HERO Updates, Notes and News-July 25

I spent an interesting Thursday night over at Resurrection MCC with Dee Dee Watters and 25 leaders leaders in the Houston African-American trans bi and SGL community.  

We spent two hours having a much needed tell it like it T-I-S is discussion about issues in our community that needed our attention.

We were hit with the sobering news that many of the petitions to repeal the HERO were signed by people in Districts B, D and who lived in Rep Sheila Jackson-Lee's congressional district.  

Never mind the fact the push to pass the HERO started because a straight Black female judge was denied entrance to a Washington Ave club along with members of the Houston Dynamo MLS team in a separate incident.   

We also talked about the demonization of the trans community that even elements of the  Houston Black SGL community are complicit in engaging in, the lack of engagement on our end with the non-gay Black community and our legacy orgs, the invisibility of our Houston Black TBLG community and the complicity of the white Houston LGBT community in that invisibility.  

We spent that two hours doing an overview of the HERO, its history, who it covers, and where to find accurate information about it.   We also discussed some problems in our own ranks.  Strategies to deal with the diagnosed problems short and long term were envisioned.   The leaders in attendance also came up with suggestion and concrete steps to engage our SGL, bi and trans ranks to get more involved in ours and the African-American community and engaging the local Houston media to deal with the Black LGBT invisibility issue.    

Much of what we discussed is in the 'Houston Black GLBT Revolution Will Not Be Televised' territory, but you will see action occurring over the remainder of the year and into 2015 to solve the identified problems.  

As for other HERO news, more events to do training and petition checking  are on the agenda.    A HERO petition training and work session will happen at Resurrection MCC tomorrow starting at 1 PM.  If you've got a spare two hours, come on down to 2025 W.11th St and the Gathering Place.  The verification process training is quick and easy, and once you're trained, you can get busy verifying the petitions because the deadline to do so is August 3.

Please bring a laptop (or tablet if you are comfortable with that). Resurrection will also provide a limited number of laptops for use and snacks.

There will also be a sisterhood discussion on July 31 at the Montrose Center designed to help cis and trans women break down barriers that inhibit sisterhood amongst each other.  More details coming soon in this TransGriot space.  

The struggle to protect the HERO continues..