Damn, Will Y'all Just Chill Out?

Y'all seem to have forgotten in your panicked vanilla scented rush to judgment and low expectations in this debt ceiling battle that the POTUS did graduate from Harvard Law, taught constitutional law and has accomplished more in his first term than the last occupant of the Oval Office did in eight years.

And he's done so while having to fight a hostile and openly racist Republican Party determined to make him a one term president, so called liberals still mad because he beat Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic primary for the nomination and lukewarm GL peeps mad because he hasn't moved fast enough in their opinions to make same gender marriage the law of the land.

So chill and let President Obama do what he has to do to ensure he gets reelected next year while standing up for the things we Democrats consider important.

Congrats Kim Coco and Kathy!

The 2011 class of David Bohnett Gay & Lesbian Leadership Fellows were recently announced by the David Bohnett Foundation and the Gay and Lesbian Leadership Institute.

The GLLI and the Bohnett Foundation get together to send openly TBLG people who are accomplished, mid-career professionals who are leaders in government and non-profit organizations to Harvard’s Senior Executives in State and Local Government program.  

The program is renowned for its hands-on learning experience designed to help seasoned public officials meet the changing needs of their constituents and communities.

There were 14 people selected to receive scholarships to participate in this elite professional development program at the Harvard Kennedy School this June and July and two people on the list were trans.

Kim Coco Iwamoto and Kathy Padilla are among the 14 Bohnett Fellows who will receive scholarships for the program that counts among its graduates Houston mayor Annise Parker, Campbell, CA Councilman Evan Low and Arizona State Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

The 2011 Bohnett Leadership Fellows in addition to Kim and Kathy are:

Rep. Nickie J. Antonio – Lakewood, Ohio (Ohio State Representative, District 13)
A. J. Bockelman – St. Louis, Mo. (Executive Director, PROMO)
Kim Coco Iwamoto – Oahu, Hawaii (Civil Rights Attorney, former member of the Hawaii State Board of Education)
Cindy Dick – Tallahassee, Fla. (Tallahassee Fire Department Chief)
Rep. Karla Drenner – Avondale Estates, Ga. (Georgia House of Representatives, District 86)
Sen. Jolie Justus – Kansas City, Mo. (Missouri State Senate, District 10)
Leslie Katz – San Francisco, Calif.  (San Francisco Port Authority, former Supervisor)
Rev. Cynthia “Cindi” Love – Abilene, Texas  (Executive Director of Soulforce)
Councilwoman Rosie Mendez – New York, N.Y. (New York City Council , District 2)
Rep. Blake Oshiro – Honolulu, Hawaii  (Hawaii House of Representatives Majority Leader, District 33)
Kathy Padilla – Philadelphia, Pa.  (Philadelphia International Airport)
Councilman Amaad Rivera – Springfield, Mass. (Springfield City Council)
Brian Sheehan – Dublin, Ireland (Gay & Lesbian Equality Network Managing Director)
Councilman Alex Wan – Atlanta, Ga. (Atlanta City Council)

 Congratulation ladies, and I know you will represent our community well..

Will We Be Erased From The Upcoming WH Trans Meeting?

Autumn Sandeen of Pam's House Blend is reporting that a secret WH Trans meeting is supposed to be taking place on April 29.

I've heard it from multiple sources this week that there is a scheduled meeting between leaders in transgender community and the Obama Administration. I've heard it from multiple sources this week that this scheduled meeting is scheduled to be a "listening" meeting (where the White House listens to a constituent group), and not designed as an "action" meeting.    That meeting is currently scheduled to occur a week from this Friday -- on April 29, 2011. It isn't just an inference to say that the White House wants this meeting to be to be secret and off the record -- there currently are no plans for a photo op or for reporting from the meeting. 

What my inquiring mind wants to know is how much like a GOP party convention will this room look like?

The trans leaders they will see damned sure won't have any melanin in their skin, and we're the ones that the Obama Administration most needs to hear from.   We're the ones who are being killed and are facing the discrimination, but yet can't seem to get those WH invitations or get jobs in the trans orgs formulating the policy.

So will the African-American trans community be erased from this secret meeting should it happen?

Given the LG community's track record so far, yep.

Don't You Dare Tell Me I Don't Have The Right To Speak For This Community

Just as you GL folks can, will and do speak out about any anti-gay legislation regardless of whether you live in that area or not, trans Americans have the same rights to do the same thing.

I dare anyone cis, trans or gay to tell me I don't.
Bilerico Project comment thread, April 12, 2011

Seems like the folks who were on the losing side of the HB 235 battle are still in hatin' mode.  Perused this comment from one of the peeps on Dana Beyer's FB page that mentions yours truly:

Did I miss something? When did Ashley Love (and Monica Roberts) start speaking for the Trans people of Maryland and for the trans community as a whole? 

Yeah, you did.   I've been speaking for this community since 1998 in my case.   I also have an IFGE Trinity Award (Trinity Class of 2006) that backs up my ability and my right to speak for the trans community as a whole.  

Maryland surrounds our nation's capital.   I and others saw the danger inherent in the passage of that fracked up bill.   It would have sent a bad message to Capitol Hill and elsewhere that could have been applied to future trans rights legislation, and without the P/A language,  the bill had it become law would have hampered our ability to legally fight anti-trans discrimination.     It was bad legislation, so it needed to die.

Settling for bad legislation just so you have it is never an option for a marginalized group.  

You vanilla trans peeps in Maryland also started appropriating my people's stories such as Tyra Trent's murder in Baltimore while shutting the Maryland African-American trans community out of the debate or a seat at the table in formulating this bill and I wasn't having that.

There was not going to be a repeat of 2001 on my watch.

If the process had been open and not as secretive, and EQ MD hadn't been pushing a disinformation campaign to pass this bill in the wake of their marriage loss,  I wouldn't have felt the need to jump into this mess, nor would have I been invited to do so by Trans Maryland and Trans United.

But back to the point I want to make.   Don't you dare tell me I don't have the right as one of four African-American IFGE Trinity winners and a longtime activist for this community that I don't have the right to speak for this community, especially when my African-American transpeeps in Maryland were being erased and shut out of the HB 235 discussion      

My community stretches across the entire United States and the African diaspora, and when I see a jacked up situation occurring, I am not going to be silent about it.

Jenifer's Website Is Up!

As the HB 235 drama is proving, we're going to have to start electing our own people to public office.   That's the ONLY way we can ensure that we won't get screwed when it's time to pass civil rights laws that benefit us.

In Houston, while we get great support from our elected councilmembers, it's just time to elect one of our own people to office.

In this 2011 city election cycle we have a transwoman running for Houston City Council in Jenifer Rene Pool.  She's been a declared candidate for a few months and I'm already starting to see her signs pop up since she's an at large candidate.

If Jenifer wins she would not only be our first out transperson elected to Houston city council, she'd be the first in Texas and also the first elected to one in a city over one million in  population.    Monica Barros-Greene of Dallas was the last transperson to attempt to win a large Texas city council seat back in 2005.

No hate from our fundie foes Dave Welch or Hotze's Nazis yet, but I expect it by the time the campaign.gets into the home stretch. 

Others are waiting to see how the new reapportioned and redrawn city council single member district boundaries shake out before they declare one way or the other.   

She now has her website online, so check it out.