Louis Coleman: 'A First Responder To Injustice'

TransGriot note: Rev. Louis Coleman passed away on July 4. He was as Betty Baye's column mentioned, a first responder to injustice here in Da Ville and across the state.

He's also a polarizing figure here as well. One day I overheard a white co-worker of mine when I worked at Macy's griping about him and a recent LG&E price hike in the breakroom. I pointed out that if it hadn't been for Rev. Coleman protesting it and chewing on them in the media the price hike would have been even higher.

I and more than a few people in GLBT Louisville were pissed at him for two months (some are still pissed) because he sided with the bigots during the bruising JCPS policy fight a few months ago. He will be missed.

By Betty Baye
Louisville Courier-Journal
July 10, 2008

I took for granted that the Rev. Louis Coleman would always be around Kentucky, speaking truth to power as he saw it.

But the long July 4 holiday was rudely interrupted while I was out to dinner with friends. News arrived that Louis had died.

My immediate thought was that now Louis can lay down the cross that he carried for so many and let somebody take care of him.

Louis Coleman befriended me when I was a reporter back in the mid-'80s. He kicked open doors in this city and this state through which a lot a people waltzed, including some who, once seated at tables of power, denied Coleman just as Judas denied the Jesus that Louis served so faithfully for 64 years.

We've all probably heard Louis' critics; they said that his tactics were unorthodox and that he wasn't always careful about marshalling all the facts before lacing up his marching shoes and grabbing his bullhorn and picket signs.

Fact is that Louis Coleman was just too "grassroots" for some people.

He wasn't an oratorical wonder like Frederick Douglass, Mary McCloud Bethune, Malcolm X or Martin Luther King Jr. He wasn't erudite like W.E.B. DuBois. And when he mounted the pulpit of the First Congregational Church, where he was pastor for many years, he wasn't a poetic preacher like the Rev. Jesse Jackson. Louis wasn't a natty dresser like Minister Louis Farrakhan, and he couldn't turn a phrase on paper like James Baldwin or his old friend, the late Anne Braden.

No, Louis Coleman was just Louis.

He wasn't a duplicate of anyone. He had his own style, and if you know anything about the civil rights movement, and human rights struggles in general, you know that it takes all kinds.

King, for example, self-identified as a drum major for justice. When I think of Louis Coleman, I imagine a foot soldier, bringing up the rear, as someone more comfortable in a T-shirt and jeans and in the trenches rather than in board rooms -- though Louis slipped in and out of more board rooms than some might imagine.

I'll always remember Louis as a first responder to injustice; he was an accessible leader.

Louis was hard-headed, too. He didn't readily take to the advice of those who urged him to take better care of himself or to slow down. For example, he called himself retired once, but that that didn't last long. Louis ran himself ragged holding press conferences about one issue or another, leading daily vigils outside crack houses and picketing City Hall, police headquarters and job sites, where he didn't believe that minorities were getting their fair share of the work or the contracts.

Not everybody was always happy to see Louis Coleman coming.

But those unhappy folks weren't the poor kids who lined up for the school-supplies giveaway that Louis held every year. Those unhappy with him weren't the people who applauded Louis' efforts to cut down on the violence by buying back guns off the streets.

And contrary to many of his detractors, who obviously had no personal contact, Louis was no racist. He didn't discriminate among his friends or those who sought his aid.

Though Louis did generate a lot of press over the last 30 or so years, he did some of his best work behind the scenes, and he never seemed to mind, as some close to him clearly did, when he wasn't given credit for the work that he had done. And it also didn't seem to matter to Louis that when the money that came as result of something that Louis first agitated for, it didn't flow into the coffers of the Justice Resource Center, but instead went to more mainstream groups.

It's not that Louis Coleman never got angry or didn't have an ego; we all do. But what I and many others who knew this kind, wonderful human being will cherish as his legacy is that Louis was more about getting the job done than simply being famous or being loved.

Louis Coleman was one of God's originals, and I'm going to miss his face around this place. I'll miss, too, those phone calls when I'd pick up and hear his raspy voice on the end of the line saying ever so respectfully, "Sister Betty, I've written something. Do you think you can get it in The Courier?"

Betty Winston Bayé's column appears Thursdays; her e-mail address is bbaye@courier-journal.com.

Kentucky Primary Election Day

Today is primary election day in Kentucky. Over the last 72 hours there's been a burst of frenzied activity as candidates walked blocks or shook hands with people at various events, volunteers delivered yard signs, and phone banks were cranked up making calls to sway those undecided voters.

Hillary had an event here at the Fairgrounds last night while Michelle Obama stopped in three cities including Louisville for some last minute events. While he has a large statewide grassroots organization here, and had a rally Sunday at Shawnee Park that featured my gospel singing Houston homegirl Yolanda Adams, this state's going to go for Hillary. It's 90% white, and 47% of those voters are her prime vote getting demographic, white working class non college peeps.

I got up early to cast my ballot for Obama this morning at my precinct, which is housed at the 100 year old Crescent Hill Baptist Church. It's a good Baptist church BTW, not a Southern Bigot Convention one. I beat the crowd because at the time I arrived at 7:10 AM I was only the 15th person in the precinct to vote, but I'm sure there will be far more Democrats voting before it's over. My Crescent Hill area precinct has a 2-1 Democrat/Republican registration ratio. The Republicans are mostly Southern Baptist Seminary students.

Dawn is our chief election judge, so she bounced out of the house a little after 5 AM EDT in order to get the polling place open at 6 AM. I'm gonna crash for a while because the polls here don't close until 6 PM and she's stuck there until they close. I have a feeling I'll be making some lunch runs before this day is over.

Speaking of over, even though Hillary's projected to win here, the script is flipped in Oregon. Whatever delegates she gets here will be cancelled out by the delegate haul Barack gets in Oregon. The best news is that after tonight Barack is going to clinch the majority of pledged delegates despite what Clintonian fuzzy math and her protestations that this race isn't over.

You can't spin math or this large crowd that showed up at this rally in Portland, OR.



It's over Hillary. The obese singer began singing arias when John Edwards endorsed Obama even after you won by 41 points in West Virginia. What you're doing is akin to a basketball team making three pointers late in the fourth quarter after you couldn't buy a basket in the first half, and are hurriedly trying to make the final margin of defeat look palatable.

Even Bush and McCain acknowledged the obvious and have started tag team attacks on him. In the meantime Sen. Obama just keeps campaigning and connecting with all segments of the US population, like he's doing at this Montana event with the Crow Nation.



Besides the battle between Obama and Clinton on the Democratic side, we're also choosing who will be our nominee to oppose Sen. Mitch McConnell. On the Repugnican side Anne Throwup (oops Northup) is trying to make a comeback after her failed challenge to former governor Ernie Fletcher last year. She's in a four person race to see who's is going to be the Republican candidate to take on Rep. John Yarmuth. Rep. Yarmuth, to progressive Louisville's great delight, ousted her in 2006 after she held this 3rd District seat with a 2-1 Democratic registration advantage for ten years.

Her secret recipe for holding on to it was shoveling faith based bucks at two local Black megachurches, Canaan and St. Stephen. I was astounded and disgusted after I moved her to discover that this woman had 30% support in the Louisville Black community despite an anti African-American voting record.

Well, time to get some beauty sleep. Looks Like I'll be up for a while tonight watching CNN, KET (Kentucky Educational Television) and the local news stations as well.

Missing Home Again

Ever since I moved to Louisville, even though I've been here almost seven years, I go through these occasional bouts of homesickness.

Sometimes they can be triggered by the most innocent things. Seeing Houston homeboy Roland Martin on CNN pontificating on some issue, talking to family, watching a sistah from Missouri City winning Miss USA or watching a news report that involves things happening back in H-town.

This bout started when I called up Vanessa and got her cellphone as she was rolling eastbound on I-10 toward New Orleans for the HRC protest. It didn't help that I'd just finished writing a post on my airline days as well and the WNBA season was less than 24 hours from tipping off at the time. While I've done a few road trips already and there are a few more in the near future for me, it's still been almost three years since I last visited home, and that was a mostly drama filled 36 hour visit for my brother's wedding.

So why do I go through this on a regular basis? I've spent most of my life with the exception of the month I lived in Denver for training, the two years in New Orleans and the almost seven years I've lived here residing in Houston.

It's probably because a native Texan and Houstonian's attachment to the 268,581 square mile slice of the United States we call Texas is like nowhere else in the country and it runs deep. Houston being the largest city in Texas also adds another notch or two the pride I feel at being born there.

I think another reason as to why I haven't been able to shake those frequent bouts of homesickness is that I have yet since I moved here been able to take a vacation week in which I get to go home without it being dictated by a ticking clock because I had to fit the trip in a narrow work schedule window. To compound the problem, driving the 1000 miles from Louisville to Houston means I have to leave earlier than I'd like and allow a day for the return trip.

One of the things that I've thought about over the years is that I'd been there so long it was just a given to me that I'd be there until they were lowering my coffin into a six foot hole. It never occurred to me that I'd be put in a position in which I'd have to leave it for a while, and the fact it was reluctantly done eats at me from time to time. The fact that there's distance between me and my beloved hometown, combined with the differences in the cultural quality of life between a city with 2.5 million people versus one with 400,000 has made me belatedly appreciate what I had there.

But those were the lemons I was handed, so I'm trying to make lemonade with them while I'm here. While I'm appreciated and loved by my chosen family up here, the activist community shows me love and seeks me out when they have problems that need solving, it reminds me that I had unfinished 'bidness' at home. Every now and then I get slapped with the 'outsider' tag by some native Louisvillian 'too busy' or too lazy to do anything about their situations except bitch and complain about the people that are trying to improve things for 'errbody' in the Louisville metro area and the state.

While it's been a mixed bag of experiences in Da Ville, to be honest I did need to experience living in another part of the country besides the Lone Star State and the Gulf Coast for a while. The Kentucky Colonel proclamation hanging on my wall along with the back to back awards I've received from organizations up here still reminds me of the fact that the progressive community here values me more than my hometown one did before I left.

But I still miss things that are quintessentially Houston and Texan. Rolling up to Scott Street and grabbing a Frenchy's chicken three-piece and their seasoned Frenchy Fries. Rolling down I-45 to Galveston. Majic 102. Grabbing a bite at Katz's Deli or Niko-Niko's. Montrose and the eclectic nature of it. Chilling in the park at the base of Williams Tower in the Galleria area and the Water Wall. Chilling in Hermann Park. Barbecue. The ride up Texas 71 to Austin when the bluebonnets are blooming. Texas high school football. TSU's Ocean of Soul band. The Coogs. The Ensemble. Rolling up I-45 to Dallas. Rolling west on I-10 to San Antonio. Rolling east on I-10 to visit New Orleans.

Hell, I even miss Mattress Mack's Gallery Furniture commercials.



Oh well, at least I can get Blue Bell Homemade vanilla ice cream up here now.

Another Day, Another Event

Yesterday afternoon I rolled up to the historic Brennan House downtown for a Meet The Candidates event hosted by CFAIR, the Committee for Fairness and Individual Rights. It's the PAC for the Fairness Campaign and I was invited to attend.

I was rousted out of a sound sleep earlier that morning to round up the wine and sodas for the event. After taking one and a half hours of my day doing it and depositing everything at the Fairness Campaign office on Frankfort Ave I returned home to finish my NE Trans Pride March speech and e-mail it to Bet Power so the ASL interpreters could get to work on it.

The event wasn't starting until 5 PM, and I arrived at 5:45 PM in my black pantsuit. Joanne Lynch greeted me with "Our saviour is here!" a humorous reference to my earlier efforts that morning hitting three separate spread out stores for the wine, the multiple two liter sodas, the humongous bag of ice and saving CFAIR some cash in the process. I jokingly said as I hugged her and entered the Brennan House, "I'm not a saviour. I can't walk on water."

By the time I entered the three story Victorian home several of the CFAIR endorsees were there. Metro council members George Unseld (yes, he's the brother of NBA Hall of Famer Wes Unseld) and Rick Blackwell were there along with Metro council candidate Kungu Njuguna.

I was impressed by my Kenyan descended brother. He was born in the States and is a city attorney who prosecuted violations of Louisville's Human Rights ordnance. He's running in AC's district (the 18th) in the Hurstbourne Parkway/Taylorsville Rd. area. Shelley Santry, who's running in a judicial race was also there to thank CFAIR for the endorsement and chat with us for a few moments before jetting off to another event.

A few minutes after I arrived my state rep Mary Lou Marzian showed up and showed us some love. I also got a hug from former metro council member Denise Bentley, who's looking good these days. I noted and mentioned to her that she's dropped a little weight, even though she didn't think so. I also ran into Dr. Story and Jaison Gardiner for the second time in 24 hours as well along with Mark England, who hosted the recent Derby benefit that was the day before my birthday. Dawn popped in after she got off work.

Since I drove, I wasn't partaking in any of the wine and stuck to the soda. The Louisville po-po's have been on the prowl lately pre and post Derby and I was in no mood to spend the night at the Jefferson County Hilton. I hung around chatting with many of the peeps who did show up like Christine and the gang from Sienna, our local transgender organization.

Christine's the prez of the group and congratulated me for my upcoming speaking slot at the NE Pride March. I told her I'd try to make a future Sienna meeting if it didn't conflict with what I had going on. Mark England also chatted with me for a few minutes and asked if I'd seen the photo I took with him and Russ at the Derby benefit. When I replied no, he asked for my e-mail address, input it into his PDA and sent it to me a few hours later.

I'd left my Obama button at home, and a young LGBT Hillary supporter approached me about supporting his candidate. I politely listened to his spiel before I told him I was supporting Senator Obama. When he mentioned that HRC endorsed Senator Clinton, I politely shot back,"That's a major reason why I'm supporting Sen. Obama."

That triggered a lively back and forth conversation in which every time he spouted a pro-Hillary talking point, I had an answer for it. I also pointed out that I'd sat across the table from numerous meetings/confrontations with HRC personnel over the last ten years and had a long, ugly history with them.

When he tried to claim that Obama hadn't stood up for GLBT peeps as an Illinois senator, I told him I had friends and relatives in Chicago who said otherwise. After a few minutes of amusing myself with him, I told him that on this subject we'd agree to disagree and I was still voting for Obama on Tuesday as Joanne and Jeff Rodgers grinned at me.

For you GLBT peeps that still believe that BS like my young friend, here's a quote from a Windy City News February 11, 2004 interview that y'all need to pay attention to.

We must be careful to keep our eyes on the prize-equal rights for every American. We must continue to fight for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. We must vigorously expand hate-crimes legislation and be vigilant about how these laws are enforced. We must continue to expand adoption rights and make them consistent and seamless throughout all 50 states, and we must repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" military policy.

Just an FYI GLBT Hillary lovers, the Windy City Times is a GLBT publication. At the time he was quoted in this interview he was an Illinois state senator a few months away from making the historic keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic convention that catapulted him to national recognition.

Not long after that the event wound to a close. After we helped the staff put the tables and chairs up, I took a quick tour through the lovely Victorian era home before exiting the place and heading back home to Crescent Hill.

Witness To History-Obama In Da Ville

Sen. Barack Obama was in Da Ville today for a campaign rally at the Kentucky International Convention Center. You know that I made sure yours truly was going to be inside the room and part of the 8,000 people that showed up to witness history. There were another 2,000 people that wanted to get in but were unfortunately turned away because the hall was at capacity.

I farted around a little too long and bounced out of the house clad in my Obama shirt and jeans at 4:30 PM. I arrived downtown and passed the convention center enroute to the parking lot I like to use four blocks away on Chestnut Street. I noted the line to get inside snaked around the building for several blocks.

The doors opened at 5 PM and even though I was at the back of the line where it started on the 4th Street side of the Convention Center complex, it moved fast. There were various politicians introducing themselves and shaking hands with people as we waited to get in. Campaign workers were passing out stickers for Greg Fischer, the other Democratic candidate for US Senate here in Kentucky. There are many Democrats in the state who have concerns about just how electable Bruce Lunsford will be if he gets in a race with Mitch McConnell (R-KY) with the Vencor mess lurking in his background.

Unfortunately the local chapter of the Forces of Intolerance was in full effect as well. The odious Dr. Frank Simon was there with several of his acolytes staging an anti-abortion protest. But despite the negative karma from Simon and company, the mood remained festive on this beautiful late afternoon spring day with vendors hawking bootleg Obama shirts and buttons as well. The official Obama campaign stands inside the convention center were doing a brisk business as well.

A few minutes later I was being directed into the building by the cheerfully efficient Obama campaign personnel. I quickly autographed an Obama campaign sign in sheet and headed in the direction of a nearby up escalator. I waited in a second line to walk through a metal detector while I was hand wanded by a Secret Service agent and my purse thoroughly searched by a TSA employee. The whole process from the time I hit the end of the long line to getting into a seat in the bleacher section was thirty minutes.

While I waited for the rally to start, I was having conversations with various people in the multicultural crowd that attended this rally. We were basically talking about the historic nature of this event, Barack's chances in the Kentucky primary next Tuesday (May 20) and eventually in the fall against John McCain.

I eventually ended up seated next to an African-American woman named Bessie. We hit it off immediately and while we were talking about our personal lives, she mentioned she has a college age son at Harvard who's a blogger. I told her about my blog and living life as a transgender woman. We ended up talking about a wide array of subjects before KY 6th District Rep. Ben Chandler stepped on stage at 6:40 PM to deliver the warm up stem-winder speech.

When he was done, he introduced a Ford plant worker who spoke for a few moments, then introduced Sen. Obama a little after 7 PM. The crowd began to roar in approval as flashbulbs from phones and cameras began popping all over the building and especially around Sen. Obama and his ring of Secret Service agents.



Sen. Obama took about ten minutes to shake hands before stepping on stage and getting into his speech. He had to stop twice because two peeps were feeling ill due to heat exhaustion and in one case tossed a liter sized bottle of water to one of them.

40 minutes later after directing his fire at Sen. McCain, his cousin Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, he departed the stage to wild, enthusiastic applause. Me made a loop around the stage to shake hands with the assembled masses before winding his way back to the green room area behind the VIP stands, flashbulbs and the media trailing him all the way.

I killed a few minutes watching people be interviewed by local television personalities and reporters, shaking hands and hugging friends and colleagues before I exited the convention center. I ran into Dr. Story and Jaison Gardiner and walked with them for a few blocks gauging their reactions to the rally before we went our separate ways to our cars.

I enjoyed my late afternoon witnessing political history. I was happy to see the multitudes of enthusiastic young people who were in attendance at this rally. I'm looking forward to being at the convention in Denver courtesy of the Project later this summer as well.

Nothin' But A Derby Party

photos-Louisville Courier-Journal 'The Buzz' columnist Angie Fenton wearing a derby hat, Gabrielle Union and Shaun Robinson at the Derby, the Lady Chablis

One of the interesting things about life in Louisville is the two week period that this town throws itself a party in advance of its signature event, the Kentucky Derby. During that two weeks, Da Ville gets celebrities winging in on private jets from all over the planet to attend the numerous derby parties being thrown all over the area. It's also fun for me since Derby always falls either on or around my May 4 birthday.


We rush all over town trying to find that perfect hat or dress for Derby, getting hair done, and spend the day in the nail shop getting manicured and pedicured. If we're not checking out the various events connected with the Kentucky Derby Festival, or standing outside the Barstable house along with the paparazzi trying to get a glimpse of the celebs arriving for the Barnstable-Brown party, or feel like shelling out the big bucks for the African-American community's signature event the Grand Gala, we're watching the all day coverage of the Kentucky Oaks or Derby or making sure we've got other things to do.

The Louisville GLBT community gets in on the fun as well. If we're not attending the parties at a gay-centric nightclub or at a friend's place, we're getting ready for the Derby party that serves as a fundraiser for the Fairness Campaign along with our GLBT friends from Lexington and the rest of the state.


It hasn'r been around as long as the others, but it's one in which GLBT celebs or GLBT friendly ones pop in and show some love to our community. One that's definitely gonna be missed this year is Anna Nicole Smith, who made it a point to stop in and treat us to her over the top wild and crazy personality. She was arriving just as I was leaving the 2003 event. At that same 2003 one I ended up talking to the Lady Chablis, and made her night when I pulled out my copy of her autobiography for her petite self to autograph. Speaking of cute, petite women, Angie was sporting a pink derby hat to go with the pink suit she was rocking while reporting on the party for the C-J.

That one sticks in my memory for another reason besides the Lady Chablis. I got into a fascinating conversation with Tammy Faye about faith, and she told me something that has stuck with me ever since: Never let anyone tell you that God doesn't love you.

Damn, gotta go make a run to Walgreen's and pick up a disposable camera and another pair of hose for the party tonight.

Thunder Over Louisville

Later on tonight I get to pull up a chair and watch Thunder Over Louisville.

Thunder is the kickoff event for the Kentucky Derby Festival here in Da Ville. For the next two and a half weeks we'll have a blizzard of derby parties fancy and not-so-fancy, pageants, 10-K runs, special events and parades all leading up to the 134th running of the Kentucky Derby on May 2. Even the local GLBT community gets into the spirit by aving several events including a party of Derby day.

Thunder itself is a massive choreographed fireworks show that's so huge from a distance, the fireworks going off sound like distant thunder, hence the name. The Clark Memorial Bridge has been shut down to set up for it.

Since I moved here I haven't yet braved the weather or the crowds to see it live. The cloudy and cold weather today is guaranteeing that I ave no desire to break that tradition this year either. I made sure that any errands I had to run involving travel through the downtown area were done this morning.

I live about two miles from the general aviation airport ere called Bowman Field. I'm hearing the noise off and on of all the military jets revving engines and ta0king off for the airshow that's going on as well along the riverfront. Speaking of the airshow, that's a contentious part of Thunder every year with the local peace activists.

On that note, let me go grab some wings and get ready to check out the show.

The ACLU-Fairness Dinner

One of the neat things about being an activist and getting in the trenches to fight the good fight is that one of the benefits is getting invites to various events and parties. So earlier tonight I pulled out the formal clothes and my heels, got into diva mode and rolled over to the Ali Center with Dawn for the ACLU Kentucky-Fairness Dinner.

It was a fundraiser for both organizations and many of the liberal-progressive community peeps in Louisville and some from Lexington were in attendance. We also had several state and local politicians, judges, several U of L professors and a US senate candidate in attendance as well. Various people in the room were wearing either Clinton or Obama buttons since the primary election in Kentucky is May 20.

I got a chance to chat with Dr. Story again and had people thanking me for my role in fighting for the JCPS employment protections battle a few months ago, which I didn't expect. I had a few people complimenting me on my blog as well ad had another pleasant conversation with U of L law professor Sam Marcossin. I met him two weeks ago when I took part in a panel discussion the Kentucky Alliance Against Racist and Political Oppression sponsored on impeachment. I discovered during the conversation that he knew my mentor Phyllis Frye.

Small world moment, indeed. I had another one of those moments when during my conversation with Bob Cunningham I discovered he knew a friend of my uncle's back in Houston.

I had a lot of fun and enjoyed the stimulating, thought provoking conversations I had with the various people in the room and with my tablemates. I also enjoyed the view of the river and the city from the sixth floor dining room.

While the Muhammad Ali Center has been open almost two years, it was the first time I'd actually had a chance to visit the place, and from what I saw I'm going back on a future day off. I also had a great time tonight doing my small part in representing the transgender community as well.

Sick-Ohh

If you've visited the blog over the last few days, you probably noticed I haven't been my usual prolific self in posting to TransGriot lately.

Here in Da Ville we've had a nasty flu strain that has been hitting people hard around town and unfortunately I caught it around Tuesday while at work. I had a 100 degree fever coupled with body aches, chills, congestion, a sore throat and an annoying cough that kept me miserable and bedridden for a few days.

Thanks to my mom and grandmother Lou Ella I inherited their amazing immune systems so I rarely get sick. When I do it usually takes something like this flu strain to waylay me, and I'm an unhappy, cranky camper when it does.

I muddled through work for the next two days and spent Friday and most of Saturday morning crashed in the bed. I got up to run a few errands and grab a copy of Why Did I Get Married? since I was feeling 60% better by that afternoon.

I was feeling well enough after drinking enough orange juice and Dawn's family recipe hot toddy over the last few days to get up and spend most of Sunday being part of the Fairness Campaign's community conversation with its potential new director.

I think this thing has finally run its course, but I'm going to bury it in Vitamin C over this week just to make sure.

The Old Girl In The Club

Back during my party animal heyday in the 80's and early 90's BT (before transition) I like many peeps my age hit every named (or renamed) H-town club in search of adventure, fun, a drink or two and sometimes romance.

During that time Houston night clubs had short shelf lives, and it wasn't uncommon to go to a newly opened club that had the same address of one you'd gone to faithfully in a previous incarnation, but had undergone an extreme makeover. Sometimes it was an old club name in a new location with a younger clientele.

Whether it was Rinestone Rangler, Boneshakers, Flamingo, D's and G's, Richter 9.9, Midtown Live, Georgi-O, The Rockk, Cartoons, Oasis, The Tyler Rose, Rage or some other spot in north or southwest Houston, me and my friends were there partying until the place closed down, then grabbing a bite to eat before heading home.

I was hitting the gay ones such as Studio 13, Uptown Downtown, Incognito and others as well during those times, and my party options became national in scope once I started working for CAL in 1987.

In all the non-gay ones I hit in H-town, there was one common denominator besides the deejays and the same party animals of my generation frequenting them. It was a tall, light brown skinned balding gentleman we called Pops. Pops would try to hit on the ladies, fail miserably at doing our latest dances, do silly stuff to make us all laugh and get the deejay's attention for a shout-out.

After wearily watching Pops' antics for the umpteenth time while hanging out one night at a northside spot called Boneshakers in 1983, I turned to my then homie Eric Shepherd and said, "Shep, slap me if I get to be Pops' age and I'm still trying to hang out in clubs."

I'm bringing up this story because I've been amused by one of the accusations hurled at me by some of my local critics here in Da Ville. It's alleged by some of 'the gurls' that I think I'm better than they are because I refuse to hang out with them in the local GLBT clubs.

Hello? I'm old enough to be their mother. Besides, if I'm hanging out at a club these days it's going to have a jazz band playing or the music being spun is old school R&B.

One reason I don't hang out in the GLBT clubs is because I'm boycotting two of them for hosting SQL performances last year (and they know who they are). I don't spend my hard earned bucks in establishments that disrespect me or my culture.

The major reason I don't hang out in many Louisville clubs, be they gay or straight is because prior to the no-smoking ordinance being passed by Metro Council last summer, I needed a gas mask to breathe with all the cigarette smoke fouling the air. It's even worse at the GLBT clubs. The Phenomenal Transwoman is not down with having her clothes and hair smelling like a cigarette factory for the next three days after a night out in them.

The other thing I'm not down with is being the old girl at the club. Visions of my twenties and Pops keep dancing in my head. I also believe that clubs are a young person's playground. I believe we all have a certain amount of time and our youthful moment to spend in them, then need to move on. What do I have in common with the zygotes who are running around trying to get laid besides cultural history and transgender status?

To be honest, as a writer who does the novel thang, I do need to poke my head inside one every now and then. I like writing fictional characters that are as realistic as possible, and it would definitely help in terms of fleshing out realistic twentysomething characters. It would help me acquire more info and get a feel for not only twentysomething culture and all its permutations in terms of lingo, the latest dances and fashion trends, but help understand the issues they deal with as well.

So I guess I could suffer being the old gal in the club every now and then for art's (and sometimes activism's) sake. Who knows, I may get lucky and find someone my own age to hang out with while I'm there.

But I'm still not spending one dime in those two clubs that hosted SQL performances.

Welcome Dr. Kaila Story

Sometimes activism and education efforts on transgender issues doesn't just mean jawboning with legislators to do the right thing and pass laws.

Earlier today Dawn and I got into diva mode and spent a few hours at the Louisville Urban League headquarters on West Broadway. We were invited to be there for a reception welcoming Dr. Kaila Adia Story to the University of Louisville. She's an assistant professor in U of L’s departments of women’s and gender studies and of Pan-African studies.

Dr. Story is the Audre Lord Chair in Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality. It was established at U of L in January 2005 by Carla F. Wallace (someone else I know personally and attend her lawn party every summer).

The chair is jointly based in the U of L Department of Women's and Gender Studies and the Department of Pan African Studies, both in the College of Arts and Sciences. The teaching and research emphasis of the chair is the intersection of race, gender, class and sexualities across national boundaries.

Dr. Story has been at the university teaching classes since the fall semester and I'm planning to check out her current class on an upcoming day off. I've also offered to talk to her classes about transgender issues when she needs me or Dawn to do so.

Dr. Story is originally from Philly and her research concentration as the Audre Lorde Chair examines the intersections of race, gender, class and sexuality.

She's also interested in exploring connections between the performance of identity and racialized body politics for African Diasporan women and men. Her previous work looked at the projected image of the Black feminine body by examining four separate but related “Venus” figures through cultural imagery, popular media and discourse.

She's been published in the Encyclopedia of the African Diaspora: Origins, Experiences and Culture, a Journal of Pan-African Studies special edition and in the anthology “Home Girls Make Some Noise: Hip Hop and Feminism.”

Dr. Story has created and teaches courses about Black lesbian lives and an introduction to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer studies. She also teaches courses in Pan-African studies and gender and public dialogue.

She earned her doctorate in African American studies, graduate certificate in women’s studies and her master’s degree in African American studies at Temple University. Her bachelor’s degree in women’s studies is from DePaul University, where she also received the bell hooks Academic Achievement Award. She was a graduate fellow of Temple’s Institute for Race and Social Thought.

So yes, thanks to the Bucks For Brains program, one that former Gov. Paul Patton (D) began in 1997 (that some of the nekulturny legislators want to cut funding to) and the Audre Lorde chair, U of L snagged this rising academic star.

During the two hour event that started at 5 PM EST, various peeps in the progressive activist community, her colleagues in the department, Dr. Ricky Jones, Dr. Blaine Hudson, Carla Wallace and even her students said a few words. Dawn and I were also tapped to speak before Dr. Story took the mic and thanked all of us for the warm welcome and her gift, a framed copy of her favorite Audre Lorde quote that is posted on her office door.

Shoot, hearing Dr. Story's students talk about her is making me think about going back to college myself. ;)

Upgradin'

Yesterday I spent a pleasantly nerve-wracking day at AC's house while he helped me upgrade my late 20th century computer to the demands of the early 21st century Internet.

AC is one of the smartest and more multi-talented friends I have in my life. He's a major reason my car stays in tip top shape, he's a talented writer and has mad carpentry skills that he's put to good use. In addition to rebuilding the basement in his house into an entertainment center and doing roofing and other repairs on his house and ours, he rebuilt part of the walk-in basement of this house into a room with a fully functional bathroom. Like the TransGriot, he can intelligently talk about a wide variety of subjects while doing all that.

In addition, his music collection is heavy on 70's and 80's rock and roll and R&B. His collection in addition to having CD's is heavy on albums, something I have in my R&B and jazz collection back at my parents house. If I'm DJing a party that has a mixed race crowd, the first place I head for is his house.

We both have a cluster of computers from our ten plus years on the Net, so we decided to see what parts we had from upgrading those various machines that have long since outlived their Internet usefulness were still viable that we could harvest. We also were prepared to get new ones as needed to augment building my newly improved computer.

I got much needed RAM memory added to my machine, so it's loading much faster along with any YouTube and other video files. We needed to add some USB ports to my machine, so we checked out the CompUSA store on Hurstbourne Parkway near his place that's going out of business to see what they had available.

I also discovered during those parts forays yesterday just how much computer technology has advanced since I bought my first Hewlett-Packard one in 1997.

He also had a CD-RW burner he was no longer using that he added to mine. It came from a Compaq he owned that died a painful fried motherboard death when a sudden thunderstorm popped up while he was engrossed in working on it. I had a 48X Creative CD-ROM drive I had on my old HP minidesktop machine that's now installed on this one.

But the major goal of this impromptu upgrade, slaving the 8 GB hard drive from my HP minidesktop to the 8 GB one I have in this system is what caused us much of the drama. I bought this machine I currently have in a 2003 corporate technology sale.

Although corporate machines are more robust than the average general use ones, the drawback is that the BIOSes on corporate machines for obvious security reasons aren't designed to be easily changed as we discovered to our frustration.

So although it was a success on many levels, I'll probably be heading back to my friendly neighborhood computer store to get an 80 GB hard drive and a DVD-ROM drive or wait until the next computer technology show hits the Kentucky Convention Center or the Fairgrounds.

Shoot, gotta have room for my MP3 and picture files. ;)

Historic Win For Louisville Central

Central High is the oldest predominately African-American school in Louisville. It's most famous for being the alma mater of three time world boxing champion Muhammad Ali.

They've won state titles in basketball and track, but the football one had not only eluded them, but they endured ten years of futility before Central began to get competitive on the football field.


Today at The Pizzeria (AKA Papa John's Cardinal Stadium) the Yellowjackets won their first KHSAA football title. Senior Darrell Taylor scored three touchdowns to help the seventh-ranked Yellowjackets (10-5) overcome five turnovers and topple previously unbeaten Belfry 27-17. With the victory Central Coach Ty Scoggins became the first African-American head coach to win a KHSAA football title. Harrodsburg's Alvis Johnson led teams to KHSAA state football final appearances in 1988, 1996 and 1997 but fell short.

Taylor rushed for 165 yards on touchdown runs of 48 and 45 yards. He cane up with a momentum-turning 76-yard interception return on the final play of the first half.

“That was a huge play in the game,” said Belfry coach Philip Haywood, whose team trailed 14-10 at intermission after the return. “They had some big plays, more than we wanted.”

Belfry (14-1) won back to back Class 2A titles in 2003-04 and was seeking their first Class 3A title. The Pirates came in averaging 43.6 points per game and until running into the determined Yellowjackets hadn’t trailed in a game all season. Belfry outgained Central on offense (282 yards to 238 yards) and held possession of the football nearly six minutes longer than the Yellowjackets.

Belfry's Dustin May rushed for 128 yards and two TD’s. May’s second TD narrowed the Central lead to 21-17 early in the fourth quarter. Belfry drove deep into Central territory, but on a third-and-5 from the Yellowjacket 14 yard line defensive linemen Terryl Wadlington forced and recovered a fumble by Pirate quarterback Andrew Elkins to end that scoring threat with 4:24 left in the game.


The seeds for today's championship game victory were sown last year when Central fell a game short of making the championship game in their semifinal loss to Bowling Green.

Their 2007 title run included a game winning 30 yard field goal from Sudanese-born kicker Rizik Lado in their 17-14 semifinal win against Paducah Tilgham. There's a sizable community of Sudanese people living here, and it was nice to hear about a member of that community in context with this historic championship.

Today's game was attended not only by current Central students, but their alumni as well. The celebration by ecstatic Yellowjacket fans and alums is probably still going on in the West End and elsewhere in Da Ville.

WHAS-AM Regresses

I was shocked to find out that WHAS-AM dismissed 4 employees and longtime talk show host Joe Elliott on Thursday night. For 14 years Elliott has ruled the 9 PM-midnight shift at the station with his moderate brand of talk. The dismissial of Elliott has generated an avalanche of negative calls and comments.

Elliot is one of those sweet success stories. He was told on two separate occasions by a college professor and a radio/television personality that he'd never make it in radio. The other interesting thing that many of us discovered only with his termination was that he is blind.

He replaced another Louisville legendary radio personality in Milton Metz, who pioneered the radio call in show format. Elliott started by filling in at the station in 1988, then getting a full time show later. There are times he pissed me off, there are times he pissed the other side off. But that's better than what Clear Channel (who owns the station) is going to replace him with: Michael Savage.

A reasoned, thoughtful moderate is going to be replaced by a gay-hating transphobic bigot. Gee, what an improvement. No wonder your ratings are headed to the toilet. But it's a sad commentary on the state of radio these days. Local shows are falling victim to corporate cost cutting. The sad part about it is that WHAS-AM's 50,000 watt signal covers 40 states and can be heard in much of Canada as well.

According to Doug Profitt's WHAS-TV blog, Elliott’s currently working on a severance package with Clear Channel. He also says that they've offered him part-time work to continue as host of the Sunday morning talk show, which he's still mulling over.

Milton Metz told WHAS-TV late Thursday night he was sad, saying the show he created served a purpose for people who wanted to express their opinions in a neutral field, on the air.

Thank God we have an award winning NPR station here in WFPL-FM and its excellent State of Affairs program. Buying an XM radio just gained a higher priority for me next year as well.

DJ Monica's In The House

House of worship that is.

Last night as part of my church's activities for Bardstown Road Aglow, I got to dust off my DJ skills and play Christmas music with flavor from 6-10 PM.

I also threw in some James Brown at my pastor's request and Michael Jackson's Thriller to commemorate the 25th anniversary of that album's release.

Bardstown Road Aglow is a now 22 year old tradition in Da Ville that takes place on the first Saturday in December. All the businesses and churches on the Baxter Ave-Bardstown Road corridor either open their doors or stay open until 10 PM and do various events to help usher in the Christmas season. Edenside Christian Church has been an enthusiastic supporter of the event and we've even done an art show around it in previous years.

In addition to DJ Monica being in the house, we had Jackie Pair singing Christmas songs in the sanctuary, the locally acclaimed Terpsichore Dance troupe perform and the Louisville Scottish Association Bagpipe band make their annual appearance at our event as well. My pastor Rev. Sally McClain is a member of the group.

We also had arts and crafts going on in the basement for the kids and served the peeps traipsing up and down Bardstown Road who ventured in hot coffee, wassail and cider. We also were blessed with temps in the 40's for Bardstown Aglow to give it a real Christmasesque feel as well.

Two trolleys filled with Santa’s elves rode up and down the Bardstown Road corridor. There were street vendors and Santas walking up and down Bardstown Road along with tons of peeps taking advantage of the shopping available that evening. To add to the flavor a Holiday Decorating Competition was being conducted as well.

It was a fun evening as it always is, and I enjoyed spinning Christmas music for several hours as well. But now I gotta get dressed and get ready to slide into Edenside.

Schoolin' Rev. Coleman

Guest commentary by Jaison Gardiner
This was printed in the Louisville Courier journal November 27, 2007


Rev. Louis Coleman of the Justice Resource Center was quoted in the November 16 issue of the Courier-Journal that 'he worries that expanding our school district's harassment and employment policies to protect against sexual orientation discrimination will open the door for gay and lesbian employees to push their beliefs onto students.

"I just don't think policies should be put in place to protect habits or behaviors."

That's news to me since he was a Fairness supporter back in the day.

Fellow Frank Simon-flunkie Rev. Charles Elliott said that the fight for equal rights for LGBT people is nothing like the struggles of black folks during the civil rights movement. "We were fighting a race problem back then, not a habit or behavioral problem… Being (gay) is a choice. We didn't have a choice to be black, we were born that way,” he insists.

Being LGBT isn't a 'choice' as he disrespectfully put it either.

Mike Slaton, organizer for the Fairness Campaign of Louisville, said no one is suggesting that anti-gay bias is the same as racism. "Hate hurts no matter who it is directed at. We all deserve fairness regardless of our race, sex, creed, sexual orinetation or gender identity. No one chooses to be the object of discrimination."

While Mr. Slaton’s attempts at mitigating the gay rights movement are admirable, he is only half right.

Anti-gay bias is indeed the same as racism, sexism and the other isms. The fact is that all oppressions are linked and injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

In our society, the heterosexual, middle-class, white Christian male is the benchmark against wich all others are measured. Generally speaking, the less one of us measures up to this standard, the lower we find ourselves on the totem pole of social justice and public opinion.

As long as some people believe its okay and have the misguided idea that their religion makes it's okay to discriminate against people, then it will be necessary for political leaders to pass civil rights protections for the low people on the societal totem pole.

Changing this negative paradigm demands that we all work in coalition with others (yes, even gay folks) in the social justice movement without leaving anyone behind.

LGBT people have no more of a choice in deciding our identity than black folks, heterosexuals or women. The only 'choice' we make is either to hide who we are or to live openly as gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. Religion and political affiliation are choices that are currently protected by JCPS nondiscrimination policies, so why are Coleman and crew getting upset about the proposed addition of sexual orientation and gender identity to those policies?

I’d like to point out to Rev. Coleman and those who think like him the story of Bayard Rustin, an influential black civil rights activist who did much of his work behind the scenes. Rustin was the principal organizer of the 1963 March on Washington in which Dr. King delivered his famous 'I Have A Dream' speech.

Bayard Rustin injected Gandhi’s non violent protest techniques to the Black civil rights movement and helped sculpt Dr. King into the iconic Nobel prize winning national symbol of peace and nonviolence that he would became.

Only one problem. Bayard Rustin was gay.

Some of Rustin’s contemporaries in Dr. King's inner circle decided that Rustin’s audacity to be true to himself as an openly gay man overrode his blackness and diligent work for the movement and was a liability. Then-Senator Strom Thurmond and the FBI attempted to raise public awareness of Rustin’s sexuality and even circulated false stories that Rustin and King were romantically involved -- all inan effort to undermine the civil rights movement.

Those scare tactics worked in 1963. NAACP Chair Roy Wilkins wouldn’t allow Rustin to receive any public credit for his major role in planning the March.

It’s time that black LGBT people stand up and refuse to be the Rustin to Frank Simon’s Thurmond and Louis Coleman’s Wilkins. It’s time that black LGBT people
refuse to be silenced, bullied, overlooked disrespected or disregarded simply because we have the audacity to live in our own truth.

Black LGBT people need to recognize our individual and collective power as a community. Gay and straight folks alike need to recognize that black LGBT people have always played and will continue to play important and indispensable roles in the struggle for the rights of all people, whether it be the labor movement, women's liberation and, even for the rights of blacks and Latinos in America.

It’s time that religious conservatives stop skewing the Bible to justify their hatred, fear and loathing of LGBT people.

And time’s up for all the cowards who sit idly by and don’t speak up against injustice and bigotry in our country. After all, as Edmund Burke eloquently said, the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing.

A year before Bayard Rustin died in 1987 he said, "The barometer of where one is on human rights questions is no longer the black community, it's the gay community because it is the community which is most easily mistreated."

Actually, I think it’s both communities that are human rights barometers, and there are more similarities in their struggles than either would care to admit.

An Ugly Win

And I do mean ugly.

There were 50 speakers on both sides of the issue, a cantankerous overflow crowd of 400 people and hostile comments from both sides, but in the end a little after midnight the sexual orientation addition to JCPS policy passed on a 4-3 vote.

While I'm not happy we got cut out of it, I still got my shots in for gender identity coverage and some snide shots at the Reichers as well.

This was a long day for me. I went to the Fairness office to participate in a 3 PM EST press conference, then headed over to the Van Hoose Education Center to prepare to do battle with the Forces of Intolerance and their faith-based hatred.

Hater Tots were on the menu for the anti side, washed down with 55 gallon drums of Hateraid. Rev. Jerry Stephenson slithered out of his cave along with several other Black ministers on the anti side. Of course I got my chance to speak 40 people into it and laid the verbal smackdown on the anti side and their selective use of scripture. I also pointed to the irony that the kids were more enlightened on the issue than the adults were.

The anti sides speeches were the usual gaybaiting Reicher talking points that I won't waste valuable bandwith repeating. Every time I heard on the anti speakers, I closed my eyes and imagined that I probably would have heard these people say the same thing about Black people 40 years ago.

Strike that. Many of this crew were the 'necks from deepest darkest Okolona and the South End of Louisville. Many of them forgot their pointy hooded choir robes.

This was more entertaining than some of the reality shows on TV, but sadder still because the raw hatred and ignorance of many peeps was on display tonight.

Showdown At The Van Hoose Education Center

I haven't been posting much over the last few days because I've been doing research getting ready for the big school board meeting tonight at 7 PM EST.

Tonight the Jefferson County school board votes on whether to expand the employment protection policy to cover sexual orientation. There are 5 votes according to the Louisville Courier-Journal to pass that part of it. Larry Hujo, Joe Hardesty, Linda Duncan, Debbie Wesslund and Steve Imhoff (my rep) told the C-J they will support the proposal. Carol Haddad said she is undecided and Ann Elmore, who is the lone African-American member of the board and is part of the committee that recommended the policy change, did not want to comment.

"I believe it is my obligation as an elected school board member to provide a safe workplace that is free of harassment and discrimination," Hujo said. "Harassment and discrimination in any form is intolerable in today's society."

Superintendant Berman told the C-J's Antoinette Konz that he thinks the district is behind the times on this issue.

"This is not new, and it is something that has been a long time coming."

The problem is the gender identity part. We want it to cover gender identity so that transgender employees are covered as well. Dr. Berman and a few board members are wavering on that part.

We've pointed out that out local Fairness ordinance covers gender identity, the language has been tested and upheld in the US Sixth Circuit Court, the most conservatiove of the US federal circuit courts, so I fail to understand why they don't used that language to cover 'errbody'.

The Forces of Intolerance will definitely have more people there tonight than the nine people they had at the hearing back on November 13th. One of the people that's on the anti side is a disappointment, the Rev. Louis Coleman.

He has been on the front lines for decades here in Louisville for social justice issues, but he joined the wrong side for this one.

Rev. Louis Coleman of the Justice Resource Center wrote in the November 16 issue of the Courier-Journal that 'he worries that expanding our school district's harassment and employment policies to protect against sexual orientation discrimination will open the door for gay and lesbian employees to push their beliefs onto students.

"I just don't think policies should be put in place to protect habits or behaviors."

Excuse me? You helped PASS the Fairness Ordinace back in 1999.

Despite the nattering nabobs of nekulturny negatism, here's hoping that the JCPS board does the right thing and votes to covers all of us.