What's The Texas Trans Community Doing In Harvey's Wake?

Plenty!

It's also ironic in the wake of a legislative session in which the Republican controlled Texas government tried to push fear and hatred of transgender people in the regular session and spent $800,000 of our tax money during the Special Oppression Session to mess with Texas trans people for their own political gain.

But when Harvey hit the upper Texas coast, it has been the Texas trans community who has also stepped up to not only organize efforts to help our own people, but people outside of it.

Hannah Simpson has been in Austin helping to coordinate Red Cross efforts there.   She has been reading stories to the kids there.  She's built a database to help with client management in the shelter, is working to help coordinate the volunteer scheduling and routing at the Austin command center and just doing what she can to help the place run smoother.

And nobody cares that she's using the women's bathroom when she has to pee.  It's past time to stop wasting valuable Texas legislative time aiming discrimination efforts at us.

Political rant moment over, back to the post.

Meanwhile here in Houston my fab sis Nikki Araguz Loyd and her husband Will went out during the deluge on their jet skis in their northeast area part of the city to help people caught in the floodwaters during Harvey.   They  ended up rescuing this 82 year old woman during one of their jet ski rescue runs.

Ana Andrea Molina and the Organizacion Latina de Trans in Texas (OLTT) despite losing a computer to a roof leak (since generously replaced) caused by the storm at Casa Ana Andrea, is standing by with up to six beds to shelter trans people made homeless by Harvey.

They are also pitching in to help where they can to help our trans community and other quicly recover from the storm.

One of my homegirls who is a pilot and operations director for a charter airline, has made flights along with her charter airline's pilots chock full of medical supplies to bring back here to Houston.   One of those medical supply flights was to Hobby Airport, which was closed at the time and she was told by the tower to 'land at her own risk'.  She landed the plane safely along with the supplies.

Other trans Houstonians and trans Texans are in unsung ways helping clean storm damage at other people's homes, volunteering at local shelters, coordinating aid and relief efforts, raising money and simply doing their part as fellow Houstonians and Texans do to pitch in and help people recover from this storm.

And that's before I even mention the countless trans folks around the country who are doing things in their area to help their Texas trans, bi and SGL fam in their hour of need.

Harvey is giving us the golden opportunity to prove that trans Texans are an undeniable part of the fabric of the Texas community.

We are eagerly rolling up our sleeves and seizing this opportunity to do so by handling our business and helping our fellow Texans.