Welcome To TransGriot

For you peeps who met me in DC while I was attending Out on the Hill, the CBCF Annual Legislative Conference or while I was speaking at the town hall on Wednesday, welcome to TransGriot, my cyberhome.


This post explains how I came up with the name for this blog, and it has been in existence since January 1, 2006.  You can thank musician Jordana LeSesne for challenging me to take my writing to the blogging level.

We had a November 2005 phone conversation in which I was talking about our erasure due to the lack of Black trans blogs and she bluntly asked me when I was going to start one.

On January 1, 2006 at 12:01 AM EST  TransGriot started with this post.   The mission statement came later as the blog evolved and grew to become what it is today.  

The TransGriot blog's mission is to become the griot of our community.  I will introduce you to and talk about your African descended transbrothers and transsisters across the Diaspora, reclaim and document our chocolate flavored trans history, speak truth to power, comment on the things that impact our trans community from an Afrocentric perspective and enlighten you about the general things that go on around me and in the communities that I am a member of.

And from what many of you told me as I interacted with you at Out On the Hill and the ALC this week, I have been succeeding in fulfilling that mission statement and you are deeply appreciative of the work and writing that I do here. 

The awards I've either won or been nominated for attest to the quality of my work, but there is always room for improvement and continued evolution in making TransGriot better.   

And yes, if you feel inclined to drop a little change in the TransGriot Tip Jar in the left hand margin, that's all good too and greatly appreciated.

So to my new readers and longtime ones, welcome to TransGriot.