Goodbye 2008

The clock is ticking down not only on the end of this historic year, but the end of the Bush presidency as well.

It's been a up and down year for us in the transgender community. We've added a few more cities to the long list of areas that believe our civil rights are worth ensconcing into law. We backed the winner in a historic presidential race.

It was a historic year for African American transwomen. Dr. Marisa Richmond became the first African-American transwoman to become a delegate at a major party convention. Isis King and Laverne Cox made ground breaking television appearances showcasing our beauty and intelligence.

Oh yeah, some African-American transgender blogger emerged as a finalist for the 2008 Weblog Awards Best LGBT Blog award.

Unfortunately we lost 30 more of our transsisters to anti transgender violence, with the latest one just happening days ago in Indianapolis.

We are receiving renewed attention from the Forces of Intolerance. They have decided to use any unchristian means necessary to oppose the inevitable arching of the moral universe towards justice for transgender people.

Sadly, one of the willing members of that cabal of intolerance is the Roman Catholic Church.

But one of the things I'm looking forward to in 2009 besides the Obama inauguration is exploring the exciting possibility that our African descended biosisters are not only keenly interested in learning more about us, but may finally be realizing that we transwomen are their natural allies.

I'm also encouraged that while we still have a long way to go, we have taken major strides toward destroying some negative myths about African descended transgender people and what we bring to the African American family table.

So change is coming, and it's not just at the White House on January 20 either.

Indiana Transsistah Dead And Disrespected By The Media

Well folks, here we fracking go again. This time the disrespect is not only in my neck of the woods once again, it's up I-65 from me in Indianapolis.

Bil is also blogging about this over at The Bilerico Project since it's in his backyard.

Taysia Elzy and her boyfriend were killed over the holidays. Not only did they identify her as a 'man' they used mug shots for the photos. Also peep the comments coming from the 'enlightened' citizens who are posting onto this story.

As per TransGriot policy, I'm rewriting the story the way it should have appeared per AP Stylebook guidelines for covering transgender people.

***

2 People, Dog Found Dead In Home
Police: Residents Had Not Been Heard From Since Wednesday


INDIANAPOLIS -- Two people and a dog found dead in a north side Indianapolis home on Friday may have been there since the middle of the week, police said.

Officers went to check on the welfare of a resident at 5853 Rosslyn Ave. who had not been heard from since Wednesday, said Sgt. Paul Thompson.

Taysia Elzy, 34, and Michael Hunt, 22, were found dead in the home, along with a pit bull, Thompson said. Three other pit bulls were also removed from the home.

Detectives said they were looking for a blue 2001 four-door Mercury Sable that should have been at the house. The vehicle has an Indiana 2009 Children's Trust license plate No. KW1329, along with custom 22-inch rims, television monitors in the headrests and the phrase "sexy and independent" painted on the rear of the car.

Police said they believe the vehicle may either be headed to or already in the Fort Wayne area.

Anyone with information is asked to call police or Crime Stoppers at 317-262-TIPS or 800-222-TIPS.

Holiday Black Blog Rankings Update

Electronic Villager updated the BBR's on December 20, so let's check out where I stood as of that date.

In this holiday update, 1516 blogs were ranked which was an increase of 20 blogs and puts the BBR's over the 1500 mark. Pam's House Blend is still Number One.

So where's TransGriot?

TransGriot is still in the Top 50 Black Blogs at number 47 with a Technorati ranking of 144. Moved up three spots toward my new goals of being in the Top 25 BBR and at a 200 Technorati ranking by my May 4 birthday, but I'm concerned because I only picked up 1 point since the early December rankings, and I know that's questionable.

So close to my previous goal of 150 goal but yet so far. Hopefully whatever problem my Technorati ranking is having updating itself will go away.

Congratulations Angela!

Monica Helms sent me the word a few days ago, but I need to take a moment to congratulate an old friend who was named Q-Notes Person of the Year.

I've served with Angela Brightfeather on the NTAC board, have walked the halls of Congress with her, hung out at various conventions with her, and she was one of the people in the room when I picked up my Trinity in 2006.

She also beat my behind soundly on the pool table in the Philly hotel's sports lounge during that same 2006 IFGE convention.

Nevertheless, she's a role model to myself and many of us. She serves as the vice president of TAVA, the Transgender American Veteran's Assn and is a tireless advocate for transgender veterans issues. She also excels at keeping HRC 'ejumacated' and fighting for the civil rights of transpeople in North Carolina and around the nation.

She keeps us focused on the bigger prize of equality for all, and it's nice to see one of the good peeps in the community win a well deserved honor.

Congratulations Angela!

2008 Weblog Awards Finalist!

Hey TransGriot readers, just wanted to let you know that I did get my Christmas wish this year. This blog is one of the ten finalists for 2008 Best LGBT Blog!

Here's my esteemed competition:

Joe.My.God.
Towleroad
The Bilerico Project
Pam's House Blend
Susie Bright's Journal
Tammy Bruce
This Girl Called Automatic Win
Gay Patriot
Blabbeando

To be part of this list is a huge honor. Pam's House Blend won it two years in a row (2005-2006) and was a finalist last year. Joe.My.God. was the 2007 winner. The Bilerico Project is a finalist for the second year in a row.

Congratulations to Lisa at Black Women, Blow The Trumpet, who is a finalist in the Best Small Blog Category

There were over 5000 nominations submitted this year, and over 290 in the Best LGBT blog category. I submitted a nomination for the award last year but didn't make the final cut.

So yeah, I'm deliriously happy right now. I've got some tough competition, with the voting starting on January 5 and running through January 12.

Here are the rest of the finalists in the various categories, and good luck to 'errbody' when the voting starts.

But that 'Best 2008 GLBT blog winner' button would sure look good on TransGriot!

Hello, There Are Beautiful Transwomen Who Are Black

There's an old saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. One of the things I really get tired of is when the general conversation of transwomen turns to beauty and the discussion ignores us.

What got me thinking about the subject was this YouTube video I ran across while searching for something else spotlighting gorgeous celebrity transwomen. Too many times when that discussion gets started, the transwomen that are held up to that standard nine times out of ten have European ancestry. If on the rare occasions you do see a transwoman of color make it into this conversation, she's either Latina or Asian.

Black transwomen hardly ever make it into this general conversation, but when it comes to whatever negatives are slapped onto transwomen, notice how quickly they get shunted to Black transwomen. There have been too many times that when more attractive pictures were available of Black transwomen, the media seems to find the most unflattering, unattractive picture of a transwoman of African descent.



Somehow, that shouldn't be surprising to any of us who paid attention in history class. If our biosisters have had drama over the centuries (and still do) just getting the world to recognize the curvaceous beauty of Black women from vanilla creme to darkest ebony, what made us Black transwomen think we'd have it any easier, especially in the face of a near total news blackout when it comes to transwomen of color?

It was one of the reasons why I and many other Black transwomen were deliriously happy about Isis making it on America's Next Top Model and rooting for her to win it all, and seeing Laverne Cox representing on I Want To Work For Diddy. Not only were we finally getting to see on television beautiful, intelligent transsistahs doing their thang on the tube, they looked good doing it.

It's interesting that our beauty is not talked about or celebrated despite the fact that in the major non African-American transgender pageant systems such as Miss Continental and Miss Gay US of A sistahs routinely win titles. The Miss Continental system just finished a run in which Black transwomen won the title three consecutive years, but yet we're still 'unpretty' in the general beauty discussion or only grudgingly acknowledged.

I can almost guarantee that if the ballroom community were a overwhelmingly white one and not one in which beautiful Black and Latina transwomen rule, it would have been claimed by mainstream GLBT culture long ago.

When coverage of transwomen since 1953 has been predominately driven by, of and about white transwomen, it follows that discussions of what makes a transwoman beautiful would be decided in that context as well. It sucks, but that's the reality we deal with.

We also know from observing our biosisters just how much of a battle it's going to be to broaden the discussion of what makes a transwoman beautiful to include African descended ones more frequently than it happens now.

But for the sake of our transkids and others, it's one that we must fight.

0-16

If there are any Detroit Lions fans who still care about the once proud NFL franchise after this season, they are in mourning because the team has made history in a negative way.

They fought hard to avoid the stigma. They were even tied 14-14 at the end of the third quarter. But unfortunately for them NFL football games are 60 minutes and four quarters long and fell to the Packers 31-21 in Green Bay.

The loss means that the Detroit Lions become the first team since the NFL went to a 16 game schedule to go winless for the season. The Lions haven't won since the defeated the Kansas City Chiefs on December 23, 2007.

The last team to go winless for the season was the 1976 Tampa Bay Buccaneers in their expansion year. The NFL only played a 14 games schedule at the time.

I feel your pain, Lions fans. Back in the day the 1972 and 1973 Oilers compiled back to back 1-13 records. I also enjoy reminding Irving Cowchips lovers that their beloved team also went 0-11-1 in their expansion season in 1960 and didn't have a winning record in their first five years of existence.

Speaking of my hometown NFL team, the Texans beat the Chicago Bears today 31-24 at Reliant Stadium to finish 8-8 for the second straight season. Fellas, is it too much to ask for in 2009 to win more than 8 games and make the playoffs?

I also got to enjoy watching the Tennessee Traitors being beat down by the Colts 23-0.

No, I'm not going to forgive, forget or let it go that Bud moved my Oilers to Nashville.

But back to the Lions. They have the number one pick in the upcoming draft and they've got a lot of work ahead of them to rebuild this team into a contender.

But take heart Lions fans, it can be done. Remember, you witnessed those same 0-14 Buccaneers four years later, thanks to some shrewd draft picks, trades and a rifle armed quarterback from Grambling named Doug Williams win the NFC Central Division, host the NFC title game in Tampa and came agonizingly close to making it to the Super Bowl

So your winter of discontent with the Lions hopefully shouldn't last long and you'll soon be cheering a team that's worthy of your football affections and that will make you proud.

Carmen Xtravaganza

I remember where I was when I first began to hear about the NY ballroom scene. I was with one of my then homies who was trolling for adult films to rent at Bellaire News while I was perusing the out of town newspapers.

This was the early 80's BI (before Internet) when you couldn't simply fire up a computer to access an out of town paper. You had to buy it at a newsstand or go to the public library to read it, and some of those newsstands also sold adult magazines and videos.

While waiting for him to complete his rental, I was reading the Village Voice and this particular issue had an article about the NY ballroom scene. It got my undivided attention when it started talking about the femme realness category and one of the up and coming stars in that category in the 80's, Carmen Xtravaganza.

Since I was in information procuring mode about anything transgender at the time, I continued to read the article. As I recall it, people inside and outside the community were raving about her as and coming legend and I paid particular attention to the quotes from her mother about her transition.

I bought that issue and kept the article for a few years until it got lost when I moved out of my parents house.

Not long after I read about her in the Village Voice, Paris Is Burning came out and Carmen was in this scene from it.



Even though I've visited New York a few times, I was never able to time my visit so that I could attend a ball. As some of you know I have much love for the ballroom community and it's still a goal of mine to do just that to attend a ball one day.

carmen xtravaganza the princes boll 8/3/20008


Carmen is still around, looking as lovely as ever and became the mother of the House of Xtravaganza for a while. She still pops up at the balls and performs in New York from time to time.

The Proud Family

You and me will always be tight
Family every single day and night
Even when you starts acting like a fool
You know I'm loving every single thing you do

I know I can always be myself
Around you more then anybody else
And every day as I'm heading off to school
You know there no one
I love as much as you

Family, a family
Proud Family
They'll make you scream
They'll make you wanna sing
Its a family thing a family
A proud proud family
Proud Family
They'll push your buttons
They'll make you wanna hug 'em
A family
A family
A proud proud family

When this cartoon premiered on Disney with the catchy theme song sung by Destiny's Child and little sis Solange Knowles, it got my attention.

Not long after I moved to Louisville Dawn and I were parked in front of the TV watching the antics of Oscar, Trudy, Penny, Suga Mama, the infant twins Bebe and Cece and Penny's friends Zoe, Dijonay, Sticky and 'frenemy' Lacienega.



Toss in Wizard Kelly owning everythang, Oscar's humorous attempts to sell the town his barf inducing Proud Snacks, The Gross Sisters jacking 'errbody' in the school for their money, Dr. Payne, rapper Sir Paid A Lot, the Boulevardez clan, Suga Mama's romantic pursuit of Papi Boulevardez, little Peabo's crush on Penny, and Penny navigating the waters of a teenager growing up, and life in Wizville, CA and at Willy T. Ribbs Jr/Sr.High was never boring

It was also cool because this was not only written as a slice of teen life from an African-American middle class perspective, it's rare that you had a cartoon that focused on African American life and our perspectives, period.

Okay, so now we have The Boondocks, but this preceded it, people.

I also loved the fact that during its four year run from September 15, 2001 to August 19, 2005 it had a long list of African-American and other entertainers doing guest appearances that ranged from Vanessa L. Williams to Samuel L. Jackson and Kobe Bryant.

But the one thing that irritated me during the show's run and since was how Kim Possible, a show that started at roughly the same time and even though I love that cartoon as well, was relentlessly pushed marketing wise with merchandise in their Disney stores and on the Disney website and The Proud Family wasn't.

I';m also mildy irritated that Kim Possible is still on the air and the Proud Family isn't as well.

Thanks to Bruce W. Smith and his Jambalaya Studios, we'll have the Proud Family around (as soon as they put all four seasons on DVD) to treasure forever.

SFPD's Stephan Thorne Gets Promoted

As I mentioned in another post, I met then Sgt. Stephan Thorne during the 1999 Creating Change when it was held in Oakland and had a wonderful conversation with him.

I was ecstatic to find out that the 24 year veteran of the San Francisco Police Department was recently promoted to lieutenant.

In gaining his promotion, he also made history. He is the highest-ranking out transgender law enforcement official in the country, according to San Francisco Police Commission President Theresa Sparks, who is also transgender. Thorne is one of the top-ranked LGBT officers in the SFPD.

Thorne has been a police officer for 28 years, and stated to the Bay Area Reporter's Seth Hemmelgarn that he's honored and excited about the promotion not just for himself, but also for others.

"This is a really significant step, and a really validating experience personally for me, but also for all other transgender people," he said.

Sparks said she thinks Thorne's promotion from sergeant is well deserved.

"What's really gratifying is Stephan Thorne was promoted in spite of being transgender, not because he's transgender ... he was promoted on merit as opposed to anything else."

Sparks said Thorne is "a gentleman" and "really an excellent role model for our community." She said there are also two transgender patrol officers on the force.

Thorne, who transitioned in 1994 amid quite a bit of publicity, said he identifies as queer but is in a long-term relationship with a woman, Michiko Bailey. The two have five children between them from previous relationships, and four grandchildren.

Thorne doesn't yet know where he'll be stationed. First, he has to go through two weeks of training. Police lieutenants typically manage other personnel.

"I'm proud on behalf of my community, and also acutely aware of the shoulders I'm standing upon of all the people that have come before me and done such hard and incredible work to move forward with equal rights for all of us," Thorne said.

Openly gay Supervisor Bevan Dufty said he's worked with Thorne over many years.

"I think that he embodies the professionalism and commitment to public service that we want to see in the SFPD leadership," Dufty said.

Dufty said he's heard from many members of the police department about Thorne's promotion.

"People really regard him as eminently qualified," Dufty added.

Let me add my congratulations to Stephan as well for his historic promotion. He's a quality guy and the San Francisco PD is definitely lucky to have him as part of their force.

My Favorite Transgender Cop

I've had the pleasure over the years of meeting now Lieutenant Stephan Thorne of the San Francisco Police Department (congrats Stephan on the promotion) and hanging out with TOPS founder Tony Barreto-Neto during the 2000 IFGE convention in Washington DC.

But my favorite transgender police officer is Sgt. Aoi Futaba of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. Aoi was a former star basketball player in Japan with many female fans and after joining the force worked on the vice squad.

She crossdressed as part of an operation to catch a serial rapist, and after the case was successfully concluded she realized her body may be male, but her spirit was female and continued to dress as a woman full time.

She transferred from Vice to the Traffic Division soon afterward and ends up at Bokuto Station. After a rocky beginning, Aoi's new coworkers at Bokuto Precinct fully accept her, even with the knowledge that she wasn't always female.

By the way, did I mention that Sgt. Aoi Futaba is an anime character?

Some of you may have figured out either by the photos or the initial paragraph I wrote that I'm talking about the anime series You're Under Arrest. While the show is focused on the exploits on and off duty of Sgt. Miyuki Kobayakawa and Sgt. Natsumi Tsujimoto who are this anime police show's Cagney and Lacey clones, Aoi is the far more fascinating character on it.

Miyuki correctly observes during their initial meeting that Aoi is more feminine than any genetic woman in Bokuto Station by saying to her after she explained her emotions and thoughts leading to her transition, "You're the daughter my mom always wanted." During the first and second season her observation proves to be right on target.

You have the embarrassing situations centered on Aoi's pre-op status in various episodes, but over time she not only proves to be a valued officer at Bokuto Station, she simply becomes 'one of the girls.' Even Yoriko Nikaido, the nosy Bokuto station dispatcher and scheming gossip who had a major problem with her at first using the women's locker room eventually warms to Aoi and becomes her patrol partner.

It's interesting to note that Aoi realistically mirrors many of the emotions, concerns and problems that many transgender people face. She faced the bathroom issue in the very first episode that chronicles her character's initial arrival at Bokuto Station.

There were two episodes in which she faced the 'When Do I Tell Him' dating dilemma. She had to decide when to disclose to a handsome and famous actor she was attracted to and who showed romantic interest in her that she was a transwoman. The other episode chronicling Aoi's dating dilemma focused on her anguish about meeting a man she'd become romantically involved with via the Internet and revealing her secret.

There was also the You're Under Arrest-Full Throttle episode in the third season in which her old superior in the vice department Udamura Kumanosuke felt responsible for her transition because of those crossdressing missions and showed up at Bokuto station with the announced intention of turning Aoi back into a man. After the failure of the remasculinization plan, his wife pointed out after meeting Aoi that she was always female and that was her natural predestined path to travel.

Even one of her female fans in the first episode who'd developed a crush on the pre-transition Aoi in high school and treasured the pair of old basketball shoes she was given eventually realized the same thing.

So yes, she's my favorite transgender police officer, at least in the anime world.

As for my favorite transgender police officer in the real world, I'm pleading the fifth on that.

A Transsistah's Secret-Legs

She's got legs, she knows how to use them.
She never begs, she knows how to choose them.
She's holdin' legs wonderin' how to feel them.
Would you get behind them if you could only find them?
She's my baby, she's my baby,
yeah, it's alright.

ZZ Top Legs

My fellow Texans and legions of singers and writers have waxed poetically about the mystery and beauty of women's legs.

Short of our faces, breasts and our bodies, the next thing a transsistah obsesses about (because she knows that guys and sometimes other women do) are her legs. The last thing she wants is to have NFL linebacker legs or anything that has a mere hint of masculinity.

Fortunately the shape of our legs is something that we have a little control over in terms of exercise to tone and shape them. In addition we get the same benefits from estrogen when it comes to our bodies that biowomen get in creating feminine curves.

After we start taking them, over time hormones do shift fat around and elongate the leg muscles to create a more feminine look to them.

And if you've grown up in the African-American community, you are well aware of the fact that many of our legendary beauties from Lena to Dorothy to Tina to Rihanna have been admired and desired not only for their looks, curvy brown frames, talent and intelligence, but their killer legs as well.

Rihanna not only won Venus Breeze's 2007’s Celebrity Legs of a Goddess, but they also insured her legs with Lloyd's of London for $1 million.

I've observed that guys go especially gaga over those legs if they're wearing hose with them.

Hey ladies, just kicking knowledge to y'all from my time on the other side of the gender fence. If you prefer male companionship, break out the hose. Your love life and the hosiery makers of the planet will thank you for it later.

But back to the original post.

So is it any wonder that after observing the cultural cues and taking all that in, why transwomen, and especially African-American ones would be anxious about how their legs look?

It's also a concern if you're involved in the pageant or ballroom communities in which the closest you come to looking as feminine as possible enhances your chances of winning.

I got the genetic luck of the draw with my legs as well. I can't tell y'all how many hours of teasing I endured in my junior high gym classes about my 'girl's legs' or after we started doing coed gym in tenth grade how many comments I got from my female classmates stating that I needed to trade my legs for theirs.

So I was comforted in the knowledge that HRT would already enhance what I had. Being 6'2" and mostly legs at that, it takes me hours just to shave them. It's an exercise testing my Taurean patience just to get it done, and I do it deliberately and carefully in order to avoid the tendency of rushing it and nicking myself in the process.

Personally I'd like to zap them with the laser and be done with it, but since I'm not rolling in that kind of dough yet, it's the razor, Nair, waxing, depilatories or whatever new product becomes available to get them looking their best.

Canaries In The Memphis Civic Coal Mine

When this video first got uploaded to YouTube a few months ago, I thought about posting and commenting on it based on the lousy reporting in it that tried and miserably failed to make this situation humorous.

Because of other pressing news matters and other issues that garnered my attention I let this one slide for a minute.



Now in light of what's been happening in Memphis over the last few months, I'm recognizing it as a alarm bell and a window into the transphobia that permeates some quarters of the community in Memphis. I believe the frustration over that transphobia and other situations in the Memphis transgender community probably triggered the negative reactions of the transpeople involved in this McDonald blowup chronicled in this jacked up report.

It also gives us some understanding into why all of a sudden Memphis has become a dangerous city for transpeople to live in.

I'm also beginning to warm up to the idea being floated in some quarters of the transgender community of having us and our allies boycott Memphis until their po-po's get it through their heads that 'protect and serve the citizens' means ALL Memphis residents, and that Memphis realizes that it's not okay to declare open season on their transgender residents.

Memphis citizens, if you don't work diligently to find the person or persons who are committing these attacks on transgender people, you may one day have this violence visited upon a member of your own family who may or may not be a transwoman. One that day you will painfully learn the lesson of the 'inescapable web of mutuality' that Dr. King talked about.

Memphis, you have a problem, and it's time in conjunction with local groups in the city, the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition and other state groups to work together to solve it before more people get hurt or killed.

Eartha Kitt Dies

Y'all know how much I love Eartha Kitt. I was saddened to find out she died today of colon cancer at 81.

She went from being an ostracized mixed race girl from South Carolina to an internationally loved star garnering multiple nominations for Tonys, Grammys and Oscars. And don't forget that famous cat purr.

She was sent at age 8 to by her mother to live with her aunt in Harlem and auditioned for the famed Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe during her teens. She was hired as a featured dancer and vocalist and toured worldwide with the company for several years.

The stint with the Katherine Dunham Dance troupe launched Kitt into a life of roles in the entertainment field. She was a well liked cabaret singer in Europe during the 50's and performed on Broadway. That lead to a recording deal in which she produced 20 albums and acted in hundreds of movie and television roles.

In 1968, however, Kitt encountered a substantial professional setback after she made anti-war statements during a White House luncheon that reportedly made then First Lady Lady Bird Johnson cry. The resulting positive and negative public reactions to Kitt's statements was much more extreme and resulted in professional exile in the United States.

After enduring the professional ostracism by performing in Europe, once the anger faded over the Vietnam War remarks, she returned to US shores and garnered a new generation of fans that ensured she was performing almost until the end of her remarkable life.

She recently finished taping a PBS special six weeks ago in Chicago which is set to air in February. Her recording of one of my favorite Christmas songs, "Santa Baby" was certified gold last week.

Kitt was well known for her distinctive voice and made a name for herself in her portrayal of Catwoman in the television series "Batman." That role produced Kitt's recognizable sultry cat growl.



She worked in film, theater, cabaret, music and on television during her lengthy career.

Heaven just became a little more PURRRRRfect and we have just lost another iconic singer. Rest in peace, Eartha. You've earned it.

Another Memphis Transwoman Shot

Here we go again in Memphis, TN. A transwoman was shot in the face and is in critical condition.

Memphis police say the shooting happened sometime around 5:00 a.m. Tuesday, December 23, 2008 in the 3100 block of Boxtown Road in south Memphis near T.O. Fuller State Park. Leeneshia Edwards was last seen about an hour earlier at the “C.K.’s Coffee Shop” on Union Avenue in midtown Memphis.

Edwards' cousin reports that Lenneshia was shot in the jaw, side and back and is undergoing multiple surgeries.

So peeps in the Memphis area, if you saw anything that night, do us and the family of Leeneshia Edwards a favor. Call Memphis Crime Stoppers if you have any information about either this case, Ebony Whitaker's or Duanna Johnson's at (901) 528-CASH that gets the po-po's one step closer to resolving these crimes. Remember, the peeps that did this could one day strike your family, so the sooner you get them off the streets and behind bars, the safer Memphis becomes for you as well.

For those of us who live in Memphis and beyond, keep Leeneshia in your prayers this holiday season.

When the 110th Congress opens for business,, as soon as an ENDA bill is filed, we need to demand that it not only include transgender people, but it be passed without delay.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my TransGriot readers around the world! This Christmas season also marks the 40th anniversary of the 1968 Apollo 8 orbital moon mission that produced this famous photo taken on December 24, 1968.

Let's strive to remember in 2009 and beyond that despite the times we fight like cats and dogs with each other, we are still one human family.



We also only have one planet, so let's take care of it. We ain't at Battlestar Galactica technology levels to where we can pack up and move to another one.

Catholic Church Is STILL Hatin' on Transgender People

What the frack is wrong with the old Nazi who's running thangs in the Catholic Church?

Of all the things going wrong in the world these days that he could have taken the time in his Christmas speech to call attention to, he chose to call transgender people a threat to humanity?

But then again, with Paul McHugh, one of the transgender community's longtime haters advising him, I knew that the anti-transgender rhetoric was only going to get progressively worse.

I also have to consider the source of these irrational comments as well. These are the same peeps who 400 years ago persecuted Galileo for daring to suggest that the Earth revolves around the Sun and not the other way around, so it takes a little while for science to catch up with Catholic religious dogma.

Gee, didn't know that transpeople fighting to live their lives around the world was such a threat to a bunch of sexually repressed old men chilling in the Vatican.

You idiots have far more in common with fundie christians than living the actual teachings of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for sharing that message this holiday season, Pope Benedict.

2008 TIME Magazine Person of the Year

If you had any doubt who TIME Magazine would choose as their Person of the Year, now you know. The runners up for the honor were Henry Paulson, Sarah Palin, French president Nicholas Sarkozy and Chinese director Zhang Limou.

Since 1927, TIME Magazine has chosen a man, woman, or idea that for better or worse, has most influenced events in the preceding year, and there's no doubt that the soon to be 44th president of the United States has definitely dominated this year news wise.

It was definitely his year in more ways than one, and I can't wait until January 20.

Historic Meeting Of African Transactivists

TransGriot Note: This is wonderful news! Transgender people on the second largest continent on Planet Earth are getting together and getting organized.

Trans activists attend first pan-African meeting
By Staff Writer, PinkNews.co. uk • December 22, 2008 - 15:31
Pink News, UK


South Africa hosted the first ever African Strategy Workshop for transgender activists last week.

Trans people from Burundi, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe took part in the event organised by the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) and Gender DynamiX.

15 activists met to discuss the specific needs of transgender people on the African continent.

"Transgender people throughout the world experience frequent and unacceptable discrimination, violence and abuse," said Paula Ettelbrick, IGLHRC's executive director.

"IGLHRC is proud to be part of this historic gathering of transgender people, taking the fight for human rights in Africa to a whole new level."

There is only one transgender organisation, Gender DynamiX, on the whole continent.

The African Strategy Workshop was designed to help activists, "document human rights abuses against transgender people, derive best practices for human rights advocacy, and share information on gender identity, reassignment surgery and hormone treatment."

Liesl Theron, Director of Gender DynamiX, said: "This long overdue meeting forms an integral part of trans history on our continent and a cornerstone for our future work.

"Participants at the workshop gave moving and painful testimony revealing the wide range of human rights abuses-from arbitrary arrest and detention to rape and murder-that African transgender people regularly encounter."

Activists focused on the case of South African Daisy Dube, who was murdered in Johannesburg after requesting that she not be called istabane (a derogatory Zulu slang word, similar to faggot).

Skipper Mogapi, Trans Alternate at the Trans Secretariat of ILGA, said the workshop was a dream come true.

"Seeing trans people together in their space raising their concerns without being intimidated. We know what the issues are and can now deal with them."

Dear Diego

Dear Diego,

This may come as a surprise that you're seeing this open letter from me, one of the more vehement critics of HRC and your new boss, but congratulations on your new senior legislative policy adviser job starting January 9 in Representative Barney Frank's (D-MA) office.

Contrary to what many peeps may surmise, I have been observing and admiring your historic rise through the Democratic Party hierarchy. Know that I'm extremely proud of you and I'm confident that you'll be an excellent role model as well. The fact that you're doing it as an out and proud Latino transman makes your historic climb even more remarkable and noteworthy.

We may have been on opposite sides on a few issues in the transgender community, but I presume we're on the same page when it comes to seeing that all transgender people attain full citizenship rights.

I know you're the second out transperson hired as a senior staffer after Susan Kimberly in Sen. Norm Coleman's (R-MN) office, but you're the first transperson of color to earn that distinction and I presume the first out transperson to be hired as a senior staffer in the House of Representatives.

Diego, you are someone the entire community can point to with pride and say, transteens, here is an example of what is possible if you bust your butts to get that education and dare to dream big dreams. This is a message that transpeople of color need to see and hear as well, in addition to seeing transpeople like you in positions of power and authority.

I hope your hiring also empowers other transgender staffers that are rumored to be employed in various offices on The Hill to feel comfortable enough to come out.

But my joy over your hiring is tempered by who did it. I hope and pray it signals a profound change in Chairman Frank's thinking about transgender inclusion in ENDA, but I long ago subscribed to deeds, not words when it comes to people whose past exclusionary deeds outstripped their flowery rhetoric.

I hope your hiring signals, like Barack Obama's election to the presidency, that historic change has actually come to the office of the representative from Massachusetts on transgender issues, but only time and the progression of legislation authored by Chairman Frank through the 110th Congress will tell in that regard.

Once again, congratulations on the new position and achieving a historic milestone, and I hope I'm blessed with the opportunity to personally congratulate you the next time I'm in Washington DC.

Sincerely yours,
Monica Roberts
2006 IFGE Trinity Award Winner



Crossposted from The Bilerico Project

Oh,You One Of Them Smart B*****s

Over the years I've gotten to know some wonderful people who are part of the female illusionist and pageant sectors of our community. Many who live full time have turned out to be not only beautiful human beings inside and out, but I've had some fascinating conversations with them.

Unfortunately, that's not always true with 'errbody' in that world. I'm turned off by the anti-intellectual strain exhibited by a minority of peeps in that world, and the horror is that some are proud of it.

What brought on this post was seeing the photo of Chevelle Brooks I posted and remembering a benefit show I attended for her at Incognito, a Black GLBT club back home a few years ago. I was invited by Chevelle's mom to attend, and it was to help her raise funds to compete in a looming Miss Gay US0fA pageant.

That particular night I wasn't feeling well and had a slight temp, but I felt like I had to be there to support Chevelle and her mom, so I dragged myself out of bed, got dressed and made the beeline to the edge of downtown where the club was located.

Sophia McIntosh was the MC of the show and living in Dallas at the time. It was being held during the time (1996) the Oilers were fighting the city and then Mayor Bob Lanier to be let out of their Dome lease so they could move to Nashville.



Sophia cracked a joke about losing the team, which didn't sit well with me and a few others in the crowd because it was a sensitive, emotional subject at the time for us. The Dallas-Houston rivalry being what it was, the fact that someone living in Dallas brought it up only added to the pissivity. Being the militant 'I hate the Irving Cowchips' Oilers fan I was, I spoke up and pointed out that the Oilers were still bound by that lease to play in H-town until 1998.

You know how illusionists don't like to be upstaged, so she retorted, "oh, you one of them smart b*****s. Okay, if you're so smart, who was the president of the United States in 1964?"

"Lyndon Baines Johnson," I quickly replied. "Took over after Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 in your city and won election in a landslide over Barry Goldwater in 1964."

The crowd whooped it up and hollered, and after she made a lame joke about my hair and was satisfied with the laugh she got out of it, on the show went.

We actually had a nice wide ranging conversation backstage after that, and she confided that most people in that room sadly didn't know half of what I articulated in my response to her.

Anti-intellectualism is not just a GLBT problem, it's a societal one as well. As I've said repeatedly and should be evidenced by the posts here, I was blessed with God-given intelligence and have no problems flexing my intellectual muscles when necessary. And yeah, I'm proud of it.

One of the things I was adamant about before I transitioned was that I wasn't 'dumbing down' for anyone. Love me or hate me, one thing peeps can consistently say about me is 'that girl's smart.'

I'll take that any day over someone whispering behind my back 'that girl's stupid'.

Dag, White Gays-Stop Trippin'

What's up with the sniping and whining coming from some quarters of the white gay community concerning our president elect?

I suspect some of their dislike for Obama comes from the fact that he came from nowhere to beat Hillary, their (and HRC's) preferred candidate, then ended up in the White House thanks to the votes, money and elbow grease of the rest of us despite their lukewarm, tepid support for him.

But the man hasn't even taken office yet and some white gays are already complaining in some quarters that 'we're being forgotten', 'we're being dissed' and whatever cheese they snack on with the whine du jour.

Hello people, Inauguration Day is January 20. It is way too early to discern what type of president he's going to be for the GLBT community because he's NOT in a position until that date to start creating or implementing policy.

It is way too early to engage in conclusion jumps based on incorrect assumptions you have about Obama based on what happened to the GLBT community during the Clinton administration.

That's two different men, two different historical situations and the only thing they have in common is their party affiliation and some Clinton peeps taking on different roles in this administration.

Now that Obama has invited Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration, you've taken even more swigs of the pink flavor Hateraid and let the hatred flow.

Didn't y'all get enough of that after the Democratic primary ended in June and the Prop 8 loss?

I'm warning you now that many African-Americans (gay and non-gay) are still majorly pissed about the anti-Black hate that flowed from some quarters in the white gay community after the Cali Prop 8 loss. You still have major fence mending to do with the Black GLBT community, and it would be wise for you to chill with the attacks on the president elect since it's only pouring gasoline on the still smoldering anger of Black peeps.

I'd also put H. Alexander Robinson's number on speed dial and start chatting with the National Black Justice Coalition. They need to be included forthwith as a facilitator and EQUAL partner to those much needed conversations and whatever future strategizing happens from this point forward.

Many of us are millimeters close to saying to hell with y'all and doing what we should have done eons ago-say goodbye and good luck to you, formulate and push our own inclusive GLBT civil rights agenda to our peeps and others that factors our needs into the mix while you continue jousting at same gender marriage windmills for a small sector of the community.

Don't get me wrong, I'm for same gender marriage, just not at the expense of more higher priority legislation that benefits the entire GLBT community such as hate crimes and ENDA. You can't get married if you're dead or don't have or can't get and keep a job to support a partner.

You can also stop pushing the specious argument that granting marriage rights to same sex couples is going to grease the skids for other civil rights to flow from it.

The bottom line is that marriage is not a high priority right now for me and many GLBT people of color. Getting and keeping a job and keeping people from thinking they have carte blanche to kill us is. Those basic civil rights aren't going to flow from the right to marry, it's the other way around as history books and the Civil Rights movement forcefully demonstrate.

But whatever your deep seated problem with President elect Obama is, it's time to work through getting over it as soon as possible. Just because I supported him for the presidency doesn't mean, nor should you assume that I don't think he shouldn't be criticized. If President Obama does something wrong during the next four to eight years of his administration, I'll be the first one chewing on his behind.

But give the man a chance to at least warm up the damn chair in the Oval Office and implement policy before you start criticizing him.

Grandma Just Got Busted In A Drug Deal

TransGriot Note: It's time for another holiday song rewrite! This one was spawned by the news that Sherry Johnston, mother of Levi Johnston and soon to be grandmother of Levi and Bristol Palin's baby boy, was arrested by Alaska State Police in a drug investigation.

This situation was too irresistible not to put in song format, so fire up those iPod's and sing along with the rewritten holiday lyrics.




Grandma Just Got Busted In A Drug Deal
(sung to the tune of 'Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer' by the Irish Rovers)

Grandma just got busted in a drug deal
By Alaska state police before Christmas Eve
Because the other grandma is the governor
Doesn't mean that you'll get a reprieve

She'd been under investigation
For several months as we now know
She'd been selling Oxycontin,
Got busted as she stepped out in the snow.

Bailed her out before Christmas mornin,'
In Wasilla now she's back.
But next month grandma's got a court date
And the DA won't be cutting her any slack

Grandma just got busted in a drug deal
By Alaska state police before Christmas Eve
Because the other grandma is the governor
Doesn't mean that you'll get a reprieve

Now we're all concerned for Levi
He's probably not takin' this so well.
He's been working in the North Slope oil fields
And he's probably hollerin' 'what the hell?'


Bristol's had her baby shower
She's due any day now that's a fact
And we just can't help but wonder:
If Grandma Sarah thinks the situation's wacked?
(Yes, it's wacked)

Grandma just got busted in a drug deal
By Alaska state police before Christmas Eve
Because the other grandma is the governor
Doesn't mean that you'll get a reprieve

Grandma Sarah didn't call a press conference
But she took pains to enunciate
Through a government media spokesperson,
'This isn't a matter of Alaska state'.

So there it is my friends and neighbors.
A story as bizarre as it can be
It's a perfect holiday example
Of conservative family values and hypocrisy

Grandma just got busted in a drug deal
By Alaska state police before Christmas Eve
Because the other grandma is the governor
Doesn't mean that you'll get a reprieve
(Sing it, Sarah)

Grandma just got busted in a drug deal
By Alaska state police before Christmas Eve
Because the other grandma is the governor
Doesn't mean that you'll get a reprieve

Louisville Central Repeats

One of the things that I immediately noticed when I moved here was the difference in the level of interest in high school football versus that of my birth state.

In Texas, it's the state religion. State religion status is reserved for basketball here at the high school and collegiate levels.

But when it comes to fan loyalty, the fans of the various schools take a back seat to no one. They are just as loyal and school spirit filled as the ones back home, even if they don't always fill up major football stadiums to the rafters for title games.

Last year historic Central High, the alma mater of 'The Greatest' and the oldest African-American high school in Louisville, made history as its coach Ty Scoggins became the first African-American to win a KHSAA football title in front of excited alumni, students and fans at Papa John's Cardinal Stadium when they defeated Belfry to win the Class 3A title.

This year's edition of the Central Yellowjackets came into the season as the hunted, not the hunters. They also found themselves on a chilly December 12 day at Papa John's Cardinal Stadium in front of 3,917 people playing for another Class 3A title as well.

The 11-3 Yellowjackets rolled up 323 rushing yards, paced by Chance Hughes 169 yards and two TD's as Central successfully repeated as 3A state football champs by beating Breathitt County 40-19 in front of their enthusiastic fans, students and alumni.

Congrats once again to Central as they proved they are the best 3A football team in Kentucky. Can they threepeat? We'll find out when the 2009 season kicks off.

A Transsistah's Secret-Facial Hair Removal

One of the things that annoys any phase of transwoman to no end, be she pre, post or non op is plucking stray facial hairs or picking up a razor to closely shave her face.

You not only have to do it so that you leave no traces of hair stubble on your face, you have to use extreme caution in doing so to avoid nicking and cutting yourself in the process.

It's a cruel irony of male to female transition and taking estrogen that while body hair growth slows to a crawl, if you've started male pattern balding, your hair in the area that's shedding hair won't regenerate. The other cruel irony is that facial hair is a more stubborn beast impervious to anything but its permanent removal, and nothing gets you read faster than five o'clock beard shadow.

Depilatory creams and waxing help, but they are only temporary solutions. To permanently remove it, you have two choices, either electrolysis or laser.

I was fortunate because I had a lower than normal testosterone count so my facial hair growth was relatively light. Even so, I was tired of shaving what hair I did get and starting in 1997 I spent three years back home undergoing electrolysis with my electrologist Marie Asmar.

Basically what happens in this 100 year old method of hair removal is a needle is inserted into the hair follicle bulb at the base of the hair shaft and an electric current shoots into the base of the hair follicle to kill it.

It is a meticulous, time consuming process and as I mentioned earlier, facial hair is a stubborn beast. It will sometimes take multiple applications to kill that follicle for good with varying levels of pain as you undergo it while the cash meter is running as you do so.

As I sat in Marie's office, as she worked on my face I'd listen to her tell fascinating stories about the Houston Arab community and her girlhood in Lebanon. In the meantime the buzz in the local and national transgender community was all about Dallas' Electrology 2000.

Electrology 2000 was founded in 1986 by Ruthann and Bren Piranio. At the time I transitioned in 1994 they'd been in business for almost a decade and had some loyal customers in my TATS group who positively raved about it.

E2000 was doing a booming business with the transgender community inside and outside Texas because it was reputed to be relatively pain free. E2000 and its adherents claimed that it took less time to clear your face over traditional electrolysis techniques, which could only clear small sections of your face in one sitting.

Even though I was a one hour plane ride from Dallas due to my then airline job, as I investigated it, the drawback was its cost. It required large cash outlays up front while you pay many electrologists an hourly rate or can negotiate for blocks of time at a flexible rate.

E2000's large cash upfront business model unfortunately locks out most transpeeps of color. It's ironic because the E2000 technique was purported to be effective at clearing African-American facial hair and stopping pseudofolliculitis barbae, aka razor bumps.

Just like the hairs on African-American heads, the natural curl in it means that when you cut it with the razor, it grows back in a curled pattern. The now sharpened end of recently cut hair penetrates the skin, which interprets it as a foreign body attacking it and causes an inflamed skin bump.

So as usual, most of the folks taking advantage of it had money and jobs that allowed them to take time off from work to fly to the Dallas metro area to do so.

E2000's sensitivity to the transgender community not only contributed to its success, but also meant long waiting times jockeying with transpeeps all over the country just to get an appointment. If you didn't have relatives in Dallas like I did (and at the time they weren't aware of my transition) then you have to add the additional expense of hotel rooms and auto to get around since it's in the 'burbs in Carrollton.

It's been around for 22 years and is now under new management as Electrology 3000. So even though my then airline job paid me well enough to afford it, I said thanks but no thanks to E2000. Marie was also treating other transgender clients at the time and I liked her, the fact she was up the street from my apartment, I was happy with her work and her rate was reasonable.

The other method used is laser. At the time I was starting to undergo electrolysis and ruled out E2000, the first lasers were coming out. However, the early lasers were useless for African-American or darker skinned people and it took several years before the third generation long pulse YAG lasers were developed that actually works for African-Americans.

Laser has the advantage of being faster time wise, less painful than traditional electrolysis and being able to treat larger expanses of skin in one treatment, but shares the same problem of repeated applications until the hair follicle ceases production. It's also more resistant to certain colors of hair such as gray, red or blonde.

But for those of us who wish to look our gender best, in order to permanently get rid of our facial hair, laser and electrolysis are options that we have to consider and decide whether to factor it into or out of our transition budgets.

Under New Management In One Month

We are only one month away from the United States being under new management.

I can't wait to see the inauguration, the parades, the inaugural balls and all the other assorted historical pomp and circumstance that accompany our presidential change in leadership. It's also going to be cool to finally have an A student in charge of the country as well.

It's also going to be beautiful to see Air Force One (or Marine One) take off in the direction of Dallas with Bush on board for the final time as the White House finally get some peeps descended from the original builders of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue moved in.

Sorry Dallas peeps, he's not transiting enroute to the fake Crawford ranch, he's settling there. Unfortunately we'll also have to endure at least a month of furious spinning coming from the Bush misadministration trying to cleanse his odious presidential legacy.

While most schools wouldn't be caught dead with the George W. Bush Presidential Center on their campus, the schools that fiercely competed for it were Baylor University in Waco, Texas Tech University in Lubbock, The University of Dallas and Southern Methodist University.

SMU eventually won that competition because First Lady Laura Bush, presidential adviser Karen Hughes and White House counsel Harriet Miers are alums. Laura Bush also serves on SMUT's (our sarcastic nickname from my college days for that preppy Republican private school) board of Trustees, and Vice President Dick Cheney when he lived in Dallas once served on SMU's Board of Trustees.

He and Faux News can spin until they get dizzy, but nothing is going to save Junior from the harsh judgment of the American people, the world and present and future historians that this ranks (so far) as one of the worst presidencies in US history.

And we're talking historically bad ones such as James Buchanan (1857-1861) whose failures led to the Civil War that almost destroyed this country. Franklin Pierce (1853-1857) had the triple whammy of being drunk, incompetent and unfortunately preceding Buchanan. Warren Harding's (1921-23) brief term had unprecedented level of corruption, Ulysses S. Grant (1868-77) was at the helm during the 'robber baron' era and a depression, and Dubya's alter ego, 'His Fraudulency' Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-81) was questionably elected on disputed Florida votes as well and as part of the political deal that sealed his election, facilitated the introduction of racist Jim Crow segregation and an orgy of anti black violence in the South by ending reconstruction and pulling federal troops out of the region.

That's the presidential company that many people consider Bush occupies, but time will tell.

So yes, I'm happy that President elect Obama is determined to leave office being considered as one of our best presidents. He knows that future POC occupants of the Oval Office will depend on him successfully executing the job over the next four to eight years, and so far he is putting together an administration that will help him make that possible.

Because after the last 8 years, the country and the world definitely needs it.

2008 Weblog Awards Finalist Schedule

If you're wondering what's up with the 2008 Weblog Awards like I am, since I was nominated for two categories, (Best LGBT Blog Award and Best Small Minor Blog) the good peeps at the Weblog Awards had over 5000 nominations to sift through which slowed them down considerably.

They've finally gotten that massive number of nominees whittled down, so I and the other nominated blogs will find out next Thursday (Christmas Day) whether we've made the cut to be voted on by you peeps.

Information about the process is in this post along with their updated schedule.

Finalist Announced - December 25

Finalist Logos Available - December 25

Finalist Voting Page Available* - December 29

Finalist Voting - January 2 through January 10


Here's hoping I get something extra in my Christmas stocking this year.

2008-The Year Of The Black Transperson

Ever since Christine Jorgensen stepped off the plane in New York from Denmark in 1953, the media coverage concerning transgender people has been disproportionately focused on white transgender people.

What little coverage we have garnered has been limited to African-American oriented publications such as EBONY or JET, focusing on us when the subject turns to transgender prostitution or repeated inaccurate, insensitive and sensationalized stories filled with incorrect pronoun usage about transwomen who lost their lives to anti-transgender violence.

We had hopes after Los Angeles transwoman Cookie Fields' story was published in the iconic pages of ESSENCE magazine in November 2006 that it would usher in increased positive coverage for transgender people of African descent. Those hopes were dashed as we went right back to the usual fade to invisibility in not only African-American oriented media, but their larger mainstream media friends as well.

This year, there were encouraging signs that the media blackout African-American transpeople have frustratingly endured and fought for decades may finally be starting to lift.

Whether it was some African-American transwoman blogger whose commentary got posted on this blog, the Bilerico Project, and other various spots across the blogosphere to Isis King and Laverne Cox's star making turns on reality TV shows, 2008 will arguably go down as the year that Black transgender people got long overdue recognition and face time.

I'm proud to have played a small part in it when I became the Bilerico Project's first African-American transgender blogger in January. I not only was quoted in various articles and blog posts, in recognition that my TransGriot blog is continuing to grow and gain new readers I was asked to write guest posts for various blogs as well in addition to being invited to speak at various events.

While my transbrothers have gotten even less attention than we have since 1953, they nevertheless got some of this new media love as well.

There was a documentary released called Still Black: A Portrait of Black Transmen that's garnered attention and racked up film festival awards. Daisy Hernandez's Color Lines article Becoming A Black Man and Nick Mwaluko's Huffington Post story gave some transbrothers an opportunity to tell their stories as well.

Nick's story was interesting because it gave us the opportunity to read about a continental African speaking on transgender issues. Nigeria's Mia Nikasimo did the same a little later and it highlights the fact there are transgender peeps on the second largest continent on the planet as well.

Isis King's history making turn as a contestant on Cycle 11 of America's Next Top Model and Laverne Cox's time on I Want To Work For Diddy drove home the points that we are beautiful, intelligent and are driven to succeed in addition to giving us positive TV face time.

While Isis didn't win the big prize of the modeling contract she was seeking, she became a role model to many people in the process. In addition to the numerous media interviews she conducted, she made an appearance on Tyra's Emmy award winning talk show. Laverne since her turn on I Want To Work For Diddy is working on various projects, acting and producing a documentary.

And in a year in which we proudly witnessed the historic campaign that resulted in Sen. Barack Obama becoming the first African-American elected president of the United States, history professor Dr. Marisa Richmond not only was there to witness history being made in Denver, she made it herself as the first African-American transgender delegate to a major party convention.

But just as these positive things were happening for us, the joy was tempered by the fact that we still have a long way to go before we are accepted by all our people. Too many times the anti-transgender hatred and violence we face comes not only from people that share our ethnic background, but from the people that are supposed to protect and serve us as well.

Those points were driven home by the shocking videotape of Duanna Johnson being beaten in a Memphis police station and several African-American transwomen across the country being murdered. Duanna's story became more tragic as she was found shot to death November 9.

In addition to Nick and Mia speaking their truths about transgender issues, African descended transpeople across the Diaspora made headlines as well with Kellie Telesford's Jamaican-born killer being acquitted in London, the suffering of our transgender brothers and sisters in Jamaica and the bravery of transgender activists in Uganda such as Victor Juliet Mukasa and elsewhere on the Mother Continent fighting simply for the right for themselves and their transgender brothers and sisters to live their lives in peace.

And while we didn't (as of yet) add any new members to the African-American IFGE Trinity winners club that is currently me, Marisa Richmond and Dawn Wilson, there are proud African-American transpeople who are leaders in various cities such as Cydne Kimbrough, Earline Budd, Louis Mitchell and others not only working to make things better for transgender people, but the communities they reside in as well.

We also got to hear from the next generation of African descended transkids like Rochelle Evans who despite facing some obstacles, are determined to do their part to ensure that they are ready and able to write the next chapters in our stories of success.

This year will close with the fact that African descended transpeople are beginning to have their stories be covered and told. When it isn't perfect or inaccurate, we're demanding it be done accurately and respectfully.

And what a story it is. We're doing our part to uplift the race by helping to uplift our communities, are breaking historic ground in various fields, and are shaking off the shame and guilt to forcefully stand up for our rights to simply live their lives.

We can only hope and pray that the positive upward trends for African descended transpeople continue into the New Year.

Documentary-She's My Son

I posted the article a few months ago about the award winning documentary She's My Son by Indrani Kopal.

It peeks into the lives of Malaysian transwomen and once again, underscores the comment I made sometime ago that being transgender is a worldwide issue. We are everywhere, and we are a part of the human family that needs to be embraced, not reviled.

Here's the YouTube uploaded video of it.

Happy Birthday, Nikki

Today would have been Nakhia 'Nikki' Williams' 30th birthday. She and her twin sister Nicole would have been celebrating it together.

But unfortunately that won't happen because some scumbag who's still at large right now felt he had the power to take her life. And that has left a void in the lives of all who knew her.

A family is missing a loved one.

The people who called her 'friend' miss her terribly.

Her neighbors who she greeted with a friendly wave, a hello and a smile no longer hear or see that.

A community mourns for you.

And a creative, artistic soul has been extinguished.



Happy birthday, Nikki. We'll never forget you, nor will we give up the quest of finding the persons who did this to you and seeing justice carried out.

The BBC Teen Transsexuals Documentary

Y'all knew that I was going to find that video of the BBC documentary if it was uploaded to the Net and post it here. The first attempt to do so got derailed when the first place I found it on YouTube deleted it, but I quickly found another person who'd uploaded it, and this time I got all six parts of it.

So now, here's the documentary.



Part 2



Part 3



Part 4



Part 5



Part 6

'Dirty Sexy Money' Cancelled

The number of transgender characters on network TV is rapidly dwindling. First our honorary transwoman Rebecca Romijn broke the news in addition to her pregnancy that she is leaving Ugly Betty over creative issues with her Alexis Meade character.

Y'all know I hated the Dontrelle character on ABC's Big Shots even though I like Jazzmun, the actress who plays her.

Now comes the news that Candis Cayne may be looking for a new acting gig since Dirty Sexy Money is being cancelled. She plays Carmelita on that ABC show.



ABC is planning to produce and run the shows contracted for this season, but after that, it's done unless they change their minds.

Hate hearing that because this show had a groundbreaking but simple concept. Have a transgender actress play a transgender character. Candis has also been a gracious and wonderful spokesperson about her life and our issues as she's done the numerous interviews about being a trailblazing transgender actress.

Looking forward to meeting her one day, and here's hoping that ABC changes their mind about the show.

Don't Hate On Jasmyne 'Cause She's Telling The Truth

Y'all know I absolutely love me some Jasmyne Cannick because as the late Jack 'The Rapper' Gibson used to say, she tells it like it T-I-S is.

Some white gay peeps already hate on her because of her successful efforts to shut down Chuck Knipp's odious Shirley Q. Liquor performances in the Los Angeles area and because of her blunt, no holds barred unapologetically Black blog.

In the wake of the passage of the Prop 8 same gender marriage ban she's been drawing increasing fire from white gays who took offense at her dead on commentary on why Prop 8 passed and her LA Times op-ed piece that appeared the Sunday after the election.

She's plucked some nerves out there and nationally, but that's the job of us activist types. We're not in it for popularity. If you like us, cool, but in our pursuit to make this a better society for all of us truth is an essential weapon in that struggle. Sometimes we have to bluntly state the obvious to the peeps enamored of denial, spin, sugar coating and outright lying.

Doing that and being unapologetically proud of her heritage doesn't make her or any person of color racist. I'm getting a little sick of seeing that tired comment being thrown out there because you don't like either her for whatever reason or the message.

As Parliament-Funkadelic would say, if you don't like the effects, don't produce the cause.

Many African-American GLBT folks, if they haven't already tuned you out, are millimeters close to saying to hell with y'all after the naked displays of anti-Black racism that erupted in many GLBT communities, the racist comments from some white gay pundits, and the startling ease in which those comments freely flowed from your lips, pens and keyboards in the gay blogosphere and beyond.

Whether you like it or not, Jasmyne has the respect and the ear of the Black GLBT and non GLBT community in LA and beyond. She's just the messenger trying to get it through your thick skulls what it will take to fix the obvious problem you have in crafting a pro-GLBT rights message that will resonate with the African-American community.

If you want to win, it would behoove many of of you trying to figure out what to do and how to approach the African-American GLBT community for help to listen to what she and other African-American GLBT peeps in Cali and elsewhere have to say.

But hating on Jasmyne Cannick for simply telling the truth is not an option.

Cydne Kimbrough

Another installment in my ongoing series of articles on transgender and non-transgender women who have qualities that I admire.

Cydne is one of of my transsistahs I'm getting to know, but who has been an activist fighting the good fight in Baltimore since 1999. She started her own transition at 16, and her name comes from one her mom was planning to christen her with at birth had she been born with a female body.

She has an ambitious goal. "I want to create a situation in Baltimore city that will reduce bias against transgender people and afford them a better quality of life."

I've admired Cydne and the wide spectrum of work she's done to achieve that goal and help improve the lives of her fellow transpeople in Baltimore. Whether it's HIV/AIDS prevention and harm reduction to getting the Baltimore Police department to be more respectful and cognizant of the fact that they have transgender citizens to protect and serve as well, she's done it.

Oh yeah, did I forget to mention she's working on her degree as well from Coppin State University?

This is just the short list of some of the things she's done for the community:

+ Chairperson and President Board of Directors of Baltimore Black Pride, Inc.
+ Former Program Director of TransAm - the pioneering HIV Education/Prevention program for African American Transgender Persons in Baltimore
+ Served 3 years as member of the Maryland HIV Community Planning Group & Membership Committee Chair
+ Member of the Mayor's GLB/T Task Force
+ Co-founder and Executive Director of the Gender Learning Advocacy and Support System of Baltimore (G.L.A.S.S Baltimore) – scheduled to launch the fall of 2008

She serves on various boards in the area and has done a lot of work getting the transgender community in Baltimore to stand up and be proud of who they are. She was recently named an OSI Fellow and I won't be surprised if one day I see her at an IFGE conference becoming the next African-American transwoman to win the IFGE Trinity Award.

The pride in herself is a mantra that she lives by and constantly role models, and she has called on her deep faith in God to carry her through the rough times as well.

God has blessed Cydne, and she has blessed us by being a tireless advocate, eloquent spokesperson and concerned citizen just trying to do what she can to make like better for transpeople in her hometown and beyond.

Rochelle Evans Video

Back in May I posted the Dallas Voice story that answered the question of how transteen Rochelle Evans was doing since winning her battle to be herself.

Hopefully things have gotten better for her and her mother since that story was published and I hope Rochelle realizes her dream of attending college at TCU.

In the meantime, here's the video of Rochelle telling her story. Merry Christmas sis and good luck in your quest to get the diploma and the TCU degree.

Lucy Parker Stirkes Back

The BBC recently broadcast a documentary called Teen Transsexual that featured then 17 year old Lucy Parker. She was awaiting her 18th birthday so that she could undergo SRS. A subsequent BBC documentary followed her to Thailand chronicled her surgery.

Well, Lucy has released a YouTube video that hits back at the folks that posted the hateful comments to the BBC Teen Transsexuals video uploaded to YouTube.

Here's Lucy looking lovely and speaking her mind about her life and the recent changes in it.

SCC-Have Y'all Lost Your Damn Minds?

The Southern Comfort Conference has always been one of my fave transgender events because it's held in the ATL. I attended the 1999, 2000 and 2004 ones and if I wasn't feeling what was happening in the conference hotel, I'd break away, go hang out with my peeps, or hop a MARTA train and check out what Atlanta has to offer historically and culturally.

SCC is now in the planning stages for its 2009 edition taking place September 22-27, and they always organize it around a theme. The last one I attended in 2004 had a Hollywood one, which was pretty cool. They even had one room set aside during the conference as a theater in which they played transgender themed movies.

I have to give SCC credit for making an sincere effort to address the issues and problems that have caused low POC attendance. It led one former African-American SCC attendee I chatted with during my last SCC visit in 2004 to comment, "SCC is definitely Southern and not very comfortable."

The SCC BOD was also embarrassed and concerned about the fact that this conference is held in a city considered to be the Black GLBT mecca, but you could count the number of African-American transpeeps that attended it on one hand and if they were lucky, sometimes two. Up until the recent 2007-08 SCC's, the record attendance for POC's at an SCC conference occurred in 2000 when 26 of us were there.

But bearing the previous paragraph in mind, it has come to my attention that someone on the planning committee proposed a 'Gone With The Wind' theme for 2009 and wanted to know what transgender peeps of color thought about it.

Since they actually asked us, here goes:

Have y'all lost your damned minds?

Some of you peeps may love Margaret Mitchell's book and the movie, but I can say with certainty that me and probably my transpeeps definitely won't be feeling that theme. In fact, when you just have gotten to a point over the last two years where you're drawing an African-American crowd that doesn't number into the single digits for this conference despite moving it into the 'burbs from the Midtown hotel it used to have, why the hell would you even think about a 'Gone With the Wind' theme that would put a screeching halt to the positive momentum you've mustered?

And why select that theme when all African-Americans are basking in the afterglow of a historic presidential election?

Since someone came up with that theme, I have to ask the question just how many peeps of color are actually helping plan this event?

Dawn, Marisa and I at various times participated in the planning of past SCC's. What struck me as a former member of the committee is that in some cases we were the only peeps of color in the planning meeting room.

But is also speaks to just how much 'ejumacation' we African-American transpeeps still have to do in the transgender community as well. That somebody would actually think we'd be cool with that theme, which reflects a period of time in US history that is still personally painful to many of us is beyond me.

But then again, there are some peeps in the GLBT community that seem to think Chuck Knipp as Shirley Q. Liquor is funny, so I shouldn't be surprised.

But the onus is also on us as African-American transpeople to get involved. It's lack of diversity on these boards that leads to these kind of incidents that I'm discussing now. If we don't want these type of racial faux pas to continue happening, we need to start participating in the planning of major transgender community events, and the transgender community needs to do their part to find and retain transgender people of color for these boards who wish to do so.

Nina Poon-Transgender Kenneth Cole Ad Model

This lovely woman in this Kenneth Cole 'We All Walk In Different Shoes' themed ad is transwoman Nina Poon.

She tells her story in the following YouTube clips.

'Caprica' Trailer

Battlestar fans like myself have been impatiently waiting for the final ten episodes of our favorite show to come on next month.

We're anxious to find out who, what, how, and what time period Earth got fried to a nuked out crisp, but who the final Cylon model is among all the other questions raised during the four season run of the reimagined BSG.

In the interim, the news for BSG's spin off prequel show Caprica is beginning to trickle out.

I posted a few months ago about Caprica being greenlighted as a two hour pilot and a series with 18 one hour episodes for the first season. The casting for the various roles has begun or been completed and the trailer has finally been released.



It looks interesting to say the least. The show will kick off with a two hour special, then the series will go into production for a projected debut of 2010.

Unlike BSG, the Caprica action is going to be planet based. More details of the basic storyline have been divulged

It will follow the lives of the Graystone and Adama families 51 years before the events of BSG. Wealthy technologist Dr. Daniel Graystone (played by Eric Stoltz) and civil rights attorney Joseph Adama (played by Esai Morales) cross paths when their daughters die in a religious terrorist attack initiated by Zoe's boyfriend Ben.

Zoe Graystone inherited her dad's technological smarts and as kids do, one upped them. Before she died stored some of her rudimentary personality elements and DNA into an avatar of herself called Zoe-A. The grief-stricken Graystone discovers them, takes these basic building locks, some stolen technology from a Tauron rival and uses cybernetic breakthroughs to create a robotic copy of his daughter called Zoe-R, the first Cylon.

Joseph Adama has overcome his Tauron roots and Caprican prejudice against non-Capricans to become a hugely successful civil rights attorney. He lost his wife and daughter Tamara in the same attack, and Graystone creates a robotic copy of Tamara for him as well.

But ethical and moral concerns about the questionable directions Graystone is taking these cybernetic experiments lead Adama to become a vehement critic of the Cylons.

It is a sentiment passed down to his son, William, the future commander of the Galactica.

As many sci-fi fans know, today's science fiction sometimes becomes tomorrow's science fact. The ethical and moral questions raised on Caprica will probably be some of the same ones our own society will have to sort out soon.

Thanks to ongoing research in robotics and the increasing exponential knowledge gained about our DNA from the Human Genome Project, we are probably close to or soon will have the ability to create our own versions of Cylons.

But we'll get the pleasure of watching it being hashed out on a weekly basis thanks to the executive producing team that brought us Battlestar Galactica, Ron Moore and David Eick with 24 writer Remi Aubuchon.

Why I Can't Stand The 'Gay Is The New Black' Slogan

When I hear or see that 'Gay is the New Black' slogan, it just irks me, especially considering what I've observed over the last decade as a African-American transgender activist.

When we hear people say that, I and other African-Americans, both GLBT and non GLBT, see a movement comprised predominately with a leadership of white moneyed gay men who wish to compare themselves to the Civil Rights Movement but consistently ignore or fail to apply the fundamental lessons of that movement.

What are those lessons? Coalition building, composing civil rights law as broadly as possible to cover the most people, and doing so and dealing with others in a morally ethical manner.

Unfortunately some of our gay white brothers and sisters do that only when it is advantageous or critical for them to do so, like when an anti gay referendum is on the ballot, then they come calling.

Any other time, except when they need melanin in a photo op, they ignore us.

When I look at those documentaries, movies and photos of the Civil Rights Movement, I see most of the signs carried by marchers have something to do with jobs, equal rights, voting and stopping lynching, not marriage issues.

To be honest, short of the obvious one involving the trans Atlantic slave trade, the transgender community has more similarities with the African-American struggle at its inception than the gay one does.

How you may ask? Before y'all start tripping like one gay person did (so far) when I made this statement in a Bilerico comment thread, let me school y'all on some of the things I've observed, and if you disagree, that's what the comment thread at the end of this post is for.

*Once we transition, there's no hiding for us. We are reviled by some members of the general public simply for being who we are.

*At the time the major push of the Civil Rights Movement started in 1954, African-Americans had no elected political representation at the major city, county, and state government or legislative levels. There were only two congressmen, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr (D-NY) and William L. Dawson (D-IL) representing us at the federal level and zero senators of African-American heritage.

Transpeople have ZERO representatives at the federal level, have only one elected statewide rep in the person of Hawaii State Board of Education member Kim Coco Iwamoto, no elected representatives in state legislatures or state governments, no elected county commissioners and no elected city council representatives in any major US city.

*We have an average of two people a month being killed simply for being transgender, and that's the ones we know about.

*Amnesty International has documented the abuse of transgender citizens at the hands of law enforcement.

*A transgender person's rights are still subject to judicial interpretation in the judicial system, are not codified yet at the federal level, and any attempts to do so at any governmental level are met with resistance by the same hostile white fundamentalist anti-civil rights coalition that dogged the Civil Rights Movement. Infuriatingly enough, sometimes that resistance as demonstrated by last year's ENDA debacle comes from our own erstwhile allies.

I agree with the assertion that all oppressions and 'isms' are linked. However, while there are some similarities and some convergence at certain points in our twin civil rights struggles as the life of Bayard Rustin and the late Coretta Scott King so eloquently pointed out, there are fundamental differences as well in how the two movements evolved.

The African-American civil rights movement at its core was a church based, church led one while the gay rights one at its core is secular in nature.

But the major reason why the 'Gay is the new Black' slogan raises African-American hackles is not because as some GLBT peeps have surmised the homophobia within our community's midst.

Many GLBT African-Americans like myself can't stand it because we see it as another example of our history being appropriated and trivialized for your own purposes while excluding or erasing the gay and straight African-Americans that helped make that history.

Dr. Ousterhout Planning To Retire In 2011

If you're thinking about getting facial feminization surgery from Dr. Douglas Ousterhout, better do it before 2011.

The pioneer of facial feminization surgery is planning to retire, according to comments posted on the Transsexual Road Map website attributed to his office manager Mira Coluccio.

Dr. O as he's affectionately known in the transgender community, is the author of the book Aesthetic Contouring of the Craniofacial Skeleton. He's penning an upcoming book about FFS written for a lay audience and holds an MD as well as a DDS degree.

He is a great friend and a wonderful ally to our community, and his surgical skills have been utilized by many in our community to help them not only look better, but feel better about themselves.

Hopefully, he'll pass on his knowledge to another colleague or younger doctor willing to take on the challenge.

The IFGE-TransEvents Split

For several years the IFGE convention was managed by a group called TransEvents. While IFGE focused on its nuts and bolts educational mission, TransEvents, founded by S. Kristine James and Alison Laing organized and ran the convention.

IFGE is the International Foundation for Gender Education, one of the oldest national gender groups in existence. It publishes Transgender Tapestry magazine and is the creator and presenter of the Trinity and Virgina Prince Awards honoring the transgender community heroes and sheroes.

It has come to my attention thanks to a Phyllabuster I recently received that a split occurred a few months ago between IFGE and TransEvents. As of yet no one knows why, but I'll have to contact my sources inside IFGE to get their side of it and hopefully hear from someone representing TransEvents as well.

The official IFGE convention has already been scheduled for February 2-8 2009 in Washington, D.C.

But that split will lead to an additional transgender convention in 2009. The TransEvents folks are putting on what they are entitling Transgender 2009-The Liberty Conference that will take place in Philadelphia from April 30-May 2.

If I had to pick one, the IFGE event appeals to me on multiple levels. I am a Trinity Award winner who enthusiastically supports the education mission of IFGE, and I occasionally write pieces for publishing in the pages of Transgender Tapestry magazine. Supporting this conference helps IFGE continue that mission.

Being in the Washington DC metro area gives me the opportunity to hit Capital Hill while I'm there to lobby the new 110th Congress on an inclusive ENDA and hare crimes issues. But conversely, since those bills haven't been filed yet, until I get a bill number and actually see how it's worded, it's hard to lobby for a bill you haven't seen yet.

The Philly event would allow me another opportunity to visit the city, hang out with Dionne, engage in more stimulating discussions with her and chat with Alison Laing again.

But judging by the separate conferences for this year, unless some behind the scenes conversations are taking place between the two parties I'm not cognizant of, it looks like the IFGE-TransEvents split may be a permanent one.

Houston Snow Day

For most cities, snowfall is a ho hum event that as the amounts of it increase, bring increased vitriol for it. But in my hometown, it's a big deal since we don't get it that often.



The only time during my childhood we got any significant snowfall was the four inches we received in January 1973 that earned us a snow day off. Me and my friends happily spent that day making snowmen and ambushing each other with snowball fights.

But twice in one decade is definitely a rarity. Just a few years ago on Christmas Eve 2004 a massive snowstorm dumped snow over a region stretching from Brownsville, TX along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast to New Orleans in addition to Houston. That was the first White Christmas in Houston's 140 plus year history

Yesterday's snowfall tied a record for the earliest ever recorded for the Bayou City. According to National Weather Service records dating back to 1894 the earliest snowfall on record for my hometown is December 10, 1944.

What Goes Around, Comes Around Longhorn Fans

As a UH Cougars fan I despise the University of Texas Longhorns and some of their fans almost as much as the Texas A&M Aggies and Oklahoma Sooners fans do.

I'll never forget a Southwest Conference football game versus Texas I attended in the Dome back during my freshman year in 1980. I had the misfortune of sitting next to a group of Orangebloods who not only were shouting the derisive 'Cougar High' sobriquet for most of the game, as they became more inebriated and infuriated that the game was headed to a 14-14 tie started uttering racial slurs at me and my homies dressed in Cougar red and white as well.

Those fans more than lived up to their reputation that many peeps across the Lone Star State and on the other side of the Red River that don't revere Forty Acres share about UT Longhorn football fans.

I discovered over the years I wasn't alone in telling my Horns Fans Gone Wild story. The boorish behavior exhibited inside and outside of Austin fuels much of the distaste many of us feel toward the Longhorns.

While some Longhorn fans conduct themselves with class and dignity and show the legendary hospitality we Texans are known for, others are pompous, arrogant, and nekulturny in addition to sometimes being straight up racist. Some of them are so spoiled they feel that if UT isn't in the Big 12 or BCS title game, then it was a lousy football season. That season becomes intolerable if they lose to the Sooners, on Thanksgiving Day to the Aggies or both teams in the same year.

The rumors persist despite heated denials from the UT camp that they were the ringleaders in keeping us out of the Southwest Conference until the 1970's because UH was actively recruiting African-American athletes in the late 60's. The perception that they worked diligently to keep the University of Houston out of the Big 12 when it formed in 1995 has not been forgotten or forgiven by Cougar fans either.

The Longhorns never forgot the 1976 season. Not only was it Darrell Royal's last year coaching the Horns, it was the first year UH was eligible to compete for the Southwest Conference football title.

The Coogs administered a 30-0 butt kicking in front of a then record Memorial Stadium crowd that jumpstarted a streak of four SWC football championships and four Cotton Bowl trips for my Cotton Pickin' Cougars in five years.

The Coogs also had a streak starting from 1987-1991 during the Run and Shoot era in which we beat down the Horns four out five times by lopsided scores. To add insult to injury during that streak we beat them in 1988 by a 66-15 score in DKR-Memorial Stadium.

That's probably why they made sure we didn't get invited to the Big 12 and came up with BS reasons to exclude us.


Hey, even as a card carrying member of the 'I Hate The Longhorns Club' I have to get real for a minute.

There's no doubt that UT got screwed in terms of the Big 12 South Division tiebreaker and even Stevie Wonder can see that. I'd be pissed too as a football fan if I had to suffer the indignity of watching two teams my school beat get into a championship game and play for the title.

But I see it as karma for the crap that was pulled on us and the rest of your Left Behind SWC brethren. How do you think we Cougar fans feel watching you peeps play in a conference we should have been a part of at its formation?

We also get the indignity of watching you recruit Houston area high school football talent to stock your Longhorn squads with that you'd have a much harder time hooking (pardon the pun) with the University of Houston as a Big 12 member.

It ain't Miami and the BCS Title game, but at least you're going to a BCS bowl. Most schools would kill to go to the Fiesta Bowl, much less ANY bowl and you're whining about it.

But while you're sitting in the air conditioned comfort of Glendale's University of Phoenix Stadium, you may wish to contemplate the possibility that the arc of the college football universe is starting to bend towards justice.

Stop Tripping Conservatives-Obama IS A US Citizen

You know, after eight years of an administration that had a president who called the Constitution 'just a scrap of paper' and showed their disdain for it at every opportunity, now they want to be sticklers for their specious interpretation of it now that an African-American who was once president of the Harvard Law Review is several weeks away from occupying the Oval Office

They've been loudly claiming that either President elect Obama isn't a US citizen because of his Kenyan father, has dual US and British citizenship, because he lived in Indonesia for a few years, the birth certificate isn't authentic or whatever lie du jour they come up with. The stories and conspiracy theories keep changing faster than their dirty drawers.

First, let's see what the Constitution has to say about qualifications for office.

Article II, section 1 US Constitution

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

That's what Article II, section one says about who is eligible to be president of the United States. That's means you can't run Ah-nold (thank God) for the office.



Now, let's take a look at Amendment 14 to our Constitution.

Amendment 14

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Did you catch that first sentence, conservaidiots? Let me repeat it for you if you didn't since I know you're used to having Faux News, your so called 'christian' pastor and right-wing talk radio tell you what and how to think and may not be used to actually reading and interpreting things for yourself.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.

Barack was born in Honolulu, HI. That, for you conservailliterates is a state, is United States territory and had been a state for two years at the time of his birth. That, and the fact that his mother S. Ann Dunham is an American citizen makes him an American under the 14th Amendment irregardless of his father being Kenyan or whatever other ancillary bull feces you wish to dredge up.

I guess Jeb Bush's children George P. 'I just remembered I was Latino in 2000' Bush, Jeb Junior and Noelle Bush based on that conservastandard aren't US citizens either because their mother Columba was born in Mexico and didn't become a naturalized United States citizen until 1987, after they were all born.

That birth announcement and the Hawaii secretary of state confirming that the president elect's 1961 birth certificate is authentic make that game, set and match in terms of swatting down this lame conservalie.

So y'all can stop hollering 'cover up', there isn't one. You were already discredited when you spent most of the 1990's foaming at the mouth and hissing that Bill and Hillary Clinton were serial murderers. You also spent most of this campaign cycle trying to paint the President elect and the First Lady elect as dangerous, militant angry radicals, so your 15 minutes has long ago expired.

Fortunately the Supreme Court (for once) and lower federal courts have dismissed the frivolous lawsuits filed by some of you sore loser Republicans and libertarians who are desperately trying to overturn the votes of 66 million people.

So stop drinking the right-wing red Kool-aid and get over it. You overwhelmingly lost in November and you will again if you send Sarah Palin's clueless Bible thumping behind our way in 2012.

The Muxe Of Mexico

TransGriot Note: The New York Times published this interesting story about the Muxe of the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. As I and other transgender people have pointed out, there are various cultures around the world that make room for either a third gender category or simply make room for those who feel from birth they are female to live their lives.


A Lifestyle Distinct: The Muxe of Mexico

By MARC LACEY
Published: December 6, 2008
Katie Orlinsky contributed reporting and photos from Juchitán, Mexico

Mexico City — Mexico can be intolerant of homosexuality; it can also be quite liberal. Gay-bashing incidents are not uncommon in the countryside, where many Mexicans consider homosexuality a sin. In Mexico City, meanwhile, same-sex domestic partnerships are legally recognized — and often celebrated lavishly in government offices as if they were marriages.

But nowhere are attitudes toward sex and gender quite as elastic as in the far reaches of the southern state of Oaxaca. There, in the indigenous communities around the town of Juchitán, the world is not divided simply into gay and straight. The local Zapotec people have made room for a third category, which they call “muxes” (pronounced MOO-shays) — men who consider themselves women and live in a socially sanctioned netherworld between the two genders.

“Muxe” is a Zapotec word derived from the Spanish “mujer,” or woman; it is reserved for males who, from boyhood, have felt themselves drawn to living as a woman, anticipating roles set out for them by the community.

Anthropologists trace the acceptance of people of mixed gender to pre-Colombian Mexico, pointing to accounts of cross-dressing Aztec priests and Mayan gods who were male and female at the same time. Spanish colonizers wiped out most of those attitudes in the 1500s by forcing conversion to Catholicism. But mixed-gender identities managed to survive in the area around Juchitán, a place so traditional that many people speak ancient Zapotec instead of Spanish.

Not all muxes express their identities the same way. Some dress as women and take hormones to change their bodies. Others favor male clothes. What they share is that the community accepts them; many in it believe that muxes have special intellectual and artistic gifts.

Every November, muxes inundate the town for a grand ball that attracts local men, women and children as well as outsiders. A queen is selected; the mayor crowns her. “I don’t care what people say,” said Sebastian Sarmienta, the boyfriend of a muxe, Ninel Castillejo García. “There are some people who get uncomfortable. I don’t see a problem. What is so bad about it?”

Muxes are found in all walks of life in Juchitán, but most take on traditional female roles — selling in the market, embroidering traditional garments, cooking at home. Some also become sex workers, selling their services to men.

Acceptance of a child who feels he is a muxe is not unanimous; some parents force such children to fend for themselves. But the far more common sentiment appears to be that of a woman who takes care of her grandson, Carmelo, 13.

“It is how God sent him,” she said.

2008 Bardstown Aglow

Today marks the 23rd anniversary of one of Louisville favorite events, Bardstown Aglow. From dusk until 10 PM many of the merchants, restaurants and shops along Bardstown Rd in the Highlands neighborhood open their doors for holiday fun, discounts and other assorted events to celebrate the return of the Christmas season.

Some of the churches in that strip also have events as well, and for the second straight year my church, Edenside Christian, as part of their Bardstown Aglow program asked me to put on my DJ hat again and play Christmas songs with soul.

As always they had hot coffee, apple cider, lemonade and cookies for people to snack on. In the church basement it was set up so that people could create Christmas cards for us to send to our troops abroad.

Edenside will also be celebrating the 100th anniversary in March in that particular building.

So yesterday I walked into my fave music store, the Doo Wop Shop to rent my DJ equipment from them. They have a great rental rate and if I so choose, I can convert it if I like the DJ setup into a monthly payment plan until I pay it off.

This was however, my first visit since the fire a few months ago, and while it looks the same on the outside, I almost didn't recognize the place on the inside. The same friendly, helpful staff got me registered on their new computer system, helped me select the components I needed, tested them and got me on my way in just under an hour. Once I got the equipment home I set it up and started practicing to get familiar with the equipment setup and rehone my DJ skills.

My DJ turn actually got off to a rocky start. I had the equipment set up and plugged into my roomie's power strip I'd borrowed, but I didn't know it was about to die. It would pick that moment to give up the electronic ghost.

After coming up with an alternate solution and additional cords the power problem was resolved and music began playing until 10 PM EST. I've got the equipment until next Friday, so I'm going to play with it for a few days before I turn it in and get my deposit back.

I had fun once again spinning Christmas tunes and I'm looking forward to next year.

Gainesville, FL Anti-GLBT Amendment Wording Approved

TransGriot Note: Here we go again. Usually towns and cities that are homes to colleges are fairly progressive, but apparently Gainesville FL, home city for the University of Florida has a group of haters who feel it's their 'right' to deny civil rights protection for a minority. When will this lunacy stop?



Commissioners OK amendment wording

By Megan Rolland
Staff Writer

Published: Friday, December 5, 2008 at 6:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 11:04 p.m.

City commissioners unanimously approved language for a ballot amendment Thursday night, despite opposition from the political action committee that's behind the petition drive that would put civil rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals to a vote.

On March 24, registered voters in the city of Gainesville will decide whether the city's anti-discrimination ordinance should be the same as Florida state anti-discrimination statute.

If local law were altered to mirror the state statute, the change would eliminate the words "sexual preference" and "gender identity" from the classes of people in Gainesville who are granted equal access to housing, employment, public accommodation and credit.

Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan emphasized Thursday that without the city's added protections, it is perfectly legal for a business owner to refuse to serve a gay person or for a landlord to deny housing to a transgender individual.

She said the city has chosen to protect these people from discrimination.

"If you take away your community's right to do that and cede that right to the state, then you defacto say, that, 'OK, we are willing to allow those discriminations.' "

Earlier in the evening, the commission voted to adopt a resolution opposing the amendment.

Members of Citizens for Good Public Policy said the adopted ballot language was a clear attempt to bias the focus of the amendment.

"You clearly wish to slant the wording of the amendment in such a way as to create prejudice about it," said Jim Gilbert, who worked with the organization in collecting more than 6,000 valid signatures. "I ask the commission to drop its double standard and admit that you got this one wrong."

Gilbert and Cain Davis, president of the citizen organization, both approved the ballot language initially brought before the City Commission.

Initially, the amendment merely stated what the protected classes were in the Florida civil rights statute.

The language adopted Thursday night lists those classes that are currently protected by the city but would no longer be if this amendment passes.

"I think there are some very misleading things going on here tonight," Davis said.

In collecting petition signatures, Citizens for Good Public Policy was accused of using misleading tactics by portraying the issue as one of men using women's restrooms.

The group organized in opposition to a City Commission vote in January putting "gender identity" into the list of protected classes.

Davis has argued that because transgender individuals are now guaranteed access to public accommodation, men can use women's restrooms, a right that would be abused by sexual predators.

"Sexual orientation" has been in the city's ordinance since 1998.

City Attorney Marion Radson said it is the duty of the city to ensure that the ballot language "be fair and advise the voter sufficiently to enable him or her to cast an appropriate ballot."

Radson said that the language commissioners adopted Thursday night passed that test.

A Crossdresser's Story

While there are many African-American transpeople like myself whose stories are just beginning to be told, I can't forget the African-American peeps who are crossdressers silently in some cases sorting through their issues.

Unlike some transpeople who wish to forget they ever were and even hate on crossdressers, I and others don't. It was that period in my life that helped me sort out that I was truly transgender and it wasn't a passing phase.

While crossdressing and transsexualism may seem similar on the surface in terms of the clothing issues, the reasons we wear them are separate and distinct.

The major difference between a crossdresser and a transperson is that many enjoy their birth gender and wish to remain card carrying members in it, we don't.

But just as there are many flavors of transpeople, there are also variances in the crossdressing community as well.

I stumbled across an interesting site belonging to Zoe, who tells her story.

Genevieve has been telling her continually evolving story in her blog The D Line since June 2005.

Past Miss International Queen Pageant Highlights

Since Thailand's recent political turmoil postponed Miss International Queen 2008, thought I'd post some video from the past pageants to give y'all an idea what we pageant fanatics missed this year.

I'm happy to hear that some of the Thai political turmoil is starting to fade a bit since the Thai constitutional courts weighed in on the issue that triggered the crisis and led to the opposition group's boycott and occupation of Bangkok's two airports.

The shutdown stranded over 300,000 international tourists in Thailand and is estimated to have cost the country $2 billion USD in tourist revenue.

Now that they're on the road to sorting out the political problems, let's hope political stability reigns in the 'Land of Smiles' for a while, people resume visiting Asia's best beaches and my Thai transsisters can get back to work dazzling tourists at the various cabarets they're famous for along with the other 1.8 million Thais the tourism industry employs..

It'll also be cool to see those two highly anticipated transgender pageants take place there in 2009.


The 2004 Pageant


The 2005 Pageant


The 2006 Pageant

Top 100 American Speeches of the 20th Century

As evidenced in several places here on TransGriot, I've given a few speeches here and there at various times for various reasons before and since I started this transition journey. I love reading the website American Rhetoric sometimes for inspiration when I'm asked to compile one for delivery.

Speaking of compilations, an Electronic Village post about Professor Anita Hill's opening statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee during the 1991 Uncle Thomas confirmation hearing making the list of 100 Greatest Speeches of the 20th Century led me to wonder not only who else made the overall list, but with our tradition for oratory, how many African-Americans did.

It's a fascinating journey through the last century of American oratory, and it speaks to why President elect Obama's recent campaign resonated with so many people. The list reads like a Who's Who of oratory with familiar names such as John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Eleanor Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.



The Number 1 speech is of course, Dr. King's 1963 'I Have a Dream' speech which beat out John F. Kennedy's 1961 Inaugural address for the top spot. But clocking in at Number 5 is Barbara Jordan's 1976 DNC Keynote Address and at Number 7 is Malcolm X's 'The Ballot or the Bullet'.

In the Top 25 speeches, Rev Jesse Jackson, Sr. is at number 12 in the speech hit parade with his 1984 DNC Address in San Francisco and Dr. King at number 15 with the April 3, 1968 'I've Been to the Mountaintop' speech.



Dr. King makes an appearance again at Number 43 with his April 4, 1967 Riverside Church speech blasting the Vietnam War entitled 'Beyond Vietnam- A Time To Break Silence', followed closely behind by Mary Church Terrell's October 10, 1906 speech 'What It Means To Be Colored in the Capital of the U.S.' to close out African-American speech makers in the Top 50.


Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. is at Number 51 with his 1988 DNC Address delivered from the Democratic convention in Atlanta in the wake of his presidential nomination run that fell just short. Kwame Toure's (Stokely Carmichael) 1966 'Black Power' speech in Berkeley, CA made it at Number 65, and I already mentioned Professor Anita Hill at Number 71.



Malcolm X makes another appearance at Number 91 with the November 10, 1963 'Message To The Grass Roots' speech and at Number 94 Rep. Shirley Chisholm's eloquent August 10, 1970 speech 'For The Equal Rights Amendment'.

Never 'misunderestimate' the power of a great speech.

Chic Nominated Again For Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Pardon Nile Rodgers and the rest of Chic if they're starting to feel like All my Children's Susan Lucci. Susan was nominated 18 times for a Daytime Emmy Best Actress Award before she finally won it in 1999.

They've been nominated in 2003, 2006, 2007, and now 2008 for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and when the votes are counted, they fall just short of becoming one of the five inductees in that year's class.

Chic is one of my my fave groups from my high school days (and still are). For those of you with knee-jerk reactions to disco, you can stop right now because this band was cutting edge.





Ask the Sugarhill Gang, because without Chic's Good Times song, Rapper's Delight, the song that catapulted hip hop into prominence doesn't happen.



Ask Sister Sledge, who thanks to Nile and 'Nard's production talents, created a song that became a championship anthem for the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates.



Once again Chic has been nominated along with Jeff Beck, Wanda Jackson, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Metallica, Run-D.M.C., the Stooges, War and Bobby Womack, but only five of these outstanding nominees will get in. After the votes are tabulated, the announcement will be made next month as to who will comprise the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Class of 2009.

The induction ceremony will take place in April, and this time I'm hoping along with other Chic fans that they'll FINALLY get in.

Transwomen And The Great Pantyhose Debate

When it comes to pantyhose, women are in two camps.

They either are ambivalent about them or despise them, and that attitude only begins to shift when the weather turns cold.

Where do transwomen fit into the Great Pantyhose Debate? Depends on the transwoman and what generation she belongs to.

Personally, I like wearing hose. I think they add an extra polished touch to whatever outfit I'm wearing. When it comes to what I wear to church, whether it's dress suits, pant suits or dresses, pantyhose are a must with them even if the temps are climbing for me.

Yeah, they can be uncomfortable when the waistband rolls on you or they slide down your legs if they're not quite the right size for us long legged people. But they also add extra insurance for pre-ops against neoclits popping out at inopportune times as well as improve the looks of my legs.

So what side are you on in the Great Pantyhose Debate?

Showdown On Parliament Hill

Our Canadian friends may be getting a new leader on December 8.

It was only a few weeks ago that the Conservatives and Prime Minister Stephen Harper received an expanded parliamentary majority in Canada's October 14 national elections. But because they fell short of the 155 seats they needed to govern on their own without interference from opposition parties, they are in a minority government situation once again.

Their opponents in the Liberal, the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois parties are loudly calling for change north of the border as well. They are gearing up to oust Prime Minister Harper by calling for a vote of no confidence on Monday unless an economic stimulus package to help Canadians facing their worst economic crisis in 80 years was passed immediately.

The opposition is pissed and was unified by a Conservative attempt to cut their $1.95 per vote federal political subsidies. They are much more dependent on them than the Conservatives and they saw it as a naked attempt to hamper their abilities to fund and conduct their next campaign.

Even though the Conservatives backed off of that ill considered plan, the opposition parties are not thrilled that the Conservatives aren't backing down from their plans to present an economic stimulus package as part of their fiscal budget plan in early 2009.

The Liberals, the New Democrats and the Bloc Quebecois command a majority of House of Commons seats and if the no confidence vote is successful in ousting Harper, the political ball then goes to Governor General Michaelle Jean's court.

She's cutting short a European trip to head back to Canada and was scheduled to return today. She'd have to decide whether to hold snap elections or ask the opposition parties to form a coalition government.

She's been working closely with her advisers and constitutional experts and stated from Prague, Czech Republic, "The prime minister and myself need to have a conversation. My door is open. I have to see what the prime minister has to say to me and what he is actually thinking of doing. I don't know exactly anything of his intentions yet."

Meanwhile, back at the Conservative ranch, the prime minister is gearing up for the fight to save his job.

"We will use all legal means to resist this undemocratic seizure of power," he told fellow Conservatives at their annual Christmas party at an Ottawa hotel. "My friends, such an illegitimate government would be a catastrophe, for our democracy, our unity and our economy, especially at a time of global instability."

The Governor General doesn't share his assessment of the situation. "This is part of our democratic system," Jean said. "The role of the governor general is to make sure that our governance is on the right path. So as soon as I'm back I will fulfill my duties in total, sound judgment."

There's more drama in this political mix. Liberal leader Stephane Dion announced his upcoming resignation after his party's October electoral beatdown. Even with the loss, the Liberals hold the second largest number of seats in the House after the Conservatives.

Because they hold the largest number of seats in the proposed coalition, the job of prime minister in a Liberal-NDP coalition government would normally go to him. However, the Bloc Quebecois is opposed to making Dion prime minister, and the Liberals weren't planning on replacing Dion as party leader until their party convention in May.

So the Liberals have the problem of an unsettled leadership situation to throw into this political stew while they participate in negotiations to form the possible coalition government continue between the three parties.

It's going to be an interesting and nerve racking couple of days in Ottawa.

My Houston Comets Memories

Little did my H-town homeboys and girls realize when they walked out of Reliant Arena on September 9 after a 75-68 win over the Connecticut Sun it would be the last game the Houston Comets played in Harris County.

I heard the shocking news today that another one of the Original Eight WNBA franchises bit the dust. Unfortunately it was my hometown team.

The peeps that know me know how much I love WNBA and Comets basketball in general, and in reaction to this news my phone has been blowing up all day.

It was reported that my hometown WNBA team was suspending operations for the 2009 season. The current players, with the exception of unrestricted free agents Latasha Byears, Mwadi Mabika, Hamchetou Maiga-Ba, Michelle Snow and Tina Thompson, would be eligible to be selected in a dispersal draft being conducted on December 8.

Cynthia Cooper-Dyke, who led the Comets to those four titles and is now the women's basketball coach at Prairie View A&M said, "This is disturbing news. This is a team that was an integral part of the WNBA. It is a team that helped establish the league, helped the league grow roots."

"It's a sad, sad, sad day for me," said Van Chancellor, the former Comets coach and GM who now coaches the women's team at LSU. "I just feel bad for everybody. I hate to see the city lose such a great franchise. I have so many memories.

"Houston is losing a big piece of its history. The Houston Comets' four championships will always be a big piece of WNBA history and a big piece of the city's history."

WNBA Commissioner Donna Orender stated, “Multiple investors have come forward and expressed significant interest in purchasing the Comets and having them continue to play in Houston in 2009. However, we made the judgment that we would not be able to complete a transaction with the right ownership group in time for the 2009 season. The WNBA is extremely grateful to the Comets organization, to the city of Houston and to the team’s loyal fans for helping build both the WNBA and the game of women’s basketball.”

Okay Donna. If the league's flagship franchise, first dynasty and a team that has a display at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, MA dedicated to it just folded due to lack of stable ownership since Les Alexander sold it, what does that say for the rest of the WNBA?

And for the sake of those loyal Houston fans, you and the WNBA leadership should have tried harder, helped and allowed more time for a local ownership group to get put together and purchase the team in time for the 2009 season.

My love for the team goes back to the first season. I was a season ticket holder from 1999 until I moved to Da Ville after the 2001 WNBA season. I was at Compaq for the 1997, 1999, and 2000 WNBA championship games and watched three of the four championships be won on our home floor. Even after I moved to Louisville I'd make the hour drive to Indianapolis to watch my girls play the Indiana Fever.

But my love of the Comets is beyond just the basketball. The Comets dynasty is intertwined with my transition as well. I was three years into transition when the WNBA started, and being that an estimated 10% of the WNBA fan base was GLBT, Comets games were some of the first sporting events I attended post transition.

Watching these and the rest of the women of the WNBA helped me get over my hangup about being a 6'2" sistah and be proud of it.

While transition was a small part of my love for the team and the league, it was also the excitement of watching sports and WNBA history unfold before your eyes and being a part of it. It was the joy of watching the Comets take four straight titles to follow up the ones the Rockets won in 94-95 for a championship starved city.

It was being part of the 'Sea of Red', the noisy, boisterous Compaq rocking home crowds that screamed 'Beat LA' at the top of our lungs during the 1999 and 2000 WNBA Western Conference Finals versus the hated LA Sparks.

It was watching the Big Four of Cooper, Swoopes, Thompson and Arcain take on all comers and swat them aside during the dynasty years. It was also a city wrapping its collective arms around the team and mourning along with them the untimely death from cancer of their feisty point guard Kim Perrot during the 1999 season as they threepeated in her memory.

I'm looking at my Comets sweatshirt, 1998 championship hat and other WNBA memorabilia and I'm feeling mixed emotions right now.

I'm angry because in my opinion male-dominated sports reporting takes a too-dismissive and almost disrespectful approach to women's team sports that has a negative effect in getting male sports fans to open their minds and attend these events. Nowhere is that dismissive attitude of sportswriters more openly on display than when it comes to the WNBA.

I'm sad over the fact that this franchise isn't going to be around to pursue that fifth ring and WNBA Championship trophy. It's also the realization that when the 2009 season starts, it will be the first time in 12 seasons a WNBA campaign will kick off without a Houston team involved in it.

I'm hopeful that the WNBA team drought will be a short lived one because Commissioner Orender didn't rule out another WNBA franchise returning to the Bayou City and civic leadership in Houston is just as determined to have the league there.

To everyone ever associated with the Houston Comets, thanks for the memories and thanks for representing our city with not only consummate skill, but more importantly, with dignity and class.


TransGriot Note: The quotes used in this post come from a Houston Chronicle story by Jenny Dial and the WNBA.com website.

Kerry Washington

Another installment in my ongoing series of articles on transgender and non-transgender women who have qualities that I admire.

Beauty and brains is a combination that the women I admire share, and even if Kerry Washington doesn't think she is, most fellas have a dissenting opinion about it.

The Bronx native graduated from the same New York prep school as Gwyneth Paltrow, and graduated magna cum laude from George Washington University with a degree in theater arts. She has played opposite Oscar winners Forest Whitaker (Last King of Scotland) and Jamie Foxx (Ray) and likes playing challenging roles herself.

She also shares my brother's and my cousin's January 31 birthday.





She's a three time NAACP Image Award winner, and if I wasn't impressed by her intellect before, I was even more so when one night I watched her take on two conservatives on Bill Maher's HBO show and more than hold her own in the debate as an Obama supporter. She's also testified in front of Congress as well on behalf of the Foundation for the Arts.

She's also playing a transwoman in the upcoming movie Life Is Hot In Cracktown, and had LA transactivist Valerie Spencer as an advisor on the film to ensure she was accurately portraying her role.

I'm curious to see how she'll pull it off, and if it's anything like the other projects she's participated in, I shouldn't be disappointed.

Hopefully one day Kerry will be collecting her own Oscar one day instead of playing beside Oscar winners.

January 2009 ESSENCE Covers

January 20 is already circled on our 2009 calendars thanks to the upcoming inauguration of our first African-American president. As that historic day approaches anything that has the president elect's picture on it is rapidly disappearing off book shelves, store shelves and magazine racks.

Coming soon to a magazine rack (or your mailbox if you subscribe to ESSENCE) on December 12 are the historic covers for the January 2009 issue of the magazine. There will also be a 56 page tribute to our soon to be 44th president and the First Lady.

I'm willing to bet that those magazines will probably sell out quickly like everything else Obama has graced the cover of since November.

Shoot, that reminds me, I need to renew my ESSENCE subscription ASAP.



While you're waiting for January 20, enjoy the 60 Minutes interview.

December 2008 Black Blog Rankings

Merry Christmas peeps! The Electronic Villager and his elves were busy over the holiday weekend compiling the latest edition of the Black Blog Rankings while I was enjoying some classic Christmas songs with soul.



This month there were 1496 blogs ranked, only one less than last month. But seeing how popular these rankings are and how they've come to be viewed as a highly anticipated event in the Blackosphere and a valuable tool to monitor the progress of Black blogs, I have no doubts the January edition will crack the 1500 blog mark.

Top Black blog is Pam's House Blend. You can check out the rest of the Top Ten and Top 25 blogs at Electronic Village.

Okay, so did I reach either one of my goals of cracking the BBR Top 50 and having a Technorati ranking of 150?

As of the December 1 date of these posted rankings, the number 50 BBR ranked blog is survey says, TransGriot!

I jumped up 13 spots from last month's rankings and the Technorati ranking went up 11 points as well. I have as of this date a Technorati ranking of 143. I'm only 7 points and 30 days away from meeting my Technorati goal of 150 by January 1.

Seeing that I've finally hit the Top 50 BBR blogs, I've set my sights for my next goals.

I want to be at a Technorati Ranking of 200 and in the Top 25 BBR blogs by my May 4 birthday. If I get there sooner, I definitely won't complain.

Now where's my champagne bottle?

Oh yeah, killed it last month celebrating Barack's election. Champale will do nicely, too.

The Gender Power Shift

TransGriot Note: I was invited by Renee at Womanist Musings to write this guest post for her blog.

I had a long and wonderful conversation with her over the weekend getting to know her and getting an 'ejumacation' about life north of the border for peeps of color.

So take a moment to wander over there to check it out and some of Renee's other writings on her quality blog, or just scroll down to read it.




When you transition from one gender role to another, you do more than just swap bodies and sometimes genitalia. You are also picking up all the cultural and societal expectations and baggage associated with that gender role as well.
Race and class also enter into this mix as well in terms of the differing reactions we have in terms of transition for white male to female transwomen and male to female transwomen of color.

One of the things I noted when I first transitioned back in 1994 was how much White transwomen lamented transitioning. I was the lone African-American along with a Latina in my gender group at the time, and she and I discussed in our conversations how so many of the discussions for some of them centered on laments about how much money they lost after they transitioned, pining for the executive jobs they held, or how shocked they were about how nasty and virulent the discrimination they were facing for the first time in their lives was..
It was my first exposure to The Gender Power Shift.

Basically, in Western societal structures, it’s all about the White male. Even if they have a PhD, a GED or no degree, they grow up with a sense of entitlement based on their skin color that makes them feel as though they are superior to anyone, much less a mere person of color.

And as I have stated for over a decade, the GLBT community is a microcosm of society at large. Whatever problems and ‘isms’ are prevalent in the parent society are manifested in our little subset of it.

Some carry those attitudes into transition feeling that they’ll have their new gender role, the cash and the power to go with it. They get a rude awakening from their former brothers in arms, which see them as delusional for willingly stepping down from the role as a White male and angry because in their eyes it’s one less white male to help procreate and keep whites in the majority population against the surging tide of rising minority birth rates and immigration.

To punish them for their ‘crime’ of voluntarily stepping down from the white male club, they get busted them down to white women power levels and face heightened levels of discrimination to keep them there.

Now, at the bottom of the societal power structure is the Black male. They’ve been told their whole lives by the parent society they’ll never amount to nothing, they’re predisposed to criminal activity…well, you get the drift. So when a Black male transitions, the parent society doesn’t care as much, but the end result is that it’s a power upgrade for that individual.

Black society is matriarchal based and power is shared somewhat equally between males and females. So when a Black male transitions, while we’re seen as less of a threat to the white power structure than we were as males, it’s conversely a step up in terms of power and prestige because of our new gender role.

In addition to that, being a Black woman is liberating to the person that chafed at being stuck in the Black male gender role. They get the benefits of no longer being considered a ‘menace to society’ with the corresponding improvements in quality of life. So to them, transition becomes a step up in class and power levels and it’s reflected in their perceptions of it.

The reactions of biowomen to transwomen are also different based on race and class. White transwomen are battling the burden of getting whacked with the anti-transgender feminist backlash instigated by Janice Raymond and Germaine Greer in the 70’s and 80’s and their radical feminist disciples. They are seen as interlopers in women’s spaces still seeking to wield WMP despite being in female bodies.

The reaction of Black biowomen to their transsisters is totally different. Black women have had their own bruising battles with those same Raymond-Greer radical feminists, and for the most part reject their philosophy. They are womanists, and reject the demonization of transgender women as espoused by the radical feminists.

As long as Black transwomen immerse themselves in and take seriously the role of Black womanhood, we are down with the goals of uplifting the race and advancing the causes of all women, we are accepted for the most part as women by the biowomen in the Black femininity club.

In addition, Black transwomen because of lack of capital, not only have extended transitions, they tend to focus more on perfecting the inner femininity first before they get to the point of dealing with surgical issues. That helps us hone the social skill we need to smooth our acceptance into the ranks by some Black biowomen.

White transwomen, who tend to start with more capital, blitz through the transition process, get SRS, then focus on the internal femininity issues. Their progress is also retarded by the resentment that some White biowomen have toward White transwomen as well for various reasons.

And in case you’re wondering, White transmen have noted their increased societal power gain after they transitioned, and Black transmen have noted the increased negative perceptions of them post transition as well.

So yes, race and class affect transition in many ways, and the Gender Power Shift is only one small example of it.

World AIDS Day 2008

Today is the 20th Anniversary celebration of World AIDS Day. One of the little known facts about HIV/AIDS is that transwomen, and disproportionately transwomen of color are one of the fastest growing categories of people who are infected by it as this PSA from the Banyan Tree Project reminds us.



It's also a problem in Black America as well as the Black AIDS Institute and the National Minority AIDS Council will tell you.

Houston was one of the early Ground Zero's of the initial HIV/AIDS wave in the early 80's. I had friends and a 24 year old cousin die during that stage as it decimated the Houston GLBT community.

So to my younglings and 'errbody' who reads TransGriot on a regular basis, be safe out there. Don't take it for granted your potential sex partner is not infected. If you're not sure of a person's HIV status you're about to get busy with, use protection until you both get tested.