Andrea Jenkins Gets Added To The Congressional Record!

You know I have much love and respect for my sis Andrea Jenkins, who I met and roomed with during the TransFaith in Color Conference in Charlotte back in 2012 and is a trailblazing girl like us and advocate in her own right up in Minneapolis.

Jenkins recently received two honors that need and deserve to be signal boosted.   She was named as the Grand Marshal for the upcoming Twin Cities Pride Parade.  She is the second trans person to receive that honor.(Debbie Davis in 2000) third African-American after Minnesota Lynx guard Seimone Augustus and her fiance LaTaya Varner in 2012 and first ever African-American trans person to do so.

Andrea on May 20 had her name added to the Congressional Record for the 114th Congress by Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN), whose 5th Congressional District covers that area.

So what's the Congressional Record you ask?  It is the official record of proceedings and debates of the United States Congress, and from time to time congressmembers will take a moment to use some of their time to do floor speech that recognizes people and organizations in their home districts.

Those speeches, because they happen on the House floor, get recorded, published and at the end of the 114th Congress in 2017 will be placed in bound volumes enshrined permanently in the Library of Congress and online via THOMAS.

Translation, this is a Big Fracking Deal, and so proud of Andrea for getting this well deserved recognition for the work she's done in the Twin Cities.  

She was a longtime policy aide for 12 years on the Minneapolis City Council for Minneapolis City Council Member Elizabeth Glidden where she initiated and helped develop the the Minneapolis Transgender Issues Work Group and produced the first Transgender Summit in the city.

Jenkins also a published poet, serves on numerous boards and is now with the University of Minnesota as the curator for their Transgender Oral History Project

I hear Andrea plays a mean game of tennis, so I'll have to remember to bring my racquet when I get the opportunity to visit her and the rest of the Twin Cities trans fam.

Congratulations Andrea for a well deserved honor!