Moni's 2013 Year In Review

Well, 2013 was nothing like 2012 where I had two groundbreaking panel discussions at Netroots Nation and OUT on the Hill, but I did manage to do a few things that made this year memorable as well.

After celebrating the seventh anniversary of TransGriot on New Years Day, I moved right into blasting TERF's mode, but this time it was ones across The Pond.

I had my say about the POTUS not specifically mentioning trans peeps during his second inaugural speech.   That erasure caused a transkid to write a letter that I posted on TransGriot because I felt it needed wider exposure.   Boy did it ever get that exposure and then some.  Sadie's 'Letter To The World' became the most read post ever in TransGriot history.     

I celebrated Black History Month with another Black Trans History Quiz, wrote my State of the Black Trans Union post, recognized the 60th anniversary of Christine Jorgensen's return to New York after her transition, and took an enjoyable February trip to Philadelphia to attend the LGBT Media Journalist Convening. 

A month later I headed up I-45 to Dallas to deliver my first ever Texas keynote speech at the Black Trans Advocacy Conference with my dad's condition weighing heavily on my mind.  I was also surprised during that conference to receive an award named after me by BTMI/BTWI, the Monica Roberts Advocacy Award.   My father passed away a few days after I returned to Houston.  

I was named to the inaugural Trans 100 list and put my foot all up in the Cleveland Plain Dealer's behind over their over the top misgendering of Cemia Dove Acoff to the point that the 'journalistic hate crime' comment I used was picked up by Andy Humm and Ann Northrup on Gay USA.

I was also honored to spend a few hours on the beautiful campus of Rice University with Cristell Perez being interviewed as part of an oral history project featuring TBLG Houstonians. 

Every now and then I have to put my trolls and haters on blast to let them know upfront I'm not playing with them, and that happened a few times this year.   I also had fun blasting the transphobia in Bossip's jacked up comment threads

One of the ongoing projects I was part of this year was being part of the team putting together the rapidly approaching 2014 edition of Creating Change. 

I'm helping put together the Racial Diversity Suite and I have been documenting our Road To Creating Change as a series of diary posts and I was interviewed as part of that promotional effort for the conference as a past attendee.  

And for those of you headed to Creating Change, I'm now part of as of this writing two panel discussions.

I taught my first ever seminar at the 2013 Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summit on the UH campus after being there for the last three TTNS events in reporter mode.

Took another trip to Oakland in September at Dr. Kortney Ryan Ziegler's invitation to be a judge for Trans* H4CK, a creative melding by him of a hackathon with trans social justice issues to create apps to solve real world trans problems. 

It was fascinating to watch the process of developing an app occur.  My judging team had some tough calls to make in terms of which team won.  It was also apropos that this was taking place at the Betti Ono Gallery, mere blocks from where our transsister Brandy Martell was killed.

After I wrote a September 2012 post calling out the transphobic writings of feminist icon Gloria Steinem, was surprised to hear her statement in October recanting those comments.   

Moni practices what she preaches when she talks about intersectionality.  I spoke at a March HISD board meeting as part of a successful effort to delay the merger of my old high school.  I vented about the BS Ani DiFranco plantation feminist retreat in solidarity with my Black cis feminine sisters and called out the senseless violence aimed at them.. I spoke at a local City Hall rally in the wake of the jacked up Zimmerman verdict.


Despite not being able to vote because of it taking over 8 months for me to get my TDL swapped for my Kentucky one, I covered a northside mayoral campaign forum.  I was happy to see Mayor Parker earn her third and final term a few days later         

November saw me as part of my busy TDOR schedule not only be part of the first ever African American organized TDOR event here in Houston, 24 hours later I found myself in San Antonio speaking at their TDOR. 

And yes, I had my usual complement of radio and podcast interviews, including my debut one on Canadian radio.for CHRW 94.9 FM's Between The Margins show.  I participated in various community panel at different venues around town and quoted in a long list of articles..

So yeah, just another boring year for moi.    Wonder how 2014 is going to turn out?