Allen Andrade's murder trial doesn't start until April 14, but even while in jail he continues to rack up additional charges.
Recently a Weld County Sheriff's Office affidavit, after a fight broke out between two inmate, a correctional officer issued a 'lock down' order. Andrade wasn't involved in the fight, but approached it. He ignored two orders to lock down and because he did so, was charged with engaging in a riot in a detention facility, a felony, and obstructing a peace officer, a misdemeanor
The murder trial for Angie's accused killer is expected to last two weeks, and let's hope and pray that justice is done.
You can add another truism to the other certainties in life. If it's an odd numbered year, Serena Williams will win the Australian Open.
If there was any doubt about whether the Williams sisters were back to their usual domination of women's tennis, well Baby Sis put an end to any protestations to the contrary.
Serena Williams crushed Dinara Safina 6-0, 6-3 in 59 minutes to take her fourth Australian Open title and her tenth Grand Slam singles title. With the win Serena replaced Jelena Jankovic as the Number One player in women's tennis.
The domination of Safina was so complete that Baby Sis took only 22 minutes to win the first set with an aggressive attacking style that flustered Safina into multiple unforced errors.
Safina composed herself and tried to rally in the second set, breaking Serena to take a brief 1-0 lead. Baby Sis responded by breaking Safina's serve twice to forge a 4-1 lead.
Safina kept fighting and managed to hold serve, cutting Serena's lead to 4-2 but Serena quickly built it back to 5-2. Safina held serve thanks to a critical referee's call that gave her a 40-30 lead and allowed her a stay of tennis execution at 5-3. Serena would not be denied as she served her way to a 40-0 lead and three championship points which she quickly converted for the win.
Dinara Safina was trying make a little tennis history of her own. Had she won she and her brother, 2005 Australian Open champion Marat Safin would have become the first brother-sister siblings to win the same Grand Slam tournament. But at the level Serena was playing that wasn't happening.
The Williams sisters have won the last three Grand Slam tournaments, and if today's match was any indicator, it may be a long year for the rest of the women's tennis world.
May I remind you peeps that Baby Sis is only 27 and in 2011, don't bet against Serena Williams winning a fifth Australian Open singles title and adding another Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup to her trophy room.
It happened 20 years after Ronald H. Brown became the first African American to chair of a major political party when he became chair of the Democratic Party, but today former Maryland Lt, Governor Michael Steele became the first Black chair of the Republican Party.
It took six rounds of voting, but he eventually bested the incumbent chair Mike Duncan from Kentucky and three challengers that included Ken Blackwell.
Well, he's got a tough job ahead of him. He takes over a party with a major image problem, whose political base has shrunk to the Deep South and has been spanked in consecutive national elections.
"We're going to say to friend and foe alike: We want you to be a part of us, we want you to with be with us, and for those who wish to obstruct, get ready to get knocked over," Steele said.
As a proud yellow dog Democrat I've never been a fan of Steele, but I'm not going to be as nekulturny as Rush Limbaugh was toward President Obama (and still is). I salute your history making accomplishment but sincerely doubt I'll be rushing to join your party since your policies aren't even in the same reality based universe I inhabit.
It will be interesting to see what you accomplish during your term as GOP chair, and even if you can breathe any life back into the moribund Republican party.
TransGriot Note: Love my little sis Isis. She's a role model to a lot of us, and here's a recent interview posted to YouTube that was done by Paul Wharton for trenDCtv.com
In 1982 Wisconsin became the first state to pass a law banning discrimination against gays and lesbians. Transgender people weren't included in that law, and as we've heard over and over again like a broken record from the GL incrementalist crowd, 'We'll come back for you"'
Wisconsin is Exhibit A of what the incrementalists mean when they screech, 'we'll come back for you'.
'We'll cone back for you' equals 'never'.
I'm focusing on this again in light of the fact that a biracial 28 year old transwoman named Sierra Broussard was denied entry to the Park Central nightclub in downtown Appleton, WI. Sierra is African-American and White, lives full time as a passable woman who has no plans to seek SRS, but unfortunately the gender marker on her ID has that dreaded 'M' on it.
One of the things we are seeing is increasing cases of transwomen being exposed to discrimination because some troglodyte harasses her because they saw on the ID the 'M' in the gender code box. From that point it doesn't take an MIT grad to figure out that the person who just handed you said ID is a transwoman.
“You don’t have to get along with people, but you don’t have to discriminate,” said Ms. Broussard.
The civil complaint Sierra filed stated one Park Central employee said if she "used either bathroom it would cause confusion for the other patrons," and claims she was told to go to another club, one that caters to "her kind."
A manager told the Post-Crescent newspaper that the bar does not discriminate against gays or lesbians, but cannot accommodate Broussard because allowing her to use either the men's or women's restroom is a safety issue.
Bullshit. I'm tired of y'all and the Religious Reich citing bathrooms as the justification for your transphobic bigotry.
We're also tired as a community of being repeatedly cut out of civil rights legislation in various states and at the federal level, being told it's necessary so it can pass, and you'll come back to add us to it later while regurgitating the 'half a loaf is better than none' analogy.
Half a civil rights loaf for you still means the transgender community is starving at the civil rights dinner table after you've feasted and walked away satisfied. The transgender community in Wisconsin is still experiencing a civil rights famine at the state level that has lasted over 25 years.
So Wisconsin GL community, when can my fellow transpeople experience the same civil rights protections that you enjoy and demanded for yourselves?
Then again, the more pertinent question is what are you going to do in concert with the Wisconsin transgender community to help make it a reality?
Well, it wasn't a totally bad week for Big Sis in Melbourne. Venus shook off her shocking second round loss to team up with Little Sis and grab the 2009 Australian Open doubles title in straight sets over Slovakia's Daniela Hantuchova and Japan's Ai Sugiyama 6-3 6-3.
The heat continues to be the other story of this tournament, and the retractable roof at Rod Laver Arena was once again closed by tournament officials with the outside temps approaching 115 degrees (40 degrees Celsius) for the third straight day.
Didn't matter because the Williams sisters were just as hot as the weather. They blitzed through the first set in 38 minutes. Despite some service problems they relentlessly attacked their opponents and repeatedly broke their serves to secure the victory.
The Williams sisters had previously won the Australian Open doubles title in 2001 and 2003. It was their third Australian Open doubles title and their eighth Grand Slam doubles title overall.
In addition, they have climbed into a third place tie with Virginia Ruano Pascual and Paola Suarezon on the all time list of Grand Slam doubles title winners. They trail only Martina Navratilova and Pam Shriver who won 21 titles and the duo of Gigi Fernandez and Natasha Zvereva with 14.
Big Sis told reporters that she feels she and Little Sis would have won more titles if they had played more doubles.
I agree. I think they'd be in striking distance of Martina and Pam Shriver if they had over the last decade, but it's still not too late for them. The next major is the French Open in Paris and then Williamsdon, oops Wimbledon.
Serena still has her singles championship match left to play Down Under, and I hope this was a nice warmup for her.
I'm initiating a new feature on TransGriot today to add to your blogging pleasure.
Every Friday I'll pass out the 'Shut Up Fool! Award. They will go to the person or persons that say the stupidest, most asinine crap during the previous week.
There were many worthy honorees I could have chosen for this week's award, and I know you're anxious to find out who won, so let's get to the nominees for this week inaugural award.
Rush Limbaugh must be swallowing the OxyContin again and drinking Republican red hateraid from 55 gallon drums. He's said he 'hopes Obama fails', and after getting slammed by fellow conservatives and others, has been trying to spin the comment ever since.
There's the ongoing soap opera with Rod Blagojevich, and please Illinois legislature, impeach the idiot, remove him from office and get him the help he needs because his 15 minutes of fame was up a long time ago.
Ann Coulter for her latest waste of trees and the asinine comments she made on The View that single mothers were 'raising criminals'. She forgot that she was saying it in front of single mother Whoopi Goldberg, who ripped her a new anus.
But this week's winner is Faux News sellout Juan Williams, who called First Lady Michelle Obama 'Stokely Carmichael in a dress'.
This meme of trying to paint the First Lady as the second coming of Angela Davis is getting old from you conservatives.
That's who I chose this week. Any comments? Were there other peeps you think should have won it? Discuss.
New year, new tennis season, and the first Grand Slam tournament is being played Down Under.
Y'all know I have much love for my my favorite tennis playing siblings and was hoping to see another all-Williams final. I was horrified to watch Venus just stop doing what worked in the first set and get unceremoniously bounced from the Australian Open women's singles in the second round by Carla Suarez Navarro 6-2, 3-6, 5-7.
But no worries mates and sheilas. Baby Sis upheld Williams family honor and made it all the way to Saturday night's (Melbourne time) final at Rod Laver Arena while battling the oppressive summer heat. (Yes peeps, it's summer south of the Equator)
Serena will be playing in her fourth Australian Open final versus Russia's Dinara Safina after taking only 99 minutes to beat Russia's Elena Dementieva 6-3, 6-4.
Serena interestingly enough has won the Australian Open in 2003, 2005 and 2007 and since this is an odd numbered year, let's hope the pattern continues.
One of the things that my transsisters and transbrothers around the world are cognizant of is that we are involved in a worldwide struggle for respect and recognition of our human rights. It has been great getting to know some of my overseas transfamily and I'm looking forward to the day when we finally meet face to face.
One important facet of this human rights struggle is having biosisters in our corner. Some of my biosisters have taken it a step further and made it their mission in life to embrace what we're fighting for as well. Sometimes they speak just as loudly and eloquently about our issues than some of my own transsisters who accept the indignities and cower in their closets.
Some have taken it a step further, surround us with love and extend the hands of friendship as well.
I have been blessed throughout my transition to have biowomen at various stages of it who have and still are unflinchingly proud to call me their friend.
I have been taught at those various stages of my transition important life lessons by the various biowomen in my life in those periods. I continue to learn, grow and benefit from those friendships even as I worry that my biosisters who do that will catch flack or be stigmatized as 'weird' by their fellow biosisters or whatever other epithet is thrown at them just for daring to include me in their circle of sistahfriends.
At the same time, I hope that I've been able to show them and help them understand what I and other transwomen go through just to live our lives.
I also consider it an honor that they have made me part of their lives as well, knowing some of the bullshit sometimes that they go though just to do that.
Ladies, if you haven't heard this from your transsisters, I'm gonna say it now and keep repeating it as frequently as I can. Thank you for being a friend, standing with us and sharing with us the things we need to know in order to live quality lives as the women we were born to be in spirit but not quite body.
Know that you are loved and deeply appreciated by me and my transsisters as well for making us a part of your lives.
When President Obama makes his first international trip on February 19 the destination will be Canada.
Typically the first international trip most US presidents take is to Canada because of the special relationship and it's our largest trading partner.
The itinerary has yet to be finalized, but Ottawa is definitely one of the stops. The Canadian Parliament won't be sitting during the week of the visit, so it's unlikely that President Obama will get to address them as 50 other world leaders have done unless something changes.
PM Harper stated on Wednesday, "This is a testament, not just to the size of our trading relationship and the closeness of our alliance, but also the strength of our friendship,"
The expected topics to be discussed during this visit are in addition to the economy, plans for a North American climate-change policy, energy, trade, border issues and Afghanistan.
The Creating Change Conference is taking place this weekend in Denver starting today through February 1. While it's one of my favorite GLBT conferences, I attended my first one in 1999 when it was held in Oakland and I met some wonderful people at it, the one thing I don't like is the recent change to conduct it in the winter.
Last year they held it in Detroit, and now Denver. I understand and like the idea of moving it around so that it gets held in different regions of the country, but if you're going to hold it in January-February, can we put it in a warm weather city?
But the change to winter dates is the only complaint I have about Creating Change. It's a must attend event if you even want to think about activism in the GLBT community. It's not only a diverse event, the seminars are plentiful, informative cover a wide range of topics and are top notch.
The best part about Creating Change is that you have the opportunity to meet a cross section of national GLBT activists and leaders from the vets to emerging voices. I love the fact that it's affordable and accessible enough for college students to attend.
During the 1999 one I not only got to renew acquaintances with then Task Force leader Kerry Lobel, but met now California state senator Mark Leno, author and transkids activist Just Evelyn, Jane Fee, Stephan Thorne and the late Alexander John Goodrum. I also got to spend that conference rooming at a San Francisco hotel with Dawn as we checked out the various sights, sounds and tastes of the city when we weren't bouncing back and forth across the Bay on BART.
I'm still mildly ticked that I missed the protest that happened at the 1999 Creating Change that was triggered by an African-American transwoman being disrespected by an Oakland Po-Po.
She reported an assault to the officer that happened to her near the convention center where the conference was being held. When she reported the crime, the officer told her, "I am tired of having to do all this paperwork. You guys have been told not to be on the corner of 14th and Broadway. I am tired of your shit..."
The next day 1500 people were marching on the Oakland Police Department headquarters while I was on an airplane headed back to Houston.
Note to GLBT haters-if you're going to mess with or disrespect us, don't do it when a GLBT conference is in town. There will be swift, sure and immediate reaction to it.
The sponsor of this event, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, has been the antithesis of HRC for over a decade. They are enthusiastic allies of transgender people and not only talk the talk, they walk the walk. Unlike HRC, whose leaders have never shown up at an IFGE conference, Kerry Lobel, the then head of the Task Force graced us with a keynote speech in 2000 and was at the 1997 ICTLEP Conference in Houston. The Task Force is part of the United ENDA coalition that seeks to pass a transgender inclusive ENDA, and they have unflinchingly tackled race, class and social issues within the GLBT community.
As much as I love Denver and would love to be there for this event to see some of my old and the new friends I met at the Transcending Gender Conference, complications won't permit me to go this time.
I'm mildly upset I'm missing it because Bishop Yvette Flunder is going to be there for this one. I've wanted to meet her ever since Louis Mitchell raved about her at the 2005 TSTB.
Will be thinking about all you peeps who are at Creating Change this weekend while I'm shoveling snow.
As if it weren't bad enough we had the snow here, we're now dealing with a nasty ice storm as well.
We've had rain falling with temps at the freezing mark for almost 24 hours and it's already starting to cause problems with our local power grid. According to the roomies, we briefly lost power in the crib, so I have to reset the clocks in my room.
It could be worse. We have sections of town, and southern Kentucky dealing with no power at all as I type this.
The city crews have been on the job. They've gone through almost 500 tons of salt so far and have done a bang up job keeping the roads clear.
I also live in a section of town that has lots of trees. Pretty to look at, but not when they're coated with ice and we just had the remnants of Ike blow through here a few months ago. Whatever branches on those trees that were weakened by Ike's 70 mph winds back in September but didn't fall will probably snap under the weight of a few inches of ice.
Oops, right on cue just heard a large branch snap on my next door neighbor's tree.
When I was growing up in Houston, falling snow was a cause for civic celebration. Living here in Louisville, I've leaned to despise snow if it falls in amounts of more than three inches.
As many of you know who watch the Weather Channel, we got whacked by a nasty winter storm last night and Round Two is hitting us later this evening. The kids are enjoying another day off from school, most businesses are closed and there aren't many cars on the roads either. I've got to trudge off to work later and hopefully I'll be back in the house before the next wave hits.
The worst snow we've gotten since I moved here was the 10 inches we got whacked with last March that I fortunately missed because I was rolling up I-65 with Dawn to Chicago for a fencing tournament. We also received 9 inches of snow from that 2004 Christmas eve storm that dropped snow along the Gulf Coast from the Texas-Mexico border to New Orleans and points north.
It's times like these I really miss home and walking around in 70-90 degree weather in January with shorts on. But cold weather has its purposes in the great scheme of things, and as long as it means I won't be swatting at hordes of mosquitoes this spring and summer, then I'll deal with it.
Back in May 2007 I wrote a newspaper column entitled Genetic Women and Transwomen-Can We Be Friends? that generated an interesting and thought provoking discussion on the issue of friendship between transsistahs and our biosistahs that I had to continue on this blog.
I and the panelists had so much fun doing it, I'm thinking about initiating on TransGriot a regular feature in which I gather a panel of transwomen and our biosisters together on a monthly basis to discuss various issues.
Sometimes they will be predominately bloggers, sometimes not. Sometimes it may be a discussion that's WOC only so that we can talk about some issues unique to the community, sometimes it will be a broad cross section of panelists across our diverse rainbow of humanity.
It's part of my New Year's resolution to not only open this blog up to other voices, but continue to break down any potential barriers between us and our biosisters that hinder communication and allow us to build mutually beneficial friendships with each other.
This is where you TransGriot readers come in. When I begin this ongoing series of panel discussions, what topics would you like to see discussed by my esteemed panelists?
I mentioned in a post last month that one of the pioneers of facial feminization surgery, Dr. Douglas Ousterhout is planning to retire in 2011. But what I didn't do was explain what facial feminization surgery is.
There are some of my sisters who were fortunate enough to get the genetic luck of the draw and all we needed was hormones and attitude to pass successfully. Others of us started early enough in our lives to avoid the ravages of demon testosterone on our bodies.
But for those peeps who either transition late in life or need help to feminize their appearance from the neck up, they resort to facial feminization surgery to do so.
Basically, facial feminization surgery (or FFS for short) is a wide array of surgical techniques employed to make a masculine face resemble a more feminine one.
If you watched the MTV show 'I Want A Famous Face' and remember Jessica, that's basically what she was doing.
Facial feminization surgery involves facial plastic surgery, maxillofacial surgery and reconstructive surgery. While those surgery skills and disciplines are well known, there are not many surgeons that specialize in FFS techniques worldwide. Those that are skilled at it are highly sought after.
While transwomen are major customers of the surgeons who specialize in this area, there are biowomen who do avail themselves of their services as well because of dissatisfaction with what they may consider masculine facial features.
Some of the techniques are forehead contouring, in which the bony ridge just above the eyes is removed and shaped to create a more feminine appearance. Scalp advancements, brow lifts are also done to enhance the new smooth forehead.
Sometimes, chin and cheek implants may be necessary or chin reshaping, in which the old squared male chin is given a more rounded feminine appearance.
There's also the tracheal shave, in which the cartilage bulge on the neck is shaved down as much as possible without touching the vocal cords.
Some people undergo rhinoplasty to get more feminine appearing noses, face lifts and lip augmentations as well.
The procedures, when completed and the post-surgical pain and swelling subsides, result in remarkable results, but it ain't cheap. FFS can cost anywhere from $10-40K depending on what procedures you get, which surgeon is doing them and where you get it done.
Bu for some transwomen, the positive effects on their self esteem and peace of mind because they blend in better with society are worth every penny they spent on it.
Some of you may not recognize the name, but probably recognize that beautiful face. You may also recognize who she is if I say the name Vanity 6 as well.
January 4 marked her milestone birthday, and if you listen to the Niagara Falls, ON native tell her story or read her autobiography Blame It On Vanity, she'll probably tell you she's thankful she made it.
If Evangelist Denise K. Matthews is doing any touring these days, it's basically to spread the gospel. But back in the day she fronted Prince's girl group Vanity 6, was the crush of just about every Black male growing up during that era and admired by many in the entertainment world and beyond.
She overcame a less than pleasant childhood, drug addition, a turbulent romantic relationship, losing a kidney, suffering a stroke and heart attack. being rendered temporarily deaf and blinded by that stroke and nearly dying in 1994.
She survived all of that and is still standing. Denise is still as beautiful as ever, but her focus these days is spreading the Word from her Fremont, CA based ministry and making the inner Denise match the beautiful person we see on the outside.
And your fans still love you, Denise. Happy birthday.
Renee at Womanist Musings is organizing a Blog Carnival entitled 'Tell It WOC Speak.
She's currently looking for submissions for the upcoming carnival slated for February 15. Her goal is to build this into an ongoing event that takes place on the 15th of every month.
The submissions can be previous work or new pieces that intersect with race and involve issues of class, gender, sexuality, ability, et cetera.
She says, 'It is time that we tackle the isms and bring them crashing down."
If you're interested in participating, click on this link to submit your article.
I will be submitting an article as part of this blog carnival and hope that others women of color bloggers will consent to do so as well.
Bil from the Bilerico Project, the blog I'm a contributing writer to sent me an update on the piss poor reporting on the Taysia Elzy case. The local Indy GLBT community was not happy about the coverage of Taysia's December 28 murder (and neither was I) and have been working with GLAAD to ensure that what happened in this case isn't repeated in the future.
In addition to praising the reporters that did get it right, they are doing training session to familiarize the Indy media as to how to respectfully cover the GLBT community, and especially transgender people.
However, it has come to my attention that there are still a few hardheads that refuse to get with the program.
One of them is Steve Jefferson, the crime reporter for WTHR-13, the NBC TV affiliate in Indianapolis. He was highlighted by GLAAD on their 'Worst of the National News' part of their website for December 2008 as an example of how NOT to cover transgender people. To make it even more galling for me personally, he shares my ethnic background.
It's being reported that Jefferson is bristling at the attention he's received from GLAAD about it and his station has been glacially slow to change the story.
According to GLAAD, when it was pointed out to Jefferson what the AP Stylebook rules clearly state about covering transgender people, he is reported to have fired back in an e-mail, “I did not do this story based on lifestyle.” Jefferson furthered, “Our goal is to catch the killer- NOT promote your cause.” He also said he did not use female pronouns because he said the transgender victim “was NOT post-op.”
Yo Steve, it's not about an agenda, it's about respecting a community that watches your newscasts. Once again, this is what the AP Stylebook says about covering transgender people and has since 2001:
Use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth. If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly
It does not say anywhere that pronoun usage in a story you compose on a transgender person is based on or determined by genitalia.
If we mere bloggers get that, why can't you media professionals?
The story was supposedly corrected on January 23, but you're still in violation of the AP Stylebook rules by not only using her old male name, but putting Taysia's name in quotation marks.
Here's a story that was done in JET magazine two decades before the AP Stylebook rules on covering transpersons were penned, and they got it right.
Then again, maybe the problem here is that you DON'T want to get it right.
So once again TransGriot readers, be nice and write the wonderful peeps at WTHR-TV.
GLAAD urges you to contact WTHR Crime Reporter, Steve Jefferson and WTHR News Director, Carolyn Williams and voice your concerns. Tell them to make the necessary corrections to this story, cover the transgender community with accuracy and respect and in line with standard language usage.
Take a look at these beautiful women. Since the beauty conversation doesn't include or ignores black transwomen, it's time we jump start our own.
Thanks to Frank Leon Roberts, aka Frank Mizrahi for graciously allowing me to use his photos. Check out his wonderful blog that not only chronicles the ballroom community, but gives you some sharp commentary on a wide array of subjects from this learned brother. And I'm looking forward to the day when I finally get a chance to chat with him and we try to figure out whether we're related or not.
One of the frequent themes that pops up in any conversation between me and my Canadian friends besides waxing poetic about all things 'Timmys' is them dissing Alberta.
As some of you may or may not know, Alberta is frequently compared to my home state of Texas because of the wealth, the oil industry ties, the rampant conservatism on steroids both there and my birth state, and conservative national leaders from Alberta and Texas despised by the rest of the nation's citizens.
One of the jokes I frequently hear from Canadians living in the eastern end of the country is 'we'll trade you Alberta for Minnesota' (or whatever deal they can get for it).
Sorry, we ain't giving up Minnesota. What would I do without Prince, the Minnesota Vikings, the Minnesota Twins, and when I'm griping about what passes for cold weather here in Da Ville, thanking my lucky stars I'm not there or in Palin-run Alaska?
The Oil Sands, Edmonton, Banff National Park and Calgary make it a tempting offer, but until we can turn Texas back to its progressive roots, we can't risk having Stephen Harper and his conservafriends in Wild Rose country linking up with the Republican idiots they admire.
We just got a Democratic president in the White House who is quite busy cleaning up the Chernobylesque mess that Bushie boy left behind.
So, in the words of the latest game show craze south of the border, No Deal!
Feminism, according to a popular bumper sticker is the radical notion that women are people, too. Many feminists have forgotten over the years that the word 'people' also includes their Black, Latina, Asian and native sisters as well as their transgender ones.
While I wholeheartedly agree and support as a transwoman equality for women, I also noted the gulf between the predominately white feminist movement and women of color. I noted how they loudly and zealously rallied to the defense of Hillary Clinton for perceived sexist comments during last year's primary, but were deafeningly silent when Michelle Obama was attacked.
I also remembered the radical feminist anti-transgender BS from their patron saints Janice Raymond and Germaine Greer and follow on books by transphobe feminists Mary Daly, Catherine MacKinnon, Robin Morgan and Sheila Jeffreys.
Raymond once stated that 'transsexuality must be morally mandated out of existence' and it didn't get much better in her 1979 book The Transsexual Empire-The Making of The She-Male.
"All transsexuals rape women's bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, appropriating this body for themselves .... Transsexuals merely cut off the most obvious means of invading women, so that they seem non-invasive." (Raymond, 1979)
In fact, Janice Raymond for transwomen that transitioned during the 70s and 80's along with the ones who grew up in my era was the most hated person in the transgender community until HRC's Elizabeth Birch took away her title in the late 90's with her anti-transgender inclusion rhetoric.
Germaine Greer isn't liked by some transwomen either, and cosigned with Raymond when she made this comment comparing transwomen to the character Norman Bates in the movie Psycho:
The transsexual is identified as such solely on his/her own script, which can be as learned as any sex-typed behaviour and as editorialized as autobiographies usually are. The lack of insight that MTF transsexuals usually show about the extent of their acceptance as females should be an indication that their behaviour is less rational than it seems. There is a witness to the transsexual’s script, a witness who is never consulted. She is the person who built the transsexual’s body of her own flesh and brought it up as her son or daughter, the transsexual’s worst enemy, his/her mother.
Whatever else it is gender reassignment is an exorcism of the mother. When a man decides to spend his life impersonating his mother (like Norman Bates in Psycho) it is as if he murders her and gets away with it, proving at a stroke that there was nothing to her. His intentions are no more honourable than any female impersonator’s; his achievement is to gag all those who would call his bluff. When he forces his way into the few private spaces women may enjoy and shouts down their objections, and bombards the women who will not accept him with threats and hate mail, he does as rapists have always done.”
The injection of transphobic hatred and the logic defying justifications of it across the first and second waves of feminist thought was passed on to the new school of feminists who continue to eagerly drink the 'hate on transwomen' Kool Aid.
While we transwomen have had a contentious thirty-six years of drama with the feminist community, it pales in comparison with the ongoing parallel struggle that women of color have with them. They have fought the ongoing silencing of their voices in the feminist movement, got tired of being dissed, ignored and being accused of or being labeled as 'crazy' or 'racist' anytime they critiqued their treatment.
Black women finally said to hell with them and began calling themselves womanists, a term which was coined by author Alice Walker and comes from her 1983 book In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose. Womanists focus on issues that are broader based that what feminism focuses on, and include issues of race and class that feminism shies away from.
Over the last few years I've gotten to know a few womanists, become friends with them and discovered to my great pleasure that they are light years more enlightened on transgender issues and are serious about supporting their transsisters.
So if you wonder why myself and some transwomen aren't feeling feminism or have a detached ambivalence to it, now you know.
It took almost 12 years to bring him to justice, but James Hopkins was sentenced to life on January 6 for the 1997 murder of transwoman Robyn Browne.
23 year old Robyn Browne's body was discovered in her Central London apartment by her roommate Natasha Brentwood on February 28, 1997 with multiple stab wounds to her neck, chest, heart and torso. At the time she was undergoing gender transition and was doing sex work to pay the bills with a local agency.
Brentwood had been out on a dinner date with her boyfriend and discovered the apartment door was locked, she climbed through the window and discovered Robyn's body on the bed covered in blood. There were no sighs of forced entry, but a drawer had been pulled out and pages torn from Robyn's personal organizer.
Reportedly her client list had some high profile people on it and some of those people when the trial started were concerned they would have to testify.
In June 2007 Hopkins was arrested in Leeds after his palm print matched the bloodstained palm prints found on the bedroom door of Browne's apartment and on two newspapers found there dated February 28. When arrested Hopkins denied killing her, but admitted that he was paid £500 to steal an address book.
According to the Metropolitan Police, advancements in DNA and forensic techniques allowed them to bring this case to trial.
He'll have to serve a minimum of 17 years in jail.
In a statement to the court, Ms. Browne's sister Louise said in a statement to the court that "Now there can be some sort of closure. Her death impacts on those who knew her."
Too bad the family of Kellie Telesford won't get to feel the satisfied feeling of knowing their loved one's killer was brought to justice.
One of my guilty television pleasures is watching Kim, Ron, Wade, and Monique negotiate the travails of high school life while jetting around the world to fight evildoers such as Dr. Drakken, Shego, Monkey Fist, Duff Killian, Senor Senior, Sr. and Senor Senior, Jr.
Oh yeah, and it does has a catchy theme song, too.
While I have a major beef with how it was heavily promoted by Disney vis a vis The Proud Family, I still like the cartoon.
Like 'errbody' else who watched it I was happy to see lifelong friends Kim and Ron kissing each other at the prom and becoming a couple. It's been interesting to see not only how their relationship develops, but how Kim deals with her twin brothers Jim and Tim, AKA 'the tweebs' being skipped to the 9th grade and now attending Middleton High during her and Ron's senior year.
It's also nice to see supergenius Wade get out of his room (voiced by Tahj Mowry). Wade is the youngest member of Team Possible and graduated from high school and college at age 10. He also creates much of the high-tech wizardry Kim and Ron use on their missions and keeps her up to date with a constant stream of intel filtered through the computer in his room.
Monique (voiced by Raven) is Kim's best female friend. She works at Club Banana, has become its assistant manager and even convinced Kim to work there.
Monique not only keeps the jet setting Kim cognizant of the Middleton High School happenings, she gives Kim sage advice when she's sorting out various problems in her non crime fighting life. She like Wade even helps Kim and Ron on an occasional crime fighting mission sometimes as well.
Kim Possible has garnered an international following and thanks to YouTube, yours truly gets the chance to catch up on whatever episodes she's missed.
One little noticed event that happened while 'errbody' was focused on the inauguration was that the White House website switched over at 12:01 PM with the change of administrations.
If you needed another indicator that this isn't a dream and we are indeed a far different nation than we were on Monday and the last 8 years, check out this website.
We transwomen on a daily basis face so many serious issues and threats to our simple right to exist. We have people that fear us, that refuse to understand what we deal with in our lives, hate us to the point that they want to kill us, keep us unemployed, or even deny us the opportunity to go to the gender appropriate bathroom.
But just as my peeps have learned over the centuries to take dire situations and turn them into humor, transwomen for the sake of our own sanity either have or will need to learn how to do the same thing.
Like the Playboy transgender themed cartoons that are part of this post, while they are examples of some serious moments in transgender people's lives, I look at them and take a moment to chuckle. It helps remind me to stand down just for a few moments from the Defcon 1 life-or-death game face I have to put on sometimes just to live my life in a world that can be hostile to transgender people.
At times I think back to some of the more embarrassing moments I went through early in my transition that make me laugh now, but were mortifying events at the time they happened. I forgot to lock the bathroom door while non revving home during a 1999 San Francisco-Houston flight and fortunately I was in a sitting position when the door popped open. I got teased about it at work for a month and Lisa Bronte, the first class flight attendant who witnessed it, needled me about it for a year.
I take time to find humor in my situation and allow it into my life because even though I'm committed to seeing transgender rights laws become a reality and do my small part to make it happen, it can be depression inducing and frustrating work. But even out of some of those journeys to lobby have come humorous moments that I treasure to this day.
There have been times when I've gone to conventions and been one of the few African-Americans in the room, but have observed or experienced things that made me double over in laughter.
I still have fond memories of the first time I showed up at a planning meeting for my 20th high school reunion. While some of my high school classmates had heard I'd transitioned, others hadn't. The joke I cracked for the next year and a half leading up to that October 2000 reunion weekend was, "Well, we know who has a lock on the 'Most Changed Award' for this reunion."
I know we are tackling some serious and seemingly intractable problems, especially as transpeople of color. But just as we need to stop, take a look around and thank God for the blessings that we have in our lives such as good friends, good health and allies who get it, we should at the same time try to find ways to inject more humor in our lives as well.
TransGriot Note: cartoons were transgender themed recaptions by Lorna Samuels
Back in the BI (before Internet) days I was searching for any information I could get on transgender people. If I spotted a newspaper article on a transperson, I clipped it out and stuck it in an envelope to peruse later. I saved, but eventually lost in the process of moving from my parents house to my apartment the JET magazine issues that chronicled the stories of transsistahs Justina Williams and Sharon Davis.
But one unlikely source of info for me came from a glossy magazine called Female Mimics International, or FMI for short.
I ended up getting dragged into the Bellaire News adult store one day by a friend who was looking for adult movies to rent. While he was perusing the movies, I was hanging around the magazine racks and spotted an issue of FMI that had an African-American transwoman on the cover. Since I was with my homeboy and wasn't even remotely ready to tell him that I was hanging out in Montrose but dressing a bit differently when I did so, I couldn't purchase it at that moment. I came back a few day later and picked up it because I was curious about the magazine and its contents.
FMI was part of Kim Christy's adult publishing world. While part of each issue served to promote whatever adult transgender themed video she had just produced or some of her regular Kim Christy starlets such as Heather Fontaine, Dana Douglas, and Summer St. Cerly, there were in many FMI magazines short fiction stories, transition tips, coverage of the California transgender pageant scene and San Francisco and LA transgender events. There was also one Kim published when her longtime friend and New York transgender icon International Chrysis died that had a tribute article.
I ended up with a large collection of them before an ex-girlfriend found them in the box I kept them in while rummaging through my apartment closet. She unilaterally took them to the dumpster while I was at work. I was royally pissed about it when I found out about it later not only because they were my property, now it's hard to even find FMI magazines and the collection I'd built up over several years would have made a nice addition to some GLBT archive.
But in its own way, FMI not only showcased the beauty of transgender women, but actually managed to inform and open a window to another aspect of that world at the same time.
TransGriot Note: This editorial appeared in the Macon Telegraph and was written by Andrew M. Manis, an associate professor of history at Macon State College in Georgia.
When Are WE Going to Get Over It? by Andrew M. Manis
For much of the last forty years, ever since America "fixed" its race problem in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, we white people have been impatient with African Americans who continued to blame race for their difficulties. Often we have heard whites ask, "When are African Americans finally going to get over it? Now I want to ask: "When are we White Americans going to get over our ridiculous obsession with skin color?
Recent reports that "Election Spurs Hundreds' of Race Threats, Crimes" should frighten and infuriate every one of us. Having grown up in "Bombingham," Alabama in the 1960s, I remember overhearing an avalanche of comments about what many white classmates and their parents wanted to do to John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Eventually, as you may recall, in all three cases, someone decided to do more than "talk the talk."
Since our recent presidential election, to our eternal shame we are once again hearing the same reprehensible talk I remember from my boyhood.
We white people have controlled political life in the disunited colonies and United States for some 400 years on this continent. Conservative whites have been in power 28 of the last 40 years. Even during the eight Clinton years, conservatives in Congress blocked most of his agenda and pulled him to the right. Yet never in that period did I read any headlines suggesting that anyone was calling for the assassinations of presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, or either of the Bushes. Criticize them, yes. Call for their impeachment, perhaps. But there were no bounties on their heads. And even when someone did try to kill Ronald Reagan, the perpetrator was non-political mental case who wanted merely to impress Jody Foster.
But elect a liberal who happens to be Black and we're back in the sixties again. At this point in our history, we should be proud that we've proven what conservatives are always saying -- that in America anything is possible, EVEN electing a black man as president. But instead we now hear that school children from Maine to California are talking about wanting to "assassinate Obama."
Fighting the urge to throw up, I can only ask, "How long?" How long before we white people realize we can't make our nation, much less the whole world, look like us? How long until we white people can - once and for all - get over this hell-conceived preoccupation with skin color? How long until we white people get over the demonic conviction that white skin makes us superior? How long before we white people get over our bitter resentments about being demoted to the status of equality with non-whites?
How long before we get over our expectations that we should be at the head of the line merely because of our white skin? How long until we white people end our silence and call out our peers when they share the latest racist jokes in the privacy of our white-only conversations?
I believe in free speech, but how long until we white people start making racist loudmouths as socially uncomfortable as we do flag burners? How long until we white people will stop insisting that blacks exercise personal responsibility, build strong families, educate themselves enough to edit the Harvard Law Review, and work hard enough to become President of the United States, only to threaten to assassinate them when they do?
How long before we starting "living out the true meaning" of our creeds, both civil and religious, that all men and women are created equal and that "red and yellow, black and white" all are precious in God's sight?
Until this past November 4, I didn't believe this country would ever elect an African American to the presidency. I still don't believe I'll live long enough to see us white people get over our racism problem. But here's my three-point plan: First, everyday that Barack Obama lives in the White House that Black Slaves Built, I'm going to pray that God (and the Secret Service) will protect him and his family from us white people.
Second, I'm going to report to the FBI any white person I overhear saying, in seriousness or in jest, anything of a threatening nature about President Obama. Third, I'm going to pray to live long enough to see America surprise the world once again, when white people can "in spirit and in truth" sing of our damnable color prejudice, "We HAVE overcome."
After dancing the night away and party hopping at ten star studded balls in celebration of a historic inauguration, accepting the congratulations of other world leaders on his historic ascension to the presidency, and having 2 million people on the mall to witness it, it's time for President Obama to get to work.
First order of business was halting all of the last minute regulations Bushie boy tried to ramrod through in the final days and hours of his misadministration, making the first moves to shut down Guantanamo Bay, enacting tough new ethics rules and making calls to world leaders in the Middle East.
One I was especially concerned about as a transperson was the one that allowed health care personnel to deny treatment or dispense medication for religious reasons, and hopefully, that's one of the policies that's under review.
In the meantime, enjoy Will.I.Am's slammin' song that matches the title of this post.
TransGriot Note: Lost in all the loud hue and cry over Rick Warren's invocation was the fact that civil rights icon Rev. Joseph Lowery, a friend of the GLBT community was giving the benediction. Here's the text of that benediction
God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou, who has brought us thus far along the way, thou, who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee.
Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand true to thee, oh God, and true to our native land.
We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we've shared this day.
We pray now, oh Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration.
He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national, and indeed the global, fiscal climate. But because we know you got the whole world in your hands, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations.
Our faith does not shrink though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.
For we know that, Lord, you are able and you're willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds, and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor, of the least of these, and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.
We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that yes we can work together to achieve a more perfect union.
And while we have sown the seeds of greed — the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.
And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.
And as we leave this mountain top, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.
Bless President Barack, First Lady Michelle. Look over our little angelic Sasha and Malia.
We go now to walk together as children, pledging that we won't get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone.
With your hands of power and your heart of love, help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nations shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid, when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.
Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around ... when yellow will be mellow ... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right. That all those who do justice and love mercy say Amen.
TransGriot Note: Y'all knew I was gonna come strong with my first song rewrite for the '09. In honor of the inauguration of our 'Brother President' and the immense pride I feel about it, here's a rewrite of the classic McFadden and Whitehead song 'Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now'
Barack's The President Now (sung to the tune of 'Ain't No Stopping Us Now' by McFadden and Whitehead
Barack's the president now! We're on the move! Barack's the president now! Things will improve!
Barack's the president now! We're on the move! Barack's the president now! Things will improve!
The last eight years has really got me down. And the Republicans have jacked this country around. I know we've got, a long tough road to hoe, But on the 20th, Bush must go. But we won't let this mess hold us back, We're getting our stuff together, Getting our troops out of Iraq! If you ever felt disenfranchised before, I know you'll refuse to be disenfranchised anymore!
Don't you let neoconservatives, Stand in your way! I want y'all to listen, listen, to every word I say, every word I say!
Barack's the president now! We're on the move! Barack's the president now! Things will improve!
Barack's the president now! We're on the move! I know, I know Barack's the president now! Things will improve! We got it.
You know Faux News and friends will push that negative vibe And when things improve they'll all want to imbibe Hatin' on him is the way they wanna go Sarah Palin in 2012? Oh hell no But we won't let this mess hold us back, We're getting our stuff together, Getting our troops out of Iraq! If you ever felt disenfranchised before, I know you'll refuse to be disenfranchised anymore!
Don't you let neoconservatives, Stand in your way! I want y'all to listen, listen, to every word I say, every word I say!
Barack's the president now! Yo Yo Yo We're on the move! We're moving, improving
Barack's the president now! Moving improving moving improving Barack's the president now! I know things will improve!
Barack's the president now! We're on the move! I know things really, really will improve
The GOP's lying But I ain't buying
We're leaving the negative people Way behind
Because our turn has finally come around
Barack's the president now! We're on the move! Barack's the president now! Things will improve!
Barack's the president now! We're on the move! Barack's the president now! Things will improve!
And so begins the day that our people have been waiting ages for, the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States.
The best part to me is that Barack Hussein Obama II not only shares my ethnic heritage along with the First Lady, we are sharing with the nation the best of our community.
I can't even begin to express my joy, elation and immense pride over what is about to transpire in just a few hours. The fact it's happening on my niece's birthday makes this day even more special. My niece will now spend the next 4-8 years of her life with her first cognizant presidential memories being of Barack Obama's administration.
Yeah he's walking into a mess. Yeah, some of you are probably so cynical about politics that you aren't going to even allow yourself the chance to believe that maybe we finally do have the right guy in the Oval Office to inspire us in this country to do great things, tackle tough problems and solve them together.
I have seen Black men of all ages for the first time in a long time express not only a resurgent interest in politics and doing things in the community, but chest thumping patriotic pride in the fact that the incoming president is a 'brother'.
Michelle Obama as the First Lady will hopefully give us the opportunity to forever blow away misconceptions, stereotypes and myths that have arisen about African American women across a wide array of issues. It is also a major point of pride to African-American women that the First Lady is 'one of us' as well.
It's also a joy to see the Obama's beautiful girls Malia and Sasha. I have been heartened to see young Black boys and girls across this country stand up a little taller since November 4. The younglings now believe it when their elders tell them that they can be anything their heart desires in this country. Conversely, their elders don't have to feel anymore as if they are lying to their kids or feel that sharp sting of historical pain when they say it.
John Thompson, Sr. said it best in a recent interview when he stated, 'The Emancipation Proclamation freed our bodies from slavery, the election of Barack Obama freed our minds.'
While what ails Black America won't be magically cured in 24 hours, a week, a month or maybe even during the four to eight years of this presidency, it's a start. It's also nice to know that with this presidential inauguration it shows us and more importantly our kids what is possible when you dare to dream, and then go after it.
This day is not just one for my community, but for all Americans. It's also cool to note that this historic day for our country is also resonating with people all over the world and across the African Diaspora.
It is also my hope and prayer that the afterglow from this day will last long after the music has faded from the parade and the last inaugural ball and the real work begins for the Obama administration.
Today is the day we've all been impatiently waiting for since November 4. Inauguration Day!
Today, five days after Dr. Martin Luther King's 80th birthday, President Obama takes the oath of office and we signaled to the world that the United States is under new management.
Out with the old tired, non-compassionate conservatism and paralyzing partisanship, in with the new school bipartisanship and return of reality based decision making to national politics.
The inaugural balls and parties will be going on until the wee hours of the morning, and when the sun rises on January 21, 2009, the work begins on restoring our country.
TransGriot Note: Well, unfortunately Rev. Gene Robinson's prayer mysteriously failed to make it on air for the HBO broadcast of this event. (I'm waiting with baited breath to see if the rainbow Obama haters blame him for HBO's frackup, too)
Anyway, for those of you who missed it, here's the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson's wonderful prayer with a hat tip to Episcopal Cafe for posting it.
A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama
By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire
Opening Inaugural Event Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC January 18, 2009
Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.
O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…
Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.
Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.
Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.
Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.
Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.
Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.
And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.
Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.
Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.
Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.
Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.
Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.
Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.
And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.
The Electronic Villager has released the January 2009 edition of the Black Blog rankings, so let's check them out and see how TransGriot fared.
The rankings continue to grow with 1575 blogs now ranked, an increase of 59 blogs since the December 20 holiday edition of the BBR rankings.
The Number One BBR ranked blog is still Pam's House Blend, who was nominated as a Weblog Awards Best LGBT Blog finalist for the fourth straight year.
I fell short of my goal of having a 150 Technorati ranking by January 1, but I did achieve my goal of being in the BBR Top 50 blogs before that date.
My new goal is to be in the BBR Top 25 blogs and have a Technorati ranking of 200 by my May 4 birthday. One unexpected pleasure was being nominated for and becoming a 2008 Weblog Awards finalist for Best GLBT blog.
So how did I do?
As of the January 1 compilation date for this edition of the BBR's TransGriot gained one spot since the holiday rankings. I was sitting at Number 46 with a 144 Technorati ranking.
My Technorati ranking is still tripping, but I'm still in the BBR Top 50 Blogs. Hopefully by next month's rankings whatever drams happening with my Technorati ranking will straighten itself out and begin to actually reflect the progress I've made toward building this into a quality blog.
During and after the wake of the racist attacks on me from the Queerty commenters over my Obama post, my mind kept drifting back to a quote attributed to the late poet Gwendolyn Brooks.
Truth-tellers are not always palatable. There's a preference for candy bars
One of the things about me and this blog (and any other one that I'm given the honor to post to) that won't change is that I'm blunt and to the point about calling out bullshit when I see it. It hasn't made me the most popular person sometimes in GLBT circles, but that's the cross you bear when you are striving for the higher goals of passing broad based civil rights legislation, creating an inclusive community and a better world for all.
If you're going to solve the tough problems we have in the GLBT community and beyond that revolve around race, gender, class and inequality, you have to honestly and openly talk about them, even if that discussion gets contentious at times.
As an African-American leader, I subscribe to the principles of Black leadership and try my best to role model them. In addition to as Dr. Ron Walters articulated it, the task of Black leadership being to provide the vision, resources, tactics, and strategies that facilitate the achievement of the objectives of Black people.
Those goals are freedom, integration, equality, liberation, or defined in the terms of specific public policies. It is a role that often requires and results in you as a Black leader disturbing the peace when you speak truth to power. It also make some people uncomfortable and causes controversy at times as well.
Yes, we have those problems in the GLBT community since we are a microcosm of the parent society. Ignoring those problems or candy coating them won't make them go away. Neither will viciously attacking people who bring them up in the course of fostering honest discussion or because they are expressing an opinion which runs counter to your worldview.
One of the promises I made when I started this blog that in the best traditions of my people, I will tell it like it T-I-S is. If I see something that's wrong, or feel that we can and should be doing better on an issue, I'm not going to hold my tongue or shut down the word processor to placate the folks that prefer doing nothing or chomping candy bars on tough issues.
It almost skipped by me that today is Michelle Obama's 45th birthday.
Talk about an interesting year. Watching your husband fight through a historic primary to get the nomination, and then make history by being elected president on November 4.
It's going to be fun over the next four to eight years watch her make history as well
As the first African-American First Lady she will be in a wonderful position to blow up the stereotypes and myths about Black women that have been promulgated here and around the world over the last 400 years.
So happy birthday Madame First Lady. Hope the president and the kids got you something nice for your big day.
For those of you who are Battlestar Galactica junkies, y'all know that the Dee I'm referring to is Lt. Anastasia 'Dee' Dualla. For those of you who don't, the final episodes of Battlestar Galactica are being broadcast.
They ended with a startling cliffhanger of the fleet arriving at Earth after three years of interstellar travel and discovering it's a nuked out cinder.
In this episode we find out that Earth was not only nuked 2000 years ago, but it was inhabited by Cylons. We also discover that Kara Thrace died on the planet and before you holler 'she's the fifth Cylon', she isn't.
The fifth Cylon is survey says, Ellen Tigh
But the thing that shocked me more than all those discoveries was the suicide of my fave character on the show. Seems as though Dee was very troubled by the discovery of the nuked out Earth and finding jacks buried in the scarred landscape.
We see her babysitting Hera, going out on a date with Lee after encouraging him to take the reins of colonial political leadership and then retreating to her quarters after kissing him goodnight, putting a pistol to her head and pulling the trigger.
Even though Battlestar Galactica's my favorite show, one of the things i griped about when it first was reimagined was the lack of main African-American characters on the show. Elosha, the priestess and spiritual adviser to President Roslin was killed off in the second season, and with Dee's suicide, the only African-American character left on the show is the Cylon Simon.
But one of the things I've always hated about sci-fi is that it seems as though if there's an African-American character on the show or an episode of it, they'll be killed off.
One of the few exceptions to that rule has been Lt. Uhura on Star Trek, Capt. Benjamin Sisko on Star Trek DS9, Lt. Tuvok from Star Trek Voyager and Lando Calrissian from Star Wars.
But unfortunately Lt. Anastasia Dualla won't be one of those characters.
Downtown Louisville to be precise. About to jet out of the house and make a short run to downtown Louisville and the Kentucky International Convention Center to watch Dawn compete in a major fencing tournament here.
The NAC D is one of eight major fencing tournaments for competitive fencing in the United States. For US based fencers wishing to represent our country in the 2012 London Games, this is a first step to making the national team from which our Olympians will be chosen.
The competition will be fast, furious and high level.
I wrote a post a little over 24 hours ago that basically called the gay community out for their continued pattern of knee jerk hostility to President-elect Barack Obama dating back to last year's Democratic primary. I pointed out that the man hasn't even spent one day in the Oval Office yet and the predominately white GLBT blogosphere is already making comments that he'll be the worst president ever on GLBT issues.
Well, Queerty linked to that post and the commenters slapped on their pink pointy hooded sheets and began blasting away in the comment thread. One commenter compared me to Jasmyne Cannick, who is another African-American LGBT blogger that white gays have a visceral hatred for because she tells it like it is as well and got a Chuck Knipp Shirley Q. Liquor performance in LA cancelled.
By the way Queerty fans, being compared to Jasmyne Cannick is an honor, not an insult.
But comparing me to Jasmyne was one of the nicer ones. The rest were nasty, racist personal insults, weak justifications of their hatred of Obama, et cetera.
The Queerty peeps negativity in this comment thread is an example of what I and other Black GLBT and non GLBT people have dealt with for years when trying to work with the white gay community in coalition with them. While not all white GLBT peeps exhibit this behavior and are wonderful allies in many cases, there are however too many of them that exhibit the same reprehensible tactics to silence messages they don't want to hear to where it constitutes a major problem.
Too many times white GLBT people will whip out the white privilege card and dish out criticism concerning my community, but are too thin-skinned to take it. They will get their noses out of joint and bellow 'homophobe', 'transphobe', 'you're playing the race card' or cry 'racist' at you if you dare utter it. If you are Black (or any color) GLBT or non-GLBT person and call them out on their shady, borderline racist or less than honorable behavior, they go apoplectic about it and give you that 'how dare you?' look as you do so.
White GLBT people, if you can't take constructive criticism then you are going to continue to have problems working in coalition with other people, especially fellow GLBT peeps of color who are supposed to be your allies.
Another fact of life is that you don't get to decide what offends me or my community, nor will I or any other person of color stop speaking our minds or telling it like it T-I-S is on this blog or any other we post on.
You have the right to disagree with what I have to say, but you don't have the right to call me everything but a child of God for simply pointing out that something is unfair and my viewpoint doesn't neatly line up with your worldview.
The sterling example of the racism on the Queerty thread exposed the Number One reason with a bullet why Black GLBT peeps get so sick of your crap to the point that we say 'Enough' and form our own organizations, clubs, and pride events.
Yeah, your pink sheets are showing, and if you don't stop using the Cali Prop 8 loss as an excuse to let out your inner racist, you're not only going to continue to have a difficult time getting African descended GLBT peeps to help you garner support and craft a message for same gender marriage that wins in our community, you risk creating the permanent split between you and the Black community that the Religious Right was trying to foment when they peddled that 'Blacks voted 70 percent for Prop 8' lie in the first place.
As a third generation Texan, I was very happy to see my home county (Harris) go blue in the recent presidential election and begin throwing out the Republican rascals in the county courts.
I was also happy to see a Delaymandered Texas House designed for a 120-30 Republican majority dwindle down to a 76-74 GOP majority and best of all, Tom Craddick is no longer Speaker of the Texas House.
But the best news I received in the wake of those positive trends is that the Democratic Party may finally be getting serious about returning Texas to its progressive roots and making Texas competitive again by the 2012 election cycle.
The state Democratic Party has been resurgent and wants to become a player even sooner, as in 2010. Whether it's 2010 or 2012, it can't be soon enough after 14 years of Republican mismanagement of my beloved birth state.
In 2005 Texas became one of several states in which the combined minority population outnumbers whites. With the 2010 Census looming, most projections show a possible three seat gain in Texas' already sizable 32 member congressional delegation. If those numbers hold it means that Texas increases in value to 37 electoral votes and becomes even more important on the Electoral College map.
The Repugs know this as well and are alarmed because their presidential election scenarios start with Texas as the base for their electoral vote calculations. They will fight tooth and nail to keep Texas in their column
But demographics, their own shortsightedness in failing to diversify their party, coupled with the young multiethnic coalition the Democrats built that carried Obama to victory will probably put Texas in play in the next four to eight years.
But the national Democratic Party needs to do its part, too. It needs to quit using Texas as a political piggy bank and source for volunteers to send to other states. It needs to invest money in the Texas Democratic Party and aggressively go after the Latino and African American vote there as well.
It also needs to put serious money in statewide races as well. Rick Noriega was probably the best candidate in a decade we've had for the US Senate, and was up against an unpopular Republican. Had the national party passed more cash to him, we'd probably be hailing the first Latino Senator from Texas and we'd have our 60 seat majority in the Senate.
It's past time that the Democrats made a serious play to take Texas back from GOP clutches. The conditions are ripe for it and Texas Dems are more than eager and willing to do the work to make it happen.
Today would have been Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's 80th birthday had he not been taken away from us on April 4, 1968.
If he were alive today I think he'd be happy with some of the progress we've made in integrating ourselves into American society. We're about to inaugurate an African-American president. ,We have made major progress in getting Black people elected to positions of political power and even have a few breaking ground in corporate America and other fields.
But Dr. King would also note that we have a long way to go before we can even say that a color-blind society is a reality. We still have problems with racism, inequality and poverty in this nation. He would probably decry our involvement in Iraq just as he would condemn the violence happening in our neighborhoods and terrorism around the world.
And, based on what his late wife Coretta has stated, Dr. King would not be a fan of people like his own daughter Bernice and other ministers who seem to think it's okay to hide behind scripture and hate on GLBT people.
This world and America itself would have been a much better place had Dr. King been around to share his wisdom with us for the last 40 years.
What we can do is study his writings that he did leave us, thank God for the time that he did walk amongst us as an inspiration to African descended people and others around the world, and strive to in our own way to make this world a better place for all its inhabitants.
One of the things that's not sitting well with me right now is seeing some elements of the liberal-progressive side and especially the GLBT blogosphere criticizing President-elect Obama before he's even had a chance to take the oath of office.
Several GLBT bloggers have already declared in their wisdom that he's the worst president on GLBT issues since Clinton, he doesn't care about us, and other bullshit du jour they can come up with.
I note that most of the criticism is coming from those same mostly white GLBT peeps who supported Hillary in the Dem primary.
Note to the GLBT Obama haters: Hillary lost and y'all need to get over it. She got over it enough to become his Secretary of State.
Like a lot of African-Americans I'm still more than a little peeved about the disgusting display of racism that erupted in the white GL community after the Prop 8 lass and the continued harping on the now thoroughly discredited 'Blacks Voted 70% for Prop 8 line' that some peeps used as justification for letting their race based animus flow.
Once again, I'm not saying that President Obama should be immune to criticism. What I and the African-American community are talking about here is simple fairness. We see it as shady that you're blasting the man before he's even taken the oath of office and had time to prove what type of president he'll be for the GLBT community. Hell, y'all gave George W. Bush's idiot savant behind more slack than you're giving the presidential brother.
Oops, need to apologize to all idiot savants for comparing them to Bush. You're far more intelligent than he is.
The bottom line is that Barack Obama by this time next week will be our president. All I and those of us who supported him from Day One ask for is that you give this man the same opportunity to prove what he can do for the GLBT community that you gave the previous non-Black occupants of the Oval Office from both parties.
Genny and I briefly touched on this in the comment thread on my 'Becoming a Quality Black Woman' post, but one major consideration for a Black transwoman is how well she measures up not only o other Black transwomen, but ultimately to the sophistication level of the biowomen around her.
Just as Black men have that certain cool swagger that they go through life with, Black women carry themselves with a sophistication and level of class that has multiple elements.
What are those elements? Moni's gonna break it down for you.
The first element for a sophisticated lady is pride. Pride in herself, pride in her history and pride in who she is and where she wants to go as a woman and as a person.
Another key ingredient in the sophisticated way that Black women go through life with is confidence. Some of my sisters walk around as if they are the finest thing walking on the planet, and let's face it, in some cases they are.
You'll see her standing tall, head up, shoulders straight, impeccably groomed, perfect makeup and outfit coordinated with nary a wrinkle or a run in her hose if she's wearing them.
If she's going to church, you'll see a slamming hat added to the ensemble for good measure. Don't let it be Easter or Woman's Day at the church, because the 'Hat Wars' will be fierce.
Another element making up the sophisticated lady is spirituality. She has an unshakable belief in a higher power, is tuned in to her spiritual side and takes 'me time' out of her day to recharge her spiritual batteries for a moment of quiet contemplation and reflection time.
The sophisticated lady also recognizes that beauty and a curvaceous body is fleeting. While she appreciates being blessed with it because Black women do have curves, she also knows that beauty is also internal as well and radiates out, not the other way around.
The sophisticated lady also takes time to develop her mind as well. Beautiful body means nothing if you can't coherently articulate your thoughts, do so using faulty or nonexistent logic, or the first thing out of your mouth about a complex issue is "I don't know". Let's be real for a minute, when a guy is looking for a woman to be the mother of his kids, intelligence is definitely high on his list.
But it ain't about the fellas, it's about us. Being intelligent is also important when one of the first things uttered by our many detractors is that we are less intelligent than they are. We know that's a fallacy, so let's enjoy blowing that one away at every opportunity.
Then there is the class factor. The sophisticated lady seems to combine all of these elements into one impressive package and can glide into a room making an entrance without being loud and brassy. She's the person whose feminine charms and demeanor can get someone's romantic attention without dressing like the next hoochier-than-thou centerfold in a men's magazine.
To me, it's all part of being the total package when it comes to projecting the type of woman you wish to be.
I and my transsisters not only want to be quality Black women, we wish to do so in a way that honors this heritage of class and sophistication that we observed from the outside looking in and marvelled at.
So many times as Black women our beauty, grace and intelligence was ignored or downgraded by the dominant society, and now we get the chance to show our flava in in all its glory in all segments of society.
And its going to be cool watching a sistah First Lady demonstrate for the world what being a sophisticated lady is all about.
If you are a music lover like I am, take a moment today to bow in the direction of Detroit before it's over.
Today was the day 50 years ago that Berry Gordy received an $800 loan that he used to found Motown Records.
The 'Sound of Young America' eventually became a music juggernaut that swept the country. Music fans of all races danced to its infectious beat and Motown was the label that signed and launched the musical careers of Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Four Tops, The Temptations, Diana Ross and the Supremes, The Jackson 5, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Mary Wells, and later Rick James, Johnny Gill and Teena Marie.
The 'Hitsville USA' moniker that was on the outside of Motown headquarters was prophetic. An astounding 75% of the songs released under its label made the Billboard and other national Top 40 lists.
Shoot, is it any wonder with the talent assembled there? Don't even get me started talking about the producing team of Holland, Dozier, Holland or the 'Funk Brothers' or the marvelous musicians that backed up the vocal talents of that Motown stable of talent.
Motown has long since left Detroit and after spending time headquartered in LA, moved to New York. It eventually became the largest Black owned entertainment company in the US before it was eventually sold to MCA.
But during that time it built a proud, pioneering legacy. It has even left its mark on Detroit politics with Martha Reeves currently serving as a Detroit city councilmember.
Motown is not only credited with paving the way for integration to happen in some cases, it radically altered the perceptions of African-American artists, how they are marketed and left an indelible mark not only on our culture, but American music forever.
One of the beauties of surfing the Net is that from time to time, you'll stumble across a nugget of history or some photo that you weren't even aware existed.
I've mentioned that JET, EBONY and the now defunct HUE magazines when they first started back in the day served as historical chroniclers of the Black experience in America. Google just negotiated a deal in which they will be digitizing pre-1960's EBONY and JET magazines so that you can access their content on the Net.
One of the things I discovered to my delight is that in order to fulfill their mission of documenting the Black experience, EBONY and JET also covered events and discussed Black GLBT issues.
In addition to asking pointed questions about the Black GLBT experience, they also covered the New York and Chicago drag balls as well.
The other night while searching through Flickr and other places for photos of African-American transwomen for future posts, I stumbled across some African-American transgender history.
Most of it is the coverage of Chicago's Finnies Ball and the New York ones. I chuckled when I saw the HUE article that asks if you can tell the difference between female illusionists and genetic women.
I also noted the incorrect pronouns and the 'her' in quotation marks used in some of the articles.
While it was atrocious in the 50's, I noted that by the 70's, JET was doing a better job of discussing transgender issues with accuracy and sensitivity two decades before the AP Stylebook guidelines even were published.
But unfortunately some of the attitudes reflected in those articles are still expressed by some of my people.
Some of my peeps think that me and my fellow transpeople aren't serious about this path we're taking, or think it's a joke.
It's serious business. Why would anyone subject themselves to the amount of ridicule, physical violence and abuse if they weren't serious about this?
The other fallacy that keeps popping up is that Black transgender people are a new phenomenon. These articles dating back to the early 50's and the history of the Harlem Renaissance say otherwise.
Equatorial Guinea is probably still celebrating the championship they won in the Africa Women's Cup soccer tournament two months ago and the Nigerians are still hatin'.
Instead of admitting that the five time defending champion Super Falcons played piss poor soccer in that tournament and were lucky to finish third in it, they found every excuse to try to explain away their loss, including filing protests accusing the Equatorial Guinea team of playing 'men', especially before their 1-0 tournament semifinal loss.
The protests were eventually dismissed by the CAF, the governing body of African soccer, but probably because the 2010 tournament will be a qualifier for the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup, they will institute gender testing for that tournament.
However, there are problems with that approach. There's the 'where do you classify intersex people quandary? FIFA considers you female if you're menstruating, even if you have ambiguous genitalia. The IOC dropped gender testing in 1999 because it was embarrassingly inconsistent but Olympic and IAAF rules allow for gender tests if an athlete's gender is challenged by another athlete or team, or event officials.
The most famous case was Polish sprinter Ewa Klobukowska, who failed one during the 1964 Tokyo Games but gave birth to a healthy baby four years later.
Then there's the humiliation and potential psychological damage that a positive test could cause. After India's Santhi Soundararajan was stripped of a silver medal after a failed test in the 2006 Asian Games, she attempted suicide.
During the whole tournament the whining from Nigerian and Cameroon that Equatorial Guinea was playing with 'men' was insulting and deafening. Y'all just mad that they stepped up their game for this tournament and y'all didn't. Equatorial Guinea's captain Anona Genevova scored more goals in the entire tournament than the Super Falcons did as a team.
Nigeria and Cameroon, you lost, get over it. It would be deliciously ironic if the gender testing that you demanded be initiated by the CAF catches a few Cameroonian players and some Super Falcons instead.
Thank you to all the people who are showing me, and continue to do so love in the voting for Best GLBT Blog in the 2008 edition of the Weblog Awards.
Yeah, Towleroad is running away with this, but to be a finalist in this competition is a major achievement. It will not change my focus in continuing to create a quality blog for people to peruse and talk about issues in the transgender and GLB community from an Afrocentric viewpoint.
Lord knows it's needed now more than ever.
It's also needed for our sakes. To let transwomen of color know that you can aim your dreams much higher. That you have a history and people to be proud of and that there are biosisters that don't hate you, but wish to embrace you.
Hey ladies, I know it's really hard some days in the face of the avalanche of negative news, daily slights, slings and arrows we get from all quarters and losing more of our sisters to anti transgender violence all over the planet to feel positive about being a Black transwoman.
Well, I'm here to tell you, dry your tears, wipe your face, go to the full length mirror in your bedroom or bathroom, look at your reflection in it and give yourself a good hug.
If that makes you feel better, good. Sit down and read this if it didn't.
Ladies, we are descended from women who survived the Middle Passage, slavery and the horrors of Jim Crow. While the current assault on us ain't pretty, in the grand scheme of things this current attack on Black transwomen by our haters will soon pass as well.
Remember that we had some wonderful firsts this year in terms of Dr. Marisa Richmond representing us at the Democratic National Convention as the first African-American transgender delegate to a major national convention. 'Number Two' is also on the case as she and the TTPC continue to fight for justice for our fallen sisters in Memphis and elsewhere in Tennessee.
We not only had one of our transsistahs witnessing history, we helped make it as well. Our votes helped us elect a president who not only shares our ethnic heritage, he understands that we transgender Americans deserve to not have to live our lives in fear. Hopefully we'll see the passage of ENDA and hate crimes laws that will send the message that it's no longer open season on transgender people.
Isis King and Laverne Cox turned heads and made history making turns as they appeared on the reality TV shows America's Next Top Model and I Want To Work For Diddy. They not only showed the entire world how beautiful and intelligent we Black transwomen are, they struck some blows toward eradicating the ignorant fallacy that we can't be beautiful and intelligent women.
If they didn't get that memo from the wins we rack up at various transgender beauty pageants, somebody ain't paying attention.
Then again, maybe the haters are, and the 'Fear Of The Black Transwoman' is why we're facing some of this negativity.
I have to pop my own collar as part of this post. Damn right I'm doing it. If not me, then who?
I was advised that in the short history of the Weblog Awards, I'm the first transgender blogger to become a finalist in the Best LGBT Blog category. Not bad for a blog that just turned 3 years old on New Year's Day.
We have young transsistahs like Amanda Morgan and Cydne Kimbrough doing their part to make things a little better for all transwomen in the future while pursuing their own dreams of higher education. If you're in college, get that knowledge and get that paper.
Our enemies can never take that away from you, and don't ever stop acquiring knowledge either.
Tona Brown is a musically gifted and talented sister who is making her way in the classical music world, and is proud to be a transwoman of African descent while doing so.
Remember that we along with our Latina sisters used our creativity to take a Harlem Renaissance era tradition of drag balls and turn it into an event and a community that the world marvels at through two documentary films (Paris Is Burning and How Do I Look) and numerous print articles about it.
That's just a small example of the talent we have in the African-American transgender community that's waiting to be harnessed for the greater good of our society.
It's also interesting to note that some of our biosisters of color have realized that we are potentially their greatest allies as well. It's going to be interesting to see as the year develops how these conversations take shape.
But to my transsistahs, take a leap of faith and befriend one of those biosisters you've been dying to get to know. She may feel the same way about you and not all biowomen are 'The Enemy'. You may also gain a lifelong friend in the process.
To my younglings like Rochelle Evans, stay in school and dream those big dreams. You are the reason I and others fight so hard so that your adult lives will be a little easier than ours. You inspire us with your courage to live your lives openly and proudly at such young ages or like KK Logan, are currently fighting for justice.
To those of you who are struggling with those issue or are in less than ideal family situations, deal with your transgender issues when the time is right and after prayerful consideration.
I know we have major work ahead of us. We continue to lose our sisters at a alarming rate. We're pretty much alone when it comes to dealing with our myriad problems. Let's show ourselves some love and begin doing the work to confound our critics and build our community.
A little after 1 PM Eastern Standard time today, Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. officially became the president-elect of the United States.
There was a joint session of the Congress held today in which representatives from the House and Senate officially counted the votes from the December 15 convening of the Electoral College. On that date meetings were held in every state capital and the District of Columbia for the electors to cast their ballots per the election results in each state.
During that joint session of Congress today Vice President Dick Cheney crawled out of his undisclosed location in his role as President of the Senate to declare Sen. Obama as the winner, which was welcomed by a standing ovation of all lawmakers present.
Cheney presided over the quadrennial ceremony in which the sealed certificates from each of the states were opened, handed to clerks in alphabetical order and handed to one of four tellers for tabulation. Two tellers were members of the House and two tellers were members of the Senate.
Just as it broke down on Election Night, the 538 total electoral votes broke down to 365 for Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama and 173 for Republican nominee Sen. John McCain.
When it was over, Cheney then proclaimed to the cheering chamber what the world has known since November 4, that Barack Obama and Joseph Biden had been elected the next president and vice president of the United States.
That Simone de Beauvoir quote is one this Phenomenal Transwoman recites to herself on a regular basis, especially on her unpretty days. It reminds me that even though I was born with body and mind not matching, womanhood is an ongoing evolutionary process for a biowoman as well.
But the question I have pondered (and still do) on a regular basis even before I took my first hormones to begin transition is how do I become a quality Black woman?
How do you evolve into Black womanhood despite not having the body from birth, being socialized into the role or feeling like you have to play catch up with the biosisters of yours or any generation?
I know one of the things I was adamant about when I began transition was that I was not going to do anything that would be seen in my mind as bringing dishonor to my biosisters or the women of my own family.
I wanted to carry myself with the utmost class, pride and dignity, and be seen as an asset to the sisterhood, not a caricature to it.
Another concern of mine was falling into the trap some transwomen do of being so overly focused on the body morphing part of transition that you forget womanhood is moreso a spiritual and emotional journey.
I was also keenly aware of the fact that I wasn't just stepping into a gender role. I was cognizant of the history impacting Black womanhood and the awesome legacy attached to it. I felt that I had to be mentally ready to accept that history as well and be worthy of it before I swallowed a single estrogen pill to begin that transformation.
So as I began my journey, I adopted the mindset that if I was going to be a woman, be the best damn woman I could be. I wanted to be a quality Black woman,
When I say 'quality Black woman', I wanted to be the type of woman that even if you knew or discovered after meting me I was a transwoman, you wouldn't care, you'd see me as an asset and not a liability on the balance sheet of femininity and you'd want me in your life as a friend.
In order to get to that point, I thought about the various women inside and outside my family I admired who I felt fit that bill. I paid close attention to how they lived their lives, carried themselves and how they interacted with people around them while incorporating my own evolving sense of the type of woman I wanted to project to the world.
Through trial and error, I eventually found my way, began to over time confidently assert myself as the person I always knew deep down I needed to be and reveled in every glorious moment of it. I made mistakes, wasn't afraid to laugh at myself about it, and then sought out advice and help from my biosisters to correct those mistakes.
As for how I'm doing fifteen years into transition, like all of you, I'm a work in progress. I'm not perfect, nor do I want or claim to be. While being a Black transwoman is always going to be part of me until the day I die, all I want to be in the end is a quality Black woman.
A quality Black woman who is doing her part to uplift the race, be a concerned citizen, an intelligent, spiritually tuned and morally upright person, a good friend to the people fortunate enough to be in my life and be the best person she can be.
Oh yeah, and be the sistah turning heads when she walks in the room as well.
On one of my days off a few months ago, a friend and I were having a long discussion about the alarming rise in murders of Black transwomen. After I relayed the particulars of a few cases, the person looked at me and said, "Looks like one of y'all needs to bust a cap in one of them to send a message to leave y'all alone".
I recalled and pondered this conversation in the wake of Leeneshia Edwards lying in a Memphis hospital bed suffering from three gunshot wounds.
I've never been a big fan of guns even though I co-owned and shot with my brother under supervision a BB gun. My dad owned a handgun, and both of my late grandfathers possessed shotguns. I'm not a fan of the NRA or their fetishistic defense of the Second Amendment because I believe in reasonable gun control laws and being a big city kid, I've seen the result too many times of what unfettered handgun ownership has done to our neighborhoods.
But after 31 murders last year including one of my friends, I'm beginning to wonder if I shouldn't be echoing the Pink Pistols slogan of 'armed gays don't get bashed'
I wonder what would happen and how it would affect the current 'hunt the Black trannies' mood if one of our would be assailants found themselves on the wrong end of a gun with caps busted in them.
Let's suppose for example that Leeneshia had been packing a pistol in her purse, was in a position when she exited the coffee shop to see her assailant draw his gun first but was not only quicker on the draw but fatally shot his ass.
What would be the reaction of the 'shoot the Black queers' crowd then?
They'd probably back the frack off if they knew going in that their potential bashing targets were possibly packing heat. But that temporary drop from the surprise of one of their ranks getting killed would probably spur a new orgy of killing, and we'd be right back to square one.
We all know how having one handgun for every American has failed to deter crime, drop our murder rates, or prevent sexual assaults and other crimes, so to me, the solution to our problem isn't a knee jerk rush to gun ownership, but has to be a multilayered one.
We need the ENDA and hate crimes laws in place to send the message tranny hunting season is permanently closed. Law enforcement must not only arrest and prosecute those who wish to harm us, but purge their ranks of rogue officers whose idea of protect and serve the citizens doesn't include transgender people.
Now, if some transwomen wish to arm themselves or take self-defense courses, feel free to do that as well. Just make certain that you take gun safety training classes and undergo regular firearms training.
But I'd much rather see a resolution to the problem of anti-transgender violence that doesn't involve busting caps in people.
Let's start this off with a hypothetical question.
If 70% of the Remembering Our Dead List was made up of people sharing your ethnic heritage, out of the 31 killed in the previous year 3/4 shared your ethnic heritage, your transwomen were called 'ugly', automatically associated with prostitution and criminal behavior despite positive accomplishments to the contrary, and your attempts to call attention to this ongoing genocide were questioned, dismissed, or called 'alarmist', you were greeted with silence by the organizations inside and outside your community that are supposed to help and represent you, and you just watched two more of your sisters get shot (one fatally) to close out the holidays, how would you feel?
Well peeps, you just got to try on the pumps Black transwomen have been struggling to walk in lately.
Don't feel too good now do they?
This assault on Black transwomen reminds me of an old comment that I often heard growing up within the African-American family, but is surely apropos here to paraphrase.
Black transwomen's lives are less valuable than others.
That comment would play out like a mantra when I witnessed from a distance the lousy sentence that was given our in Boston to the killer of Chanelle Pickett. When I heard about an EMT in our nation's capital denying lifesaving medical treatment to Tyra Hunter, or when I heard about Tiffany Berry's killer in Memphis being set free on a ridiculously low bail.
One of the reasons I went nuclear over transpeople being cut out of ENDA in September 2007 was because I feared that it would result in what we're seeing now, a spike in hate violence and killings of transgender people. I also feared that many of those transwomen who died would share my ethnic heritage.
Fourteen months later my fears have come agonizingly true. We have seen a major spike in hate crimes directed at transpeople, and unfortunately Black transwomen are taking the brunt of those fatal hits.
And what's the reaction of the organizations that are alleged to represent me either as an African-American or a African-American transperson?
Deafening silence. Black transwomen's lives are less valuable than others.
And to add insult to our injuries comes elements of the Black church joining with white fundamentalists and the Roman Catholic Church attacking us as well. Black transwomen's lives are less valuable than others.
The media disrespecting our dead with incorrect pronouns and names that didn't reflect the people they are now.
Black transwomen's lives are less valuable than others.
Even though society is sending us this overwhelmingly negative message and it would be easy to sigh in frustration and say, "We can't fight this overwhelming negativity', I look back at our history and realize that our ancestors dealt with far worse circumstances than we mere African descended transwomen are a mere eight years and a few days into the twenty first century.
We African descended transwomen know deep down that we are worthy, beautiful human beings. Instead of being turned away from the American family table we are demanding our place setting at it by having our constitutional rights respected and protected. And we will not be turned around from this by faith based haters, the ignorant, or politicians looking to do the expedient thing and not the morally correct thing.
We are struggling to maintain our humanity under this tsunami of negativity. Even though the wave threatens to crush us, we hold on to something solid, wait for it to crest, subside and head back out to the ocean, then we'll go from there.
That something solid is our faith. Just like our ancestors, despite the brutality that was occurring around them, what drove them was the hope that one day things would be different for their children.
While I and others are trying to work on a shorter timetable than the ancestors had to deal with, my faith that what I have visualized and written about on this blog will one day happen is just as strong as the faith my ancestors had in their hopes and dreams coming true for my generation.
Even though this situation as of January 2009 can be depressing as hell sometimes, I take comfort from perusing our history in knowing that through concerted action with allies and ourselves, we can turn this around by doing the hard work to make the necessary legislative victory happen.
In the meantime, we African descended transwomen do our part by continuing to excel individually and as a group. We bond with our biosisters so that we'll stop hearing the noisy negative mantra in the background and replace it with one that says, 'Black transwomen's lives are just as valuable as any other'.
I hope and pray that as the 110th Congress begins its session today, they, our allies and others who need to hear that message will hear that positive mantra as well.
I also pray that the people who hear that mantra the loudest are Black transwomen.
Two weeks ago I was channel surfing and stumbled across an interview that Michael Steele was having about the 2008 election and why the Republicans can't attract African-Americans to their party.
Usually anytime I see his mug on a TV screen or any of his fellow conservative Stepford Negroes I'm clicking past the channel, but for some reason this time I stayed tuned in. After hearing him complain about why Blacks in the GOP are considered 'sellouts' and ones in the Democratic Party aren't, I'd had all I could stand and flipped it to CNN.
Well Mike, since you asked the question, let Moni school you on why we call y'all sellouts. It's because you and your friends repeatedly show more loyalty to the conservative movement and your bank accounts than you do for your people.
Exhibit A- Chip Saltzman sending out a CD that included the Rush Limbaugh fave song Barack The Magic Negro. Newt Gingrich sharply criticized it, but not you sellout Negroes. All I've heard from all thirty six of you Black Republicans about this issue was silence.
Oops, my bad. Ken Blackwell spoke about the controversy and what was his response? He dismissed it as "hypersensitivity."
Your reluctance to say anything about it wouldn't happen to be because you and Mikey Steele are running for the RNC chair?
But then again Kenny Boy, I lost whatever modicum of respect I had for you in 2004 when you helped steal Ohio for Bush. You not only as Ohio Secretary of State did everything possible to make it difficult for African-Americans to vote in that election, you suppressed 166,000 provisional ballots to do it.
Don't even get me started on Uncle Thomas, that's another post.
The Black female Republicans aren't much better. Condoleezza Rice has been their poster child since this century began and that's a whole 'nother post as well. Others such as Tara Wall and Amy Holmes are basically young, pretty Black faces regurgitating the same tired conservative talking points that white male conservatives have echoed ad nauseum for years.
Ann Coulter's skinny scarecrow looking behind has attacked Michelle Obama in her latest waste of trees masquerading as a book, and I have yet to hear any Negro female conservative call her azz out for it, much less rise to the First Lady to be's defense.
Ann's jealous because deep down, she ain't even 1/1000th of the woman that Michelle Obama is, with or without her jaw wired shut.
One thing I will say for some Republican sistahs. They will call crap out or do what's best for the community when they get fed up. I remember when the late Colorado Secretary of State Vikki Buckley, who won a historic election in 1995 as a Republican and was asked to chair the party's African-American recruitment efforts, blasted the party in 1999 for not taking it seriously.
Sheryl Underwood openly supported Barack Obama in this election cycle and even Condoleezza Rice makes statements at times that make me wonder if she stopped practicing the piano long enough to actually watch some of the protest activity that was going on in Birmingham.
But to answer the original question, when you start doing what's right by our people and not what's right wing, then we'll stop calling y'all sellouts.
Sometime today the voting for the Weblog Awards will kick off and run until January 12.
Once the polling does start, you are allowed to vote once every 24 hours until the polling closes.
The Weblog peeps are testing everything out to make sure it runs smoothly and if it gets started late, then the polling will be extended until January 13.
If anyone ever regurgitates that tired 'my vote doesn't count' line as their excuse for not voting, point to this race.
After counting 933 absentee ballots excluded in error over the weekend, Al Franken's lead grew from 49 votes to 225.
Since there are no more outstanding ballots left to count, the Minnesota state canvassing board, which oversees the ballot process, is scheduled to meet today and formally declare Franken the winner today or tomorrow.
Of course, Norm Coleman is going to file suit asking for a fresh count, but since the new Congressional session starts this week, Franken could be seated as Minnesota's senator on an interim basis until the matter is resolved.
If it holds up, that increases the Dems Senate majority to 59 seats, one short of the magic 60 seat mark.
While there are some people who refer to the GLBT community as the 'queer' community, as you probably noticed as you peruse this blog I'm not one of them. It's also a sentiment shared by some of my fellow GLBT African-Americans.
When I used to do the 'After Hours' radio show with Jimmy Carper back home on KPFT-FM, he'd use the tag line 'Queer radio with attitude'. It made me uncomfortable, but since it was his show and I was only a rotating co-host, not much I could do about.
Some of my personal dislike with the 'Q' word not only has to do with it being used as a derogatory epithet, but the dictionary definition of it as well.
1. Deviating from the expected or normal; strange: a queer situation. 2. Odd or unconventional, as in behavior; eccentric. See Synonyms at strange. 3. Of a questionable nature or character; suspicious. 4. Slang Fake; counterfeit. 5. Feeling slightly ill; queasy. 6. Offensive Slang Homosexual. 7. Usage Problem Of or relating to lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, or transgendered people.
As a proud transperson of African descent, why would I embrace a term that doesn't describe me? I've heard many of the arguments that raged in the mid 90's about taking back the 'Q' word to strip it of the negativity, but I also heard the same parallel arguments about reclaiming the n-word, and I hated that reclamation project as well.
So why do Black GLBT peeps hate the 'Q" word?
As the Task Force's 2002 Say It Loud: I’m Black and I’m Proud report pointed out, the term 'queer' was selected by less than 1% of the respondents as an identifier in the 2000 Black Pride Survey that the report was based on.
Some of that dislike of the 'Q' word is fed by negativity to the racism that Black GLBT people found greeting them in 'queer' spaces. We also have our own created terms such as SGL (same gender loving) that became popular in the 1990's or the 'in the life' one that dates back to the Harlem Renaissance and some of us are more comfortable with because they reflect our cultural heritage.
'Queer' has also become in the Black GLBT community a synonym for white, wealthy, privileged gay male. You also have to look at the reality that many Black GLBT peeps live in the Deep South, which is not exactly the most welcoming area at times for a GLBT person.
Our discomfort with the term also has to do with the fact that Black people, whether we're GLBT or non-GLBT, are politically liberal but socially conservative due to our historic church ties. Those of us who grew up attending church, Sunday School and Vacation Bible School on the regular still struggle with reconciling our faith with who we are as GLBT people, and the 'Q' word doesn't fit.
So if you're wondering why most Black GLBT peeps use other terms to define themselves or get quiet when many of you start shouting at protest marches, 'we're here, we're queer, get used to it', now you know.
I wasn't the only transgender blogger nominated. Zoe, one of my frequent commenters is a finalist in the best Australian and New Zealand Blog.
Two of my AfroSpear colleagues blogs are also finalists Rev. Lisa Vazquez's Black Women, Blow the Trumpet is a finalist in the Best Small Blog Category
Another installment in my ongoing series of articles on transgender and non-transgender women who have qualities that I admire.
I haven't had an opportunity to meet her in person yet, but Tona is someone I've known for a few years, chat with on a regular basis and marvel at her musical gifts.
The Norfolk, VA resident has been involved in the music world since she started learning how to play the violin at age 10. She attended the prestigious Governor's School For The Arts in Norfolk and has won numerous musical competitions and garnered awards since age 14.
She's continued her lifelong involvement with music since her transition several years ago, and was selected in April 2006 to take part in the Tranny Roadshow, a touring group of transgender performance artists and is studying with mezzo soprano Robynne Redmond among her other ongoing projects.
Tona feels that it's important to show that an African descended transwoman can achieve and succeed in any endeavor that we put our minds to, and she's been a wonderful role model in that regard.
She's making her mark in the classical music world, and best of all she's doing it as an out transwoman.
While I was perusing the celebrity birthdays on New Year's Eve, I discovered that one of my favorite singers was celebrating a milestone birthday.
Back in the day I was a huge disco fan, and one of my favorite singers was Donna Summer. She started off as a gospel singer, but what a lot of people don't realize about her is that she's an accomplished songwriter as well.
She has won five Grammys and is the only artist to have three consecutive number one double albums and three number one pop singles in the same year. While she's known for the disco hits, her musical repertoire encompasses rock, pop, R&B and gospel.
She has sold over 130 million records worldwide and I definitely have my share of Donna's music in my collection. She's one of the most successful female artists of the 1970s and 1980's and was inducted in 2004 to the Dance Music Hall of Fame.\
I have to give my alma mater a shout out for winning a bowl game for the first time in 28 years by beating Air Force 34-28 in Fort Worth's Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl.
The last time my school won a bowl game (the 1980 Garden State Bowl in which we beat Navy 35-0) I was a UH freshman, Bill Yeoman was the head coach, we were a member of the Southwest Conference and we were playing our home games in the Astrodome.
But this current crop of Cougars and head coach Kevin Sumlin were sick and tired about hearing and seeing the 'Cougars are 0-8 in bowl games' comment. With a national TV audience watching, they were determined to do something about it.
I was proud of my boys. They played hard, it was an entertaining game that the Cardiac Coogs as usual made interesting, but eventually prevailed.
Great season Coach K. The team finished 8-5, were in the running for the C-USA title until the final weekend, won a bowl game and have some outstanding players returning such as QB Case Keenum and running back Bryce Beall.
Oh yeah, we're also sitting in the best place in the state for prime high school football talent.
But just one request from this Coog alum. Beat the hell out of Rice next year!
U.S. Marshals and Fort Wayne police took 20 year old Fort Wayne, IN resident Christopher Conwell into custody Wednesday morning and transported him back to Indianapolis for questioning. Elzy's dark blue 2001 Mercury Sable, missing since the discovery of their bodies on December 26, was found in Fort Wayne.
It also appears that Elzy and Hunt had known their alleged killer for a few months and he'd been a repeat visitor to their northside Indy home in Broad Ripple. Elzy's sister noted that when she met him recently, Conwell mentioned to her that he admired Taysia's car and had been to their home a few times.
But the coverage is still giving me the effect of nails screeching across a chalkboard.
First up, I'm sick of the Indy media using mug shots when there are photos of Taysia and Michael as a couple. If it had been two white peeps killed, would the media have used mug shots for them? Maybe if one of the peeps involved was transgender, but I doubt it.
What Taysia's birth name was prior to the killing or whether she's had SRS or not is not germane to the fact that she and her boyfriend are now dead.
Oh yeah, this is a whole 'nother post, but just because a bioman is dating a pre-op, post op (or ANY) transwoman, it doesn't make him gay.
Once again media peeps, and try to focus here. this is what your journalistic Bible, the AP Stylebook has to say about covering transgender people:
Transgender-Use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth.
If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly.
Okay, if we mere bloggers get that, what up with you MSM peeps with the journalism degrees not understanding those two paragraphs and consistently getting it wrong?
TAYSIA Elzy was living her life as a woman, so SHE should addressed as such since you have clear evidence that is her preferred gender presentation.
Or do you simply not care?
The other thing that's pissing me off is the nasty, racist and transphobic comments being posted by some peeps on the Indy Star comment threads covering the killings.
It didn't help that the Indy media posted the couple's mug shots early on in the coverage and some of them are still doing so despite having other photos available.
But I guess when you wish to paint the transsistah and African-Americans in the worst possible light, even in death, other photos don't matter.
And that aspect of the Elzy-Hunt killing is even more disgraceful than the piss poor lazy reporting so far.
TransGriot Note: One of the things I want to do this year is foster open discussion and communication between transwomen and our biosisters about various issues. From time to time I'll be opening up TransGriot to various women of color bloggers in order to facilitate these conversations, and I've been invited to do the same on several of their blogs as well.
My Canadian sister Renee of Womanist Musings kicks off this series of posts.
Hello everyone, my name is Renee and I write a blog called Womanist Musings. I would like to first say thank you to Monica for sharing her space with me. It is a real honour to be given an opportunity to blog here.
On my blog one of the things I focus on is having the conversations that no one else is having. I believe that unless we speak for the marginalized and exploited bodies of this world they will continue to be ignored in our quest to amass greater and greater privilege. This is detrimental not only to us as a society, but to our little blue planet.
I have spent a lot of time in conversation with Monica recently. Yes, she is as marvelous as you think she is. In our conversations we seem to come back to one reoccurring theme, the need for cisgendered women of color and trans women of color to unite. As a womanist I have had many dealings with the feminist community and one thing has become overwhelmingly clear, though many pay lip service to intersectionality, it really is about progressing the needs of white women. While discussing my frustration with feminism with Monica, she related a similar story about the trans movement.
Oddly enough I met Monica when she came to cuss me out. I laugh about it now because we have developed a wonderful friendship, though girlfriend still owes me a cornbread recipe. At any rate, as we got to know each other and share our different experiences the more I began to realize that if two individuals, hundreds of miles apart from each other could forge a bond based in our mutual frustration with racial discrimination and a belief in our self worth, then it is quite possible to create a larger coalition.
Black women are not strangers to work. From the moment we stepped on this continent in chains ours have been lives of intense labour. We have worked under the cruel threat of the lash and we have more often than not laboured to benefit others. When you examine any social justice movement you will find white people in leadership roles with black women serving as support staff. The one commonality of all organizations or corporations is the distribution of labour; it is the support staff that does the real work without any real acclaim, or reward. I am tired of whiteness being the face of my labour, and I am sick of whiteness being the beneficiary of my blood sweat and tears.
TWOC and CWOC have divorced from each other and given our energies to our separate social justice movements. The end result of this is that neither one of us has been able to achieve much social progress, nor are we in leadership positions in our respective groups. Essentially we have allowed whiteness to divide and thereby conquer us.
When I talk to Monica, I know that I am talking to a comrade in arms. We have dealt with many issues that are common in our efforts to try and achieve equality for WOC. Our blackness and our femininity are our common bond. There will be times when we face different issues based in the fact that I am cisgendered and that she is a trans woman; however our desire to forge a relationship has caused us to focus on our commonalities, and talk our way through difference. This has reinforced my belief that we must begin to coalition build between cisgendered WOC and trans WOC. Whatever petty divides we have had in the past must be released if we are going to move forward as women.
No one is out there fighting for us; and therefore we must join forces and fight for each other. The issues of my Trans sister of color are my issues. When she is harassed on the streets, beaten or murdered it very well could me, and knowing this cisgendered women cannot turn their backs. TWOC are attacked as much for gender issues as they are for their race. Their vulnerability is my vulnerability.
In this coming year it is going to be my goal to try and forge more bonds with my trans sisters in the hopes that we can stand together and fight the forces that oppress us both. I know that my freedom can never truly occur until my trans sisters are also free. We are women and we are one. If the world cannot recognize this we must join together and make them see what their privilege denies. Together in solidarity I cannot imagine a force of nature stronger than black women aligned in the cause of justice.
Happy New Year to all you loyal TransGriot readers! Today also happens to be the fourth anniversary of the founding of this blog and boy how my baby has grown.
I started it on January 1, 2006 as simply a real-time way to comment on breaking news I couldn't do as a former GLBT alternative newspaper monthly columnist, and now it's considered a must read blog.
As you noticed I have over 1200 posts here on various subjects since January 1 and I've made it easier for you to access some of the TransGriot Golden Oldies with the new search feature. You can thank Renee at Womanist Musings for the gentle hints that I do so.
I'm also pleased to see the growth in this blog and my writing from the time I started back in 2006 to now. TransGriot became an AfroSpear blog in July and its also been a blessing to have the Black Blog Rankings as a measuring tool to chart the growth and progress of this and all Black blogs as well.
BBR Top 25 here I come!
I've also enjoyed getting to know some of my blogging colleagues thanks to some wonderful substantive real time conversations I've been able to have with various bloggers over the year. I hope I'll be blessed with the opportunity to attend the second annual Blogging While Brown Conference in Chicago this summer.
I can't thank you enough for taking the time to read TransGriot. For you lurkers, come on in, pull up a chair and join the family. I also don't mind if you drop me an e-mail every now and then or comment in the posts. I realize that your Internet browsing time is valuable, so thanks for perusing the posts and sometimes even commenting on them. I deeply appreciate it.
And for my biosisters, one of my resolutions and goals for this year is to do my part to ensure that we end 2009 with a better understanding of each other.
I want to understand your issues and concerns while at the same time I and my transsisters give you the 411 about ours. What I'd like to see as a result of this is not only intelligent discussions as a result of these conversations, but we create the conditions in which transwomen and biowomen do more in this historic year to have each others backs.
If you have any questions about something I've raised on the blog or just one that fits into the Trans 101 category, just e-mail me.
Even though we are starting Day One of a brand new year, one thing that will not change is my ongoing mission to provide thoughtful commentary on various issues inside and outside the transgender community and across the Diaspora, and do it from the perspective of a proud African-American transwoman.
Oh yeah, only 19 more days until the Obama inauguration!
A writer, award winning activist, lecturer, speaker, native Houstonian and Texan who migrated to Kentucky.
Transitioned in 1994 and absolutely love my semi-boring life now.
This personal blog allows me to express my constitutionally guaranteed First Amendment free speech rights and kick knowledge to y'all at the same time on various issues. .
Nothing in it shall be construed, spun or interpreted to mean that it represents the views of my employers or the boards of the organizations that I sit on.
Photos and videos posted to this blog are used for illustrative purposes only. Unless noted in the post, photos/videos don't indicate or are not intended to imply that the person depicted in said photo/video is transgender
TransGriot Available For Speaking/Education Efforts
The TransGriot is available for speaking engagements, college lectures, media interviews, conferences or Trans 101 education efforts for your school, business or professional organizations.
For events outside the Louisville metro area, I ask that travel and lodging expenses be covered. Fee is negotiable.
If you're interested, just e-mail me at transgriot@yahoo.com with the date of your upcoming event or for additional information.
Who's Following TransGriot?
An AfroSpear Blog
TransGriot is a proud AfroSpear member blog since July 2008
If you wish to irrationally hate on President Obama and the First Family (and I get to define irrational) take your unhinged commentary to a right-wing site who cares.
Allen Andrade's murder trial doesn't start until April 14, but even while in jail he continues to rack up additional charges.
