MediaTakeOut Unleashes Transphobic Slurs At Mia Ryan

Why am I not surprised to hear about transphobic crap coming not only from Black gossip blogs, but the Black gay people who run them?

They flap their lips to say 'they're not transphobic' while gleefully trafficking in the transphobia running rampant on their sites.

Thanks to The G-List Society, was made aware of the transphobia outbreak that happened recently on MediaTakeOut aimed at Mia Ryan.

For those of you who watched the OWN reality series Houston Beauty, Mia was one of the breakout stars of the show.  Her storyline in which she was trying to complete her beauty school education at Houston's iconic Franklin Beauty School while trying to leave the escorting world and conquer her personal demons was at times fascinating and painful to watch.

MediaTakeOut claims in an April 15, 2013 commentary it has the 'utmost respect for all people regardless of sexuality'.  

But that respect sure doesn't extend to transpeople.

For starters, you transphobic idiots, if you're going to insult us with the t-word that we've more than made clear across Trans World and beyond is a slur, learn how to spell it properly. 

Frankly, I'm more than sick and tired of the repeated pattern of transphobic hate being spread by Black gossip blogs like yours, Bossip, Sandra Rose and The Skorpion Show .  I'm fed up with the rampant transphobia that runs like sewage in your comment threads.  

I'm also sick and tired of being sick and tired of the fact that you Black SGL peeps, who should know better and be intimately aware of how hurtful that crap is, would stoop to that level in the first place.  

We get enough transphobic microaggressive and macroaggressive bull feces aimed at us as Black trans women from society, the media, our families, white trans exclusionary radical feminists (TERF's), the Religious Right, the Republican Party and Fox Noise.. 

We don't need you transphobic idiots at MediaTakeOut gleefully pouring gasoline on the flame of anti-trans hatred in the Black community that results in us getting burned with it, and leads to far too many Black trans women getting murdered.  

The Joseline Hernandez Transmisogyny Op-Ed Got Published!

I've been griping about the out of control transphobia in the Black gossip blogosphere lately that has found a new target around VH1's Love and Hip Hop Atlanta's Joseline Hernandez.

I penned an op-ed piece that was published at Loop 21.com  over the weekend entitled The Transmisogyny Aimed At Joseline Hernandez Is An Outrage.

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One thing that bothers me as a proud, African descended transwoman is the ongoing sexist attacks aimed at women of color.

Women come in all shapes, sizes, skin tones and body configurations, but women of color have had to deal with a centuries old ‘vanillacentric’ beauty standard that was not created with them or their bodies in mind and uplifts white women as the ultimate templates for femininity while negatively impacting women of color.

Because of that beauty standard, far too often black women get ‘that’s a man’ or ‘ugly’ shade hurled at them. You only need look at Satoshi’s Kanazawa’s May 2011 Psychology Today ‘Why Are Black Women Ugly’ article as an in-your-face example of the ‘unwoman’ meme gone pseudo-scientific. One of Kanazawa’s assertions in the article was black women were ‘more manly’ due to extra testosterone in their systems.  Thankfully, the article was taken down after it generated a worldwide firestorm of criticism and outrage. 

As the Williams sisters, Fantasia, Ciara, Wendy Williams, Grace Jones, Brittney Griner and Caster Semenya can tell you, women who are deemed to have a non-standard feminine presentation, larger-than-life personality, a thin, athletic frame, are 5’7” or taller, wear a double digit shoe size or have a combination of physical traits that are deemed to be more apropos to the masculine gender have ‘that’s a man’ derision hurled at them. Even the late Donna Summer battled rumors in 1978 that she was a transsexual despite being the mother of two children.

Flinging the 'you're a transwoman' accusation at a ciswoman has sadly become the weaponized insult of choice by men and women when they wish to disparage any woman they don’t like. 

[ALSO READ: A Transgendered Woman On Love And Hip-Hop]

We’ve had an off the charts epidemic of transphobia breaking out in the black gossip blogosphere for several years. While much of it has been aimed at Ciara and Wendy Williams, the latest target in the transphobes sights is Joseline Hernandez of the VH1 reality television show "Love And Hip-Hop Atlanta."
Because Joseline has some traits that are deemed by the Black Blogosphere Femininity Police as belonging to the opposite gender, she has been savaged by rumors that she is a transwoman. She overreacted to those rumors by tweeting a frontal nude photo of herself that showed her female genitalia backed up by a tweet proclaiming she was ‘100% female.’

Transmisogny is gleefully trafficked by the editors of the blogs and runs amok in their comment threads. In one post by Bossip, they used the derogatory anti-trans slur word ‘shim’ in a post about Ms. Hernandez before it was changed.

Some of the transphobic ignorance displayed in the black gossip blogosphere aimed at Ms. Hernandez is fed by stereotypical and false assertions on what a transwoman looks like. It also has its roots in loud and wrong transphobic writings penned by a depressing long list of radical feminists for four decades such as Janice Raymond, Germaine Greer, the late Mary Daly, Sheila Jeffreys and Julie Bindel.

It hasn't helped that since trans people began a renewed push in the mid-90s to gain trans human rights coverage, right-wing fundamentalist Christians, including some right-wing gay and lesbian fundamentalists have engaged in anti-trans bigotry and tactics to stop this coverage.

The white trans community has had a plethora of sympathetic popular culture trans characters on shows such as All In The Family, Ally McBeal, The L Word, Ugly Betty, Dirty Sexy Money and the movie Transamerica. The last time a Black transwoman was portrayed on screen without being cast as a sex worker, drag queen or a murder victim was The Jeffersons ‘Edith Stokes’ in 1977, Sheryl Lee Ralph's ‘Claire’ in Showtime's Barbershop the Series and Tyra Banks' ‘Roni’ on the show All of Us. 

[ALSO READ: Public Perception Of Trans Women Of Color]

Because the trans narrative has predominately been a white, upper, middle class one, far too often the people tapped to speak for the trans community on panels and talk shows, do the activism, or write articles for the trans community have been in that demographic. The invisibility of trans people of color in the media and LGBT movement resulting from that dynamic has led to a perception that transsexuality is a ‘white thang’ or trans people don’t exist in our communities.

Thanks to the rise of the trans blogosphere and Afrocentric blogs such as TransGriot, supportive trans allies and bloggers such as Womanist Musings and What Tami Said, increasing trans activism, ally organizations such as GLAAD, out and proud transwomen such as Janet Mock, Laverne Cox, Valerie Spencer, Angelica Ross and Tona Brown, a tradition of Black trans activism that began in Philadelphia with the 1965 Dewey’s Lunch Counter Sit-In and the 1969 Stonewall Riots, we have begun to push back against the lies, negativity and outright distortions about who and what a transwoman is.

Our media outlets and legacy organizations such as the NAACP, the National Black Justice Coalition, and new ones like the Trans People of Color Coalition are beginning to facilitate the badly needed discussions inside and outside our community about transwomen and how we fit into the kente cloth fabric of it.

It’s a necessary conversation we need to have if we are going to stop the trans misogyny aimed at transwomen.

Black Gossip Blogs Spouting Transphobic BS Again

I've never liked the Black gossip blogosphere for more than a few reasons, but the overriding one is the rampant transphobia in their ranks and the comment sections of those blogs.

There have been more than a few times I've called them out about their transphobic attacks aimed at their fave punching bag Wendy Williams, and went after Sandra Rose when she posted her ignorant comments concerning Kye Allums.

Now they are aiming their transphobic animus at Joseline Hernandez of the VH1 series Love and Hip-Hop Atlanta.   While it's not one of the shows I watch since I'm not a 'reality' show fan, what has gotten my attention is the loud 'that's a man' chatter being aimed at Joseline.

Dayum, here we go again.   Why am I not surprised Sandra Rose's trifling behind and Bossip are front and center in trafficking the transphobia? 

Not cool Sandra with the misgendering of Joseline, but then again you never exceed the low expectations I have for you.  Bossip used the anti-trans slur word 'shim' in the title of another post slamming Joseline.  


Here's the comment I left at one of the blogs in which the comment threads are gleefully engaging in transphobia.

SMH at the rampant transphobia and ignorance running amok here. A little more or less testosterone in vitro and many of you would be in the same situation as transpeople are.

News flash for you scientifically illiterate folks aiming transphobic shade at Ms. Hernandez.  Women come in all shapes, sizes, body combinations and configurations.   Just because a woman is over 5'7", has broad shoulders and other physical traits considered part of the masculine spectrum doesn't mean she's automatically trans. 

I have trans girlfriends who are petite, ultrafeminine looking size 7 shoe wearing divas and cis girlfriends of varying heights and combinations of traits who wear size 12 pumps.You are a blend of genetic material from mommy and daddy, and started your in vitro developmental phase as female, so you are inevitably going to get a blend of gender characteristics from both parents

The other aspect of this transphobic shade being hurled at Joseline I don't appreciate is because it's playing into the 'unwoman' meme deployed far too often against women of color, and especially women of color with non-stereotypical feminine personas or body configurations.

I'm also convinced that the transphobic shade being hurled at her is what prompted Hernandez to tweet the frontal nude photo of herself showing her genitalia in an attempt to 'prove' she was female.


One of the rules I have for TransGriot is that if a person has not publicly declared they are trans, until they do so, I don't publicly speculate about their gender identity or how they express it unless they are causing demonstrable harm to the trans community.  

Until Joseline has a press conference, I'in presuming out of respect for her that she's a cis female.

Too bad some of you in the Black gossip blogosphere have gone in the opposite nekulturny direction.

The Root's Trans Free Black LGBT List

Since June is Pride Month, in honor of the occasion The Root put together a list of 20 notable Black LGBT people    I was curious to see if things had progressed in the African-American blogosphere since I had to call the Grio out about a trans free LGBT leaders list in 2010. .

On the one The Root compiled many of the folks on this list I have had the pleasure of meeting and I admire such as Aisha Moodie-Mills, Phill Wilson, and Donna Payne are on it.   The others they included are familiar ones like poet Staceyann Chin, Jonathan Capehert, Don Lemon, Sapphire, Keith Boykin, Jasmyne Cannick and Wanda Sykes.

What I didn't see in this Black LGBT list was you guessed it, Black trans people.

No Janet Mock (who made the Grio's 100 list BTW).  No Laverne Cox.  No Kylar Broadus, Isis King, Valerie Spencer, Rev. Louis Mitchell, Miss Major, or even some award winning blogger who was part of the first ever trans panel at Netroots Nation 2012..

Just the same old crap, different day in terms of Blackosphere media outlets putting together these Black LGB(t) lists and not including any trans people in them.

Bottom line, if you're going to take the time to put together a list that purports to be representative of the LGBT community leadership, then I, the trans community and our allies expect that trans people be included in said list if you claim it is a TBLG one.

Far too fracking often these trans free lists are overwhelmingly LG dominated, B peeps as an afterthought with no T ones.

Black folks, y'all need to get with that include the trans community program as well because we Black trans peeps are beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of being erased from these Black TBLG leaders lists y'all put together.  

We aren't ashamed of being Black and trans but the constant erasure and the frequency with which it happens make us wonder if you're ashamed of us.  

That erasure of African descended trans persons leads to situations in which Black transpeople haven't even been invited to discuss trans issues that impact us like the CeCe McDonald case on the Melissa Harris Perry show or NAACP convention LBG(t) town hall meetings with no trans people on those panels

Will be eagerly watching the upcoming NAACP convention next month in my hometown to see if Julian Bond keeps the promise he made in LA last year to ensure the next NAACP convention town hall has trans representation on that panel. 

And the 'we can't find any trans activists' excuse doesn't wash now any more than it did two years ago.

Sadly what I said in the post calling out the erasure and non- inclusion of Black transpeople on Black LGB(t) lists is applicable in this one as well.

My point is that if our own people don't or won't show us some love when you compile these leadership lists, and you write for one of our leading blogosphere sites directed at the African-American community gay and straight, how in the hell can we Black trans leaders who are doing the work expect the predominately white TBLG community to respect us as well?

It's bad enough that Black transpeople get shut out of the predominately vanillacentric upper middle class narrative and get very little to no media attention except when we get killed in a hate crime.   It's disappointing and hurts even more when we get ignored by our own media outlets.