January 2006 TransGriot Column

Monica Is Baaack!
Copyright 2006, THE LETTER

Happy New Year dear readers! I wish you much success and happiness.
I’m celebrating my second year writing TransGriot and for those of you I’ve bumped into as I’ve been out and about in the community, thank you for letting me know how much you enjoy reading my column. I love writing TransGriot and its nice to know my efforts are appreciated.

Basically I’ve been on hiatus from THE LETTER taking care of personal issues and recharging the creative batteries. I was part of a team that helped put together a successful African-American transgender convention that took place at the Galt House in September. I coordinated the programming for the event and taught three seminars.

One of them was on African-American transgender representations in the media. Another one I taught was on the cultural differences between the white and African-American trans communities and how they impact us working together. The final seminar I taught was on African-American transgender history. It was a great honor to meet African-American Stonewall veteran Miss Major, who gave us a firsthand account on what happened at Stonewall that night. We were thrilled to have Mandy Carter as a keynote speaker for TSTBC 2005. It was a lot of fun seeing old friends and meeting other African-American transpeople from various parts of the country. Those of us who attended TSTBC share a vision of erasing the negative perceptions of African-American transpeople. We’re determined to make it happen in our lifetimes.

In November I took part in the Transgender Day of Remembrance observance at the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. It was the fourth year I’ve been involved in the TDOR in some capacity either as a featured speaker, teaching a seminar, or taking part in the candle lighting ceremony. I enjoy the time I get to spend with Mary Sue Barnett, The Women’s Center and the students, faculty and other great people associated with the LPTS that put it together. I have been asked by the National Black Justice Coalition to write occasional articles for their newsletter on transgender issues, which I accepted. I needed to make sure their publication deadline didn’t conflict with my new TransGriot deadline.

Finally, I needed some time to work on my novels. I enjoy writing fiction as some of you who read my August column discovered. I’m tweaking them and working on some short stories for various writing contests I plan to enter in 2006. I’m debating whether I have the time in my busy schedule to start a blog.

One of the things I’ve always enjoyed about New Year’s is the symbolism. It’s a time to reflect on what happened to us either positively or negatively in the preceding twelve months and not just resolve to do things better, but follow through and commit yourself to making those things happen.

When I started the Transsistahs-Transbrothas list on January 1, 2004 I started posting my personal resolutions for the upcoming year on the list. That way I have a record of how well I did in living up to them.

This is what I posted to TSTB on January 1, 2005:

I resolve to continue my efforts to meet, cultivate friendships with and network with other T-sistahs, do my part to ensure that we have a successful September convention, mentor our young T-sistahs that ask for help and advice, seek them out when I need it, and become a published author by the end of 2005.

Well, I’ve fulfilled every one of those save one, getting one of my novels in print. I'm STILL working on that ;)