And no, I'm not talking about Barney Frank, who hates transpeople period.
One of the things I've been warning the GLBT community about over the last two years is how the Shirley Q. Liquor controversy would come home to roost one day if they didn't take forceful steps to deal with it.
White GLBT peeps who found the minstrel act funny pooh-poohed mine and others assertion that SQL would (or could) possibly be used as a wedge issue in the African-American community.
Well, I'm about to say I told you so.
In this ENDA post mortem, while trying to ascertain why CBC offices who were solidly on board with HR 2015 that Dawn and I'd lobbied back in May were suddenly shaky on the issue, I discovered an interesting reason for the ENDA sqeamishness.
The Hi Impact Leadership Coalition (Lou Sheldon's TVC African-American sellout ministers division) returned to the Hill to lobby CBC offices in the wake of our Transgender Lobby Week to kill the Hate Crimes bill. They had a not-so-secret weapon in hand: the June issue of Rolling Stone containing the SQL article.Their copies of the magazine had Syimone's comments prominiently highlighted. Syimone is a African-American drag queen (at least on the outside) who just happens to be from Louisville, where Dawn and I reside. She was tapped for comments for this pro-SQL article.
Let me rehash what Syimone said in that June interview.
I’m not offended by Shirley Q. Liquor because my sexuality is more important to my sense of who I am that my skin color is, and I don’t see the so called Black community out there in the streets protesting for my right to love and fuck and marry who I want.”
My source told me that those anti African-American comments were gleefully pointed to by the Hi Impact ministers. Not only did reading about Shirley Q. Liquor's minstrel show piss them off, Syimone's comments added gasoline to their pissivity as well. While the Hi Impact Leadership Coalition's stated mission was to kill hate crimes, this lobbying trip had the inadvertant effect of pissing off enough CBC members to initially shift several CBC votes out of our column on ENDA.
In addition to the ten votes we initially lost, the Hi Impact 'Don't Muzzle Our Pulpits' smear campaign combined with the anti hate crimes, anti-ENDA calls, visits they received most of the summer from Hi Impact church congregants and intense pressure from the Hi Impact boys moved other CBC members from solidly on our side to wavering.
We already have major problems in the African-American transgender community in terms of our images and 'ejumacating' our people on transgender issues. We don't get much ink or air time as is, so any African-American transpeople who are asked to interview for a media outlet need to be aware of this fact. We need to go into that media interview opportunity making sure that we are on point, accurate, articulate and paint this community in the best possible light.
Syimone obviously forgot that lesson, but then again she considers herself more 'gay' than African-American. I guess after November 7 you're not as 'gay' as you thought you were, huh?
Yo, sis, how does it feel to be cut out of legislation by your gay 'friends' and being used as the tool to grease the skids to make it happen?
7 comments:
Thanks for filling all of us in on this, Monica. It's a frustrating story regarding SQL you covered in your piece, but it definitely needed to be covered.
Obviously an utter idiot. It drives me crazy when people selfishly sabotage the very efforts that are being made to protect them.
Thank you for this post. One more thing to work against in getting support.
The Fraternity of Males
Maybe I feel resentful they want to claim to be as I, yet they hide. Why do they feel they must hide when I feel I must be "out", seen by everyone everyday, at all times dressed "feminine", living as female? I can't help it, I had to do it even at the risk of losing my job and I did. They're just playing around but living as males, but usually I say, practicing life as males, but if they are transsexual their practicing is for naught and is not practicing at all, but portraying as male. I do not believe they ever will come "out" in public, because they don't want to or can't live with the fact their personal peers [business associates, business contacts, employers, fellow employees, their straight friends, and here I will say their's of macho braggadocio, of the persuasion and personification that males are above women, and I've wonder if they get this notion from the fact they stab women with their shaft and in the traditional sense they mount women from above her, will perceive them as " a "faggot" or a "queer" or a "homo", as we "transsexuals" suffer the discriminatory from the straight male fraternity. We live with that stigma, whatever others want to think of us, we live with that and as women on a daily basis. But cross dressers? They'll lose their "masculine" status and that swagger that goes with it, that "machismo", that essence of maleness, that proud status of being virile, that strength, that vigor, that force we use to portray so we could hide our femininity, all the things I hated about me, because I used to believe it was the feminine I hated about me, but it wasn't, it was the portrayal of masculinity vexing my true spirit. As transsexuals we live in truth and hide not. I must think they want to make claims they cannot substantiate with their hiding, with their clubs these cross dressers. I've have yet to have someone identify with me in a public setting save a suitor seeking sexual rewards and a male married friend cross dresser from out of state who felt "safe". I've never had a male or female step up to me in public and introduce themselves and say anything like "Hi, I'm a closeted cross dresser and my name is" etc, etc., or any that profess gay, lesbian, f2m who made my acquaintance by introducing themselves in public. I walk alone out here, in the daytime, in a dress. No, I am made to feel by every one as some sort of "outcast", only the "general public' treats me as others and "out" here in public is where I'll stay. Why do they ask that I come into their realm and accept it, these who claim "transgender"? I ask them to come "out" and into my realm, "out" here in public but they do not, they stay in secret and hide and I am not one of those. I always find something sinister about secrecy. I felt it too when I was 10 years old putting on girls clothes in the woods in 1960, but, I was compelled and it felt so wonderful, it was then when I really felt I was me, as now. In these times of LGBT awareness, the legislation we have, the laws we have supporting us, why still live hiding? Why still live in secrecy and fear? It is these cross dressers, "transgender" that perpetuate this and hinder, in my opinion, "our" progress into societal acceptance. We've got to make a stand, but if they won't stand with me in public, I'm not going to stand with them in secrecy. No, I'm not one of those, and for others to start name calling is derogatory, discriminatory. I'm not a cross dresser and I'm not transgender, I don't go back a forth between the two, I'm transsexual, my sex identity and my gender identity is female and always has been. I made many an audition for the other role (male) and would have been the star of the show but I lost my billing because I was "one of those" (queer). No matter I out played, out worked, and out performed the "perceived" straights. I lost all rewards because I was a "queer", a "faggot". Maybe that’s why I feel as I do, because I know in public to keep their "male status" in the "male fraternity", they must deny us, they must discriminate or suffer a "faggot" status, they must slander "LGBT's" or be castigated with the stigma as one of them, "he must be a "homo too", so I know that's what the secrecy is about.. That's what hurts too, they won't stand with us "transsexuals" or gays publicly and will, if the situation would "out" them to the public or at their employment, discriminate, in the secret fraternity of the straights males, and they will speak of you disdainful to shirk any association with LGBT's.
This is the cause of the dead end road of the inclusive ENDA, association. I read one blog comment by a gay male saying, he didn’t know any trans individuals, doesn’t identify with trans in any way, doesn’t understand trans folks and there weren’t any trans people working on Lesbian and Gay rights with them back in the 1980’s, (so why shouldn’t Gay celebrate the passing of ENDA?) This is very sad, because the given perception that a great majority of straight society has been saying the same thing about the Gay community for decades.
In Germany, the Nazis came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I was a Protestant so I didn't speak up. Then they came for me...By that time there was no one to speak up for anyone.
Niemöller, Martin (1892 - 1984)
German pastor. Concise Dictionary of Religious Quotations (W. Neil)
One of my sources here in Da Ville is telling me that supposedly Syimone wants to transition.
If she does, she first has to learn how to be Black before she even tries to navigate the world as an African-American woman.
Syimone has not evolved spiritually to that point yet.
Syimone,
When you grow up and think about someone other than yourself, I may think about it.
Until then, stick to writing your gossip column in G3 and kissing up to Chuck Knipp
syimone2008 said...
hey monica please take my picture off your site. then grow up i have a diffrent point of veiw than you and you dont like it ... stop using my name to beat this dead horse . ive heard and seen what u think and guess what i dont care !! TAKE MY FUCKING PICTURE OFF THIS SITE
Syimone,
1. There is a strange, yet effective, key on your keyboard that you might want to figure out how to use. It allows you to capitalize letters where appropriate.
2. If you are unable to use the English language, you would be well advised to return to school. It's never too late to graduate from grade school. You're pushing forty and your late nights, promiscuous sex acts, and drug and alcohol use are already showing on you. I give your act maybe another 3-4 years. Your education doesn't qualify you to ask if a customer wants fries or not, and alcohol, ecstasy, and crystal meth will help you die young and not leave a pretty corpse.
3. Your comments in Rolling Stone were heard and read widely. In particular, they were read by United States Senators and Representatives. They were shown to me while lobbying Congress last year. They were a large reason why protections for transgender people were removed from HR 3685-the ENDA bill. Those transgender people who've lost jobs since then, I am sure, thank you from the bottom of their hearts. I know of a number of them who would probably club you with a baseball bat if they met you personally, for your comments. I expect comments like that from Bishop Harry Jackson, not from a supposed member of the GLBT community and a person who makes her so-called living as an entertainer - and not a very talented one.
4. Chuckie Knipp's SQL act is insulting, should not have been held at the Connection, and as a result, there is a large group of T people who will never darken the Connection's doors again, or the doors of anyplace you entertain. Granted, George Stinson made that decision, most likely, but you opened your trap - he didn't.
5. You aren't fucking in that picture. I'm sure there's a pic of you fucking on the internet somewhere. I told Monica she should find it and post it, so people can see the only act you're really any good at. The present picture doesn't show you fucking at all. Maybe you need reading glasses, old lady?
Don't like being attacked? Sorry about your luck. You're a public figure - an entertainer, and frankly not a very good one. Not only that, but you made the mistake of allowing yourself to be quoted in a major publication. Sorry, you don't get to erase your mistakes when they're made in public. Ask Larry Craig, Rob Lowe, or Tatum O'Neill about that. I'd advise you to permanently shut your trap, because whenever you open your mouth, you show your true level of mental retardation.
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