One of the things I constantly tell my African-American biosisters is that your transsisters have far more in common with you than the minor differences that separate us.
Some of the things that we have in common with you in addition to our shared cultural heritage is facing a heightened awareness that we are now targets for sexaul assault and murder, job discrimination, sexual harassment, and denigration of our beauty,
Another is being slapped with the 'angry' label when we are honestly saying what we think in mixed company.
I can't tell you how many times in GLBT Internet discussion groups, GLBT spaces, or in answers to comments I've posted to threads in discussion groups or blogs how someone will whip out the 'angry' tag when I'm expressing my opinion on various subjects that doesn't dovetail with theirs.
News flash to those people: If I'm pissed off, you and the whole world will know it.
But like all intelligent, thinking Black women, I'm a little sick of being told by people that don't share our ethnic heritage or conservaidiots such as Cal Thomas and Pat Buchanan that we're 'angry' when we candidly express what's on our minds.
Michelle Obama has been not only slimed with racist comments, she's been whacked with the 'angry' tag already and we aren't even at the party conventions yet.
Interesting is the deafening silence coming from the white feminist ranks now that Michelle's the one being attacked with racist and sexist remarks. During the Democratic primary you couldn't pry 'angry white women' away from a camera when Hillary was being slammed with them by conservapundits.
As Sojourner Truth said over a century ago, Ain't I a woman, too?
Yeah, but Ms. Obama is the wrong color one to warrant a massive public PR defense from the white-dominated feminist ranks.
But back to the GLBT ranks. I've often said that the GLBT community is a microcosm of society at large. Whatever ills and isms are part of the parent society manifest themselves in our little subset of it.
And two of those 'isms' happen to be racism and sexism.
Like my biosisters I find that sometimes when I try to express my viewpoints in meetings I get stepped over by male voices in the room and have to fight to have my viewpoint heard.
That's before we even get to the race based part.
If I express a viewpoint counter to GLBT groupthink or I point out something blatantly obvious such as last week's melanin free hearing for example, I'm called 'angry', 'miltant', 'obsessed about race', 'competing in the Oppression Olympics', challenged to come up with verifiable proof of what I'm commenting on or whatever suppression language du jour they use in mixed GLBT spaces.
I'm just supposed to be the 'happy darkie' or noncontroversial Negro just pleased that Massa is letting me sit at the Big House GLBT Civil Rights table and smile for the cameras when they wanna show the world how 'diverse' they are. I'm supposed to keep it quiet that the GLBT community can be just as bigoted, racist and sexist as the fundamentalists who are oppressing them and don't want to be reminded of that.
As Maya Wilkes, my fave character from the dearly departed show Girlfriends says, 'Oh, Hell No!'
Let's keep it real for a moment. If some peeps and organizations in the GLBT community didn't constantly repeat the negative behaviors, I wouldn't have to constantly remind you of how much work you have to do to eradicate them.
As I warned y'all in my first TransGriot post, there will be times when I piss you off. While I strive when I write post commentary to do it in a thoughful, rational, reasoned and balanced manner, it would be disengenuos to not point out that as a person of African descent I look at issues through that prism. My thoughts, writngs, musings and opinions don't always neatly line up with the prevailing wisdom in the overall GLBT community.
In addition, I'm blunt at times and call it as I see it. In the spirit of one of my sheroes, the late Rep. Barbara Jordan, I believe in morally ethical leadership and work diligently to apply those principles in my own life and leadership style. Staying true to those principles sometimes puts me in the awkward position of having to call out people and organizations I consider friends as well.
But my goal has always been to make you think and expose you to some of the drama that African-American transpeeps and transpeople in general deal with. I want to remind my African-American brothers and sisters (and the GLBT community) that just because I transitioned doesn't mean I gave up my Black Like Me card. I'm proud of my heritage, proud of my history, still share the desire to do my part to uplift the race and be considered a valued member of our African-American family.
And if that in your eyes makes me 'angry', you need to wake up and check the alarm clock.
June 28 was the 39th anniversary of the riots that kicked off the modern GLBT rights movement. Contrary to some written histories that have 'whitewashed' the real story, the Stonewall Riots were kicked off by people of color and transgender people sick and tired of police harassment.
I had the pleasure of meeting Sylvia Rivera during a May 2000 vacation visit to New York when I was still the Air Marshal. It was an honor to talk to the mother of our movement about the direction of it and where she saw it heading. The historian in me just let her talk, and to this day, I wish I'd had a note pad or a tape recorder on me since she passed away two years later.
When she discovered I was from Texas she started to go there about Lyndon Johnson and the Vietnam War, but I pointed out that as a Texan I have a vastly different impression of this complex man.
I've had the pleasure of talking to another Stonewall vet in Miss Major, and I renewed acquaintances with her at the recent NE Transgender March and pride Rally in Northampton. I met her during TSTBC 2005 in Louisville, and she told us at dinner her Stonewall story. Once again I was caught without a pen or tape recorder handy, but then again at this point I was beginning to think about starting a blog since it seemed as though I was always running into various movers and shakers in the community.
Miss Major and I had a brief chat during the Trans Pride March in whic she pointed out that next year will be the 40th Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, and she openly wondered if she would even get an invite to the ceremonies that will obviously take place to mark that anniversary. That's a good question, especially in light of the ongoing efforts to write people of color out of GLBT history and the contributions that we've made to shape that history.
But as long as YouTube, documentary filmmakers and blogs exist, it'll make it tougher to do so.
It's simply known as 'The Championships', but tennis fans all over the world know that you're talking about Wimbledon, the second jewel of the tennis Grand Slam that started June 23 and runs through July 6.
The defending champ is Venus Williams, and so far she's made it into the round of 16 without dropping a set. She's seeded sixth in this tournament and also broke the Wimbledon record for fastest serve. She uncorked a 127 mph ace to close out her third round straight set 6-1, 7-5 victory over Spain's Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez.
Seventh seeded baby sis Serena is also in the Round of 16 and hasn't dropped a set either. She did have to work to oust France's Amelie Mauresmo in their third round match. Mauresmo forced a tiebreaker in their first set that Baby Sis took 7-5, then blew her out in the second set 6-1 to take the match.
At least this year we have the possibility of a Sister-Sister final. Serena on paper looks like she has an easier draw, while Venus has Jelena Jankovic on her side of it. The Williams sisters will also be representing the USA at the Beijing Games and my Houston homegirl Zina Garrison will be coaching the Team USA women. I'll be tuning in to the Olympic tennis tournament being conducted from August 10-17 as well to see if my girls can bring home the gold.
We'll find out over the course of this week if the Williams sisters will be the last women standing as they seek to add additional Wimbledon singles and doubles titles to the ones they've already won.
This is a picture of the participants in Thursday's historic subcommittee hearing on transgender unemployment issues on Capitol Hill. Can you detect what's wrong with it?
What's wrong with this picture is that with the exception of Diego Sanchez, (second from the top) every other participant in it is white. There are no African-American transgender people testifying at this hearing.
Now, would you be happy if a historic hearing for transgender people happened on The Hill and your people weren't represented?
It is mind boggling for me to see that once again, a community that claims that we are one diverse bunch and that we're all in this together, puts together a historic hearing on unemployment discrimination, an issue that we African descended transgender people are intimately familar with and not one of us is at the table giving testimony about it.
This Congress now has 44 members of the Congressional Black Caucus who are wielding historic levels of power. It added another member earlier this month in Maryland's Donna Edwards. The majority whip is CBC member James Clyburn. Others have high seniority on various committees, or chair various committees and subcommittees. Oh yeah, there's some Illinois senator and CBC member who's the Democratic nominee for president.
Now I've read happy-happy joy-joy comments about how great this hearing was, what great work the Equal Sign org and Rep. Frank did in putting this together, how eloquent various people were, et cetera. I note these comments are all coming from peeps whose ethnic group was overwhelmingly represented at the hearing.
For those of us of African ancestry, all we experienced was a congressional blackout. There needed to be someone of African descent telling our stories, and no, Diego being the Latino transman at that table doesn't count.
While we all hope and pray for that day when we are all One America, the reality is that we aren't. Race permeates everything we do in this country. It's why the CBC, the CHC (Congressional Hispanic Caucus) and the Congressional Asian Pacific Islander Caucus exist. It's why I write and speak about race issues as part of my GLBT activist work.
I'm sure I'm going to hear the defensive spin over the next few weeks that 'the committee/Frank's office chose the speakers', 'we had a long, diverse list of speakers', 'HRC, NCTE and NGLTF didn't intentionally freeze out the African-American transgender community.'
Yeah, right.
If you were so concerned about having African-American representation on that panel, then why didn't y'all give the peeps at the National Black Justice Coalition a call? I do believe their headquarters is in Washington DC. You also had Earline Budd sitting there in DC as well. I think that transteen Rochelle Evans would have been happy to be flown in from Fort Worth to DC and tell her story about how hard its been for her to find employment and the blatant discrimination she's run into trying to find a job.
The point is that in the United States, no civil rights legislation passes without the CBC being on board with it. We have ten wavering members of the CBC getting tremendous pressure put on them by Hi Impact Leadership Coalition ministers in their districts (the negroid sellouts bankrolled by the Traditional Values Coalition).
An opportunity was lost in putting an African-American face to this problem. This also plays once again into the GLBT movement's ongoing PR problem in the African-American community that is exploited by the Hi Impact ministers and their like-minded friends. They are actively trying to split the coalition of African-Americans and the GLBT community, and trust me, this omission of our community will not only be exploited by them, but it has been noted by your African-American GLBT and non-GLBT allies(?).
While I'm happy the long rumored hearing happened and hope something positive comes out of this such as an inclusive ENDA, I'm not holding my breath based on the peeps who were behind it.
I'm also not happy about my people being dissed and ignored by the GLBT community once again.
One of the things I loved about Star Trek: The Next Generation was Lt. Commander Data.
I loved the fact that Brent Spiner, the actor who played him was from Houston. The other reason I adored Data was because I identified with him on another level. Data's journey during the 178 episode run from 1987-1994 was to be human, despite being an android.
Like transgender people, despite Data's obvious competence in his job duties onboard the USS Enterprise and service to Starfleet, faced prejudice and people questioning his abilities. He underwent a trial to determine whether he was Starfleet property or a sentient being. He used his off time to revel in the joys of discovering the simple things and pleasures about life that humans and the other lifeforms on the Enterprise took for granted. He tried to understand the nuanced socialization skills that being human requires. He spent much of his off duty time perfecting his attempts at mimicking human emotions and using them at the appropriate times when possible.
Despite his great intelligence, processing ability and desire to get it right, he didn't always succeed. Sometimes he nailed it, sometimes it turned out awkwardly, but he kept plugging away at it. He asked cogent questions, he worked diligently perfecting it, but in the end he proved to be more human than many people in Starfleet and the Enterprise's crew.
Data's series long journey, in many respects is similar to what we go through as transgender people. Despite the circumstances that we start out with in terms of being in a mismatched body, like Data, we transpeople are on a quest for our humanity as well.
We struggle to deal with all the phases of transition. We fight through the awkward 'tweener' phase in which our bodies are morphing from one gender to the other. We struggle to learn the appropriate age based gender knowledge, gestures, body posture of our desired gender without having the decades long trial and error socialization period to do so. We get used to the subtle and not so subtle differences between the genders and sometimes revel in the journey of discovery as it unfolds.
We also fight for our right to simply be part of the human family. We fight for our right to exist, to be respected, loved and live a happy and productive life.
And just as Data's was a constantly evolving one until the series ended, so is ours as transgender people. We also discover that the peace of mind and joy we receive from traveling through the gender frontier and being comfortable with who we are and in our own skin is worth more than all the latinum in the galaxy.
TransGriot Note: There are major reasons (besides being racist jerks) that the Forces of Intolerance and their like-minded friends in the GOP don't want Barack Obama to become our president and Michelle Obama to become our First Lady. Outside of the fresh new direction our country's policies will take after the Alice in Wonderlandesque madness we've been through in the last eight years, it will usher in a spirit of optimism and hope in our country not seen since the Kennedy era.
Here's the full text of her recent remarks to the DNC's Gay and Lesbian Leadership Council.
Thank you Howard Dean, for all your hard work building our party. We are proud to have you as our party Chairman. I want to recognize the members of UNITE HERE Local 6 who are working this event tonight. And thank you all for inviting me to spend some time with you.
I'm honored to be with you in a week that reminds us just how far we've come as a country. Five years ago today, the Supreme Court delivered justice with the decision in Lawrence v. Texas that same-sex couples would never again be persecuted through use of criminal law. And on Saturday, we recognize the anniversary of the day people stood up at Stonewall and said "enough."
These anniversaries remind us that no matter who we are, or where we come from, or what we look like, we are only here because of the brave efforts of those who came before us. That we are all only here because of those who marched and bled and died, from Selma to Stonewall, in a pursuit of that more perfect union that is the promise of this country.
Over the course of this campaign, we've seen a fundamental change in the level of political engagement in this country. We've seen a renewed sense of possibility and a hunger for change. We've seen people of all ages and backgrounds investing time and energy like never before; writing $20, $30, $50 checks; investing for the first time ever in a political candidate. We've seen people talking to their neighbors about candidates and issues; working hard to clarify misperceptions; challenging one another to think differently about the world and our place in it.
It's precisely this type of individual engagement and investment that has been the mission of my husband's life. Barack has always believed that there is more in this country that unites us than divides us; that our common stories and struggles and values are what make this country great; that meaningful change never happens from the top down but from the bottom up.
I'll never forget the first time I realized there was something special about Barack. It was nearly 20 years ago this summer. Barack and I were just getting to know one another, and he thought the best way for me to get to know him better was to get a better sense of the work he cared about most - his work as a community organizer.
He took me to a small church basement on the South Side of Chicago, where a group of neighborhood residents were gathered; folks he knew from his years as a community organizer before he went to law school. They were desperate for change. They were regular Americans struggling to build a decent life for themselves and their families. Single mothers living paycheck to paycheck; grandparents raising grandkids despite an income that wouldn't allow it; men unable to support their families because jobs had disappeared when steel mills closed. Like most Americans, they didn't want much; they weren't asking for much: just dignity and respect.
I watched as Barack walked into the room, took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and instantly connected with each and every person in that room. He spoke eloquently of "the world as it is" and "the world as it should be." He said the key to change is understanding that our job as citizens of this nation is to work hard each and every day to narrow the gap between those two ideas. He explained that we often settle for the world as it is even if it doesn't reflect our personal values. But he reminded us that it is only through determination and hard work that we slowly make the world as it is and the world as it should be one in the same. His words were powerful not only because they made us believe in him - they challenged each of us to believe in ourselves.
One of the many reasons I'm proud of the way Barack has handled himself in this campaign is that he is still the same man I fell in love with in that church basement. His unyielding belief in that simple idea - closing the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be - is precisely why he'll be a President you can be proud of.
Barack is not new to the cause of the LGBT community. It has been a conviction of his career since he was first elected to public office. In his first year in the Illinois State Senate, he cosponsored a bill amending the Illinois Human Rights Act to include protections for LGBT men and women. He worked on that bill for seven years, serving as chief cosponsor and lobbying his colleagues to reject the political expedience of homophobia and make LGBT equality a priority. In 2004, his efforts paid off as that bill finally became law, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity in the workplace, in housing, and in public places.
He's led on gender-based violence with his work on the Illinois Gender Violence Act, successfully reaching across the aisle to put in place the nation's strongest law giving the survivors of sexual assault or domestic violence legal remedy against their attackers. He joined his colleagues in fighting to include explicit protections for the LGBT community in that act. He lost that battle, but his efforts brought gender violence in the LGBT community into the political consciousness like never before.
In 2004, after hearing from gay friends and supporters about the hurtful impact of DOMA, Barack went on record during his U.S. Senate race calling for its complete repeal. And as a U.S. Senator, he voted to protect our Constitution from the stain of discrimination by voting against the Federal Marriage Amendment.
Barack's record is clear. There is so much at stake in this election. The direction of our country hangs in the balance. We are faced with those two clear choices: The world as it is, and the world as it should be. We have to ask ourselves: Are we willing to settle for the world as it is or are we willing to work for the world as it should be?
Despite the extraordinary challenges we face today, we have a candidate who believes that the country is moving in the right direction, despite the inequalities created over the last 8 years.
And then we have Barack Obama, who believes that we must fight for the world as it should be.
A world where together we work to reverse discriminatory laws like DOMA and Don't Ask, Don't Tell.
A world where LGBT Americans get a fair shake at working hard to get ahead without workplace discrimination.
A world where our federal government fully protects all of us - including LGBT Americans - from hate crimes.
And, a world where our federal laws don't discriminate against same-sex relationships, including equal treatment for any relationship recognized under state law.
A world that recognizes that equality in relationship, family, and adoption rights is not some abstract principle; it's about whether millions of LGBT Americans can finally live lives marked by dignity and freedom. Barack has made crystal clear his commitment to ensuring full equality for LGBT couples. That is why he supports robust civil unions. That is why he has said that the federal government should not stand in the way of states that want to decide for themselves how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples -- whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage. And that is why he opposes all divisive and discriminatory constitutional amendments - whether it's a proposed amendment to the California and Florida Constitutions or the U.S. Constitution. Because the world as it should be rejects discrimination.
But, it's not just about the positions you take, it's also about the leadership you provide.
Barack's got the courage to talk to skeptical audiences; not just friendly ones. That's why he told a crowd at a rally in Texas that gays and lesbians deserve equality. Now, the crowd got pretty quiet. But Barack said "now, I'm a Christian, and I praise Jesus every Sunday." And the crowd started cheering. Then he said, "I hear people saying things that I don't think are very Christian with respect to people who are gay and lesbian." And you know what? The crowd kept cheering.
That's why he told evangelicals at Rick Warren's Saddleback church that we need a renewed call to action on HIV and AIDS.
That's why he went to Ebenezer Baptist Church and said that we need to get over homophobia in the African-American community; that if we're honest with ourselves, we'll embrace our gay brothers and sisters instead of scorning them. And that's why he stood up at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and told all of America that we refuse to be divided anymore.
That's the choice in this election. Between slipping backward and moving forward. Between being timid or being courageous. Between fighting for the world as it should be, or settling for the world as it is.
My husband is running for President to build an America that lives up to the ideals written into our Constitution. We have just come through a historic primary election where a woman and a black man were running to become President of the United States. It hasn't been painless, but change never is. As I travel this country, I am certain that we have arrived at a moment in our collective history where we are ready to move forward and create the "world as it should be."
I know which world Barack will fight for each and every day as your President. But he can't do it alone. As he said in that church basement, change happens when ordinary people are ready to take the reins of their own destiny. He needs you by his side every step of the way. That kind of change won't be easy. There will be powerful forces who believe that things should stay just the way they are.
That's where you come in. Your voices of truth and hope and of possibility have to drown out the skeptics and the cynics.
If you stand with my husband; if you reach for what is possible and if you refuse to let this chance get away; we can begin building that better world in November.
Growing up in Brooklyn, Deadria Farmer-Paellmann listened to her grandfather wax poetic about how African-Americans deserved their 40 acres and a mule to make up for centuries of enslavement. Now she’s fighting to see that we finally get paid in full. For the past seven years, the 41-year-old reparations advocate has taken on some of America’s biggest corporations by proving that they profited—and continue to reap rewards—off the back of slave labor. In her latest move to get restitution, Farmer-Paellmann is serving as the lead plaintiff in a case against companies that allegedly made money from slavery. The landmark proceeding, which names 17 businesses, including Aetna and Bank of America, is currently up for review on the United States Supreme Court’s docket.
"Her strategy of going after the private sector is absolutely imaginative and creative," says Mary Frances Berry, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania and former chairperson of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. "She is at the vanguard of the movement to try to get reparations taken seriously."
With a string of victories already under her belt, Farmer-Paellmann certainly has people sitting up and taking note. Along with other advocates, she has compelled businesses, such as J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Wachovia, to apologize for their role in slavery and to shell out millions to organizations like the NAACP and Howard University. She’s also triggered the passage of slavery disclosure laws around the country, forcing companies to fess up to their links to the slave trade.
"It is unreasonable for companies to keep wealth they acquired by stealing people, torturing laborers to work without compensation, and brutalizing those who resisted," she argues. “They must atone by paying restitution." Her current lawsuit demands a humanitarian trust fund be set up to benefit the descendants of slaves instead of individual payouts. "We need this capital for economic development, affordable housing, educational opportunities and health care," she says. "As a community we suffer in all these areas as a direct result of slavery."
The toilsome reparations fight became a passion for Farmer- Paellmann during law school, when she chose the controversial topic as the focus of a project. It became her full-time mission during her pregnancy with daughter Sabina in 1999.
Prepping for her battle has been far from easy. Farmer-Paellmann went through the laborious process of getting a list of present-day companies that existed in some form before 1865 and calling them, one by one, to grill them about past practices. Her enterprise is largely self-funded, and she relies on donations from family and friends and personal savings to forge ahead, despite naysayers who argue that the reparations fight is futile.
But Farmer-Paellmann says her progress speaks for itself. "We’ve won historic victories, and we got companies to pay $20 million," she says, referencing payments made by J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America and Wachovia to Howard University and the NAACP and several other organizations. "If detractors were aware of these things, they would be a bit more optimistic."
WASHINGTON, DC --The nation's most influential African-American civil rights organizations have joined together to denounce the beating of a transgender women by Memphis, TN police and has also called for an investigation and prosecution of the officers involved.
The National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC), America's only nationwide Black civil rights organization focused upon lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues is joined by the Black Leadership Forum (BLF), an alliance of over thirty national African-American civil rights and social service organizations in denouncing the incident.
In an historic move, NBJC reached out to BLF member organizations which include the NAACP, Congressional Black Caucus, National Urban League, National Council of Negro Women, 100 Black Men, Inc., and several others to join forces to stand for equality and against discrimination and hatred toward ALL African-Americans.
A newly released tape shows that on February 12, 2008 at least two police officers were involved in the horrific act of physically assaulting Duanna Johnson while she was being held in the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center. Johnson, a transgender woman had been arrested on a charge of prostitution.
"What we saw on the video was disturbing. When those who have been sworn to protect us abuse their scared duty our justice system must respond," said NBJC CEO H. Alexander Robinson. "It appears that not only did an officer use unnecessary force to brutalize Ms. Johnson he did so as other officers looked on. "While being called names such as "faggot" and "he-she", surveillance video show an officer walk over and hit Johnson in the face several times while having handcuffs wrapped around his knuckles and another officer holding her down as she tried to protect herself from the punches.
We are deeply troubled by the continuing pattern of incidents across the country –hate crimes, police misconduct, and racial intimidation – that are all-too-often tolerated and ignored by local law enforcement officials and courts. Moreover, despite significant progress in the treatment of LGBT people, the targeting of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals for police abuse and misconduct remains a persistent and widespread problem in the US. People of color communities comprise of at least 36% of victims and survivors of anti-LGBT related crimes in America, according to the National Coalition of anti-violence programs.
When faced with the abuse of individual civil rights we look to our local police departments not only to guarantee that those engaging in such actions are held accountable for their behavior, but to send a distinct message from the highest levels of government that such conduct has no place in our American society. Swift and firm action will demonstrate that our hard-fought federal civil rights laws are not mere empty promises, but will be strictly enforced to guarantee all Americans the full and equal protection of our nation's laws.
The National Black Justice Coalition - America 's only nationwide Black civil rights organization focused upon lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues.
The Black Leadership Forum - An alliance of over thirty national African-American civil rights and social service organizations in denouncing the incident
One of the things I have consistently griped about is the lack of American flags at GLBT community events. It would have been more appropriate to post this on Flag Day (June 14), but I was still gathering my thoughts together on this topic and dealing with other issues.
I was reminded of this yet again at the recent June 7 NE Transgender Pride March and Rally. Considering they organized it in just nine months, they covered a lot of ground and did it well. The organization of this event was first class. There was an RV on the side of the stage acting as a green room with bottled water, sport drinks and snacks for us to partake in before and after we went on stage. The event site had ample parking. The march had a police escort and even had a rainbow flag decorating the stage.
But not an American one.
I pointed out that omission to the organizers when I arrived at the site that morning, but acquiring one got lost in the last minute scramble to set up the site for the 700 plus people that later appeared there.
This is a recurring problem I've observed within the GLBT community across the country, and not just with my gracious Western Massachusetts hosts, so please don't get it twisted.
If we are going to win the war for our civil rights, we have to take away the ridiculously deceptive Religious Reich arguments that we transpeople 'aren't Americans' (or whatever country you're living in) and transgender rights are 'special rights'
We have to repeatedly make the case in order to blow up these right-wing Big Lies that we are Americans who deserve and demand the same civil rights coverage that you enjoy, it's immorally wrong to deny us those rights, and we want it now.
The easiest way to remind the Faux News watching masses that we are Americans is to wave the Stars and Stripes in their face. From this day forward, every time we have a protest, pride event, Trans 101 education event, conference or a march, we need to have Old Glory front and center. If we do television media interviews, we need to be wearing American flag lapel pins when doing so.
And we need to do it now.
I realize that some of you may have antipathy toward the flag for personal, political, philosophical or other reasons. Well, get over it. If you want your constitutional rights in the next five years, you'll take what I have to say seriously and run to your nearest hardware store to buy a flag. After you do that, bone up on the rules for properly displaying it.
As long as we are living inside the borders of the United States, Canada, or whatever country we happen to be born in, there are certain culturally significant values wrapped up in the flags of the nations of the world. They take on meanings for the residents of those countries far beyond being simple pieces of cloth.
Yes, I try to live the values that others only disingenuously lecture about and don't need a US flag bumper sticker on my car to say that. My actions do.
However, when you are talking about a political movement that is fighting to have their constitutional rights respected and not trampled on by the tyranny of the majority, symbols matter.
It's also important to note that when you peruse US history and the history of reform or civil rights movements, no civil rights movement to date trying to win rights for a minority group has done so without having the flag prominently displayed at all its events. If the GLBT rights movement wants to win, they will eventually have to do so as well.
One thing you'll note in many pictures of Civil Rights Movement events and marches is the presence of Old Glory somewhere in the picture. Even Woodstock and the 60's anti Vietnam war protesters had American flags present in addition to the modified one with the peace symbol on it.
The immigration rights movement has quickly learned this lesson. After getting savagely criticized for conducting marches that had the flags of their native countries prominently displayed but not the one of the country they are currently residing in, or if they did display a US flag it was done incorrectly, now have American flags prominently displayed at every event they conduct.
By displaying the flag at our events, and I'm not talking about that rainbow adaptation of it, it sends the message that we are proud, patriotic Americans who love this country.
Yes, by all means, use the rainbow adaptation flag, but make certain that a red, white and blue one is carried or displayed on site at the same time as well right next to it.
The United States flag is not the private property of the Republican Party, the Religious Right, or the conservative movement. Transgender vets and TAVA members put their lives on the line in several wars and honorably served our country defending the flag. We need to honor them and ourselves by claiming what is rightfully ours by dint of birth inside the borders of the USA (or to American parents outside its borders).
That's our flag, too! Use it, and do it proudly. Nothing will piss off the Forces of Intolerance more than to erase another of their Big Lies about transgender people by waving the flag and holding it aloft at every opportunity.
It's been a few days since the video of a Memphis police officer beating down an African-American transwoman was released, and I have yet to see any statement released about it from two organizations claiming to represent me as an African-American person.
The first is the nearly 100 year old NAACP, in which I have had membership status off and on over the years. My brother, sisters and I even had NAACP youth memberships back in the day.
Their new ad slogan is 'The NAACP Is Today', but I don't see you addressing the very real issues that transgender people of African descent face today here in the States. If the NAACP is claiming to represent African-Americans, then I respectfully submit that it includes me as a transgender African-American as well.
While I applaud you for declaring a state of emergency over the treatment of African-Americans by the police, I have yet to hear any NAACP local, state or the national chapter speak up not only about this case, but about the verbal and physical hate attacks on African-American transpeople in general.
As Duanna Johnson's case graphically points out, some of the problems we transpeople of African descent face are at the hands of the people who are supposed to protect and serve us. Nizah Morris' family in Philly is still waiting for a straight answer on what happened to her in 2002.
I suspect that the silence is because some of your chapters are squeamish. hostile or outright reluctant to get involved in speaking out against the BS that African-American GLBT peeps deal with inside and outside the African-American community for specious religious reasons.
When I checked the mirror this morning, I was still Black, I can easily afford to join the NAACP and I still get called 'nigger' and face discrimination from and by racist peeps. Being transgender didn't change that one bit.
The one group I'm most disappointed with is the National Black Justice Coalition. I've had the pleasure of meeting its CEO H. Alexander Robinson at a Louisville event a few years ago. I'm happy that the now three year old organization is making the case about same gender marriage being a Black issue as well, and they are holding Black Church Summits and conferences. I'm estatic that the NBJC not only commented on the ENDA issue, but are a member of the United ENDA coalition as well.
But if you are going to claim that you represent me as an African-American transperson, the organization needs to be more timely and forecful about doing precisely that.
It's insulting and disgusting to me when the Human Rights Campaign, an organization that has done far more in the last ten years to retard my and other African-American transpeople's progress by bitterly fighting transgender inclusion in the Employment Non Discrimination Act, rapidly puts out a press release condemning the attack on Duanna Johnson and calling for a criminal investigation. I have yet to see one syllable written about it on the NBJC website, the organization that's supposed to represent me as an African-American transperson.
Hopefully these organizations will do so in the next week, but if they don't, it's time for African-American transpeople to call them on the carpet and have them explain why.
Unlike the war we had to fight on our end of I-65 just to narrowly get a policy passed on a 4-3 vote that cut transpeople out of it, our neighbors in Nashville passed a fully inclusive one.
A statement from the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition:
The Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition is pleased to announce that last night, the Board of the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) adopted a non-discrimination policy recommended by the Metropolitan Nashville Education Association (MNEA) which includes both sexual orientation and gender identity. This makes the Nashville-Davidson County school system the first in Tennessee to ban discrimination against its gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender employees.
We want to thank the MNEA, the union which represents Nashville's public school teachers, for its work in getting this policy approved by the Board. We encourage all of the remaining local school districts in Tennessee to join Nashville in adopting a similar policy. We also encourage the remaining institutions in the University of Tennessee system, along with all of Tennessee's private institutions of higher learning, to follow suit. We also hope this will lead to a fully inclusive non-discrimination policy for all of Nashville's public employees.
In addition to expanding the non-discrimination policy, the Board also voted to expand the anti-bullying and harassment policy to include sexual orientation and gender identity as well. The work on this matter has been led by the American Civil Liberties Union and its Support Student Safety Coalition. This makes the Metro Nashville Public Schools the second school district in Tennessee to adopt such a policy, joining the Knox County Schools which added sexual orientation and gender identity in 2005.
We greatly appreciate the work of everyone to ensure and safe and fair environment for students, staff anf faculty in the Metro Nashville Public Schools.
Here's more video, CNN Headline News analysis and a portion of a local television interview Duanna Johnson did with a Memphis TV reporter.
She has either filed or is about to file a $1.3 million lawsuit against the city of Memphis, and the feds are investigating for possible civil rights violations.
The Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition (TTPC) denounces the cowardly attack by Memphis Police Officers upon Duanna Johnson, an African American transgender woman on February 12.
The Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition was first made aware of this attack several weeks ago, but we did not issue a public statement in deference to Ms. Johnson's attorney's wishes. Last night's release by Memphis station WMC-TV of the video, capturing the brutality of the attack, and the indifference to her suffering by other members of the Memphis Police Department as well as by the attending nurse allows us to comment today.
"This reprehensible attack upon a person who was not resisting simply because of her gender expression has no place in a civilized society," said Dr. Marisa Richmond, President of TTPC. "The brutality of this attack must be dealt with by the judicial system. If Shelby County District Attorney, William Gibbons, who is reportedly considering a run for Governor in 2010, will not prosecute the officers involved for this obvious hate crime, then he should be removed from office for dereliction of duty," continues Richmond.
This past Saturday, the Memphis Police Department had a recruiting booth at Mid South Pride in Memphis, just steps away from the TTPC booth. "While we welcome the MPD's outreach effort to the GLBT community of Memphis, the fact that they still have not fired the officer who actually performed the assault calls into question their commitment to opening their doors to gay, lesbian, bisexual, and especially, transgender employees. Their presence at Pride was an important step, but the video shows how far they have to go," maintains Richmond.
The Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition extends our sympathies and support to Johnson and her legal team.
Stay tuned...this is going to get very interesting. It helps make our case that we transpeople are under attack even by the people who are supposed to serve and protect us, and we can no longer afford to 'wait' to have our civil rights recognized as Barney and HRC wish.
If you're a Battlestar Galactica junkie like I am, you were tuned in last week to see the Season 4 midseason finale. The Colonial Fleet after three years of travel, having their twelve home planets nuked, finding and losing the Pegasus, a Cylon civil war, and surviving the New Caprica occupation arrive at Earth.
Only one problem. It's a radioactive wasteland.
You'll find out how it got that way and who the final Cylon is when they broadcast the final ten Battlestar Galactica episodes in 2009.
In the meantime, while we're waiting for those last BSG episodes, executive producers Ron Moore and David Eick have another project to keep them busy with the help of Remi Aubuchon.
It's been rumored for a few years, but it's gonna happen. The Caprica series, which takes place 50 years before the events of BSG, got greenlighted.
Caprica will follow the lives of two Caprican families who are on opposite sides of the Colonial artificial intelligence debate, the Graystones and the Adamas.
Yep, those Adamas. The Adamas oppose the creation of the intelligent robots that result from the scientific breakthrough that will have major consequences for Caprica, the Colonies, and the human race.
The pilot is scheduled for a December 1, 2008 air date, and they're assembling the cast as we speak. Actor Eric Stoltz was recently signed to play Dr. Daniel Graystone, the creator of the Toasters, err Cylons. Esai Morales will play Joseph Adama, Admiral Bill Adama's father and Vice President Lee Adama's grandfather.
The BSG show also will not end with the broadcast of the final ten episodes. They are talking about filming up to three BSG movies similar to Razor, which explore backstory events in the BSG series. The movies have the blessing of the current Battlestar actors, although which BSG character appears in what movie will depend on whether they're available from their post-BSG work. Katee Sackhoff is getting a lot of offers as a result of her BSG work and other cast members are garnering attention as well.
While I'm sad that Battlestar will be ending after four years, I am looking forward to seeing Caprica and whatever BSG movies are on the horizon.
TransGriot Note: One of the reasons I have a more positive view of what can be done through the political process is probably because I was exposed to some fantastic political leaders in the Houston area on all levels of government when I was growing up there.
One of those people is the dean of the Texas Legislature, Rep. Senfronia Thompson. I met her during the 1999 session when a group of us during our TGAIN Lobby Days mightily tried to get transgender people put back into the James Byrd Hate Crimes Bill we'd been cut out by our nouveau Mattachine 'frenemies' in the LGRL (now Equality Texas) before we arrived in Austin.
In 2005 she took the mic and made this eloquent speech on the Texas House floor blasting the anti same gender marriage amendment that was under consideration in the GOP controlled House. It is unfortunately now part of the Texas Constitution.
Here is Rep. Thompson's floor speech.
I have been a member of this august body for three decades, and today is one of the all-time low points. We are going in the wrong direction, in the direction of hate and fear and discrimination. Members, we all know what this is about. This is the politics of divisiveness at its worst, a wedge issue that is meant to divide.
Members, this issue is a distraction from the real things we need to be working on. At the end of this session, this legislature, this leadership will not be able to deliver the people of Texas fundamental and fair answers to the pressing issues of our day.
Let's look at what this amendment does not do: It does not give one Texas citizen meaningful tax relief. It does not reform or fully fund our education system. It does not restore one child to CHIP [Children's Health Insurance Program], who was cut from health insurance last session. It does not put one dime into raising Texas's Third World access to health care. It does not do one thing to care for or protect one elderly person or one child in this state. In fact, it does not even do anything to protect one marriage.
Members, this bill is about hate and fear and discrimination.
I know something about hate and fear and discrimination. When I was a small girl, white folks used to talk about "protecting the institution of marriage" as well. What they meant was if people of my color tried to marry people of Mr. Chisum's color [State Representative Warren Chisum of Pampa sponsored the amendment, House Joint Resolution 6, which the house approved, 101–29, on April 25.], you'd often find the people of my color hanging from a tree. That's what the white folks did back then to "protect marriage." Fifty years ago, white folks thought interracial marriages were a "threat to the institution of marriage." Members, I'm a Christian and a proud Christian. I read the good book, and do my best to live by it. I have never read the verse where it says, "Gay people can't marry." I have never read the verse where it says, "Though shalt discriminate against those not like me." I have never read the verse where it says, "Let's base our public policy on hate and fear and discrimination." Christianity to me is love and hope and faith and forgiveness--not hate and discrimination.
I have served in this body a lot of years--and I have seen a lot of promises broken. I should be up here demanding my 40 acres and a mule because that's another promise you broke. You used a wealthy white minister cloaked in the cloth to ease the stench of that form of discrimination.
So now that blacks and women can vote, and now that blacks and women have equal rights, you turn your hatred to homosexuals--and you still use your misguided reading of the Bible to justify your hatred. You want to pass this ridiculous amendment so you can go home and brag. Brag about what? Declare that you saved the people of Texas from what? Persons of the same sex cannot get married in this state now. Texas does not now recognize same-sex marriages, civil unions, religious unions, domestic partnerships, contractual arrangements, or Christian blessings entered into in this state--or anywhere else on this planet Earth.
If you want to make your hateful political statements, then that is one thing. The Chisum amendment does real harm. It repeals the contracts that many single people have paid thousands of dollars to purchase to obtain medical powers of attorney, powers of attorney, hospital visitation, joint ownership, and support agreements.
You have lost your way. This is obscene.
Today, you are playing to the lowest common denominator. You are putting aside the real issues of substance that we need to address so that you can instead play on the public's fears and prejudices to deceive and manipulate voters into thinking that we have done something important.
I realize that gay rights are not the same as civil rights, but I can guarantee you we are going in the wrong direction. I cannot hide my skin color. In fact, in most of the South, people as pink as Rep. Wayne Smith were still black by law if they had a great-grandparent who was African.
I was unable to attend an integrated and equally funded school until I got my master of laws degree. There were separate and unequal facilities for nearly everything. I got second-hand textbooks even worse than the kind you're trying to pass off on every public school student next year. I had to ride to school on the back of the bus. I had to quench my thirst from filthy "Coloreds Only" drinking fountains. I had to enter restaurants from the kitchen door. I was banned from entering most public accommodations, even from serving on a jury.
I had to live with the fear that getting too uppity could get you killed--or worse. I know what third-class citizenship feels like. In my first term, one of my colleagues walked up and down this aisle muttering about how "Nigras" should be back in the field picking cotton instead of picking out committees.
So, I have to wonder about Rep. Chisum's 3/5-of-a-person amendment. Some of you folks hid behind your Bible then, too, to justify your cultural prejudices, your denial of liberty, and your gunpoint robbery of human dignity.
We have worked hard at putting our prejudices against homosexuals in law. We have denied them basic job protections. We have denied them and their children freedom from bullying and harassment at school. We have tried to criminalize their very existence.
But, we have also absolved them of all family duties and responsibilities: to care for and support their spouses and children, to count their family's assets in determining public assistance, to obtain health insurance for dependents, to make end-of-life or necessary medical decisions for their life partners--sometimes even to visit in the hospital, even to defend our own country. And then, we can stand on our two hind legs and proclaim, "See, I told you homosexual families are unstable."
And nearly every one of you on this floor has a homosexual in their extended families. Some of you have shunned and isolated these family members. Some of you, even some of the joint co-authors, have embraced them within your own family, for the essence of Christianity is love. Yet, you are now poised to constitutionalize discrimination against a particular class of people .
I thought we would be debating real issues: education, health care for kids, teacher's health insurance, health care for the elderly, protecting survivors of sexual assault, protecting the pensions of seniors in nursing homes. I thought we would be debating economic development, property tax relief, protecting seniors' pensions, and stem cell research to save lives of Texans who are waiting for a more abundant life. Instead we are wasting this body's time with this political stunt that is nothing more than constitutionalizing discrimination. The prejudices exhibited by members of this body disgust me.
Last week, Republicans used a political wedge issue to pull kids--sweet little vulnerable kids--out of the homes of loving parents and put them back in a state orphanage just because those parents are gay. That's disgusting. Today, we are telling homosexuals that just like people of my ilk when I was a small child, they too are second-class citizens. I have listened to all the arguments. I have listened to all of the crap.
Mr. Chisum is a person who I consider my good friend and revere. But I want you to know that this amendment is blowing smoke to fuel the hell-fire flames of bigotry.
One of the things that's maddening to us as African-Americans is that not only is our community judged by the worst we produce and not our best, we are also tarred and feathered with stereotypical assertions.
Just as articulate and smart African-American women such as Michelle Obama are called 'angry' for candidly saying what's on their minds that runs counter to Euro-American groupthink, one of the irritating ones that African-American transpersons constantly have to battle is that 'we're all prostitutes.'
That assertion (along with many others) reared their pointy-capped heads in the wake of the release of the nasty video 48 hours ago of transwoman Duanna Johnson being brutally attacked by a Memphis police office in the booking area of the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center back on February 12.
As I said in a Bilerico post on this issue, do not assume that Ms. Johnson is a sex worker. Far too many times transwomen of color are profiled as sex workers by police even if they aren't.
As one Los Angeles Native American transwoman interviewed for the AI 'Stonewalled' reports stated,
The police are not here to serve; they are here to get served...Every night I'm taken into an alley and given the choice between having sex or going to jail.
She was taken in for prostitution by the Memphis PD but the charges were dropped. There's no evidence that has been produced yet and no reason to presume that Ms. Johnson is a sex worker.
But try telling that to the unwashed sheeple who are not only painting her with the 'prostitute' brush, but because she's 6'5", are disrespectfully referring to her as a 'man' and assert that the officer was justified in his actions.
Gee, if that isn't bad enough, now we have the 'scary, black predator' shade being thrown by the 'Po-Po's are always right' peeps.
Contrary to the faith-based non-scientific opinions of the Religious Reich and their non-science book reading acolytes, gender and gender identity is not the cut and dried binary world that you people want to desperately make it out to be.
One of the points I'm making is that too many times, and recent Amnesty International reports will back me up on this, police (and others) profile African-American transwomen (and other transwomen of color) as prostitutes even if we're minding our own business.
I've experienced it firsthand. A few years ago I was hanging out in a Montrose club watching two friends of mine performing in a drag show and one of the Euro-American patrons of the club walked up to me as I was sitting at the bar enjoying the show and disrespectfully asked 'How much?'
While there are some of my sisters who partake in sex work to pay their bills, the vast majority of us don't. I'm tired of the prostitution angle being brought up in the discussion when it comes to African-American transpeople.
Much of the reason this myth persists is because some media outlets and some GLBT civil rights groups are too lazy, indifferent or genuinely don't care to find African-American transpeople who are not only gainfully employed, but who would make excellent spokespeople for the community.
General Order Number 3, read by Union General Gordon Granger on June 19, 1865 from the balcony of Ashton Villa, Galveston, TX.
"The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and free laborer."
So what's Juneteenth? For African-American Texans and increasingly, African-Americans no matter where we're from, it's a century plus old celebration of our emancipation from slavery.
And here's a post I wrote last year about the origins of the holiday you can peruse while I scarf up my barbecue and wash it down with strawberry soda.
Transwomen are all too aware of police officers who abuse their authority to harrass, assault, denigrate and rape us.
The Stonewall Rebellion we jumped off almost 40 years ago this month and the 1966 Compton's Cafeteria riot in San Francisco had the same root cause: Transwomen being tired of taking crap from the police.
This crap happens far too often to transwomen of color. Former San Antonio officer Dave Gutierrez is serving time in Club Fed because he pulled over then 21 year old transwoman Starlight Bernal during a 2005 traffic stop, then assaulting and raping her.
In this latest depressing incident that happened February 12, after being arrested on prostitution charges, Duanna Johnson was beaten down and maced in the police station because she refused to repond to the derogatory terms 'faggot' and 'he/she' directed at her by the officer.
It's also galling that the nurse in the video showed far more concern for the scratch on his hand the officer received than the transgender person lying handcuffed on the floor he'd just beat down.
So HRC and Barney, you still subscribe to the asinine assertion that we transgender people need to 'wait our turn' to have our civil rights respected and protected?
This is a sample of the BS we've been dealing with ever since you sent the unspoken message last fall by yanking us out of ENDA that it's open season on transgender people.
The following statement was released this morning about the incident by the Memphis Police Department:
The Memphis Police Department does not condone any misconduct of a police officer that will compromise official law enforcement duties or the rights or safety of our citizens.
As it relates to the February incident that occurred at the jail facility, the police department has been conducting a thorough internal investigation. The details surrounding the complainant, witnesses and law enforcement officials’ statements are part of an ongoing investigation and can not be released at this time.
As a standard departmental policy, a full, impartial hearing will be held with the accused officer.
Memphis Police can confirm the work status of the two primary officers involved in this complaint. Officer J. Swain was a probationary officer and has been separated from the Memphis Police Department. Officer B. McRae has been placed on non-enforcement status pending an administrative hearing.
Memphis Police can also confirm the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been notified and requested to look into the complaint further.
Regards,
Detective Monique Y. Martin Memphis Police Department Office of Public Information/Media Relations
***
This is the story from WMC-TV's website.
MEMPHIS, TN (WMC-TV) -Video obtained by Action News 5 shows a Memphis police officer beating a suspect at 201 Poplar in an apparent case of police brutality.
The video, recorded February 12th, shows Duanna Johnson in the booking area at the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center after an arrest for prostitution. The tape clearly shows a Memphis police officer walk over to Johnson - a transsexual - and hit her in the face several times.
"Actually he was trying to get me to come over to where he was, and I responded by telling him that wasn't my name - that my mother didn't name me a 'faggot' or a 'he-she,' so he got upset and approached me. And that's when it started," Johnson said.
Johnson said the officer was attempting to call her over to be fingerprinted. She said she chose not respond to the derogatory name the officer called her.
"He said, 'I'm telling you, I'm giving you one more chance to get up.' So I'm looking at him, and he started putting his gloves on, and seen him take out a pair of handcuffs," Johnson said.
The officer hit Johnson several times with the handcuffs wrapped around his knuckles. In the video, you can see the flash of the metal. The tape shows another officer holding Johnson's shoulders as she tries to protect herself.
After taking several blows, Johnson stands up and swings back.
"I was afraid. I had had enough. Like I said, I thought the other officers that were witnessing this would at least try to stop him," Johnson said. "I mean, he hit me so hard. Like the third time he hit me, it split my skull and I had blood coming out. So I jumped up," Johnson said.
But then she sat back down, and the officer her in the face again. Then he maced her. On the tape, other people in the room are seen turning away and fanning their hands because of the smell.
"We wanted some acknowledgement - my client did - so she would know that the Memphis Police Department didn't condone this," said Murray Wells, Johnson's attorney. "We were optimistic that they would be as outraged about this as we are, and we haven't gotten any indication that they're interested in it at all.
"These are the people we depend on to protect us, and I think the majority of officers in Memphis are good officers, and when you see what you see on that video, it's a scary sight to see that that could happen to any one of us," added attorney Arthur Horne.
On the tape, Duanna is eventually handcuffed and left on the floor. A nurse comes in, and goes directly to the officer.
"I couldn't breathe, and they just made me lay there," Johnson said. "Nobody checked to see if I was okay. My eyes were burning. My skin was burning. I was scared to death. Even the nurse came in and she just ignored me, and I begged her to help me."
A copy of the tape was reviewed by both the FBI and the District Attorney's office, the latter of which dropped all charges against Johnson. An FBI investigation into possible civil rights violations is still underway.
Meanwhile, the Memphis Police Department confirmed to Action News 5 that the officer holding Johnson was on probation, and has been fired. The officer who threw the punches is currently on non-enforcement status pending an administrative hearing.
Since the video of the jailhouse beat down first aired on Action News 5, we have learned more about the other people who were in the in-take area at the jail during the incident, particularly the nurse who was called to help.
The Shelby County Sheriff's Department tells Action News 5 that a nurse employed by the Sheriff's Department was called to assess the situation.
The nurse asked Duanna Johnson if she was okay, and noticed Johnson had been sprayed with mace.
A spokesman for the Sheriff's Department said the nurse determined Johnson was not in an emergency situation, and then left the room to make arrangements for the Memphis Police Department to transport Johnson to The Med for treatment.
Later, the nurse returned to provide the officer medical care for a scratch on the back of his head.
Johnson was in the custody of the Memphis Police Department during her time in the in-take area.
The Sheriff's Department also stressed that none of their deputies or employees were involved in this incident in any way, but did give statements about what they witnessed.
TransGriot Note: The good news just keeps on coming for us. A legislative victory in Colorado, positive responses to the Transgender Pride March in Northampton, and now this wonderful news out of Chicago.
The American Medical Association's House of Delegates, their highest policy making body yesterday passed a resolution yesterday calling for the removal of financial barriers imposed on transpeople by public and private insurance companies.
AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION HOUSE OF DELEGATES Resolution: 122 (A-08)
Introduced by: Resident and Fellow Section, Massachusettes Medical Society, California Medical Association, Medical Society of the State of New York
Subject: Removing Financial Barriers to Care for Transgender Patients Referred to: Reference Committee A
Whereas, The American Medical Association opposes discrimination on the basis of gender identity and
Whereas, Gender Identity Disorder (GID) is a serious medical condition recognized as such in both the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th Ed., Text 5 Revision) (DSM-IV-TR) and the International Classification of Diseases (10th Revision), and is characterized in the DSM-IV-TR as a persistent discomfort with one’s assigned sex and with one’s primary and secondary sex characteristics, which causes intense emotional pain and suffering; and
Whereas, GID, if left untreated, can result in clinically significant psychological distress, dysfunction, debilitating depression and, for some people without access to appropriate medical care and treatment, suicidality and death; and
Whereas, The World Professional Association For Transgender Health, Inc. (“WPATH”) is the leading international, interdisciplinary professional organization devoted to the understanding and treatment of gender identity disorders, and has established internationally accepted Standards of Care for providing medical treatment for people with GID, including mental health care, hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery, which are designed to promote the health and welfare of persons with GID and are recognized within the medical community to be the standard of care for treating people with GID; and
Whereas, An established body of medical research demonstrates the effectiveness and medical necessity of mental health care, hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery as forms of therapeutic treatment for many people diagnosed with GID; and
Whereas, Health experts in GID, including WPATH, have rejected the myth that such treatments are “cosmetic” or “experimental” and have recognized that these treatments can provide safe and effective treatment for a serious health condition; and
Whereas, Physicians treating persons with GID must be able to provide the correct treatment necessary for a patient in order to achieve genuine and lasting comfort with his or her gender, based on the person’s individual needs and medical history; and
Whereas, The AMA opposes limitations placed on patient care by third-party payers when such care is based upon sound scientific evidence and sound medical opinion; and
Whereas, Many health insurance plans categorically exclude coverage of mental health, medical, and surgical treatments for GID, even though many of these same treatments, such as psychotherapy, hormone therapy, breast augmentation and removal, hysterectomy, oophorectomy, orchiectomy, and salpingectomy, are often covered for other medical conditions; and
Whereas, The denial of these otherwise covered benefits for patients suffering from GID represents discrimination based solely on a patient’s gender identity; and
Whereas, Delaying treatment for GID can cause and/or aggravate additional serious and expensive health problems, such as stress-related physical illnesses, depression, and substance abuse problems, which further endanger patients’ health and strain the health care system; therefore be it
RESOLVED, That the AMA support public and private health insurance coverage for treatment of gender identity disorder (Directive to Take Action); and be it further
RESOLVED, That the AMA oppose categorical exclusions of coverage for treatment of gender identity disorder when prescribed by a physician (Directive to Take Action).
One of the things I've pointed out in my decade fighting for transgender rights and in writing posts for this blog are the parallels between the African-American Civil Rights Movement of the 50's-60's and the Transgender Rights Movement.
While there are times when it is appropriate, desirable and prudent to make those comparisons and even borrow the imagery and words of some of our leaders like Dr. King and others to highlight those similarities, there are times when it is not contextually appropriate or historically incorrect to do so.
In a recent press release by NYTRO (New York Transgender Rights Organization) protesting a June 12 drag show done by Westchester County, NY legislators at a White Plains, NY seniors home, NYTRO State Director Joann Prinzivalli stated,
"The Westchester County legislature has failed for nearly eight years to amend the county human rights law to explicitly protect transgender people ... It is shocking to see county legislators who have dragged their feet on this vital issue doing the equivalent of a KKK blackface show to mock my people."
Joann, while I have much respect for you and the work you've done in the New York area over the years, that 'equivalent of a KKK blackface show' comment was not only an incorrect application of the history of blackface, but went a tad overboard.
If you really want to see an example of a blackface drag show, check out any Shirley Q. Liquor performance by Chuck Knipp near you.
Oops, you'll probably have to check it out on the Net, since he's had a penchant for getting them protested or shut down on a regular basis. As a matter of fact, there was one that was shut down on Martin Luther King Day in New York back in 2002.
Jasmyne Cannick, myself, and a long list of African-American GLBT peeps, our straight African-American and other allies have since 2002 complained, written columns and numerous blog posts about this nouveau minstrel show that many white GLBT peeps for some strange reason find funny. There's even a banshireyqliquor.com website.
It's a mild irritant to me as the child and godchild of historians and a back-to-back champion History Prep Bowler when my people's history is quoted incorrectly or used out of context.
Blackface minstrel shows of the 1830's, popularized by Thomas D. Rice and his minstrel character Jim Crow were originated by white men who used burnt cork, greasepaint or shoe polish to darken their skin. Their acts, like Chucky's, centered around the caricature of African-American people as lazy, overly-cheerful, uneducated and musical.
Those portrayals not only led to negative perceptions of African-Americans that persist today, but also led to a wide array of 'Darkie' products that perpetuated the negative image deep into the 20th century.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. went to Japan in the late 80's to protest a leading department store there that had mannequins with bulging eyes and large protruding lips. There was a brand of toothpaste sold in the Asian market called Darkie that changed its packaging and name to Darlie in 1985 after its parent company was bought by Colgate and civil rights groups here in the US protested the name and logo.
While I feel you and deplore what the Westchester County legislators did in terms of dragging their feet (pardon the pun) on passing transgender rights and feeling the need to mock transgender people at the same time, that's not a blackface drag show.
The Westchester County legislators, unlike Chucky, aren't doing repeat performances of it, nor are they selling demeaning products on a website designed to profit from the image they created. It's simply a drag performance that was in very poor taste and it's not correct to call it the 'equivalent of a KKK blackface show'.
TransGriot readers, I told y'all about the annual Miss Tiffany Universe pageant that takes place in Thailand in May, but thanks to all the last minute activity swirling around me in preparation for the NE Transgender Pride weekend I didn't let you know who won.
The judges had a tough job deciding which one of these thirty beautiful ladies would wear the crown, but Miss Tiffany Universe 2008 is 21 year old college student Kangsadarn Wongdusadeekul or Nong Noeng. She received 100,000 baht ($3000 USD) and a Honda Jazz in addition to the crown and all the assorted gifts that come with this title.
First runner up was Nannapas Wechakul or Nong Golf, who received 40,000 baht ($1200 USD) and also received a trophy and sash. Second runner up was Pailin Denfahnapapol or Nong Bank who received 20,000 baht ($600 USD) a sash and a trophy.
Her father is a Thai army officer and she grew up on a military base. She actually tried to join the army, but as she told the audience, "Last year, I went to register as a soldier but my figure had changed, so the government did not let me."
"We are beautiful - so we have no need to be soldiers," she went on. Transgender people are barred from serving in the Thai military despite a law classifying them as “mentally disturbed” being overturned in March.
The nationally televised pageant is one with a purpose. In addition to promoting Pattaya, 100 miles southeast of Bangkok, as a worldwide tourist destination and the Tiffany's transgender cabaret, it also serves as a fundraiser for several Thai charities.
Nong Noeng will be the Thai representative later this year at the 2008 Miss Universal Queen pageant which is hosted around October by Tiffany's in Pattaya as well. That pageant is open to transwomen around the world, and Nong Noeng has the task of trying to keep that increasingly popular and prestigious title at home.
But the major goal of the Miss Tiffany Universe pageant is promoting acceptance of Thai transwomen and showcasing their beauty and intelligence.
Miss Tiffany 2004, Treechada Malayaporn, known as Polly, is an example of the growing success of those efforts to improve the images of Thai transwomen. She is now a successful actress and television presenter and was on hand during the night's festivities as an awards presenter.
Everyone thought I was a real girl before Miss Tiffany but after that everybody knew me as I am, a ladyboy," Polly said. "Everything changed. Now I'm studying international law. I just want to be someone who is clever and socially accepted."
And that's what your transgender sisters (and brothers) in Thailand and around the world want as well.
I got paid Friday, so it was time to bite the bullet and pay for a fill up of my gas tank.
Ever since the prices started spiraling up over the $3 a gallon mark my strategy to hold the costs down is to completely fill my tank up and not allow my car to get below 3/4 of a tank. That way I can put $5 to $10 in it and still keep my tank full while holding down my gas costs. I live only 15 minutes away from my job in downtown Louisville, so I don't have a long gas-guzzling drive from the 'burbs. The three consecutive 13 hour shifts I work allow me to cut my commuting days in the car down from five to three.
But since my cash was tight after the trip to Western Massachusetts last week, I basically had to drive on that tank for my work week. The last time I had to buy a full fill up I paid $3.35 a gallon for it. When I filled up Saturday it cost me $4.15 a gallon to fill up my Volvo's gas tank.
So yeah, I was pissed. But you gotta have it, so I pumped the gas and griped.
What I have done to cut down my gas consumption is make fewer trips. Fortunately the neighborhood I live in has a lot of things in walking distance of the house. Anything that's not in walking distance, I try to bundle the errands into one trip and do it in a logical, systematic fashion.
For example, I have a mall a few miles down the road from me. I pass my bank, cheaper gas, several strip shopping centers, a CVS and a Walgreen's and a few fast food places along the way. So if I to go to the bank, buy gas and grab something from Walgreen's I do it in one trip and not multiple ones. If I have time on my hands I'll ride a TARC bus since I do have one route that passes in front of my house and another one two blocks up the street that goes to Mall St. Matthews, Oxmoor Center and down Shelbyville Rd.
I'm hanging on for a while to my 1991 Volvo since I get great gas mileage out of it, but I really feel sorry for the folks that own SUV's. They are driving across the border to Indiana and the counties surrounding Louisville/Jefferson County to buy gas. Louisville/Jeff County has to sell reformulated gas due to the ozone problem we have here, but Shelby, Oldham, and Bullitt counties aren't under those restrictions, so the gas is cheaper there and across the river. I find it ironic though that Houston, which is under the same EPA restrictions, has cheaper gas prices than Louisville.
And I've already double checked my voter's registration card and voted in the primary election to make certain I can cast my ballot on November 4 for a straight Democratic ticket.
TransGriot Note: This was posted to TSTB since today is Father's Day. Unfortunately I don't know who the author is so I can give them proper credit for this wonderful piece, but it definitely needed to be shared with the world on this day.
Most holidays are bittersweet occasions for transpeople. In terms of our families, next to Christmas and Thanksgiving, Mother's Day and Father's Day can be tough, especially if you have a chilly to nonexistent relationship with your parents as a result of your gender transition.
The person that sometimes has the hardest time with a M2F gender transformation is Dad, since they invest so many of their time, hopes and dreams in raising their sons.
So this is dedicated to all the Dads out there on your day.
***
This is for our fathers who never knew our name But had so much influence on the road down which we came.
This is for our fathers who shoved us out the door And bid us learn about the world, the universe and more!
This is for our fathers who taught us to love books And never judge their contents by the way their covers look.
This is for our fathers who never knew our name But had so much influence on the road down which we came.
This is for our fathers who taught us “Yes we can!” Despite the fact they often tried to make of us a man.
This is for our fathers who taught us wrong from right And reminded us that there are times when you have to stand and fight.
This is for our fathers who never knew our name But had so much influence on the road down which we came.
This is for our fathers who taught us to be strong And never to bow our bloody head though we’ve been treated wrong!
This is for our fathers who taught us to read maps well But never could map inside their heads the place we served in hell.
This is for our fathers who never knew our name But had so much influence on the road down which we came.
I thank God for our fathers who never knew our name And I pray God that they never find is us true cause for shame.
Cause we’re our father’s daughters, our mother’s daughters too Though the world raised a thousand hymn to mom; dad we raise this one for you!
So this is for our fathers who never knew our name But had so much influence on the road down which we came!
One problem that transpeople of color face is that many of us don't have the income levels needed to follow the path prescribed by the WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health) Standards of Care in order to afford rhe hormones and other procedures that we need to make the body match the person inside.
There's also resistance and refusal by some doctors for various reasons (including personal religious grounds) to prescribe the hormones we need as well.
That sometimes leads some of my sisters to resort to other methods of getting the hormones we need. This 'In The Life' segment interviews several transwomen about some of the routes they took in order to become the beautiful women they needed to be.
Back in March I posted a Washington Post story to the blog about the upcoming debut of an Indian transgender TV host named Rose in Chennai, India.
Her half-hour show on Vijay TV called 'Ipadikku Rose' is broadcast to an audience of up to 64 million people in India's southern state of Tamil Nadu. While it was conceived as a program suitable for family viewing according to the show’s director, Anthony Thirunelveli, it tackles sex and sexuality issues.
The first episode was broadcast back in February and dealt with sexual harassment of women. In addition to a five member in-studio panel consisting of an academic, two women, and a couple, there was participation from the studio audience in the show as well.
The show has also tackled the exploitation of women in modeling, and according to Vijay TV's head of programming, Pradeep Milroy Peter when he was interviewed by the BBC back in February, "We will be tackling subjects that are very controversial in nature, from gay rights to sexual abuse and prostitution. All the issues that have been hushed up and put under the carpet."
The host is happy that her television show has garnered a positive reaction so far.
The 28 year old Rose studied biomechanical engineering at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, LA, and returned home to Chennai after working as a website designer. But ever since she was five she'd become aware of her femininity and felt uncomfortable as a boy. She didn't start dressing as a woman until her early 20's.
"Deep inside I relished being a girl," she said.
It took her years to tell her family the news, and once she did, their reaction to the news was not a positive one. "My mum was shattered, she burst out in tears and my dad was full of sorrow," Rose said.
Even so, her family still thought that they could put her on the path to masculinity and considered arranging a marriage for her.
Transsexuality in India has been surrounded by superstition and myth, but modern society has been less tolerant of them. Many are shunned by their families and find it hard to obtain conventional jobs. Rose is fortunate because she may be headed for TV stardom.
But despite being considered her homeland's version of Oprah Winfrey, like many transgender people once they come out, she's going through a difficult period in her life. "I have been publicly ridiculed, called names and looked down upon. There has also been physical abuse," she said.
She remains optimistic that her show will change society's attitude towards transgender people in India and put them in a more positive light.
by Lalit K Jha NDTV.com Thursday, June 12, 2008 (United Nations)
An Indian eunuch, Laxmi Narayan Tripathi is fighting for the rights and respect of the global transgender community during the ongoing United Nations high level meeting on AIDS.
After meeting a large number of ambassadors, diplomats, world leaders and social activists who from all over the world have gathered at the United Nations headquarters in New York for the HIV/ AIDS meet, Tripathi told NDTV.Com in an interview that she is here to fight for transgender community, who have been deprived of their basic rights and are not being treated as human being.
''I am raising the main issues of sex workers and sexual minorities who are treated with total disrespect. I am trying to bring the attention of the whole world to the issue of sexual minority,'' Tripathi said. ''I want that people should be more humane, they should consider each other as human being, and to respect them just to consider them as transgender,'' she said.
Born in an orthodox Brahmin family in 1979, Tripathi has the distinction of being the only eunuch in the UN's Civil Society Task Force on HIV/AIDS. In fact a UN event on HIV/AIDS has included transgender persons in the work of civil society caucus for the first time: a development greeted with cheers among eunuchs worldwide.
''The fact that I'm here should be a big achievement, but it amounts to nothing,'' she said during a press conference at the UN headquarters media briefing room.
Sitting on the same chair, which is very often occupied by visiting heads of states and the UN Secretary General himself, Tripathi asked correspondents: ''Am I invisible? You all can see me. Then, why we the transgender are treated as invisible?''
Speaking flawless English to the surprise of many UN correspondents, Tripathi explained that throughout the global South, especially in countries where transgender persons were also part of an ethnic group, sexual minorities were forced to beg for basic services and health care or forced into sex work because there was no political will to recognise their fundamental rights.
''Health services for people suffering from HIV AIDS are out of the question because doctors don't want to touch you,'' she said.
Observing that transgender people are very often threatened with stoning and death, Tripathi said that transgender communities are often afraid to assert their rights because they know that authorities would not back them up. ''It is now up to the UN to wake people up so that we are recognised as human beings,'' she said.
''This is a mission, which I want to accomplish,'' Tripathi told NDTV.Com after the press conference. ''Governments are treating us like shits. We can't let this happen anymore,'' she said.
Running an NGO called Astitva in Mumbai for the welfare of sexual minorities, Tripathi alleged that be it in the developed or the developing countries or the underdeveloped world, sexual minorities are not taken into consideration at all.
Observing that the condition of her community worldwide is pathetic, Tripathi said: ''They have no human rights, no right to education and no right for employment. If you do not have education, you do not have capacity to work or set up a business.''
Tripathi has been the centre of attraction during the UN meet. Standing five feet and eleven inches above ground and wearing colorful saree with glittering jewellery, she always caught people's attention as she moved around the UN building.
''Even simple thing like access to medicine is big thing for us. Doctors are not ready to touch you,'' she said. This is not only in India, and under developed and developing countries but also in developed countries, she argued.
''Governments have no interest for them, the politicians do not want to please them,'' said Tripathi, who has made several passionate speeches during the UN meeting on the same lines.
(c) Copyright NDTV Convergence Limited 2008. All rights reserved.
The TransGriot is one of the now 1,239 blogs ranked in the Black Blog Rankings compiled by the creative genius behind the Electronic Villager blog.
It started in reaction to an article in a magazine that listed the most influential blogs that was devoid of melanin. So in the best traditions of our people, the Villager got mad, then he did something about it by creating his own ranking list.
He started it in September 2007 with an initial 75 blogs, and the growth has been phenomenal ever since. The October 2007 rankings listed 300 blogs. By January 2008 it had doubled to 602 blogs listed. By the time TransGriot was added to the list in April 2008 the number of Black blogs listrd had grown to 1045. The May rankings included 1,173 Black blogs.
The influence of blogs like mine has been noted. It was the Black blogosphere that pushed the Jena 6 issue into mainstream news coverage, and got the word out about the march held in Jena, LA. While my blog focuses on transgender issues from an African-American perspective, I'm also concerned as an African-American about what happens to my people as well. Me being transgender does not exclude me from that discussion and desire to have me contribute my talents and my voice to help my people survive and thrive.
We are part of the African-American family as well and one of TransGriot's missions it to emphatically drive that point home.
The growing influence of Black blogs not only led to the DNC listening when we griped about the lack of blogs of color involved in the upcoming Democratic convention and other Democratic sponsored blogger events. It has led to the formation of an an upcoming conference in Atlanta called the Blogging While Brown Conference. I'm planning to attend this event which will be taking place July 25-27.
Now that I've stepped off the soapbox for a minute, what's my ranking for this month?
Black Blog Rankings (BBR) lean heavily on the Technorati Authority and Rank score for each blog. In April 2008 I had a 107 BBR with a 98 Technorati ranking. I had a massive drop on my Technorati rankings that hurt me. It pissed me off since I was about to crack the magic 100 Technorati ranking barrier, was on the verge of cracking the Top 100 in the BBR rankings and lost some ground.
But to be honest, out of over 1000 Black blogs, TransGriot is ranked 133. It's something I really shouldn't be disappointed about. But I have set a goal of cracking the Black Blog Rankings Top 100 before the year is out.
All I can do to improve on my 133 BBR ranking for June is to just keep writing insightful, interesting commentary so you peeps will not only read it, but link to it as well.
And I especially want to see more love from my own people in terms of reading it. I want them to understand that African-American traspeople not only have their own history, it's intertwined with the fortunes of the larger African-American community as well.
One of the great things about the Net and blogs is not only the new friends you make as a result of your writing, sometimes it can reunite you with people that were once part of your life but for various reasons slipped out of it.
Back in October 2007 I wrote a post entitled Domino! in which I talked about my love for the game. I also pointed out how much of a cultural phenomenon it is for not only African-Americans but our Latino friends as well.
I talked about a college friend of mine named Raymond Jolivette whose antics during those games (and any other time on campus) when he was around kept our cadre of friends in stitches and made going to UH during that time a lot of fun. Well, yesterday morning when I checked my e-mail, I received one from Air Force Master Sergeant Raymond Jolivette.
Yep, the same Raymond Jolivette I wrote about in the post.
It was a wonderful surprise. He updated me on how his life has been going, but I can't call him 'Smurf' anymore. Brotherman not only had a late growth spurt, he put on some serious muscle as well. He's been in the Air Force serving our country for the last 23 years, and I definitely have much love and respect for that.
Unfortunately, he's lost touch with much of our crew as well. Hopefully we'll be able together to find out what happened to all our old college domino playing buddies and how their lives turned out.
But the thing I'm happiest about is that one of my old friends is back in my life.
It didn't take long for Faux News and Turd Blosssom to start their dirty work. FYI, Turd Blossom was the nickname Dummya gave Karl Rove, who has an advisory role in the McCain scampaign.
Fox News, and specifically conservabimbo Michelle Malkin, referred to Michelle Obama as Barack's 'baby mama'.
Now I know those Stepford witches in the conservative movement didn't just go there and diss this Princeton-educated, Harvard Law School grad. At least she's been married to the same man for over a decade. That's more than I can say for some of y'all, who have more plastic body parts than Barbie dolls do.
I told y'all the GOP was going to race bait all the way until November. They have no choice but to 'scurr' the unwashed racist masses and yell the n-word all the way until November 4.
The predictable part was getting Michelle Malkin (who's Asian) to slither into the Faux 'news' studio to do their dirty work. If there's race baiting to be done, Michelle's the one.
I guess ED Hill was getting her faux blond hair dyed and colored that day, huh?
The more you Republicans race bait, the easier you'll make our job registering African-American and other progressive voters tired of the trifling 'Southern Strategy' BS y'all trot out every presidential election cycle and turning them out in the fall to send you peeps to the unemployment line.
What's next Faux News? Are y'all gonna darken pictures of Senator Obama? Photoshop him wearing a black beret? Arttribute things to him he or his wife never said?
Stop the GOP madness and lies. If you see a lie online, call it out and bury it with the facts.
We're gonna be busy from now until November 4. But if we want to see Sen Obama taking the oath of office on January 20, we have got to become the online and offline truth squad. If you hear people repeating these Rrepublican smears, call them on it.
I got back to Louisville last night after spending a slammin' weekend in Western Massachusetts. I was speaking at the invitation of the wonderful folks who organized the first annual New England Transgender Pride March and Rally.
My trip there got off to an anxiety filled start. When I fly, I usually check weather.com or the Weather Channel to peruse the weather for the cities and the area I'm flying into before I leave. Because my schedule got rearranged by the unexpected trip I had to take in to work that morning, it threw me out of my usual preflight routine.
I arrived at Louisville International Airport around 4 PM to get a head start on clearing security, catch my 6:50 PM United flight to Chicago and subsequent connection to Hartford. It's been a while (2002) since I'd last flown and I'd forgotten about the fact that the TSA has severely limited the size of personal toiletry items you can take in carry on luggage. I had to throw away a full can of shaving cream and my three quarter used deodorant stick before clearing security and was mildly pissed about it.
My pissivity quickly dispersed when I started chatting with two Dallas based Southwest Airlines flight attendants. I walked with them to their gate as we talked about the airline industry good old days and how the industry has changed to where it was less fun than it used to be. The flight attendant also told me a story about one of the people she knew at American who was on one the fateful 9-11 flights and how he ended up on it.
They eventually had to go board their aircraft and do their preflight checks, so they gave me hugs before they departed. I arrived at my United gate only to discover that Chicago was getting whacked by a nasty thunderstorm. The previous Chicago flight was delayed, so I decided to kill a little time and figure out my options by taking a walk. I ended up standing next to the shoeshine booth as I checked the flight information board. Since my black flats needs some TLC, I decided to let the handsome brother sitting there make them look good for me.
I returned to my gate to discover that my UA flight to Chicago was cancelled. The agent rebooked me on US Airways through Philadelphia, and best of all I was now going to arrive at Bradley two hours earlier. In addition to that, the gate for my US Airways flight was right next door. I pulled out my cell phone and called Kris Colton, my ride to Springfield and Louis Mitchell, my good friend I was staying with and advised them I was going to be arriving in BDL at 10:20 PM instead of 12:52 AM.
I was concerned about my tight connection in Philly, but after sprinting through the airport to my gate once I got off the shuttle bus from Terminal F, I was relieved to discover my aircraft was just arriving and disgorging passengers from the inbound trip. It would be a few minutes before we began boarding to Bradley.
I ended up in a neat conversation that lasted through the short one hour flight to Bradley with my seatmate Kathy. We exchanged details on our lives and she wished me good luck for the upcoming speaking engagement the next day before we went our separate ways.
Kris rolled up thirty seconds after I called her and scooped me up from the arrivals loading area. We were quickly headed north on I-91 to the Massachusetts-Connecticut border (the airport is in Windsor Locks, Connecticut) and Springfield.
Kris and I hit it off immediately and we were chatting like two old friends instead of people who'd just met for the first time. I was going to see much more of her tomorrow since she was the stage manager for the rally.
A few minutes later Kris and I were pulling in front of Louis and Krysia's two story corner house in a quiet, tree-shaded Springfield neighborhood remarkably similar to my own back in Da Ville. Louis' house, which was built in 1917, is actually older than mine. I was greeted by him and Imani Henry, who was also staying with us. Miss Major, who was going to be the parade's Grand Marshal unfortunately wasn't staying with us because she's allergic to pets. There are three cats at the Mitchell-Villon household along with a lovable black dog named Lola.
His wife Krysia was asleep at the time, so we bounced to Denny's to grab breakfast and chat. During a trip to New York in 2000 I was supposed to meet Imani for lunch, but got detained by a long chat I was having with the mother of our movement, Sylvia Rivera. So I apologized to Imani for missing our meeting, and we settled on discussing what was going to transpire the next day before going back to the house and grabbing some sleep for what promised to be a long and excitingly historic day.
But just before I dozed off another stress inducing complication arose. I wanted to review my speech, and discovered that I didn't have my WNBA notepad I put it in. It has major sentimental value to me and I feared I'd left it on the US Airways airplane at Bradley. I had a copy of the speech posted on TSTB and saved on my blog just in case I had to download and print it at Kinko's in the morning. Louis' printer was down, so that wasn't an immediate option. I called Kris on my cell, left her a message and hoped for the best as I went to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
That morning I got up a little after 6 AM to Springfield being enveloped in fog and low cloud cover. The forecast was for a 30% chance of rain and we were hoping it would hold off until the rally was over at 5 PM. I received some good news when Kris returned my call and let me know she'd found my notepad in the backseat of her car and she'd bring it with her to the rally site.
One minor crisis solved, I wandered downstairs and finally met Louis' lovely wife Krysia. You know how much I love intelligent conversation, and I was in for a treat hanging out with her, Louis and Imani over the next 36 hours.
The time rapidly approached for all of us to get ready for the march and rally. Louis had already left to meet the lady renting us the RV for the day. I rode to the rally site with Krysia, who as we rode through the beautiful western Massachusetts countryside enroute to Northampton told me a little about her background as I did the same. She was also acting as out hostess in the RV green room for the speakers, and Louis was our MC.
We get to the rally site, a large parking lot hemmed in by restaurants, shops and a six story parking garage in downtown Northampton. The RV was there and the owner was explaining and pointing out all the various features to Kris as I walked in to check it out.
Over the next few hours the lot began to be transformed. The stage was already set up with the sound equipment. The various organizations were setting up their tables, and the various speakers were beginning to arrive. The cloud cover was keeping the heat away from us and didn't break until 11 AM, revealing brilliant sunshine about an hour before the march started.
I finally got to meet Donna Rose a few moments later. We hugged and hit it off like two sorority sisters. By looking at her its hard to believe this woman is hitting a milestone birthday next year. I also got to meet Ethan St. Pierre's wife Karen as me and Ethan caught up on a few things. I was also happy to meet some of the transbrothers like Bet Power, Hawk Stone and some of the members of the Boston based drag king troupe All The Kings Men.
I got a taste of just how widely read my blog was when I started meeting the young transpeeps and college kids like Dustin, Jacklyn and others. Once they found out the TransGriot was on the scene, they raved about how much they loved my blog and I thank them (and all of you) for reading it. A writer always loves it when their work is appreciated.
After the march kicked off at noon from a nearby park and brought a crowd of 700 mostly energized people to our rally site, it began. I was scheduled to speak at 2:40 PM, but hit the stage a little early because we were running ahead of schedule. I delivered my speech, got some cheers at major points in it and some high fives after I exited the stage. I also had the pleasure of finally meeting Dr. Enoch Paige and reconnecting with more than a few old and new friends as the historic day progressed to a close.
Sunday dawned and after a lazy morning conversing with Imani, Krysia and Louis it was unfortunately time for me to head back to my life in Louisville. Since I was in Springfield, the home of the Basketball Hall of Fame, on the way to the airport Louis dropped me off there and let me run around the place for an hour and a half. That's not enough time to see and do everything in this interactive shrine to one of my fave sports.
It was also the first time since I left Continental that I'd be flying the airline, and the flight that ironically greeted me at my departure gate in Hartford was a weather-delayed one headed to Houston.
Eventually I got to board my flight to Cleveland, and two of the flight attendants recognized me from my Houston airport days. As I went to the lav after they finished the beverage service Ann Marie greeted me. She filled me in on just how much I was missed by all my CAL co-workers not only in Houston, but system wide. We exchanged numbers as something told me to use the bathroom and get my butt back in my seat.
Ten minutes later I was glad I listened to my inner voice. There was a line of late afternoon storms pounding the Detroit area and I was concerned before we left Hartford that the tail end of that nasty front extended almost to the Cleveland area. As we descended through the cloud cover from our cruising altitude we got whacked with a microburst that roughly forced the aircraft down approximately 500 feet. I heard the engines power up to regain the altitude we lost as we immediately got hit with a second microburst.
I've flown hundreds of flights, but this was the first time since a 1987 one I took to Chicago I was genuinely scared shitless. We were still over the edge of Lake Erie a few miles from Cleveland-Hopkins Airport, and as a former airline employee I already had the '90% of airline crashes happen on takeoff or landing' mantra playing in an endless loop in my brain. To calm myself down I (and probably 'errbody' else on that flight) said a prayer that we weren't going to end up on the national news.
As I watched the airplane descend through my window seat, it continued to fight nasty crosswinds as we flew over a nearly subdivision and strip center. As we continued to descend and crossed the interstate bordering Hopkins I knew we were almost on the ground. I'd heard the comforting sound of landing gear deploying but I knew we weren't out of danger yet. When the welcoming bump from the wheels touching runway happened and the aircraft's braking flaps deployed, there was a huge cheer and clapping that arose from everyone on board.
We'd had what I call a Pope John Paul II landing. I'm referring to his practice when he traveled around the world of kissing the ground when he stepped off his papal aircraft. If it weren't for the fact I needed to expeditiously get to Concourse D for my Louisville flight, I would have probably done so in the jetway when I disembarked. We did have to call the paramedics for one of the flight attendants and a passenger in the seat behind me, but everybody else walked off under their own power.
I didn't have time to get scared because I had a connecting flight to catch. I pulled out the cell phone and called Dawn to let her know what time I'd be in Da Ville when I sat down in the lobby area. She and AC were there to greet me outside the security checkpoint when I arrived at Louisville International around 9:55 PM.
Eventually I arrived safe and sound without incident at home as I told them everything about what transpired on this wonderfully empowering, historic but emotionally charged weekend.
And I'm looking forward to seeing how you peeps in the Western Massachusestts area top this event next year. Make sure y'all get that RV again, too.
TransGriot Note: The full text of my speech for the Transgender Pride March and Rally
I am deeply honored to be standing before you as we make history together with today’s New England Transgender Pride March and Rally. I sincerely thank the organizing committee for extending me the invitation and opportunity to address you today.
W.E.B. DuBois, a distinguished son of Massachusetts who was an NAACP founder, once stated, “We cannot stand still; we cannot permit ourselves simply to be victims.
When he spoke these words a little over a century ago, they were directed at my fellow African-Americans. But these words are just as applicable to my fellow transgender people of all colors as well.
We cannot sit still as our inclusion in civil rights law, despite clear and pressing evidence that we desperately need it, is not only treated as an afterthought by some legislators, we’re cut out of proposed bills and tossed aside like empty soda cans.
We cannot sit still as the Forces of Intolerance, right-wing pundits and so-called fundamentalist ‘christians’ use myths, distortions and outright lies to demonize and dehumanize us as they pitifully attempt to sway public opinion against doing the norally proper and correct thing by recognizing our humanity.
We cannot sit still as hate crimes committed against us are ignored, the perpetrators are given a legal slap on the wrist and segments of our society give their wink and a nod approval.
We cannot sit still as the media disrespects the unfortunate victims of these crimes. Their old names are weaved throughout slanted and sensationalized stories as their new names and identities are disrespectfully placed in quotation marks.
We cannot sit still as an organization with an equal sign logo that claims to be our ally spends a decade fighting our inclusion in the Employment Non Discrimination Act. Its executive director adds insult to injury by walking into our signature convention in Atlanta, promising to fight for an inclusive ENDA while collecting $20,000 of our hard earned money, then reneges on the promise weeks later. He later claims he ‘misspoke’ while they demonize their critics by claiming they’re concocting 'transgender conspiracy theories’
We cannot sit still as fundamentalists, conservative talk show hosts, radio personalities and pundits attack our patriotism, our lives, our values, our right to exist and our constitutional rights for ratings points or to scapegoat us for the failures of their dry as dust mean spirited ideology.
We cannot sit still as people frustrated with their own lives use us as focal points for their anger, attack our community for the purposes of organizing their own, use us as bogeymen for fundraising purposes or as a distraction so people won’t pay attention to their catastrophic failures of leadership.
It’s time to stop wandering in the desert of shame and guilt. It’s time for us to cast aside the woe is me victimhood about being transgender Americans and boldly stride forward towards the oasis of freedom, equality, justice and pride in who we are as transgender men and women.
Our pioneering predecessors passed a torch to us. As their successors it’s up to us to keep it lit, hold it high and not allow anyone to douse the freedom flame until we can pass that torch on to the next generation of transpeople
Nelson Mandela said a decade ago that to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the lives of others.
Once we cast off the chains of self-doubt, shame, and self-hatred, the first people we owe respect to are ourselves.
So how do we do that? We show respect for ourselves by standing up and fighting for our rights and our basic humanity like my African-American GLBT brothers and sisters did a Philadelphia’s Dewey’s Lunch counter in 1965.
We show respect for ourselves by standing up and fighting like our brothers and sisters did at San Francisco’s Compton’s Cafeteria in 1967.
We show respect for ourselves like Miss Major, the late Sylvia Rivera and our brothers and sisters did almost 40 years ago this month at Stonewall in 1969.
We show respect for ourselves when we stand up and loudly proclaim in one voice that we will no longer meekly accept or tolerate second class treatment or second class citizenship. We are putting friends, foes and 'frenemies' on notice that we are demanding an upgrade to first class citizenship.
First class citizenship means that our rights are codified, respected and protected at all levels of government, be it city, county, state or federal level. We’re also putting you on notice that from this day forward, if we ain’t in a proposed civil rights law, we reserve the right as a community to kill a non-inclusive bill until it does.
We must act for not only the transkids that Barbara Walters profiled on 20/20 and others yet unborn, but for our fallen brothers and sisters such as Deborah Forte, Chanelle and Gabrielle Pickett, Rita Hester, Tyra Hunter, Gwen Araujo, Brandon Teena and Fred Martinez. We must act for every transperson who fought, marched, organized, lobbied, lived a stealth life, raised hell and died so that our lives could be a little bit better than theirs.
We took action towards earning that first class citizenship upgrade by marching in Northampton’s streets today. We let our feet do the walking, but from now on our lips, our pens and pencils, our e-mails, our faxes, our letters, our telephone calls and our votes in this and future elections must do the talking.
Never again must we allow ourselves to sit still and allow ourselves to be victimized by friend or foe. It’s past time for us to say it loud, I’m transgender and proud and take our rightful place at the American family table.
Today is the 50th birthday of Prince Rogers Nelson, aka His Royal Badness, or simply Prince.
Next to Parliament-Funkadelic, he helped define music for my generation and was another one of those artist's records that I didn't leave behind if I was DJing a party.
I go way back in terms of my love affair with His Royal Badness. He broke onto the scene when I was a high school junior. I didn't miss a Prince concert whenever he hit town. When Purple Rain came out my brother Kevin and I were standing in line with the other Prince fans wearing our 1999 concert T-shirts waiting to get into the theater to see it. I missed class in order to be on the phones to buy tickets when the Purple Rain tour tickets for his Houston performance went on sale.
So yeah, I'm a huge fan.
Happy 50th birthday Prince. May you have many more and keep putting out that music we all love so much.
It's almost hard to believe that a little over twelve hours from now I'll be taking a stage in Northampton, MA to speak at the first NE Trans March and Pride Rally.
As you can guess, I'm thrilled to be a part of this historic event. It seemed like the last few hours at work just dragged in anticipation of my days off to get here.
I've been feverishly running copies of my speech, making sure the cell phones charged up, I have the necessary phone contact numbers on me and the correct flight information. I have a disposable camera already packed in the bag to help me record history in the making.
I wanted to get a good night's sleep prior to starting what was going to be a busy Friday morning and mid afternoon with all these last minute tasks I needed to accomplish before leaving. But that died when I had to come into work for a few hours this morning. Oh well, I won't be griping next week when I get the check with those extra OT hours on it.
And I can always crash on the flight. I'll need it since I won't get into BDL until after midnight and still have to go to Springfield, MA and Louis' house after I arrive.
But I'm looking forward to getting reacquainted with a few friends, seeing Miss Major and meeting some new ones. I may even try to squeeze in a few interviews for some future TransGriot posts.
Once again, I deeply appreciate the NE Trans Pride Committee extending me this wonderful opportunity to participate in their inaugural Trans Pride March.
TransGriot Note: One of the more asinine comments I heard expressed early in the presidential primary season was the laughably ignorant assertion that electing Barack Ovama to our country's highest political office would lead to 'embarrassment' around the world.
Hell, the current inarticulate dumbass who stole two elections has cornered the world market in bringing shame, guilt and embarrassment to America's good name and standing around the world.
Judging by these snippets of editorial pages around the world, these international writers seem to suggest that Sen. Obama becoming our next president would be a huge improvement and go a long way toward repairing our reputation around the world.
Ray Hartley, Editor, The Times, South Africa: "Barack Obama has captured the Democratic Party's nomination for the position of U.S. president to be decided later this year. His ascendancy has raised the hope that the United States will finally assume its role as a responsible superpower that will extract itself from the conflict in Iraq. … There can be no doubt that Africa is celebrating his victory, which signals the long overdue deracialization of American politics. ...
Should he become president, it will go a long way toward removing racial loyalty from politics. … The question that remains is: Will he be able to deliver on his promises, or will he succumb to powerful interests?"
The Times, London, in an editorial:
"Obama … has already rekindled America's faith in its prodigious powers of reinvention — and the world's admiration for America. … It has been a bruising journey. … But today at least the tide of history seems to be with him. Win or lose in November, he will have gone farther than anyone in history to bury the toxic enmity that fueled America's Civil War and has haunted it ever since. … Details of the delegate count no longer matter. This moment's significance is its resounding proof of the truism about America as a land of opportunity: Obama's opportunity to graduate from Harvard and take Washington by storm; the opportunity that the world's most responsive democratic system gives its voters to be inspired by an unknown; the opportunity that outsiders now have to reassess the superpower that too many of them love to hate."
Schmuel Rosner, columnist and U.S. correspondent, Haaretz, Israel:
"Obama's victory is not surprising. The epic duel with (Hillary) Clinton gave everyone, including past and present Israeli officials dealing with the United States, time to prepare. … AIPAC's (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) wily and experienced lobbyists predict the first year of an Obama presidency will be challenging for Israel, not because he has bad intentions, but because they might be too good. Until then, Israel will unwillingly be at the heart of the storm of the presidential race. … There are enough reasons to prefer (John) McCain to Obama, or Clinton to Obama, regarding their intended policy toward Iran. But even those who oppose him should put aside their political preferences, fear of the future, and their pros and cons list for just a moment. Now is the time to take in Obama's astounding political victory, if one can still feel awe for anything in this day and age. Against all the odds, the campaign broke down the boundaries of bias and race, and brought out voters to cast their ballots. They may be naive, but they are not indifferent. They may be a little childish, but they aren't cynical."
The Times of India,
in an editorial: "Finally, Sen. Obama is the one who will lead the Democratic charge for the White House. … With the stage set for Obama's face-off with McCain, campaign season promises to get tougher and meaner. … As far as India is concerned, Obama is perhaps the least known for his views. McCain and Clinton have a clear position on where New Delhi fits in the emerging world. In that scheme, India ranks pretty high. Obama appears to share no such vision, at least not yet. But, irrespective of whether eventually McCain wins or Obama does, there's no denying that a page has been turned in America's history."
Alphayo Otiento, journalist, in Daily Nation, Kenya:
"A core element of that Obama message has always been hope and inspiration. This is the one political message that simultaneously persuades swing voters and motivates mobilizable voters who rarely go to the polls. … Obama showed that appeals to division — whether from elements that stirred up fear that a 'black candidate couldn't win,' or from his former pastor, Jeremiah Wright — could be overcome by America's overwhelming hunger for unity. … Now it will be up to every Democrat, every progressive, to take advantage of this historic opportunity to make Obama the American president who leads the world into a new progressive era of unprecedented possibilities."
It's been a great week for transgender civil rights. In Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter said no to the lies of Daddy Dobson and company and signed SB 200.
Now the New York State Assembly has finally passed AO6584 or GENDA, a bill first introduced in 2003. GENDA, or the Gender Employment Non-Discrimination Act, bans discrimination against transgender people in New York State in housing, employment, credit, public accomdations and other areas of everyday life.
The bill had a record 74 sponsors, made it to the floor for a vote this year and passed the Assembly by a whopping 102-33 vote.
Empire State Pride Agenda Executive Director Alan Van Capelle said, "Transgender New Yorkers are in constant fear that they will lose their jobs, be kicked out of their homes, or simply be denied service in a restaurant. It goes without saying that these members of our community should be able to go about the business of living their daily lives openly and without fear."
I believe the recent settling of the Khadijah Farmer case in New York may have had an effect on the positive outcome of GENDA in the Assembly this time. It not only highlighted some of the BS we go through, but put a name and a face to the types of discrimination that we've been verbalizing about for over a decade now.
GENDA still has to go through the GOP-controlled Senate, and you know the Republican Party's sorry history of the last 40 years when it comes to passing needed civil rights law.
One of the things I bitched about (and still do on occasion) is my early transition days. When I sought help from my transgender elders in the early 80's, they either blew me off, were tight-lipped about giving out any information that would facilitate my transition, or guarded it like it was the secret recipe for KFC.
Well, for the benefit of you peeps just getting started, I'm not gonna be as shady to y'all as my predecessors were. I will from time to time blog about some of my secrets that helped me become the Phenomenal Transwoman you see before you in all her glory.
Whether it's short, mid length, long, a weave to her butt, curly, wavy, bone-straight, permed, locked or braided, a Black woman's hair is her crowning glory. It expresses her individuality and style.
It can also be a political statement as well. Whether it was Afro's in the 60's and 70's, blonde hair in the late 80's-early 90's, or braids and locs currently are in the 2K's.
If there's one thing that will get a transsistah read faster than you can say 'nappy weave', it's a jacked up hairstyle. It was one of the things pre-transition that I stressed and obsessed over.
So after I found Sadat Busari, my former hairdresser in H-town, I began to search for the perfect hairstyle that fit me. My search led me directly to the magazine rack to pick up a copy of Sophisticate's Black Hair.
Sophisticate's Black Hair, or SBH for short, is a Chicago-based publication edited by Jocelyn P. Amador. For over two decades it has not only shown us the many creative ways we sistahs wear our hair, it also included informative articles about how to maintain the style after you left the salon, and also how to maintain our hair so it stays strong and healthy.
It's also chock full of clip and snip examples of various hairstyles so that you can take the one you like to your friendly neighborhood stylist and let her hook your hair up to your satisfaction.
Like EBONY, ESSENCE, Jet and Black Enterprise magazines, SBH is an iconic slice of African-American culture. It also has a mission of celebrating Black beauty. It has celebrity photo layouts in every issue in which they share their beauty tips. I was aware of SBH because I loved me some Jayne Kennedy Overton back in the day (and still do), and she was SBH's first cover model back in 1984.
I still have old SBH issues in my possession, and interestingly enough they serve as an African-American cultural time capsule. Not only do I get a kick out of seeing what hairstyles were popular back in the day, many of the celebrity layouts reflected popular cultural icons of the day such as Phylicia Rashad, Jasmine Guy, Robin Givens, Gabrielle Union, and Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon just to name a few. It also features up and coming stage, screen and music stars as well.
I never miss their anniversary issue, which features the Top 10 Best Style Women as voted on by SBH readers. BTW, for 2008 its Mary J. Blige, Keyshia Cole, Beyonce, Alicia Keys, Eve, Tyra Banks, Kimora Lee Simmons, Halle Berry, Rihanna, and Queen Latifah.
As it approaches its 25th anniversary, I have much love for Sophisticate's Black Hair magazine. I gleaned a few style ideas from it that Sadat easily tweaked to work for me. I also have to give SBH a shout out for reminding us and the world just how beautiful African-American women really are and not letting us forget it.
Thanks SBH, and may you be around for the next generation of sistahs to read as well.
Tonight, to paraphrase Apollo astronaut Neil Armstrong, was one small step for Barack Obama, but one giant leap for my people and the nation. For the first time in our country's history, an African-American is the nominee for his party's nomination for president.
I have said for years that I felt the country was too bigoted and prejudiced to ever have an African-American man as president. I felt the breakthrough African-American president would be a sistah. Well, we still have five months of GOP and Faux news mudslinging and character assasination to go, but I'm hoping that America proves me wrong on November 4 and my niece wakes up on her ninth birthday to witness more American history.
While I'm hopeful that Americans will see through the lies and spin to elect this well qualified man as president, my lifelong skepticism on all things that are touched by race in this country leads me to the justified fear that people will vote for McCain just to keep him out of that office.
My white brothers and sisters, please don't dismiss mine and the anxiety-riddled concerns of African-Americans. Here's an example of the mentality we'll have to deal with even in our own party.
It's ironic that on the 45th anniversary of the Dr. King's 'I Have A Dream Speech' this August, Barack Hussein Obama will take the stage at a Democratic convention once again.
But unlike four years ago in Boston, when he was a little known state senator from Illinois, this time he'll be taking the stage in Denver as a first term US Senator accepting the Democratic Party nomination.
And on that night, Dr. King, Shirley Chisolm and Fannie Lou Hamer will be smiling down at him.
Governor Steve Beshear (D) today signed an executive order restoring equal opportunity employment to all state employees and prospective employees. Under the order, no one can be hired or fired based on race, age, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity, ancestry, age, disability, or veteran status.
"A person should be hired or dismissed on the basis of whether they can do the job," said Gov. Beshear. "Experience, qualifications, talent and performance are what matter."
In 2003, Gov. Paul Patton (D) issued an identical executive order and said he was a strong supporter of fair and equal treatment of employees. He noted that qualifications and conduct in the workplace should be the only factors by which an employee is judged.
However, in 2006 Gov. Ernie Fletcher (R) stripped those job protections from a certain segment of the state employee population - notably Kentuckians who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered. The suggestion was that such protection was either unnecessary, legally expensive or the equivalent of "special treatment." As a result, a gay person could be fired simply for being gay.
The executive order signed today by Gov. Beshear restores equal treatment, diversity and inclusiveness to state government.
The transgender cabarets of Thailand have been for several decades showcases for the beauty, grace and talents of Thai transwomen. They have also been the sponsoring and host venues for two beauty pageants that have garnered increasing worldwide press coverage and increasing numbers of contestants from Thailand and all over the planet.
Here's a clip from a story about the transgender cabarets.
Y'all know how much I despise seeing transgender people’s names in quotation marks because it's disrespectful. In this case I did it because the person I’m talking about in this post is what we call in the community a stealth transperson.
The stealth folks in our community don't have blogs, you don't see them at Lobby Days, they don't get interviewed on talk shows, do radio interviews and are infrequently written about, but they are an important part of our community as well and have interesting lives and stories.
But to tell those stories, you have to strike a careful balance between telling the story and not divulging too many cogent details of their lives in order to avoid inadvertantly outing them.
I recently got reacquainted with an old friend of mine. Angel’s not her real name, but one I chose to protect her privacy.
Angel is one of the many transsistahs I know who are quite gainfully employed. She makes high five figures at her job, has a nice home in the ‘burbs, goes to church faithfully and has a wonderful relationship with her mother.
She also transitioned in her early teens before Demon Testosterone started impacting her body, so she looks like any other average height African-American woman out there in the world down to the genitalia. That's exactly the way she wants to be seen by the rest of the planet, and I ain't mad at her for that.
But Angel is also savvy enough to realize that even though she has biosisters as friends, there are certain things about her life that she can only talk about and unburden herself with another transsistah.
So how did my out-and-proud power to the transpeople behind meet Angel? Our friendship started in 1999 as a result of my membership on the Afrocentric Black Voices Internet discussion list now owned by AOL. As y’all probably guessed, I was a prolific poster there, but ironically at the time I wasn’t out as a transperson online.
We traded phone numbers, started talking, and discovered over the next several weeks of phone converastions that we had a few things in common besides being smart, opinionated Black women. I discovered she lived just a few miles from my old SW Houston apartment off Beltway 8.
When I'm starting a potential friendship I believe that honesty is the best policy. I put it out there up front that I’m a transwoman. That way if the person has issues with it I just chalk it up as 'their loss' and I'm on my merry way.
To my surprise, Angel told me that she was transgender as well. We set up a meeting at a neutral site, clicked even more and spent time at each others homes. We talked on a regular basis until I lost my job with CAL and subsequently moved in September 2001.
The chaotic nature of my life during those six months prior to my sudden move left many of my old friends out of the information loop. Most of them didn’t know I’d left the area until the person received a call or e-mail from me a few months after I'd established residency and a somewhat stable routine in Da Ville.
Angel happened to be one of the peeps that got left out of the loop. It didn't help that her e-mail address changed during that period and I misplaced my personal phone book with my Houston numbers in it during the move, so I didn't have a way to contact her.
As I started concentrating on rebuilding my life over the next few years, Angel was pondering the 'what happened to Monica?' question. So one day she did what any tech savvy person in that situation would do and Googled my name.
She discovered my blog and e-mailed me last week after perusing a few posts on it. I e-mailed her my phone number, and Saturday night we talked on the phone for the first time in several years.
She told me before I hung up the phone to end our three hour conversation that she’s glad I’m back in her life again.
Forty years ago on June 1, AstroWorld, the centerpiece of a lot of mine and a host of Houston area kids of my generation's childhood memories opened. The $10 million park was across the 610 Loop from the Astrodomain complex and was accessed by the only private bridge across an interstate highway. It was created and owned by the Hofheinz family until they sold it to Six Flags in 1975.
Astroworld had eight themed areas, all with their own distinctive lighting, music and uniforms for the people working there.
Americana Square: Entry plaza, Emporium Store, Barber Shop, Camera Shop, Malt Shop, Bakery, Candy Store
Alpine Valley: Dentzel Carousel, Alpine Sleigh Ride, Alpine AstroWay Station (Von Roll aerial tramway)
The best part about AstroWorld was that it was local. All you had to do was head in the direction of the Astrodomain complex to get there. Six Flags Over Texas was in gasp, Arlington, a four hour drive from Houston.
Even though I have an army of relatives on my mom's side of the family in the Dallas metro area and bounced up I-45 every summer to visit them, I still have never stepped through the gates of Six Flags over Texas. The other Six Flags park in the state, Fiesta Texas, is in San Antonio. While it's newer and only a two hour drive west on I-10 from Houston, I haven't been there either.
AstroWorld was if you were a kid of my generation, the cool place to be. Parents bought their kids season passes for the summer. They dropped them off when the park opened and picked them back up at the end ot the day. Every summer for several years my Grandmother Tama took me and my brother and later my toddler sisters to AstroWorld. There was one summer where I got to go with my church family when Vacation Bible School ended.
If you think waiting in line in Houston's notorious summer heat to get on various park rides was torture, thanks to 2,400 tons of air conditioning it wasn't. One of my favorite rides, the Alpine Sleigh used to have you go through a mountain and get hit with a blast of iceberg chilly air before you exited it. I also used to love Thunder River and the Bamboo Shoot because you get, survey says, seriously splashed.
There was one visit I made to AstroWorld in which a group of my friends and I went. While observing several people riding the then brand new Thunder River, I noted that the raft would be turned by the rushing water currents prior to the Big Splash and any peeps on that side of the boat after it turned would get seriously soaked. I made it a point when we boarded to get on what would become the dry side of the boat. They were pissed when I walked off with a sly grin on my face and bone dry while some of the peeps I rode with were t-shirt contest wet.
And what can I say about the Texas Cyclone and Greezed Lightning? I used to make sure if I was in the park after it rained to ride the Cyclone because it seemed to go a few miles an hour faster than on a dry or warm weather day.
One of the first job interviews I participated in was trying to land a job working at AstroWorld when I turned 16, the minimum age for working there. The applicant pool was long and formidable because it was the ultimate job for teens of my era. If you stated during my high school years that you worked at AstroWorld, your cool points factor went up dramatically.
When I graduated from high school in 1980, I was more excited when my senior year started in the fall of 1979 about the fact that I'd finally get to go to the AstroWorld All Night Senior party than my upcoming walk across the stage in cap and gown a few months later at the Astroarena.
So I was shocked and devastated when Six Flags announced that they were closing the park because they mistakenly believed the real estate underneath the park was more valuable than the park itself. Those bonehead management decisions probably underscore why Six Flags is in debt now.
I followed the efforts long distance to save the park, and had I known it was in danger of closing, I probably would have made a more determined effort to bounce around AstroWorld when I arrived in Houston on Friday afternoon for my brother's July 2005 wedding.
But unfortunately, the efforts failed and the park permanently closed on October 30, 2005. The demolition of it took place soon after its closing and during the early part of 2006. As for the money Six Flags was expecting from the sale of it? It cost them $20 million to demolish the park and clear the land, and they only received $77 million when they were anticipating $105 million. When I passed King's Island on my way to Columbus with Dawn for that fencing tournament last month, it reawakened for a moment the sadness I felt when AstroWorld closed.
The only thing that remains today that even clues you in that the park once stood there is the private bridge crossing Loop 610. A bridge that led to a lot of happy memories for me and several generations of Houston area kids.
If you want to know why I've lost respect for Bill and his wife after South Carolina, this following clip is why. Your campaign injected race into this campaign when Barack started whipping Hillary's behind, and here is an example of the ugly aftermath of it blowing up at today's DNC Rules Committee hearing in DC.
Superdelgates, time to end this crap now.
And to Ms. Harriet Christian of Manhattan and all the White Democrats who are spouting the same bullshit, here's something for y'all to chew on.
African-Americans for decades have been the most loyal constituency to this party. We have voted for White, Black amd Latino Democratic candidates at 60-90% clips at all levels of government. But when it comes to an African-American candidate, we don't get the same respect and love as Democrats that we show you.
Meanwhile Ms. Christian, 'good Americans' who share your ethnicity have ignorantly voted against your political and economic interests for Republican candidates who don't give a rats anus about you for a variety of logic-defying reasons, up to and including your own racism.
Not this time. When it comes to this 2008 election, it''s put up or shut up time. Barack Obama is going to win this nomination. Deal with it. We African-American Democrats expect nothing less than for all true Democrats to do the same for us that we African-Americans have done for candidates of your ethnicity for the last 40 years. Vote for the Dem and keep the lips zipped about any negativity you have for that candidate in the interest of party unity until after Election Day.
Remember it's attitudes like this that got us George W. Bush in the first place, and this country cannot afford another four years of GOP rule.
When this campaign is mercifully over, it's time for the United States to take a long, hard no-holds barred look at the damage that slavery has caused and how it still impacts us only 150 years removed from its end.
W.E.B. DuBois said it over a century ago, and I fear this quote is coming true in my lifetime.
'Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States'
I think the phrasing of this quote more apropos to this post is, either the United States will destroy racism or racism will destroy the United States.
A writer, award winning activist, lecturer, speaker, native Houstonian and Texan who migrated to Kentucky.
Transitioned in 1994 and absolutely love my semi-boring life now.
This personal blog allows me to express my constitutionally guaranteed First Amendment free speech rights and kick knowledge to y'all at the same time on various issues. .
Nothing in it shall be construed, spun or interpreted to mean that it represents the views of my employers or the boards of the organizations that I sit on.
Photos and videos posted to this blog are used for illustrative purposes only. Unless noted in the post, photos/videos don't indicate or are not intended to imply that the person depicted in said photo/video is transgender
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If you wish to irrationally hate on President Obama and the First Family (and I get to define irrational) take your unhinged commentary to a right-wing site who cares.
One of the things I constantly tell my African-American biosisters is that your transsisters have far more in common with you than the minor differences that separate us.
Michelle Obama has been not only slimed with racist comments, she's been whacked with the 'angry' tag already and we aren't even at the party conventions yet. 
In addition, I'm blunt at times and call it as I see it. In the spirit of one of my sheroes, the late Rep. Barbara Jordan, I believe in morally ethical leadership and work diligently to apply those principles in my own life and leadership style. Staying true to those principles sometimes puts me in the awkward position of having to call out people and organizations I consider friends as well. 
