelman College mobilized and got a Nelly campus appearance cancelled in the wake of his misogynistic Tip Drill video that incensed women at the most famous African-American women's college in the nation. That resulted in Essence Magazine starting their ongoing Take Back The Music Campaign.

Since Oprah is focusing her considerable media platform on this issue we now have White America's undivided attention. Over the next two days Oprah's show will be devoted to broadcasting a town hall meeting entitled After Imus: Now What?

Today's show had some interesting commentary from voices ranging from Maya Angelou and Stanley Crouch to India.Arie and the Rev. Al Sharpton. It was also gratifying to see the Spelman women finally get recognized for what they've been trying to say for several years. Tomorrow's show will have the response from the hip-hop community courtesy of hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and rapper Common.

Yes, we have major work to do in our community and thank God this conversation has finally been jumped off. I hope that it results in some substinative sustained action over time. We also need to point out as Asha Bandele did today that the b-word and n-word didn't originate in our communities or with gangsta rappers. African-Americans have had those words hurled at us and suffered assaults on our images since 1619.

We can finger point at each other all day long, the bottom line is that the denigration of our women needs to stop. As C. Delores Tucker once said, "You can't listen to all that language and filth without it affecting you."

Too bad not many peeps were paying attention to Ms. Tucker in 1993. Better late than never.

Jackie Robinson 60th Anniversary

April 15 is not just the day you pay Uncle Sam any taxes you owe. (by the way, you have until midnight Tuesday to do that)

Today also happens to be the 60th anniversary of the day Jackie Robinson stepped onto the diamond at Ebbets Field and broke major league baseball's color line. He went hitless that day, but did score the winning run in his debut game with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

In that first season he endured racial epithets, flying cleats, pitchers throwing at his head and legs, catchers spitting on his shoes, hate mail and death threats but let his on the field play speak for him. He won over his teammates and his opponents with his unselfish team play and was named Rookie of the Year. Two years later he was the National League MVP. He compiled a lifetime batting average of .311 and was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.


It's a bittersweet moment as well. Since 1975 the percentage of African-American ballplayers has gone from 28% to 8%, the lowest figure since Major League Baseball was fully integrated in 1959. I started noticing the trend courtesy of Ebony Magazine. Every April they would do a baseball feature story that would list every team by league and division, have photos of all the African-American members of those teams including coaches and predict how the teams would finish. They stopped doing it in the late 80's. Major League Baseball is also alarmed at the declining numbers of African-American fans attending games.

I think part of the problem is that baseball has spent so much time investing in overseas development complexes in Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Asia that they've forgotten to show some love in this country as well.

When I played Little League ball, in my neighborhood alone we had two organized leagues to play in, Southeast and Freeway National. Their ballfield complexes were right across the street from each other. The last year I played in 1977 they added two teams in the minor division because they had an explosion of kids in that age bracket wanting to play.

In 1999 I drove by those complexes and was saddened to discover that Freeway National Little League no longer was in existence. Freeway's old complex was also in a state of disrepair. Southeast was considering taking it over but they don't get the amount of kids they used to. Most of the kids are either playing football or at Crestmont Park trying to be like Mike. (or in the case of my old neighborhood like Clyde Drexler.) Yes, TransGriot readers, THAT Clyde Drexler.

African-American major league ballplayers are alarmed about that downward trend. That concern is shared by Jackie's widow Rachel Robinson and the commissioner's office. Minnesota Twins outfielder Torii Hunter has started a program with the goal of increasing the number of African-American kids playing baseball. Another program with the same objective called RBI (Reviving Baseball In Inner Cities) is the most widespread with over 200 affiliates in various cities around the country.

I hope these programs are successful in reversing that negative trend. It would be a travesty for the suffering that Jackie Robinson heroically endured so future generations of African-Americans could play major league baseball to be wasted.

Washington Has Three African-American Head Coaches-What's Wrong With The Rest Of The NCAA?

When 34 year old Salisbury, MD native Tia Jackson was hired by the University of Washington on April 7 it reunited her with an old friend from her Stanford University days in Ty Willingham. In addition to making the former Duke assistant coach just the third head coach in the 22 year history of the program it marked another historic milestone.

The University of Washington became the first NCAA institution to have three African-American coaches at the helm of the major sports of football and basketball at the same time. Willingham runs the football program and UW alum Lorenzo Romar is the men's head basketball coach.

"No question, it's unprecedented," Willingham said. "But in Tia, the number one thing is we have an outstanding person with an unbelievable passion.

He's not biased. Jackson has been well groomed for her first head coaching job. In addition to being what some people in the women's game consider a top notch recruiter Tia played five years for her mentor C. Vivian Stringer at Iowa and was on her 1993 Final Four squad.

"It warms my heart to know she has been given this opportunity, and I am extremely proud of her," Stringer said.

After her graduation from Iowa in 1995 she was drafted by the Phoenix Mercury during the WNBA's inaugural season in 1997 and played on Cheryl Miller's team that reached the WNBA championship in 1998. As a Stanford assistant Jackson learned strategies and how to meticulously break down film from 1996 Olympic team coach Tara VanDerveer.

She's also been an assistant coach at Virginia Commonwealth, UCLA and under Gail Goestenkors, who just left Duke to take the University of Texas job in the wake of Jody Conradt's retirement.

"Tia is destined to be a superstar," Goestenkors said. "She has it all. She's outgoing, she's an incredible recruiter and she's great with people. ... She's an impact coach. And Washington is one fortunate university."

Jackson inherits a Huskies team that went 18-12 last season, finished fourth in the Pac-10 and was routed by Iowa State in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Washington's incoming class is considered among the nation's best and Husky fans can't wait for next season to tip off.

In an NCAA that has a sorry history of hiring African-American coaches in any sport or abandoning them at the first sign of trouble as Notre Dame did to Willingham, the University of Washington is to be commended for having one of the six African-American football coaches in Division I patrolling the sidelines, one of the thirteen African-American head basketball coaches and hiring a talented African-American female assistant coach to lead their women's basketball program. The rest of the NCAA has some explaining to do in the women's basketball coaching ranks.

*There are no Black women head coaches in most of the nation’s premier conferences, such as the Big Ten Conference and the Big 12 Conference.

"The Atlantic Coast Conference has more Black head coaches than White ones but there are no women among them.

*The Pacific 10 Conference (Jackson) and the Big East Conference (Stringer) each have only one Black head coach.

*With the recent departures of Pokey Chapman at Louisiana State University and Carolyn Peck at the University of Florida, the Southeastern Conference has no Black women head coaches.

The rub is that 40% of the players at NCAA Division I institutions are African-American. The numbers have to get better and it may take something similar to the NFL's Rooney Rule to accomplish that.

Monica’s Statement For the KY Coming Together Conference

Transgriot Note: My friend Joshua asked me to compose a statement for a workshop he's presenting on African-American transpeople at a local conference tomorrow. Here's what I wrote.

I’m Monica Roberts, and I am a forty-something African-American transwoman.

It took me a while to get to the point that I’m comfortable in saying that. I didn’t transition until my early thirties in 1993 and did so in the middle of an international airline terminal in which 30,000 passengers a day passed through it.

So what can I say about being a woman who had to work much harder than her genetic sisters to get there and what does it mean to be an African-American transwoman?

I’m deliriously happy to finally be on the correct side of the gender fence. While I consider it a gift from God to be able to experience life from both sides of the gender continuum, I love looking in the mirror and seeing a woman’s face and a woman’s body staring back at me in the mirror. I like having the peace of mind of knowing that my mind and body are in harmony with one another. If I have any regrets about transition they continue to be that I didn’t do this sooner.

It’s still a challenge sometimes interacting with biowomen who don’t get it, don’t want to get it or don’t realize that I am their most powerful ally in helping them decipher the male ego. They also don’t realize how deeply I wish to bond with them, but I’m prayerfully trying to be patient with my sisters.

As far as my friendships go, the people I have in my life are either folks I’ve known before transition or have become part of it since then. I don’t have any doubts about their loyalty or love for me. It's a comforting feeling to know that.

So what does it mean to be an African-American transwoman? It’s not about finding a ‘husband’, looking or ‘trade’ or carrying yourself in less than anything but a ladylike manner but about growing spiritually and emotionally. It’s about being the best that I can be. It’s constant self-examination to ensure that I am living up to the charge that all African-American women have to keep in terms of uplifting our race. It’s about carrying yourself with class and dignity because I represent not only myself but also the entire African-American community.

CBS to Don Imus: You're Fired!

The hammer came down on Don Imus today as CBS cancelled his radio show.

"There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society," CBS President and Chief Executive Officer Leslie Moonves said in announcing the decision. "That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision."

The things that weigh most heavily on my mind about this situation is that Bernard McGuirk, the sidekick that started the whole mess is still there while Imus is gone. McGuirk should've been the first one collecting unemployment.

I was pissed the conservatives tried to shift the discussion from racist and sexist behavior and the hurt and pain the comments caused these women to attacking Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton and rappers.

Maybe they didn't want peeps to make the connection to their homeboys Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage and crew who instigated, nurtured, get paid and perpetuate this coarse culture of racist shock jock talk. I was also bothered as I watched the coverage unfold on the various networks over the last few days that White callers and people e-mailing various outlets started complaining that Black folks were making 'too much' of this issue.

Excuse me?

I guarantee if a nationally syndicated African-American jock like Tom Joyner or a Latino DJ disrespected your daughters or nieces we'd still be hearing about it for months ad nauseum in the media.

I'm not popping champagne corks over this. Yeah, Don Imus was a serial offender in terms of disrespecting African-Americans but he wasn't alone. I believe Imus wasn't aware of the seething anger building over the last few months in the African-American community. We saw repeated incidents continuing to pile up of Whites disrespecting African-Americans followed up by weak half-hearted apologies, disengenuous denials or attempted blame shifting to the African-American community instead of taking responsibility for their actions.

Those incidents range from the ongoing Shirley Q. Liquor controversy in the GLBT community, college students in various locales having racist parties on Martin Luther King Day, right-wing talk radio hosts using racist rhetoric to GOP legislators using racist terms or telling us to 'get over slavery'. Imus' April 4 comment about college-educated sistahs was the spark that lit the powerkeg in our community. We're simply sick and tired of peeps dissing us and feeling confident that they can get away with it.

So what's next?

“The action today does not solve the problem,” E. Faye Williams, chairwoman of the National Congress of Black Women, told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “Imus is not the first to denigrate black women, and he will not be the last. We can not allow his firing to be the end of what happens. It’s not over because CBS says that it is over.”

I hope it's crystal clear to Whites AND Blacks that this type of disrespect to our community and our women will NOT be tolerated. Now it's time for the rappers and other right-wing radio jocks to get the message as well.

IFGE Transgender 2007 Conference

This time last year I was making a little history at the IFGE Transgender 2006 event in Philadelphia. I became the third African-American transperson to receive a Trinity, the second highest award for service our community gives. As you can see from Denise LeClair's photo I also got to make a little speech while I was there.

Unfortunately my work schedule wouldn't allow me to attend this year's event. I was a little bummed about that because I was looking forward to seeing some peeps like Monica Helms, Angela Brightfeather, Kalina Isato, Beth Boye and Mechelle among others.

I also wanted to avenge the butt kicking that Angela gave me on the pool table last year and was looking forward to drifting back into my Texas accent while talking to Phyllis Frye. However, Dawn and AC are at Transgender 2007 to teach seminars and will be giving me the 411 about the happenings and all the excitement in Philly this weekend.

The first full seminar day was actually today, so it's still not too late to attend the conference which is running from April 11-14.

I like going to the big conferences despite the fact that most of the time I'm one of the few African-American transpeeps in attendance. It's one of the few times during the year short of a lobby day that you get to see everybody in the transgender community in one place. We renew old acquaintances and make new ones. Much of the community's politicking, education and other business transpires at the big conferences such as IFGE. I also enjoy getting away from the host hotel and seeing some of the sights the host city have to offer. I had a blast doing that last year courtesy of my homegirls Dionne and Jordana and sampling a real Philly cheesesteak.

This is the 21st annual IFGE conference and it's the one where the education and community political business takes place. The younger Southern Comfort Conference that takes place in the ATL every September is a blend of business and legendary partying. We're working on growing the Transsistahs-Transbrothas Conference into the same type of national event for the African-American segment of the transgender community.

I'm also curious to find out who the Trinity Award winners were this year.

In Praise Of Disco

I've come to praise disco, not bury it like the 'disco sucks' haters tried to do back in the day.

I'm one of those peeps who loves disco. I adore the fact that it's a blend of dance music, soul, funk, latin rhythms and jazz to an uptempo beat. When KRLY-FM changed their format to playing disco music 24/7 and called themselves Disco 94 my radio was tuned to it. I got some raised eyebrow looks from peeps and took some ribbing from my high school classmates for admitting that I liked the Village People.

I have this and a lot more to say about disco. It was one of the few music formats (jazz, R&B, country and classical are the others) that crosses racial boundaries in terms of its fanbase. Walk into any disco during the 70's and you would literally see a rainbow of people out shaking their bootys on the dance floor.

It started getting played on the Houston R&B radio stations about the mid 70's and it wasn't long before I started hearing some of my favorite artists recording songs to disco beats. In addition to being introduced to the Village People, I also became a huge fan of Donna Summer, Gloria Gaynor, Sylvester, Chic and a few other groups. A 70's commercial jingle and backup singer by the name of Luther Vandross hooked up with a group called Change and sang lead vocals on the album's 'The Glow of Love' and 'Searchin' tunes. They got major airplay and set the stage for the 1981 platinum debut album Never Too Much that launched his solo career.

Rap owes its origins to disco along with house music. Without Chic's 'Good Times' the Sugarhill Gang would've had to use some other beats as the basis for 'Rapper's Delight'. Would the Pittsburgh Pirates 1979 championship be as memorable without hearing Sister Sledge's 'We Are Family' rocking Three Rivers Stadium? The tune was adopted as the Pirates theme song that season. Even the US Navy considered using the Village People's 'In The Navy' as a recruiting song.

One thing I must point out about the 'Disco Sucks' movement is the homophobia and racism that were a component of it. I found it interesting that the main peeps hollering 'disco sucks' when I was in high school were overwhelmingly white males who were hardcore rock fans.


Best of all, before disco got eclipsed on the American music scene it was fun. I was reminded of that when I got taken to Polly Esther's Culture Club by some friends a few weeks before I moved to Louisville. It has three themed rooms. One of them is a 70's room complete with a lighted flashing disco floor and mirrored disco balls hanging from the ceiling.

I observed as the DJ continued to spin my fave tunes from the 70's that there was a multicultural crowd dancing to it. Nobody cared whether the artist being played was White, Black, Latino, gay or straight. The music was slammin', everybody was having fun and you didn't have to be a Soul Train dancer or know the latest dances to groove to it.

I need to find my Disco Greatest Hits CD. Time for me to relearn how to do 'The Hustle'.

Alpha Kappa Alpha and Delta Sigma Theta Call For Imus Firing

TransGriot Note: When you have pissed off the two oldest African-American women's organizations in the country with a combined membership of over 400,000 professional college-educated women worldwide, your behind is in deep, deep, deep trouble.
****

Alpha Kappa Alpha Assails Remarks Of Don Imus And Bernard McGuirk

President Urges Members To Flex Economic Muscle For Maximum Results



Chicago, Illinois
April 10, 2007

Alpha Kappa Alpha's International President, Barbara A. McKinzie, assailed Don Imus for his reprehensible characterization of the Rutgers Women's Basketball team and expanded her criticism to Bernard McGuirk, producer, whose callous remarks triggered the disrespectful exchange. She said she supports the sense of outrage that is enveloping the nation in the wake of these egregious remarks and believes he and McGuirk should, as a tandem, be fired. However, consistent with the economic theme that drives her administration, she asserted that the public should flex its economic muscle if powerful results are to be achieved.

Against this admonition, McKinzie urged the 200,000 members of the Sorority to divest of all stock in NBC, CBS and their parent companies; and to urge their families to do the same.

She said this is part of a multi-pronged strategy to address the economic and spiritual dynamics of this episode. As president of the world's oldest and largest sorority for college-educated African-American women, McKinzie said Alpha Kappa Alpha is a major stakeholder in protecting the image and self-actualization of black women.

In this vein, McKinzie noted that the language co-opted by McGuirk and Imus in their now-infamous exchange, was taken from the black rappers who have gotten rich and made white producers wealthy by defiling black women in their music, She said the offensive lyrics that invade the airwaves have created a climate where it is 'acceptable' to defile black women.

"We must provide an atmosphere where our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, aunts and children will not be subjected to this degree of public disrespect. This can be most effectively achieved when we take away the economic incentive that says it's all right to utter such racist and sexist remarks. We must stand strong and stop buying the records whose hurtful lyrics degrade black women."

In her remarks, McKinzie recalled that the late C. Delores Tucker, a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, waged a valiant – but lonely — campaign — to expose the damage that these lyrics inflicted on black women's psyches.

"She was vilified for her courageous stance," recalled McKinzie. "However, it was the right position because as its core was a resolve to derail the economic engine that creates this climate."

McKinzie said that, ultimately, the policy at the stations should change because the behavior cannot be changed.

"We can fire a Don Imus or Bernard McGuirk but unless there is a change in policy, another tandem will surface who will be equally offensive."

McKinzie said this episode can result in a positive outcome if NBC, CBS and their owners craft a policy that will prevent any future shock jocks from coming on the air and assaulting the airwaves with their sexist and racist vitriol. She said such a "sincere" outreach can open up a national dialogue that can address the gulf that divides our nation."

McKinzie said that Alpha Kappa Alpha and its talented core of members would serve as resources for such a landmark effort.

Until such a movement is launched, McKinzie urged members to divest themselves of stock in CBS, which is owned by Westinghouse Electric Company and is part of the Nuclear Utilities Business Group of British Nuclear Funds; and to sell all stock in MSNBC, which is co-owned by NBC (a subsidiary of General Electric) and Microsoft.

Founded in 1908, Alpha Kappa Alpha is the oldest and largest sorority of its kind with 200,000 members in over 900 chapters worldwide. Because of its stature and nearly 100-year-record of service, AKA is hailed as "America's premiere Greek-lettered organization for Black women." Its membership includes high-profile women from all walks of life and from all disciplines including astronaut and physician Dr. Mae Jemison, poet Maya Angelou, actress Phylicia Rashad, entertainer Gladys Knight, entrepreneur Suzanne de Passe, U.K. Member of Parliament Diane Abbott, performing artist Alicia Keys and a host of local, regional and national political leaders.

Barbara A. McKinzie is International President of Alpha Kappa Alpha and will serve through 2010. Because her term coincides with the Sorority's Centennial in 2008, she is hailed as the Centennial National President and her term is characterized as the Centennial Administration. The theme of McKinzie's administration is ESP, Economics, Service and Partnerships.

The Sorority will celebrate its 100-year anniversary in 2008 with a birthday celebration at its birth home at Howard University in January; and with its Centennial Conference in July. Over 20,000 members are expected to converge upon Washington, D.C. to commemorate this milestone.

* * * *

Sorority Calls for Don Imus' Immediate Dismissal




Washington, D.C.

Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., a public service organization of more than 200,000 college-educated women, is calling for the immediate firing of Don Imus! We are outraged with the decision of MSNBC and CBS to simply suspend airing his radio show for two weeks following his racist depictions of African-American women.

Delta's National President Dr. Louise A. Rice said that the suspension is a mere slap on the wrist that only trivializes the harm done through his hateful, demeaning attack when on a recent radio show, Imus called members of the mostly black Rutgers University Women's Basketball team, "nappy-headed ho's." Dr. Rice also stated that his abominable remarks degrades young African-American women college students, athletes, and all women who are working hard to make a positive contribution to American society.

"We believe that it is time for media corporations to draw the line as to what is unacceptable in a nation that calls on its young to go to fight in Iraq, pay taxes, vote and perform acts of responsible citizenship but at the same time, they are unprotected from predatory, divisive and inhumane degradation of their character on public airwaves," said Dr. Rice.

"It is incredible that anyone would use the public airways to display such utter disregard for the dignity of human beings such as the Rutgers student athletes whose commitment to scholarship and athletics is bringing honor to the university and our nation," she continued.

Since its founding in 1913 when the members marched in Washington, D.C. for suffrage, Delta Sigma Theta has been in the forefront fighting for the dignity and just treatment of all humankind, particularly women. Delta considers the talk show host's despicable remarks an intentional attempt to single out one group of Americans for public humiliation and ridicule.

Imus' apology does not go far enough to heal the wounds caused by this misrepresentation and name-calling aimed at young African-American women. If Imus does not face serious consequences, other like-minded individuals will continue this course of singling out African-American women for public ridicule. Therefore the 200,000+ members of Delta Sigma Theta, operating out of 900 chapters located in the United States, Japan, Germany, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Korea, Jamaica, and St. Thomas and St Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands are calling for the stations that air Imus' show and MSNBC that simulcasts it, to disassociate themselves from him and his polluting the airwaves with racial hatred. Fire Imus and send a strong message that hate speech will not be excused, tolerated, or protected. Don Imus must go!

Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated

Dissing Black Female Athletes Is Nothing New

Don Imus' racist comments have exposed something that is a major irritant to me and many other African-Americans.

I'm tired of the racist comments and negativity that is hurled at African-American female athletes, whether the racism is blatantly out in the open or subtle. The Rutgers women's basketball team is only the latest group of peeps affected by it. And how dare some of y'all accuse Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. of 'self-promotion' by rising to the defense of these women. I would've called both their behinds out if they'd stayed silent on this issue.

Before Title IX mandated increased funding for women's athletics in 1972, the African-American community was long a proponent of allowing women to compete in athletics. The YMCA's, YWCA's, sports clubs and HBCU's ensured equal funding for boys and girls sports in our communities and in many cases to insure excellence insisted that the girls play by the tougher men's rules.

For example, you have many women's basketballers in my mom's generation and mine who played full court b-ball while shooting the regulation men's ball. Many of them also routinely played pick up games with the guys. I still remember a frustrating pick up game I played in college in which I was expertly boxed out from the rim and thrown off my game by a UH women's player who was five inches shorter than me. The late Kim Perrot used to light the elite guys up at Fonde Gym before moving on to help the Houston Comets win two of their four WNBA titles.

So when the ripple effect from Title XI began to take hold in the late 70's our community was positioned to take advantage of it.

But with that success came negativity. The L-word was (and still is) hurled at many women athletes. The WNBA was so sensitive to it in the early days that despite a fan base that is 10% GLBT peeps, they still market their athletes by heavily playing up their femininity. They are seen glammed up, you'll read articles on WNBA.com concerning which WNBA players have the rep for being fashionistas or they inform the public when players miss the season due to pregnancy.

Black women athletes face additional challenges. If they perform at high levels they are quickly accused of cheating by the white male dominated sports reporting world and the court of public opinion which is shaped by their blustering comments.
Florence Griffith-Joyner was accused of cheating after she destroyed the women's 100m record during the 1988 US Olympic Trials. That 10.49 time she clocked still hasn't been close to being threatened almost 20 years later. Those accusations followed her to the grave. Even the autopsy didn't dissuade the haters from persisting in their attempts to paint Flo-Jo with that negative brush despite the fact she never failed a drug test.

The other challenge is the racist views that sometimes color news coverage of Black female athletes. A prime example is the coverage of figure skater Debi Thomas in comparison to her German rival Katarina Witt during the runup from 1985 to the Calgary Games in 1988. Debi was described as 'athletic and powerful' while Witt was called 'graceful and artistic'. Never mind the fact that both women won figure skating world championships during that period, that's the perception. It's the same one in the figure skating world that has dogged Surya Bonaly of France as well.

Don't even get me started on the negativity that permeates the coverage of the Williams sisters. They've been branded as 'athletic' by tennis analysts and not being given as much credit for their knowledge of the game as is routinely done with others of a lighter pigmentation on the women's tour. They're hit by some media outlets and the blogsphere with every negative sobriquet from 'surly' to being called 'trannies'. In addition the Williams sisters have to deal with the racist remarks that are sometimes hurled at them at various tour stops.

Now comes Imus and his recent dissing of the Rutgers women's team. Instead of coming home to celebrate an almost-Cinderella season, the Rutgers team faced "racist and sexist remarks that are deplorable, despicable and abominable and unconscionable," Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer said.

She also touched upon another more salient issue. "You see, because it is not about these young women...It's not about the Rutgers women's basketball team. It's about women. Are women hos? Think about that. Would you have wanted your daughter to have been called that?"

A season that should have ended with celebrating a run to the championship game that just fell short to mighty Tennessee has been blown to Hades. This championship game will not be remembered for the fact that Pat Summitt won her seventh national title, Rutgers going from worst to almost first or the coronation of Candace Parker as the best women's player in the nation, but for a shock jock calling young African-American women 'nappy-headed hos'.

That's something we should all be angry about.

It's A Shoe Thang...You Wouldn't Understand

One of my biowomen friends on another Internet list I'm a member of posted that she'd just received a pair of shoes she ordered online. Sadge tried them on and discovered they were a little tight but declared she was keeping them. She admitted that she has a weakness for shoes and then asked the question to the group as to why that is so after we chimed in with how large our various shoe collections were.

If there is one thing that we share in common with our genetic sisters, it's a weakness for shoes. Whether it's Imelda Marcos' infamous collection of 7000 plus shoes, various celebrities like Patti LaBelle's large collections or the average woman's shoe closet of ten to twenty-five pairs or more, we gotta have 'em. Sometimes we'll risk raising the ire of our podiatrists and go to the torturous lengths of cramming our foot into a shoe that's a half to a full size too small in the name of fashion to do so.

Guys may shake their heads, joke or grouse to their friends about the amount of closet space taken up by a woman's shoe collection, but get them in a room and they'll freely admit that they're turned on by a woman that's wearing hose and a pair of sexy heels that complements their outfit.

So why do we have so many shoes? I think it comes down to six basic reasons:

*The shoe matches an outfit we have in our closet.

*We buy the shoe to potentially match a future clothing purchase.

*We bought it because it was cute.

*We bought it becase it made us feel sexy and powerful when we put it on.

*We bought it on sale.

*We bought it off the clearance rack and can't take it back.

I'll cosign on Point 4. I love heels. My six foot plus behind doesn't like them any shorter than 2.5 inches or taller than three. When I slip on any of my numerous pairs of three inch heels along with my fly clothes, then combine it with trips to the nail and beauty shops I feel like the sexiest woman alive.

Heels also are a distinctive gender thing that scream 'female'. Yeah, there are cute flat and feminine shoes that I own to wear with my suits. But when I want to look my feminine best and feel the estrogen coursing through my body heels are a must have-must wear accessory.

On that note, time to go shopping and see if those pumps I was checking out last week are on sale.

Imus Calls Rutgers Women's Team 'Nappy Headed Hos'

Don Imus is in the hotseat after he, his executive producer and a sports reporter dissed the Rutgers University women's team during his April 4 MSNBC simulcast radio show 'Imus In The Morning'.

After executive producer Bernard McGuirk referred to them as 'hardcore hos' and also compared the two teams to “the Jigaboos vs. the Wannabes” from the Spike Lee School Daze movie, Imus chimed in with his comments.

From the April 4 edition of MSNBC's Imus in the Morning:

IMUS: So, I watched the basketball game last night between -- a little bit of Rutgers and Tennessee, the women's final.

ROSENBERG: Yeah, Tennessee won last night -- seventh championship for [Tennessee coach] Pat Summitt, I-Man. They beat Rutgers by 13 points.

IMUS: That's some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos and --

McGUIRK: Some hard-core hos.

IMUS: That's some nappy-headed hos there. I'm gonna tell you that now, man, that's some -- woo. And the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute, you know, so, like -- kinda like -- I don't know.

McGUIRK: A Spike Lee thing.

IMUS: Yeah.

McGUIRK: The Jigaboos vs. the Wannabes -- that movie that he had.

IMUS: Yeah, it was a tough --

McCORD: Do The Right Thing.

McGUIRK: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

IMUS: I don't know if I'd have wanted to beat Rutgers or not, but they did, right?

ROSENBERG: It was a tough watch. The more I look at Rutgers, they look exactly like the Toronto Raptors.

IMUS: Well, I guess, yeah.

RUFFINO: Only tougher.

McGUIRK: The [Memphis] Grizzlies would be more appropriate.



The National Association of Black Journalists called for an apology from Imus, encouraging all journalists to boycott his show until an apology is issued.

“Has he lost his mind?” said NABJ President Bryan Monroe. “Those comments were beyond offensive. Imus needs to be fired. Today.”

Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer was also incensed by the comments about her team, which has eight African-American and two white members.

"I am deeply saddened and angered by Mr. Imus' statements," said Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer. "To serve as a joke of Mr. Imus in such an insensitive manner creates a wedge and makes light of these classy individuals, both as women and as women of color."

In a joint statement, NCAA President Myles Brand and Rutgers President Richard McCormick condemned Imus' slur.

"It is unconscionable that anyone would use the airways to utter such disregard for the dignity of human beings who have accomplished much and deserve great credit," their statement read.

Imus apologized on his Friday show.

School Days II-Falcon Quest

Our Gold and White we love so dear
We'll remember through the years
Courage, love and loyalty
True to our school we'll always be
Falcons stand out among the rest
Meeting each and every test
Cherished you will always be
In and hearts and memories.

I recently renewed my Classmates.com subscription after getting numerous e-mails about peeps checking my profile. Being on there the last few days I've seen the names of some of my old classmates. Its triggered a flood of memories for me about the Class of 1980 that made me pull out my senior class memory book and yearbook.

Ah, the memories. Beating Jack Yates my sophomore year. The great state-ranked Falcon basketball teams. That heartbreaking last-second basketball district championship loss on a dunk we suffered against Wheatley in 1979 that eerily replicated itself for me at UH in 1983. The dances. Beating Sterling on a last second field goal during the 1979 'South Park Super Bowl'.

The Vanguard beach parties in Galveston and some of the other wild-and-crazy things about life in Vanguard. The costume day during homecoming week in 1979 when Charmaine Tolliver came dressed as Wonder Woman. She had the body to pull it off and was followed through school by drooling brothers hollering "Save me, Wonder Woman, Save Me!" Me and Lonnie Prothro cutting up during tennis practice and running laps for it.

The mornings we spent cracking jokes in the cafeteria or in front of the school auditorium before school started. Sneaking off campus to go to Popeye's and Mickey D's for lunch. The Max and Kyle Living Singleesque dissfest that me and Jocelyn Woodard used to engage in before she transferred to another school my senior year. Peeps used to accuse both of us of having feelings for each other which we both heatedly denied.

To be honest, I was a little jealous of her. Jocelyn was a beautiful girl, smart, never had a hair out of place and we rarely saw her in anything but dresses, heels and hose. Before she left for Lamar I had the pleasure of beating her butt at Mattel electronic football.

The girls that were interested in my 'twin' I kept at a distance because I was afraid that if I fell in love and that relationship progressed to marriage plus kids one day the gender issue would blow everything up and I'd have three or more people's feelings and lives hurt instead of just my own.

It was also torture for me to watch my female classmates blossom into womanhood. I felt like I was on the wrong team, I was being cheated and a cruel cosmic joke was being played on me. Little did I know at the time that I had a fellow Vanguard classmate that was going through the same feelings from the female to male aspect of it.

My time at my high school alma mater was a mixed bag. I'm very proud of my classmates in 'The Class With Class' as we're known in Jesse H. Jones lore. Many of them have gone on to greater success or are still working on it like I am. Sometimes when I get nostalgic about my time at JJ there's a little bit of residual sadness that washes over me because of the internal gender conflict I was dealing with and felt I couldn't tell anyone about.

That senior year seemed almost magical when I look back at it. I ended up going to TWO proms that night, ours and Sterling's. Ross Sterling was the high school my neighborhood was zoned to and my junior high Albert Thomas was a feeder for. I was at JJ for the Vanguard magnet program and many of my junior high friends ended up at Sterling. I spent almost as much time around Sterling events as I did at Jones and it was ironic that we held our prom the same night at two different Galleria hotels. We kept trading peeps back and forth between the two events.

The All Night Senior Party event at AstroWorld was the bomb. I got my license on my 18th birthday just a few weeks before graduation and recall the mixture of relief and sadness I felt during Senior Week. I also remember the last day of school of my senior year. It felt like that day took ten years to pass. Now ten years passes by in a week.

However, there are times I wish I'd just dealt with the gender issues then. I could've walked across that stage when I picked up my diploma as the person I am right now and I'd be in a better position life wise. Then again I'm also talking about the late 1970's as well.

I also have to consider the fact that if by some miracle I'd been able to do teen transition, would I be the same person I am now? I probably wouldn't be as open about my life since the advice gender therapists were giving then was to blend in and not let anybody know you were transgender. But then again I had buried it so deeply that when I finally did come out, the weight lifted off my shoulders was so liberating that I didn't care if peeps knew or not. I probably would've had the same reaction then as I did in 1993.

I managed to graduate with honors, but when I look back on it there were some things I would do differently if I could. I'd be more active than I was. I was on student council, part of the Model United Nations group my junior year but I feel I could've done more. I realized several years ago that I have a God-given talent for writing. That's something that should have clicked when I was one of my junior high school's winners of that NASA writing contest. I would've spent time on the school paper, joined the yearbook staff and went out for the tennis team sooner instead of my senior year. One of the side effects of the gender issues conundrum was that I spent so much time and energy trying to play 'boy' and eradicate any hint of my female persona that I didn't leave myself time to focus on what I really wanted out of life. I didn't have the self-confidence built up to fearlessly go for it.

I'm still the premier trash talker bar none and opposing fans who made the mistake of walking over to our side of Barnett Stadium or Barnett Fieldhouse found out the hard way. One night we were playing our bitter rival Jack Yates my junior year and they were trashing us 40-0 in response to the buttkicking we gave them my sophomore year. This loudmouth comes over to our side of the stadium and yells, "What's wrong Jones? Y'all couldn't program the computers to beat us?"

I shot back, "At least we have people at Jones smart enough to program computers, unlike you future TDC (Texas Department of Corrections) residents." Homeboy went scurrying back to the Yates side of the stadium with our laughter ringing in his ears.

I am blessed to still have in my life some of the friends I made during my time there. Some have remained so through my transition. I have gone to our reunions in 1985, 1990 and 2000 and plan to be there in 2010. I'm hoping I'll get to see at the 2010 reunion some classmates I haven't seen since we left JJ. I'm hopeful that while I'm on Classmates.com I get to reconnect with some others and reminisce about our times walking the halls of Jesse H. Jones.

By the way, me and 'errbody' else in Vanguard are still pissed about that Animal House like double secret senior trip some of y'all took to Dallas-Fort Worth and didn't tell us about until y'all got back. ;)

Mission Accomplished?

I posted last month about Tubby Smith being under attack by a faction of UK fans who wanted him gone because he hadn't won enough in their expert opinions. The FireTubbySmith.com fans and the other Tubby hate sites were using euphemisms like 'saving the program' or 'defending its traditions' to mask their racism.

The episode gave UK basketball a national black eye and a negative reputation from which it will take years to recover. The elite recruits that were coming here are reconsidering their commitments as the rest of the SEC was saying thank you for the early Christmas present. They are salivating at the prospect of getting their shots in this fall on a weakened UK program that has tormented them for decades.

Since I wrote that Quit Hatin' on Tubby post on March 22 Tubby left UK to take the job at the University of Minnesota. There was glee in UKKKville as websites like FireTubbySmith.com posted the infamous George W. Bush Mission Accomplished photo op.

Like Iraq, their mission ain't over. The person that was number one on their list to replace Tubby, Florida's Billy Donovan is turning down the UK job. With that announcement the UK fans who were so in love with Donovan in the wake of Tubby's exit and him winning back to back NCAA championships have turned on him like rabid dogs. Rick Barnes of Texas said no as well.



I had a feeling that was going to happen in Rick Barnes case. Texas alums not only have a nationwide fanbase, tradition and passion for Burnt Orange that matches UK, they have deeper pockets. As long as he continues scooping up the best talent in the Lone Star State he'll continue prowling the UT sidelines. While he's there he needs to schedule UH for a game or two. He's played everybody else in he state EXCEPT us.

Now the UK faithful have turned their sights to Tom Izzo of Michigan State and Billy Gillispie of Texas A&M and hope that one of those coaches will sit in a coaches chair that has become about as radioactive as Chernobyl.

Tom Izzo? He's an institution at Michigan State? He's got Detroit and Lansing as a recruiting base. Michigan State fans aren't demanding perfection every year or calling for his head (yet).

Gillispie left Texas A&M to come here and I hope he realizes what he's gotten himself into. He could've stayed at A&M, built that program into a national power to compete and beat the hated Longhorns and had the undying love and devotion of Aggies worldwide. I wonder how long a honeymoon he'll have if he doesn't meet the stress inducing expectations of the UK faithful. I'll just have to tune in to 'As Rupp Arena Turns' to find out.

Hmm. Wonder if I can get any University of Minnesota apparel at Mall St. Matthews?

Angela Bofill-The Angel Of The Night

One of my favorite songs is Angel of the Night by Angela Bofill. For those of you who were toddlers during the 70's or weren't even thought of yet you've probably heard the song played regularly as part of your local radio station's Quiet Storm format. She was also the first Latina to find success in the R&B world.

Angela's a New York City girl raised by a Cuban father and Puerto Rican mother in Harlem. Her godfather was the legendary Tito Puente and she has a three and a half octave range voice. Bofill growing up was exposed to various music styles ranging from Motown to Aretha to Celia Cruz and of course her godfather.

She's an accomplished, classically trained opera singer and songwriter. By the time Angie was 18 she was doing jam sessions with music greats such as Cannonball Adderly, Herbie Hancock, and Dizzy Gillespie. She was a featured soloist for the Dance Theater of Harlem, majored in theater at the University of Hartford, voice at the Hartt School of Music and holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the prestigious Manhattan School of Music.


Bofill began her solo recording career in 1978 with a singing style that blended pop, R&B and jazz. Her first album, Angie contained the hits Next Time I'll Be Sweeter and Under The Moon and Over The Sky. It quickly established her as an up and coming vocalist and evoked comparisons to another vocalist with a similar singing style, her label mate Phyllis Hyman.

Her sophomore album, Angel of the Night contained my fave song and 'I Try'. Both albums topped the R&B, pop and jazz charts for several months in 1979 and firmly established Angela Bofill in short order as a musical force to be reckoned with.

She released Something About You in 1981 and Too Tough in 1983. The title track on this album became a major dance hit and the album went gold. Angie released a few more albums during the rest of the decade with varying degrees of success and also appeared in stage plays such as “God Don’t Like Ugly” and “What A Man Wants, What A Man Needs.”

On January 10, 2006 she suffered a stroke that paralyzed her left side and impaired her speech. She spent a few days in the hospital before being relased January 15, 2006 to recover at her California home. Like millions of Americans Angie didn't have health insurance at the time so it's been a long, tough fight to recovery. She is able to lift her leg, has feeling in her shoulder and her arm but has no mobility in it. She's determined to sing again and she's currently undergoing speech and physical therapy. There was a benefit concert held for her in Detroit on March 21, 2007 and according to her agent the R&B Foundation feels she qualifies for assistance as well.

Here's hoping that one of my fave singers makes a full recovery and we once again get to hear the Angel of the Night in her full glory.

April 2007 TransGriot Column

Chill Out Calling Women You Don’t Like Trannies
Copyright 2007, THE LETTER

One thing I’m getting a little sick of is the trend in the blogosphere, the Internet and elsewhere to use ‘trannie’ as an epithet for women you despise.

For several years now 6-foot conservative commentator Ann Coulter has been bombarded with the ‘Mann Coulter’ wisecrack. Yeah, she’s said far worse things about gays, liberals and a whole host of peeps that we need to forcefully call her on. But why stoop to her middle school level of discourse?

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about from the blog ‘Moon Over My Hammy’:

‘Isn’t it Ironic . . . that Ann Coulter would call Edwards a "faggot" when she looks like a post-op transsexual?'

It’s hypocritical for the progressive community to get its panties in a bunch about Coulter’s f-word insult of John Edwards and then counterattack by calling her transvestite, transsexual or transgender. The part that galls us even more about this is that we’re supposed to be your allies in the struggle against these conservaidiots.

It’s not just progressive bloggers who are culpable. Gay ones such as Perez Hilton and others have savaged 5’8” Paris Hilton as well by repeatedly calling her and her sister Nicky trannies. Tina Fey commented during a recent interview on Howard Stern’s Sirius radio show that “Paris looks like a tranny up close.”

That remark is also hurled at 6-foot former model Kimora Lee Simmons as well as any other women perceived as having traits that ‘belong’ to the opposite gender. While I would expect that crap from the general public, It angers other transwomen and me even further when GLBT peeps such as Perez Hilton are engaged in doing it.

Let me ‘edumacate’ y’all on something. GLBT peeps should know that better than any other humans on Planet Earth that no one is 100% male or female. You get some of your genetic and physical traits from mommy and some from daddy. In many cases you get a blend of the two.

One of the things my female relatives noticed about me before and since transition is my naturally long eyelashes. I got relentlessly teased in junior high about my 'girl's legs’ and ‘girl’s butt’ by the fellas in my gym classes.

Just because Paris Hilton wears size 11 shoes and Ann Coulter has a huge Adam’s apple doesn't necessarily make either one of them transsexuals until they proclaim otherwise. I know more than a few petite transwomen as well as genetic women who are taller than my 6’2” height.

While there are a lot of genetic women that we in the transgender community would happily embrace as our sisters and welcome them with open arms, Paris and Ann ain't high on my personal list of peeps I’d love to see declaring they are transwomen.

The problem with using transgender or transsexual as pejorative terms is that it reinforces the views of some less-than-enlightened people in our society that being transgender is wrong or strange. Some people in the transgender community also consider the term transvestite an inflammatory insult, so it’s doubly wounding to us if you call somebody out using that word simply because you loathe them.

If you feel the need to insult someone, find some other creatively shady epithet to use (and not the b-word either). Transwomen deal with enough accumulated slights, slurs, negativity and assaults on our self-esteem and images from our foes. We don’t need our allies contributing to the dissing of us as well by using the terms we chose as a community to describe ourselves to insult our genetic sisters.

Chill Out Calling Women You Don't Like Trannies

TransGriot Note: I had a LOT to say about this topic. My April TransGriot newspaper column was also devoted to the subject as well.

photos-Paris Hilton, fetus at six weeks, Harisu, a Hooter's protest, Dana International, Caroline 'Tula' Cossey in her For Your Eyes Only scene, Lauren Foster and Chanel Dupree.

I'm getting annoyed with people who use the term 'tranny' as a pejorative to insult female celebrities.

There are a lot of things that you can creatively come up with for example to insult Paris Hilton. You can criticize her for being a spoiled rich kid, carrying herself in a tacky manner, not being an intellectual giant or her penchant for not wearing underwear. But her tormentors find it easier since she is 5'8" and wears size 11 shoes to call her a 'tranny'.

News flash to her haters: Don't insult the transgender community by disrespectfully calling Paris, Ann Coulter and any other woman you don't like trannies.

Time for me to school y'all on something. There's a very fine line in vitro between being born male and being born female. That's why transpeeps exist.

We all start life in the womb as a FEMALE fetus. About the eighth to twelfth week of pregnancy is when the fetal hormone wash takes place that starts your fetal development path either down the male road or the female one and imprints your gender identity upon your developing brain as well.

So what am I getting at? My basic point is that NO ONE is 100% male or female. We are all a blend of characteristics from our parents. In addition to that, while male and female genitalia are different in form and function they also have a common origination point that starts divergent development once the hormone wash takes place.

Now that I've finished dropping the science, let's get back to talking about this trend of insulting biological women by calling them trannies.

As my gender therapist Dr. Collier Cole once told me, 'Women come in all shapes and sizes'. They range in size from 4'10" to 6'10", body shapes from slim to full figured, clothing sizes from size 0 to size 20 with wide ranging shoe sizes as well.

That applies to transwomen as well. I have trans girlfriends that when I look at them do a double take when I ponder the fact they were once on the other side of the gender fence. Conversely there are biowomen who make me want to perform the Crocodile Dundee Sex Test on them when I see them out and about in the world.


But I don't think that's why Paris Hilton is being slammed with the comment along with Ann Coulter and others. It's because they have parts of their physical makeup that don't conform to societal gender expectations. The fact that they also are controversial in their own ways easily tempts their critics to lapse into slamming them using the term.




If you haters are insinuating by using the term as an epithet that these women are ugly, then I suggest you roll up to Chicago one Labor Day weekend and check out the Miss Continental pageant or if you're visiting Thailand the Miss Tiffany Pageant. Transwomen are far from ugly or 'men in dresses'. Caroline Cossey, Lauren Foster, Tracy Africa and others have worked as models and Caroline was a Bond Girl in the movie For Your Eyes Only.



Israeli transwoman Dana International won the Eurovision song contest a few years ago. Korean transwoman Harisu is a spokesmodel for makeup and sanitary pads companies in Asia. So if transwomen are so ugly, why are they banned from competing in the Miss Universe and other mainstream pageants?


I'm not posting on this topic because I'm hypersensitive about it. Far from it. One of the things I harp on with transpeople is to have the ability to find humor in our transitions and life situations where it exists.

But I draw the line at non-trans people brandishing the word 'tranny' as an epithet in a feeble attempt to be funny or just mean-spirited.

Chill with that, okay?

April 4 Blues

April 4 tends to be a bittersweet day for me. It not only signals the fact that I am four weeks away from celebrating another birthday, it also happens to be the day that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated.

That happened 39 years ago, and I still vaguely remember some of the TV coverage of the events. Of course there's the famous Moneta Sleet, Jr. AP photo of a black veiled Coretta Scott King holding their daughter Bernice (the same one spewing GLBT hatred from her post as associate pastor of New Birth Baptist Church, but that's a post for another time).



What I try to do when I start feeling sad about this day, I remember Dr. King by reading his writings and speeches and thanking God for the yeoman's work that he did during his 39 years on planet Earth. I rededicate myself to doing my part to help keep the dream alive and trying to conduct my life based on Kingian principles.

I also spend some of this day contemplating what the world would have been like if Dr. King had been able to live a normal lifespan. He was planning the Poor People's Campaign at the time of his death in Memphis, so I can postulate that he would have not only continued to condemn the Vietnam War, but also contined working for economic justice as well.

Dr. King probably would have decried the current war in Iraq, the increasingly mean-spirited and selfish way that this country gets under conservative rule and called out the Democrats for their weak response to it. I also can't imagine Dr. King remaining silent over what has happened to New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina.

I can also visualize Dr. King continuing to be an eloquent spokesperson for democracy, education and the Christian faith. I can see him taking to task those 'creation science/intelligent design' peeps, fundamentalists using the Bible to mask their hatred and being an eloquent defender of the principle of separation of church and state.

Dr. King would have taken the African-American community to task for some of the things that have been happening over the last 39 years as well. He'd be critical of the negativity and misogyny of hip-hop, some of our peeps not caring to vote or get an education and the weak response of the Black church to the HIV/AIDS crisis here in the United States and in Africa. Finally, I believe he would have had harsh words for those African-American ministers who preach hatred of GLBT peeps from the pulpit.

The world and our country definitely would have been a much better place with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. around over the last 39 years to remind us that we can do better that we are right now.

No Joke-This Sistah Can Coach

Not many people have heard of Rutgers University coach C. Vivian Stringer, but the peeps in the NCAA women's coaching ranks definitely have. She's the first coach male or female to take three different schools to the Final Four. (Rick Pitino of Louisville has matched that distinction on the men's side.)

When you mention the elite coaches in the NCAA women's ranks her Big East rival Geno Auriemma of Connecticut or Tennessee's Pat Summitt will come to mind. But C. Vivian Stringer has earned the right to be mentioned in the same breath as well. Her record during her 35-year coaching career is 750-215 (.749) which ranks third all time behind the 900 wins of just retired Texas Longhorn coach Jody Conradt and Pat Summitt's 913.

Stringer is called 'The Master Builder' for taking unknown and unheralded programs and molding them into elite level contenders. She did it first with Cheyney State, an HBCU located just outside Philadelphia. They made a surprise run to the national semifinals during the first NCAA sanctioned women's tournament in 1982. A decade later she coached the University of Iowa to a 1993 Final Four appearance. In 2000 she coached Rutgers to its first Final Four in Philadelphia but that team fell in the semifinals to Tennessee.



In what Stringer considers her most satisfying coaching job she's guided a Scarlet Knight team that has no seniors, three juniors, five freshmen and two sophomores to a second Final Four appearance. This team lost four of its first six games in November and December before putting together a 24-4 finishing kick that's taken Rutgers to the brink of a championship. They knocked off No. 1 seeded Duke and outlasted Arizona State to reach this year's tournament final in Cleveland.

It continued a magical season in which they finally knocked off their perennial Big East nemesis UConn after falling to them in the Big East tourney finals for two consecutive years. Rutgers takes on LSU in today's national semifinal with the victor playing either Tennessee or North Carolina for the NCAA championship Tuesday night.

She is a three time winner of the National Coach of the Year award in addition to a long list of honors she's received. She has a Olympic gold medal courtesy of her assistant coaching stint with the USA Women's team at the Athens Games in 2004. She was also named by Sports Illustrated magazine as one of the '101 Most Influential Minorities in Sports' in addition to being inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2001.

But the honor she wants most is to walk away from Cleveland April 3 as the second African-American coach to win an NCAA women's championship.