Our Special Show With Poet Staceyann Chin

Tune in to a special BlogTalkRadio show Renee and I will conduct at 8 PM EDT in which our guest will be performance poet Staceyann Chin!

We'll be 'telling you something good' as we talk about various issues with her. The online chat room for our site as always will be active and you can call in with your own questions to ask her as well.

So once again you can hear the show live starting at 8 PM EDT. If you're busy that evening you can always download it from the Womanist Musings show website.

So tune in to hear our special show with Staceyann Chin.

Western Kentucky Pride Association Events

The Western Kentucky Pride Association will be hosting a variety of special events as part of this year's "Pride in 09" celebrations.

Among these will be a Luau Pool Party on May 16th, the 2nd Mr & Miss Stonewall Pageant on June 6th, and last but not least the 6th Annual Stonewall Picnic on June 27th.

The Western Kentucky Pride Association is a seven year old not for profit non-discriminational social organization, based in Hopkinsville, Kentucky and the Western Kentucky region, which is dedicated to promoting a positive image for the local Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual and Transgendered community. Membership is open to all who share similar values.

For more details on the upcoming events or the organization we encourage you to visit the official website at http://westkypride.tripod.com

Your support and or participation in these events will be greatly appreciated.

If you need more information, wish to help support the WKPA efforts or are interested in setting up a Vendor or Information booth then please contact Kenneth (Andy) McIntosh at (270) 886-0010 or by e-mail at kycowboy41@aol.com.

Advertising opportunities and sponsorship packages are available through the official website.


For any further information or questions, contact
Kenneth (Andy) McIntosh, WKPA President
http://westkypride.tripod.com
kycowboy41@aol.com
270-886-0010

I'm Joining HRC

This may come as a shock to all of you who've known me for years as one of HRC's most virulent critics, but I'm pleased to announce that I am joining the Human Rights Campaign outreach team to the African-American GLBT/SGL community.

Some of you may see this as selling out, since I've had much to say on this blog and many others about some of the less than honorable stuff this organization's done in the past to not only impede the rights of transgender people, but ignoring my community as well.

But they asked, and it's an attractive offer I couldn't turn down.

In addition I get to go back home just in time to participate in Annise Parker's historic campaign and reestablish my eligibility to vote in my beloved home state. I'll get to travel on a regular basis as part of this job, speak to various groups, do interviews and I'm getting paid quite well for doing so. I'm getting tired of doing the right thing for peanuts while others in the GLBT movement are living large. It's time for me to get paid for my writing and speaking abilities and garner the higher profile I deserve.

Hey, I gotta look out for number one. I gotta eat too, and I like fly designer clothes as well.

Neiman-Marcus here I come.

Oh yeah, I wonder if they make Jimmy Choo pumps in a size 12. Hey it won't matter, because as much money as I'll soon be making, I'll special order them.

Oh yeah, before you flood this post with hate comments, check today's date at the top of it. ;)

Black People More Homophobic? You're Kidding, Right?

One of the memes that has irritated many Black people gay, transgender and straight since the Prop 8 debacle has been the 'Black people are more homophobic' one.

You're kidding, right?

Every time I'm watching TV I see predominately white ministers such as James Dobson, other white fundamentalists, white dominated anti equality orgs and peeps like Tony Perkins leading the anti gay charge.

Fred Phelps checks the 'white' box on his census forms, and the megachurches bankrolling these rights rollback or anti same gender marriage amendments have membership rolls of predominately European ancestry.

I'm not saying we don't have 'phobes in our midst. The peeps who are selling out to the white fundies like the Hi Impact leadership Coalition come immediately to mind along with the homophobic pronouncements of people like Rev. Gregory Daniels, Donnie McClurkin, and Rev. Bernice King.

But it was the Mormon church who provided the cash to fund and provided the foot soldiers for the Yes On 8 Forces of Intolerance. Last time I checked, the Mormon church ain't exactly chock full of members who look like me.

I find it laughable the Blacks are 'more homophobic' charge when the number one blog for almost a year in the Afrosphere's BBR's (Black Blog Rankings) has been the GLBT oriented Pam's House Blend. I and my transsisters have received much love, support, hands of friendship and sisterhood from womanists, but the predominately white dominated rad fem ranks have shown me and my transsisters nothing but hostile vitriolic hatred for three decades.

Even our civil rights icons such as Rep. John Lewis, Julian Bond and the late Coretta Scott King have consistently stated that GLBT rights are not only civil tights but human rights.

And if Black people are so homophobic as was scurrilously charged in California based on a flawed exit poll in Los Angeles County, explain why Prop 8 was defeated in Alameda County, which has a 13% Black population?

The major problem I have with the 'Black people are more homophobic' meme is that the peeps that keep spouting it are not only overwhelmingly white gays such as Dan Savage and others, but it deliberately ignores the fact there are Black SGL people as well.

If you want to eventually win the fight for same gender marriage, you can't continue to write off large chunks of the electorate because you have this false belief that our community is 'more homophobic', won't be receptive to your message and won't even try to be in my community to win it. You have to find a message that resonates with us just like you do any other community, and you'll need the help of the Black SGL/transgender community and our allies to do that. Failure to engage my community means failure to win at the ballot box.

So just as the white community has not only 'phobes but supporters and allies, so do we. It's past time you stop demonizing us with this disrespectful discredited meme and start humbly asking what can you do to win our support.

Julian Bond Speaking At HRC LA Dinner

Every time you hear that bull about 'Blacks are more homophobic than others', I want you to remember this speech.

Here's civil rights icon Julian Bond speaking at the recent HRC dinner in Los Angeles.

Annise Is Running!

The Annise I'm talking about is Annise Parker, who announced last month that she's beginning a history making run for mayor of my beloved hometown. If she wins she'd be the second woman and first open lesbian mayor of H-town, but even more significantly, in the Lone Star State as well.

Didn't think that my hometown was that progressive, huh? Don't believe everythang the GOP tells you about Texas being a so called 'red' state. They bamboozle enough yahoos to vote for them in the rural areas, but Texas cities are progressive turf. In fact my hometown and Harris County voted for Obama in the election.

But back to the post. I've also had the pleasure of seeing her run for and get elected three times to city council in an at large seat and currently serve as Houston's city controller.



For you transpeeps and our allies, yes, she was president of the Houston Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus and not only supports us, she's cognizant of our issues. The Houston transgender community worked our asses off to get her elected during her first run for council.



And as someone who cut her teeth in Houston's activist community, it's nice to see someone I've met at our Unity Banquet in 2001 when she was on city council and admired for some time finally go for her dream of running our hometown. I may be a little biased, but I truly believe she'll be the best person for the job. I'm a little bummed that I'm 1000 miles away from being able to contribute some time to help work on her campaign, but I can donate some money to do so and will when my budget allows it.

It's a long wait until November 3, but hopefully on that day Houstonians will making another historic choice amongst the many I've seen in my lifetime and make her our mayor.

Jasmine Guy Videos

Today is Jasmine Guy's birthday, and y'all know how much I loved her in A Different World and just about anything else she was in.

I also own the self titled CD she released in the early 90's. It was produced by Full force and actually had three pretty good songs on it in Try Me, Another Like My Lover and the ballad Just Want To Hold You that hit the R&B charts.

I also love the fact that she was speaking out for GLBT students in this video



So on that note TransGriot readers, Happy Birthday Jasmine and enjoy the music.

President Obama Moves To End Moral Opt Out For Health Care Providers

One of the last minute regulations the Bush misadministration pushed through was a policy that would allow doctors, nurses and other health care providers to refuse to treat people who they disapprove of on "moral" grounds.

In other words, it would allow a doctor, nurse or EMT for example to refuse to treat a gay person or a pharmacist to dispense medication to a transgender person for religious or moral reasons. That regulation was timed to take effect several days before President Obama took office and were designed to override state regulations protecting citizens access to care.

These regulations also could impair LGBT patients’ access to care services if they are interpreted to permit providers to choose patients based upon sexual orientation, gender identity or family structure. They also posed a threat to women's access to comprehensive health care by permitting pharmacists to refuse to dispense contraception even when doing so significantly burdens the patient’s access, or to refuse to participate in an emergency abortion even when the woman’s health is at risk.

Thankfully the Obama administration is moving to eliminate this odious rule. It has begun the repeal process for the Department of Health and Human Services regulations regarding "provider conscience."

Bottom line, as a US taxpayer whose taxes go to pay to build and equip the medical, nursing and pharmacy schools that train you, how dare you arrogantly assert that you have the right to refuse to treat people or dispense medication because you don't approve of their lives for specious faith based reasons?

Time to stop the conservamadness. If you don't want to treat ALL people who potentially are in need of your services, then maybe you don't need to be providing health care for people, period.

Any Black doctor that agrees with the conservaidiots and this BS regulation that thankfully will be gone soon given the tortured history we've had as African descended people with the medical profession needs their behinds kicked as well.

Just Not Into RuPaul

RuPaul's back on TV with a reality show called RuPaul's Drag Race on Logo. Yeah, I know I've griped for years about the lack of visibility of GLBT African-Americans in the media, but this is one show that I and many African-American GLBT peeps won't be watching.

The reason? Many of us consider RuPaul a sellout.

RuPaul's road to Clarence Thomas-Condoleezza Rice territory basically began in 2002, when he started defending Chuck Knipp and his odious blackface minstrel show that many of us in the SGL community and our allies have major problems with.

When New York activists protested and succeeded in shutting down a 2002 show, RuPaul leaped to Chuck's defense.

RuPaul also had this to say when he appeared at Southern Decadence in New Orleans a few years ago.

"Critics who think that Shirley Q. Liquor is offensive are idiots. Listen, I've been discriminated against by everybody in the world: gay people, black people, whatever. I know discrimination, I know racism, I know it very intimately. She's not racist, and if she were, she wouldn't be on my new CD."

I'm a critic and a lot smarter than you are. Obviously your racism detector is way off and your ignorance of black history speaks volumes. It's also why that 'Foxy Lady' CD tanked.

If you'd paid attention in history class, you'd know that your racist runnin' buddy does a blackface minstrel show that on multiple levels is offensive and racist. Hiding behind your short skirts won't shield him from the deserved criticism and negativity he gets for doing so.

RuPaul also said on a gay radio show,
“I love it. People really need to take a chill pill and people really aren’t sophisticated enough to know that when a person is coming from a place of love as opposed to coming from a place of hate. Shirley Q. Liquor is so clearly coming from a place of love.”

How much 'sophistication' was Chuck showing when he (or one of his cronies) photoshopped Jasmyne Cannick's head to the body of an nude African American porn model on his website because she successfully led the effort to shut down one of his California shows?

Did that come from a place of love? Hell, naw.

RuPaul, you can stop trying to defend Chuck. It's the reason many of us aren't enamored of you any more, and the sooner you realize that, the better.

But then again, like all good sellouts, you'll salute, take the money they offer you, continue to stab your people in the back and expect us to be quiet about it.

Creating Change 2009

The Creating Change Conference is taking place this weekend in Denver starting today through February 1. While it's one of my favorite GLBT conferences, I attended my first one in 1999 when it was held in Oakland and I met some wonderful people at it, the one thing I don't like is the recent change to conduct it in the winter.

Last year they held it in Detroit, and now Denver. I understand and like the idea of moving it around so that it gets held in different regions of the country, but if you're going to hold it in January-February, can we put it in a warm weather city?

But the change to winter dates is the only complaint I have about Creating Change. It's a must attend event if you even want to think about activism in the GLBT community. It's not only a diverse event, the seminars are plentiful, informative cover a wide range of topics and are top notch.

The best part about Creating Change is that you have the opportunity to meet a cross section of national GLBT activists and leaders from the vets to emerging voices. I love the fact that it's affordable and accessible enough for college students to attend.


During the 1999 one I not only got to renew acquaintances with then Task Force leader Kerry Lobel, but met now California state senator Mark Leno, author and transkids activist Just Evelyn, Jane Fee, Stephan Thorne and the late Alexander John Goodrum. I also got to spend that conference rooming at a San Francisco hotel with Dawn as we checked out the various sights, sounds and tastes of the city when we weren't bouncing back and forth across the Bay on BART.

I'm still mildly ticked that I missed the protest that happened at the 1999 Creating Change that was triggered by an African-American transwoman being disrespected by an Oakland Po-Po.

She reported an assault to the officer that happened to her near the convention center where the conference was being held. When she reported the crime, the officer told her, "I am tired of having to do all this paperwork. You guys have been told not to be on the corner of 14th and Broadway. I am tired of your shit..."

The next day 1500 people were marching on the Oakland Police Department headquarters while I was on an airplane headed back to Houston.

Note to GLBT haters-if you're going to mess with or disrespect us, don't do it when a GLBT conference is in town. There will be swift, sure and immediate reaction to it.

The sponsor of this event, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, has been the antithesis of HRC for over a decade. They are enthusiastic allies of transgender people and not only talk the talk, they walk the walk. Unlike HRC, whose leaders have never shown up at an IFGE conference, Kerry Lobel, the then head of the Task Force graced us with a keynote speech in 2000 and was at the 1997 ICTLEP Conference in Houston. The Task Force is part of the United ENDA coalition that seeks to pass a transgender inclusive ENDA, and they have unflinchingly tackled race, class and social issues within the GLBT community.

As much as I love Denver and would love to be there for this event to see some of my old and the new friends I met at the Transcending Gender Conference, complications won't permit me to go this time.

I'm mildly upset I'm missing it because Bishop Yvette Flunder is going to be there for this one. I've wanted to meet her ever since Louis Mitchell raved about her at the 2005 TSTB.

Will be thinking about all you peeps who are at Creating Change this weekend while I'm shoveling snow.

Rev. Gene Robinson's Prayer

TransGriot Note: Well, unfortunately Rev. Gene Robinson's prayer mysteriously failed to make it on air for the HBO broadcast of this event. (I'm waiting with baited breath to see if the rainbow Obama haters blame him for HBO's frackup, too)

Anyway, for those of you who missed it, here's the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson's wonderful prayer with a hat tip to Episcopal Cafe for posting it.


A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama

By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire

Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.

O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will…

Bless us with tears – for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger – at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort – at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience – and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

Bless us with humility – open to understanding that our own needs must always be balanced with those of the world.

Bless us with freedom from mere tolerance – replacing it with a genuine respect and warm embrace of our differences, and an understanding that in our diversity, we are stronger.

Bless us with compassion and generosity – remembering that every religion’s God judges us by the way we care for the most vulnerable in the human community, whether across town or across the world.

And God, we give you thanks for your child Barack, as he assumes the office of President of the United States.

Give him wisdom beyond his years, and inspire him with Lincoln’s reconciling leadership style, President Kennedy’s ability to enlist our best efforts, and Dr. King’s dream of a nation for ALL the people.

Give him a quiet heart, for our Ship of State needs a steady, calm captain in these times.

Give him stirring words, for we will need to be inspired and motivated to make the personal and common sacrifices necessary to facing the challenges ahead.

Make him color-blind, reminding him of his own words that under his leadership, there will be neither red nor blue states, but the United States.

Help him remember his own oppression as a minority, drawing on that experience of discrimination, that he might seek to change the lives of those who are still its victims.

Give him the strength to find family time and privacy, and help him remember that even though he is president, a father only gets one shot at his daughters’ childhoods.

And please, God, keep him safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking FAR too much of this one. We know the risk he and his wife are taking for all of us, and we implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand – that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity and peace.

AMEN.

2008 Weblog Awards Finalist!

Hey TransGriot readers, just wanted to let you know that I did get my Christmas wish this year. This blog is one of the ten finalists for 2008 Best LGBT Blog!

Here's my esteemed competition:

Joe.My.God.
Towleroad
The Bilerico Project
Pam's House Blend
Susie Bright's Journal
Tammy Bruce
This Girl Called Automatic Win
Gay Patriot
Blabbeando

To be part of this list is a huge honor. Pam's House Blend won it two years in a row (2005-2006) and was a finalist last year. Joe.My.God. was the 2007 winner. The Bilerico Project is a finalist for the second year in a row.

Congratulations to Lisa at Black Women, Blow The Trumpet, who is a finalist in the Best Small Blog Category

There were over 5000 nominations submitted this year, and over 290 in the Best LGBT blog category. I submitted a nomination for the award last year but didn't make the final cut.

So yeah, I'm deliriously happy right now. I've got some tough competition, with the voting starting on January 5 and running through January 12.

Here are the rest of the finalists in the various categories, and good luck to 'errbody' when the voting starts.

But that 'Best 2008 GLBT blog winner' button would sure look good on TransGriot!

Don't Hate On Jasmyne 'Cause She's Telling The Truth

Y'all know I absolutely love me some Jasmyne Cannick because as the late Jack 'The Rapper' Gibson used to say, she tells it like it T-I-S is.

Some white gay peeps already hate on her because of her successful efforts to shut down Chuck Knipp's odious Shirley Q. Liquor performances in the Los Angeles area and because of her blunt, no holds barred unapologetically Black blog.

In the wake of the passage of the Prop 8 same gender marriage ban she's been drawing increasing fire from white gays who took offense at her dead on commentary on why Prop 8 passed and her LA Times op-ed piece that appeared the Sunday after the election.

She's plucked some nerves out there and nationally, but that's the job of us activist types. We're not in it for popularity. If you like us, cool, but in our pursuit to make this a better society for all of us truth is an essential weapon in that struggle. Sometimes we have to bluntly state the obvious to the peeps enamored of denial, spin, sugar coating and outright lying.

Doing that and being unapologetically proud of her heritage doesn't make her or any person of color racist. I'm getting a little sick of seeing that tired comment being thrown out there because you don't like either her for whatever reason or the message.

As Parliament-Funkadelic would say, if you don't like the effects, don't produce the cause.

Many African-American GLBT folks, if they haven't already tuned you out, are millimeters close to saying to hell with y'all after the naked displays of anti-Black racism that erupted in many GLBT communities, the racist comments from some white gay pundits, and the startling ease in which those comments freely flowed from your lips, pens and keyboards in the gay blogosphere and beyond.

Whether you like it or not, Jasmyne has the respect and the ear of the Black GLBT and non GLBT community in LA and beyond. She's just the messenger trying to get it through your thick skulls what it will take to fix the obvious problem you have in crafting a pro-GLBT rights message that will resonate with the African-American community.

If you want to win, it would behoove many of of you trying to figure out what to do and how to approach the African-American GLBT community for help to listen to what she and other African-American GLBT peeps in Cali and elsewhere have to say.

But hating on Jasmyne Cannick for simply telling the truth is not an option.

Gainesville, FL Anti-GLBT Amendment Wording Approved

TransGriot Note: Here we go again. Usually towns and cities that are homes to colleges are fairly progressive, but apparently Gainesville FL, home city for the University of Florida has a group of haters who feel it's their 'right' to deny civil rights protection for a minority. When will this lunacy stop?



Commissioners OK amendment wording

By Megan Rolland
Staff Writer

Published: Friday, December 5, 2008 at 6:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 11:04 p.m.

City commissioners unanimously approved language for a ballot amendment Thursday night, despite opposition from the political action committee that's behind the petition drive that would put civil rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals to a vote.

On March 24, registered voters in the city of Gainesville will decide whether the city's anti-discrimination ordinance should be the same as Florida state anti-discrimination statute.

If local law were altered to mirror the state statute, the change would eliminate the words "sexual preference" and "gender identity" from the classes of people in Gainesville who are granted equal access to housing, employment, public accommodation and credit.

Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan emphasized Thursday that without the city's added protections, it is perfectly legal for a business owner to refuse to serve a gay person or for a landlord to deny housing to a transgender individual.

She said the city has chosen to protect these people from discrimination.

"If you take away your community's right to do that and cede that right to the state, then you defacto say, that, 'OK, we are willing to allow those discriminations.' "

Earlier in the evening, the commission voted to adopt a resolution opposing the amendment.

Members of Citizens for Good Public Policy said the adopted ballot language was a clear attempt to bias the focus of the amendment.

"You clearly wish to slant the wording of the amendment in such a way as to create prejudice about it," said Jim Gilbert, who worked with the organization in collecting more than 6,000 valid signatures. "I ask the commission to drop its double standard and admit that you got this one wrong."

Gilbert and Cain Davis, president of the citizen organization, both approved the ballot language initially brought before the City Commission.

Initially, the amendment merely stated what the protected classes were in the Florida civil rights statute.

The language adopted Thursday night lists those classes that are currently protected by the city but would no longer be if this amendment passes.

"I think there are some very misleading things going on here tonight," Davis said.

In collecting petition signatures, Citizens for Good Public Policy was accused of using misleading tactics by portraying the issue as one of men using women's restrooms.

The group organized in opposition to a City Commission vote in January putting "gender identity" into the list of protected classes.

Davis has argued that because transgender individuals are now guaranteed access to public accommodation, men can use women's restrooms, a right that would be abused by sexual predators.

"Sexual orientation" has been in the city's ordinance since 1998.

City Attorney Marion Radson said it is the duty of the city to ensure that the ballot language "be fair and advise the voter sufficiently to enable him or her to cast an appropriate ballot."

Radson said that the language commissioners adopted Thursday night passed that test.

Canaries In the Civil Rights Coal Mine

Over at The Bilerico Project, Nadine Smith posted this story about a Florida state legislator and minister who thinks 'the law is supposed to discriminate sometimes'.

The constitutionally challenged idiot who said this, Rev. Darryl Rouson, I'm sorry to say shares my ethnic heritage. What's even more shocking and disgusting is that he's a Florida state legislator.

Okay, so a man who is entrusted with the sacred responsibility to make law in the state of Florida feels the law should discriminate. It is unacceptable and morally reprehensible that in light of our own tortured civil rights history in this country, when we are only 150 years removed from slavery and only 40 years removed from the end of a long and bloody fight against Jim Crow segregation that an African-American, much less an African-American legislator would even part his lips to say that.



Dr, King and everybody who put their lives on the line to end Jim Crow segregation is probably rolling over in their graves right now over that beyond asinine statement.

But Rev. Rouson's comment speaks to one of the things that I have been majorly perturbed with over the last decade. African-American ministers being facilitators for and agents of oppression instead of fulfilling the historic duty and mission of the Black church to speak truth to power and fight for the oppressed.

It has irritated me to no end the ignorance that has been displayed in some quarters of the African-American community not only of our history, but it escaping some people as Dr. King so eloquently stated, that we are in an inescapable network of mutuality.

That means what hurts the African-American community hurts me as well and what affects me as a transperson of African descent does affect the greater African-American community.

I've always been blessed with the ability to look at an issue and see the big picture, or what peeps in the political world call 'vision'. Barack Obama is a politician that has that ability, but that's a subject for a future post.

One of the things that alarmed me when I first started paying attention to the Religious Reich back in the late 80's-early 90's was their absolute hatred of the 60's Civil Rights Movement. the separation of church and state doctrine, and the Constitution. They wanted a theocracy, and the only way to accomplish it was trash the constitution. They also remember from their readings of history that Germans voted Hitler into power and the old quote that when fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.

So like the Cylons, they had a multi faceted plan to do so.

They needed an enemy to focus on, and since 'godless communism' wasn't available, it got replaced by 'The Gay Agenda'. They wanted you to believe that if we didn't start oppressing gay people, our country would collapse. Knowing that most fair minded Americans wouldn't drink that Kool-Aid, they 'scurred' and duped many of you into believing that BS.

People see a videotape of a person getting roughly handled by the police during a protest and think they 'deserve it'. A person gets beat down in a police station and people shrug their shoulders because it was a transgender person taking the blows and not one of 'their' people.

In order to get people comfortable with the idea of voting to limit people's civil rights or eliminate them altogether, out come the ballot initiatives from 'concerned citizens'. There are constitutional amendments proposed with Orwellian language that state they're designed to 'protect marriage' or 'strengthen the family' but in reality they strip away not only GLBT people's rights , but the rights of straight people as well.

The sad part is that many of the folks now complaining about this didn't have any problem doing so on election day because they thought 'their' rights weren't on the chopping block. Some of them blindly followed what their pastor said in his homophobic sermon preached from his pulpit on Sunday after getting his faith-based bribe money. That sermon concluded with the admonition that voting for the latest 'Hate The Gays' constitutional Amendment or voting to repeal civil rights for GLBT people is not only your way to prove you're a God-fearing Christian, but a good American as well.

The problem with that attitude and the faith-based ignorance that feeds into this is that once civil rights are lost, it's difficult to get them back. These amendments are also being designed to have an impossibly high threshold to repeal them as well as being designed with deceptive wording when they are first proposed.

Back in the early 20th century, before the high-tech methane gas detectors were created, miners used to take a live canary into the mine and hang them in the areas where they worked. If that canary started showing visible effects, like swaying on its perch before dying, then the miners knew that the methane concentration in that area of the mine had built up to dangerous levels and they had to get out immediately.

To borrow an analogy Dr. Enoch Paige used in his speech to the Transgender Pride March back in June, we GLBT people are the canaries in the civil rights coal mine. The health of our civil rights determines the health of civil rights in our democracy in general, and right now we are swaying from the efforts of a decade of poisonous attacks on them.

We and our rights aren't dead yet, but there are plenty of warning signs the Reichers are coming after us, aided and abetted by cowardly constitutonally-challenged legislators such as Rev. Rouson and sometimes by our own allies.

We beat back an attempt here in Louisville in 2004 and won big when our Fairness Ordinance had to be reauthorized in the wake of the city-county merger. Our brothers and sisters in Montgomery County, Maryland are fighting to keep a transgender civil rights law that passed last year on a 9-0 vote. The Forces of Intolerance are using the bathroom issue as a wedge issue and trying various deceptive and deceitful tactics they will use to fight transgender rights laws elsewhere if they are successful in repealing this one.

This is a coordinated strategy that our enemies are using, and it will take a coordinated response from all sectors of it to beat it back.

It's also a fight we must win, or like the coal mine canaries, our civil rights will painfully expire right before our eyes. And to my fellow non-GLBT African-Americans, guess whose civil rights are next on the right-wing chopping block after they're done jacking with the GLBT community?

So we need y'all to step up to the plate and help some brothers and sisters out. The civil rights you save may be your own.

Michelle Obama's Remarks to the DNC's Gay and Lesbian Leadership Council

TransGriot Note: There are major reasons (besides being racist jerks) that the Forces of Intolerance and their like-minded friends in the GOP don't want Barack Obama to become our president and Michelle Obama to become our First Lady. Outside of the fresh new direction our country's policies will take after the Alice in Wonderlandesque madness we've been through in the last eight years, it will usher in a spirit of optimism and hope in our country not seen since the Kennedy era.

Here's the full text of her recent remarks to the DNC's Gay and Lesbian Leadership Council.

Thank you Howard Dean, for all your hard work building our party. We are proud to have you as our party Chairman. I want to recognize the members of UNITE HERE Local 6 who are working this event tonight. And thank you all for inviting me to spend some time with you.

I'm honored to be with you in a week that reminds us just how far we've come as a country. Five years ago today, the Supreme Court delivered justice with the decision in Lawrence v. Texas that same-sex couples would never again be persecuted through use of criminal law. And on Saturday, we recognize the anniversary of the day people stood up at Stonewall and said "enough."

These anniversaries remind us that no matter who we are, or where we come from, or what we look like, we are only here because of the brave efforts of those who came before us. That we are all only here because of those who marched and bled and died, from Selma to Stonewall, in a pursuit of that more perfect union that is the promise of this country.

Over the course of this campaign, we've seen a fundamental change in the level of political engagement in this country. We've seen a renewed sense of possibility and a hunger for change. We've seen people of all ages and backgrounds investing time and energy like never before; writing $20, $30, $50 checks; investing for the first time ever in a political candidate. We've seen people talking to their neighbors about candidates and issues; working hard to clarify misperceptions; challenging one another to think differently about the world and our place in it.

It's precisely this type of individual engagement and investment that has been the mission of my husband's life. Barack has always believed that there is more in this country that unites us than divides us; that our common stories and struggles and values are what make this country great; that meaningful change never happens from the top down but from the bottom up.

I'll never forget the first time I realized there was something special about Barack. It was nearly 20 years ago this summer. Barack and I were just getting to know one another, and he thought the best way for me to get to know him better was to get a better sense of the work he cared about most - his work as a community organizer.

He took me to a small church basement on the South Side of Chicago, where a group of neighborhood residents were gathered; folks he knew from his years as a community organizer before he went to law school. They were desperate for change. They were regular Americans struggling to build a decent life for themselves and their families. Single mothers living paycheck to paycheck; grandparents raising grandkids despite an income that wouldn't allow it; men unable to support their families because jobs had disappeared when steel mills closed. Like most Americans, they didn't want much; they weren't asking for much: just dignity and respect.

I watched as Barack walked into the room, took off his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and instantly connected with each and every person in that room. He spoke eloquently of "the world as it is" and "the world as it should be." He said the key to change is understanding that our job as citizens of this nation is to work hard each and every day to narrow the gap between those two ideas. He explained that we often settle for the world as it is even if it doesn't reflect our personal values. But he reminded us that it is only through determination and hard work that we slowly make the world as it is and the world as it should be one in the same. His words were powerful not only because they made us believe in him - they challenged each of us to believe in ourselves.

One of the many reasons I'm proud of the way Barack has handled himself in this campaign is that he is still the same man I fell in love with in that church basement. His unyielding belief in that simple idea - closing the gap between the world as it is and the world as it should be - is precisely why he'll be a President you can be proud of.

Barack is not new to the cause of the LGBT community. It has been a conviction of his career since he was first elected to public office. In his first year in the Illinois State Senate, he cosponsored a bill amending the Illinois Human Rights Act to include protections for LGBT men and women. He worked on that bill for seven years, serving as chief cosponsor and lobbying his colleagues to reject the political expedience of homophobia and make LGBT equality a priority. In 2004, his efforts paid off as that bill finally became law, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of both sexual orientation and gender identity in the workplace, in housing, and in public places.

He's led on gender-based violence with his work on the Illinois Gender Violence Act, successfully reaching across the aisle to put in place the nation's strongest law giving the survivors of sexual assault or domestic violence legal remedy against their attackers. He joined his colleagues in fighting to include explicit protections for the LGBT community in that act. He lost that battle, but his efforts brought gender violence in the LGBT community into the political consciousness like never before.

In 2004, after hearing from gay friends and supporters about the hurtful impact of DOMA, Barack went on record during his U.S. Senate race calling for its complete repeal. And as a U.S. Senator, he voted to protect our Constitution from the stain of discrimination by voting against the Federal Marriage Amendment.

Barack's record is clear. There is so much at stake in this election. The direction of our country hangs in the balance. We are faced with those two clear choices: The world as it is, and the world as it should be. We have to ask ourselves: Are we willing to settle for the world as it is or are we willing to work for the world as it should be?

Despite the extraordinary challenges we face today, we have a candidate who believes that the country is moving in the right direction, despite the inequalities created over the last 8 years.

And then we have Barack Obama, who believes that we must fight for the world as it should be.

A world where together we work to reverse discriminatory laws like DOMA and Don't Ask, Don't Tell.

A world where LGBT Americans get a fair shake at working hard to get ahead without workplace discrimination.

A world where our federal government fully protects all of us - including LGBT Americans - from hate crimes.

And, a world where our federal laws don't discriminate against same-sex relationships, including equal treatment for any relationship recognized under state law.

A world that recognizes that equality in relationship, family, and adoption rights is not some abstract principle; it's about whether millions of LGBT Americans can finally live lives marked by dignity and freedom. Barack has made crystal clear his commitment to ensuring full equality for LGBT couples. That is why he supports robust civil unions. That is why he has said that the federal government should not stand in the way of states that want to decide for themselves how best to pursue equality for gay and lesbian couples -- whether that means a domestic partnership, a civil union, or a civil marriage. And that is why he opposes all divisive and discriminatory constitutional amendments - whether it's a proposed amendment to the California and Florida Constitutions or the U.S. Constitution. Because the world as it should be rejects discrimination.

But, it's not just about the positions you take, it's also about the leadership you provide.

Barack's got the courage to talk to skeptical audiences; not just friendly ones. That's why he told a crowd at a rally in Texas that gays and lesbians deserve equality. Now, the crowd got pretty quiet. But Barack said "now, I'm a Christian, and I praise Jesus every Sunday." And the crowd started cheering. Then he said, "I hear people saying things that I don't think are very Christian with respect to people who are gay and lesbian." And you know what? The crowd kept cheering.

That's why he told evangelicals at Rick Warren's Saddleback church that we need a renewed call to action on HIV and AIDS.

That's why he went to Ebenezer Baptist Church and said that we need to get over homophobia in the African-American community; that if we're honest with ourselves, we'll embrace our gay brothers and sisters instead of scorning them. And that's why he stood up at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and told all of America that we refuse to be divided anymore.

That's the choice in this election. Between slipping backward and moving forward. Between being timid or being courageous. Between fighting for the world as it should be, or settling for the world as it is.

My husband is running for President to build an America that lives up to the ideals written into our Constitution. We have just come through a historic primary election where a woman and a black man were running to become President of the United States. It hasn't been painless, but change never is. As I travel this country, I am certain that we have arrived at a moment in our collective history where we are ready to move forward and create the "world as it should be."

I know which world Barack will fight for each and every day as your President. But he can't do it alone. As he said in that church basement, change happens when ordinary people are ready to take the reins of their own destiny. He needs you by his side every step of the way. That kind of change won't be easy. There will be powerful forces who believe that things should stay just the way they are.

That's where you come in. Your voices of truth and hope and of possibility have to drown out the skeptics and the cynics.

If you stand with my husband; if you reach for what is possible and if you refuse to let this chance get away; we can begin building that better world in November.

Thank you.