Can't Talk About The State Of Black Houston Without Discussing Black LGBT Houstonians

Because I was committed to another event that was scheduled at the same time, I missed this The State Of Black Houston forum that took place last night.

And it was well attended and well organized

Since our legacy orgs in the NAACP, 100 Black Men and the Urban League were listed as sponsors along with the Houston Justice Coalition, I presumed going into last night's #SOBH15 event that it would once again be a heterocentric/ cisnormative one in which they ignored the fact that Black TBLGQ/SGL issues are Black community issues.

And yeah, I'm still pissed off about the kneegrow ministers doing their 21st century cooning for Dave Welch and pimping anti-trans hate in the fight to pass HERO.  That anti-trans rhetoric led to a trans woman getting attacked last November

In case you haven't gotten the memo, the Houston Black community also includes SGL, trans, lesbian, bisexual and gay members of it, and we're tired of being erased from the overall Houston African-American community narrative.  

Also tired of the cricket chirping silence coming from our legacy orgs about the slaughter of African-American trans women , the 26% unemployment rate, 20% of us being HIV+, and discrimination being aimed at us.

If you believe #BlackLivesMatter, then that also includes the lives of Black LGBTQ/SGL people. Any forum that purports to have that discussion about Black Houston needs to recognize that fact, especially when you're discussing education and media images just to name two issues discussed last night..

#WeExist, and that conversation needs to happen ASAP.  Would have been nice if it could have started last night.

You can't talk about the state of Black Houston without discussing Black LGBTIQ/SGL Houstonians.