Dissing Black Female Athletes Is Nothing New

Don Imus' racist comments have exposed something that is a major irritant to me and many other African-Americans.

I'm tired of the racist comments and negativity that is hurled at African-American female athletes, whether the racism is blatantly out in the open or subtle. The Rutgers women's basketball team is only the latest group of peeps affected by it. And how dare some of y'all accuse Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. of 'self-promotion' by rising to the defense of these women. I would've called both their behinds out if they'd stayed silent on this issue.

Before Title IX mandated increased funding for women's athletics in 1972, the African-American community was long a proponent of allowing women to compete in athletics. The YMCA's, YWCA's, sports clubs and HBCU's ensured equal funding for boys and girls sports in our communities and in many cases to insure excellence insisted that the girls play by the tougher men's rules.

For example, you have many women's basketballers in my mom's generation and mine who played full court b-ball while shooting the regulation men's ball. Many of them also routinely played pick up games with the guys. I still remember a frustrating pick up game I played in college in which I was expertly boxed out from the rim and thrown off my game by a UH women's player who was five inches shorter than me. The late Kim Perrot used to light the elite guys up at Fonde Gym before moving on to help the Houston Comets win two of their four WNBA titles.

So when the ripple effect from Title XI began to take hold in the late 70's our community was positioned to take advantage of it.

But with that success came negativity. The L-word was (and still is) hurled at many women athletes. The WNBA was so sensitive to it in the early days that despite a fan base that is 10% GLBT peeps, they still market their athletes by heavily playing up their femininity. They are seen glammed up, you'll read articles on WNBA.com concerning which WNBA players have the rep for being fashionistas or they inform the public when players miss the season due to pregnancy.

Black women athletes face additional challenges. If they perform at high levels they are quickly accused of cheating by the white male dominated sports reporting world and the court of public opinion which is shaped by their blustering comments.
Florence Griffith-Joyner was accused of cheating after she destroyed the women's 100m record during the 1988 US Olympic Trials. That 10.49 time she clocked still hasn't been close to being threatened almost 20 years later. Those accusations followed her to the grave. Even the autopsy didn't dissuade the haters from persisting in their attempts to paint Flo-Jo with that negative brush despite the fact she never failed a drug test.

The other challenge is the racist views that sometimes color news coverage of Black female athletes. A prime example is the coverage of figure skater Debi Thomas in comparison to her German rival Katarina Witt during the runup from 1985 to the Calgary Games in 1988. Debi was described as 'athletic and powerful' while Witt was called 'graceful and artistic'. Never mind the fact that both women won figure skating world championships during that period, that's the perception. It's the same one in the figure skating world that has dogged Surya Bonaly of France as well.

Don't even get me started on the negativity that permeates the coverage of the Williams sisters. They've been branded as 'athletic' by tennis analysts and not being given as much credit for their knowledge of the game as is routinely done with others of a lighter pigmentation on the women's tour. They're hit by some media outlets and the blogsphere with every negative sobriquet from 'surly' to being called 'trannies'. In addition the Williams sisters have to deal with the racist remarks that are sometimes hurled at them at various tour stops.

Now comes Imus and his recent dissing of the Rutgers women's team. Instead of coming home to celebrate an almost-Cinderella season, the Rutgers team faced "racist and sexist remarks that are deplorable, despicable and abominable and unconscionable," Rutgers coach C. Vivian Stringer said.

She also touched upon another more salient issue. "You see, because it is not about these young women...It's not about the Rutgers women's basketball team. It's about women. Are women hos? Think about that. Would you have wanted your daughter to have been called that?"

A season that should have ended with celebrating a run to the championship game that just fell short to mighty Tennessee has been blown to Hades. This championship game will not be remembered for the fact that Pat Summitt won her seventh national title, Rutgers going from worst to almost first or the coronation of Candace Parker as the best women's player in the nation, but for a shock jock calling young African-American women 'nappy-headed hos'.

That's something we should all be angry about.

Chill Out Calling Women You Don't Like Trannies

TransGriot Note: I had a LOT to say about this topic. My April TransGriot newspaper column was also devoted to the subject as well.

photos-Paris Hilton, fetus at six weeks, Harisu, a Hooter's protest, Dana International, Caroline 'Tula' Cossey in her For Your Eyes Only scene, Lauren Foster and Chanel Dupree.

I'm getting annoyed with people who use the term 'tranny' as a pejorative to insult female celebrities.

There are a lot of things that you can creatively come up with for example to insult Paris Hilton. You can criticize her for being a spoiled rich kid, carrying herself in a tacky manner, not being an intellectual giant or her penchant for not wearing underwear. But her tormentors find it easier since she is 5'8" and wears size 11 shoes to call her a 'tranny'.

News flash to her haters: Don't insult the transgender community by disrespectfully calling Paris, Ann Coulter and any other woman you don't like trannies.

Time for me to school y'all on something. There's a very fine line in vitro between being born male and being born female. That's why transpeeps exist.

We all start life in the womb as a FEMALE fetus. About the eighth to twelfth week of pregnancy is when the fetal hormone wash takes place that starts your fetal development path either down the male road or the female one and imprints your gender identity upon your developing brain as well.

So what am I getting at? My basic point is that NO ONE is 100% male or female. We are all a blend of characteristics from our parents. In addition to that, while male and female genitalia are different in form and function they also have a common origination point that starts divergent development once the hormone wash takes place.

Now that I've finished dropping the science, let's get back to talking about this trend of insulting biological women by calling them trannies.

As my gender therapist Dr. Collier Cole once told me, 'Women come in all shapes and sizes'. They range in size from 4'10" to 6'10", body shapes from slim to full figured, clothing sizes from size 0 to size 20 with wide ranging shoe sizes as well.

That applies to transwomen as well. I have trans girlfriends that when I look at them do a double take when I ponder the fact they were once on the other side of the gender fence. Conversely there are biowomen who make me want to perform the Crocodile Dundee Sex Test on them when I see them out and about in the world.


But I don't think that's why Paris Hilton is being slammed with the comment along with Ann Coulter and others. It's because they have parts of their physical makeup that don't conform to societal gender expectations. The fact that they also are controversial in their own ways easily tempts their critics to lapse into slamming them using the term.




If you haters are insinuating by using the term as an epithet that these women are ugly, then I suggest you roll up to Chicago one Labor Day weekend and check out the Miss Continental pageant or if you're visiting Thailand the Miss Tiffany Pageant. Transwomen are far from ugly or 'men in dresses'. Caroline Cossey, Lauren Foster, Tracy Africa and others have worked as models and Caroline was a Bond Girl in the movie For Your Eyes Only.



Israeli transwoman Dana International won the Eurovision song contest a few years ago. Korean transwoman Harisu is a spokesmodel for makeup and sanitary pads companies in Asia. So if transwomen are so ugly, why are they banned from competing in the Miss Universe and other mainstream pageants?


I'm not posting on this topic because I'm hypersensitive about it. Far from it. One of the things I harp on with transpeople is to have the ability to find humor in our transitions and life situations where it exists.

But I draw the line at non-trans people brandishing the word 'tranny' as an epithet in a feeble attempt to be funny or just mean-spirited.

Chill with that, okay?

Are The Divine Nine Sororities Ready To Admit Transwomen?

In 2008 Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first African-American sorority will celebrate their centennial year.

AKA's founding was followed by Delta Sigma Theta in 1913, Zeta Phi Beta in 1920 and finally Sigma Gamma Rho in 1922. They have compiled a long and distinguished history of achievement and have done exemplary work over the last century in terms of uplifting our race. I have women in my own family who are members of the various Divine Nine sororities. It's a safe bet to make that if you see a sistah in the news or who's making history, nine times out of ten she's a member of a Divine Nine sorority.

The Divine Nine Sororities have been at the forefront of social change as well. These sororities are not limited to just African-American membership only but admit Latina and White women as well. For example I doubt that many people realize that former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt is an AKA. They all have White and Latina members at the undergrad and graduate levels who are more down with the organization and what it stands for than some of their African-American members.

So that begs the question. If the Divine Nine sororities embrace all women, does that include myself and other transwomen as well?

The answer to it would probably break along generational lines. Some of the most conservative institutions in the African-American community next to the Black church and the NAACP are the Divine Nine sororities. They are proud of their history as they should be and are fiercely protective of it.

There's been a firestorm of controversy on the BET.com website over a group of gay men who claim to have formed a unofficial chapter of AKA. Those comments about MIAKA have devolved into the usual recitation of conservative gay-bashing Old Testament talking points mixed with the justified outrage of AKAs ticked off over the appropriation of their organizational shield, colors and symbols. So far there hasn't been any comment from AKA National headquarters other than 'MIAKA has no official or unoffical standing with the sorority'.

That vitriolic reaction makes me wonder how a transwoman who met the qualifications for membership in any of the Divine Nine sororities, sincerely wanted to not only be a part of that history but pledge, pay dues and do the necessary work would be received. Then again, there may be transwomen who are already members of the various Divine Nine sororities at the undergrad and graduate levels as I write this.

I'm jealous of you if you are. ;)

These stealth transpersons may be doing wonderful work within the sorority but if their sorors like her, they unfortunately won't associate her positivity with the first out transwoman they meet because their stealth transgender soror didn't let them know her status. This out transsistah may have the same positive qualities as the stealth member but because she is open about being transgendered gets saddled with overcoming the stereotypical baggage heaped upon African-American transwomen.

Depending on the chapter, that may keep her from probably getting in and proving to those skeptics that she's down with what the sorority stands for, is cognizant of its history and wants to be an asset to the organization. Those stereotypes combined with outright religious bigotry by some of the members are why I believe the Divine Nine sororities will be extremely resistant to expanding their membership ranks to include out transwomen.

In my case it's well known who I am and that I'm proud to be an African-American transwoman. I have much love for my mom and sister's sorority. My old neighborhood was chock full of her sorors. I faithfully read that organizations magazine when it hit the mailbox. Before I transitioned I DJed my mom's chapters Christmas party back home with my DJ partner for two consecutive years.

I'd be honored if I were invited to join one of the Divine Nine sororities. I do believe in and practice in my own life many of the same things they value in terms of education, community service and uplifing the race. I have the awards on my mantel to prove it.

So will an out transwoman someday wear the colors and letters of the sororities that have been proudly worn by the women in their families for generations and be embraced by her sorors as one of them at the same time?

While I'm hopeful that the Divine Nine orgs will prove me wrong and emphatically state that womanhood includes females who were stuck in the wrong bodies at birth as well and open their doors to us, I don't think it'll happen in my lifetime.


TransGriot note:
The Divine Nine is the nickname given to the nine African-American fraternities and sororities that make up the National Pan-Hellenic Council, the umbrella organization for African-American Greek orgs. The frats are Alpha Phi Alpha, Omega Psi Phi, Kappa Alpha Psi, Phi Beta Sigma and Iota Phi Theta

Yuck, I Feel Like A Boy Today

Back in 2003 when I was running HIM’s Transgender Initiative, we had a meeting in which one of the attendees exclaimed during a break, “Yuck, I feel like a boy today.” A gay man who was on the HIM board heard the comment while he was on his way to another part of the building for a separate group meeting. He asked Dawn and I about the comment when we met for our board meeting later that week.

We are always in education mode when it comes to getting the GLBT/SGL community and others to understand the varying degrees of differences in terms of transwomen and what we experience. We had some time before the board meeting started, so we sat him down and attempted to break it down to him what that person’s thought process was that led to the comment.

Transition is an emotional process in addition to being a physical one. The physical part of it is easy. It involves making the body morph to fit the mental gender imprint that a person is born with by using hormones, gender specific clothing, hairstyles, et cetera. It is the external manifestations of gender.

The mental aspect is the hardest part. Gender roles are learned. Certain behaviors, societal expectations and actions are assigned to the gender roles of male and female and it takes time to learn what those are. Genetic peeps have 18 to 20 years to do that with the guidance of their families and society. Transpeople have the complication of trying to get up to speed with their new gender role and unlearning the old one in a very short amount of time. In addition to that, they have the burden of trying to learn those roles with those same societal and familial forces sometimes arrayed against them.

There are days when everything is clicking for you and you’re in the gender zone. Your presentation is on point, voice is in the correct pitch range, and everybody’s complimenting you about your hair and appearance. You look so fly and are feeling so feminine that you believe that you could take on the Miss Universe pageant beauties and win in a walk.

Then there are those days when you don’t feel so feminine and external things exacerbate it. You’re slightly upset because you have an electrolysis appointment to finish removing body and facial hair. You had someone use the wrong pronoun to address you multiple times and you’re running low on hormones. You’re having a bad hair day and you overheard some little kid while you were out asking his mom if you’re a boy or a girl. You feel a little jealous because you saw this strikingly beautiful sistah getting admiring looks from the brothas, or another one holding her child and it brings back all of those conflicted, inadequate feelings you had before transition.

I suppose that’s what this person meant when they said, ‘Yuck, I feel like a boy today.”

All you can do when you feel that way is what ballplayers do when they’re in a batting slump: Fight your way through it. You remember how you felt when you had on your best clothes and had your face made up to supermodel precision. Remind yourself when you feel a little upset about having to undergo electrolysis that there are genetic women waiting to get hair removed after you’re finished. I’ve even had my genetic female friends tell me that even they have days where they don’t feel quite so feminine and they have possessed vaginas since birth.

So it’s not always about feeling like a boy or girl. It’s about loving yourself, the skin you’re in, enjoying life and confidently loving every moment of it.

The Dred Scott Case-150 Years Later

150 years ago this month the Supreme Court ruled in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case.

On March 6, 1857 Chief Justice Roger B. Taney made his famous declaration that '"beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

Hell, sometimes I think that many white Americans still operate under that premise.

When I see the way that African-Americans have been attacked since 1866 by white hooded terrorists, had our neighbohoods burned by white mobs, people lynched, our women raped, our images distorted, history and contributions to this country ignored and had the legal system unfaily stacked against us, I haven't seen much to change my perception.

We Don't Want Ann Coulter, Either

I've been amused over the last four years about the 'Mann Coulter' epithet directed at the Queen of Conservamean in addition to the comments, jokes and rumors circulating that she's transgendered.

If she is, I'd like to state for the record that y'all can have her.

While there are many women that we in the transgender community would be estatic to find out are actually one of our sisters and we would welcome them with open arms, please let Ann Coulter NOT be one of them.

Frankly, it's an insult to the transgender community for y'all to call her one. I have T-girlfriends that are much better looking and have far more elegance and class in their pinky fingers than Ann Coulter does in her entire body.

While I'm on this tip, what's up with this trend in the blogosphere and elsewhere to label women you don't like as transsexuals? Paris Hilton has had that comment thrown at her repeatedly along with her sister Nicky by Perez Hilton and others. Even Tina Fey took a recent swipe at Paris using the same attack line. I'm not a big fan of Paris Hilton, but enough is enough. If you wish to insult her, find another way to do it without calling her a transsexual. It really annoys those of us who are transwomen and who are proud of it.

But back to Ann. Every time Coulter opens her mouth something hateful and asinine comes out of it. Oh, her conservative friends were loving it when it was anti-liberal bile spewing from her lips or quotes such as, "My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building."

When she attacked 9-11 widows Kristen Breitweiser, Lorie Van Auken, Mindy Kleinberg and Patty Casazza last year by calling them the 'Witches of East Brunswick' among other comments, she found herself being called out by many peeps in her own party.

She put her pumps in her mouth again during the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington D.C. last week when she called 2008 Denmocratic presidential candidate John Edwatds a 'faggot'.

It's not the first time that she's used anti-gay rhetoric to smear Democrats either and they egged her on. Now were entering the 2008 presidential election cycle and the GOP and the rest of the conservative movement is in extreme makeover mode. They're trying to look look less hateful and bigoted than they really are and now they want to disown her.

Too late now. Y'all were the ones enabling her behavior in the first place. Buying those wastes of trees she called books, paying her speaking fees and laughing the loudest at her remarks. Now the chickens have come home to roost.

I don't care if home girl is six feet tall, does have a huge Adam's Apple, a double-digit shoe size and a rather murky background, that does not make Ann Coulter a transsexual unless she makes that declaration. There's a better chance of the Cubs winning the World Series than Ann having a press conference at the Washington Press Club and uttering those four words.

For the record, that's one press conference I hope I'll never see.

Open Letter to Kenneth Eng

Dear Kenneth,
For somebody that graduated from NYU, you are breathtakingly ignorant to paint an entire race of people with a stereotypical brush based on two movies and a rap radio station as you did in your recent February 23 column. (Personally I prefer classic R&B and jazz myself.)

I guess you forgot about the story of Joseph Cinque and the Amistad revolt? That wasn't an isolated incident. Many slave ship voyages didn't get too far away from the African coastline before the rebellions started. There were far more successful slave rebellions and revolts than the 'happy darkie' pro-slavery revisionist forces care to elaborate on and the first one happened in 1733. They feared slave rebellions from 1792 onward. Haiti's slaves liberating themselves from French rule in 1803 made them even more 'scurred' of us replicating the feat on US shores.

I see you're also clueless about Harriet Tubman, the Underground Railroad and the various ingenious ways that African-Americans escaped from plantations. They fought for their freedom in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.

While were on the war tip, ever heard of the Buffalo Soldiers? The 761st Tank Battalion AKA the Black Panthers? The Tuskegee Airmen? The 54th Massachusetts Regiment? You desperately need to hop on the subway and spend some time at the Schomburg Institute.

And in which one of your science-fiction universes did you come up with that asinine statement? I'm tired of peeps like you dismissing our very real historical experiences in this country as 'whining'. The Christianity that the slavemasters forced on us was infused with our own religious experiences and traditions we brought with us from Africa. From that Christianity came some of our greatest leaders in the late 19th and 20th century.

Kenneth, what I don't get is your disjointed rambling about some obscure high school debate and what connection it has with African-Americans in general. But then again racists were never known to have logical linear thinking processes.

If you didn't see any African-Americans in your honors or AP classes, then you must have attended school in the 'burbs or went to a private one. I was in gifted and talented classes in junior and senior high along with many of my friends. Education was stressed in mine and many other households in my neighborhood.

George Santayana was right. If you don't study the past you are condemned to repeat it. That's why we just spent 28 days commemorating our history. African-Americans are painfully familiar with that statement more than anyone else in this country because we've seen the effects of neglected or ignored history disproportionately impact our community. For example, our experiences during Reconstruction in the late 19th century have eerily replicated themselves in the late 20th-early 21st century.

And it is rather troubling that this kind of virulent racism is alive and well in the early 21st century, especially in someone who is a 21 year old college graduate. I'm even more angered over the fact that you chose Black History Month to write such disgusting tripe.

We are heroes, Kenneth. I'm descended from peeps that survived the Middle Passage. Despite violent opposition, nattering naysayers and countless obstacles placed in our paths over the last 400 years that would have broken less sturdy peoples, to quote Maya Angelou, 'and still we rise.'


Sincerely,
Monica Roberts
The TransGriot

Don't You Conservatives Have Your Own Heroes?

Conservatism: n, The disposition and tendency to preserve what is established; opposition to change; the habit of mind; or conduct, of a conservative.

I have a conservative that likes to post comments every now and then on this blog. This person seems to think like all conservatives tend to do that they are smarter than everyone else. I've got to call him out on one of his more ludicrous statements.

To borrow an old saying, those of you who THINK you are intelligent really annoy those of us who ARE.

One of the things that I have noted in my decade long battle of wits on and off the Net with conservatives is that they always make this claim that a Democratic or progressive hero if he were alive today would vote GOP.

Excuse me for a moment while I double over in laughter. (cue The Proud Family Papi Boulevardez laugh here)

One of the people whose name they love to try claim as one of theirs, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had this to say about conservatives in an October 26, 1939 radio address:

"A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward."

Obviously FDR wouldn't be voting GOP right now because the Republicans are the peeps who playa-hated the New Deal for decades and have spent the latter half of the 20th century working tirelessly to dismantle it and its crown jewels of Medicaid and Social Security.

Abraham Lincoln said about them in a February 27, 1860 speech:

"What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?"

John F. Kennedy? Please. There's as much chance of JFK voting Republican as George W. Bush has of successfully completing a Dale Carnegie speaking course.

"Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."

Does that sound like a man that would vote GOP? Nope.

They sank to new lows last year when the National Black Republican Association ran ads in support of Michael Steele's failed 2006 US Senate campaign in Maryland claiming that Dr. Martin Luther King would have voted Republican.

I have only this to say. Better yet, I think I'll let Dr. King's words speak for themselves.

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

Is the conservative movement so bereft of its own heroes that you have to disingenuously try to appropriate mine and attempt to twist their words to support your political agenda when that person's lifetime body of work is geared toward progressive causes and themes?

Yep.

Both parties have been in existence over 100 years. Their constituencies have flipped over time. It is now the GOP that has since 1964 been the home of the Dixiecrats and race-baiting bigots. The once solidly Democratic South has flipped the script in our time period to become Republican. Conversely the Democratic Party since 1964 is the one pushing progressive forward-thinking legislation and the one taking the lead role in civil rights matters.

It must be frustrating to be a conservative. Y'all have a longer losing streak than the Chicago Cubs and you're not as loveable. Ann Coulter and the conservative pundits that spout similar poisonous rhetoric devoid of facts just illuminate the image problem y'all have and the moral bankruptcy of conservatism as a political philosophy.

I gues it's tough being on the WRONG side of every issue in American history.

Y'all were on the losing side (and still are) in terms of American independence, slavery, the 40-hour workweek, women's suffrage, the Civil Rights Movement, interracial marriage, US involvement in World Wars I and II, the environment, meat inspection laws...Shall I continue?

You conservatives will also lose on gay rights, universal health care and campaign finance reform.

But back to the originally scheduled post.

If conservatism is as superior as you peeps claim it is to liberalism, why would you spend so much time hatin' on liberals? Why do you always go negative in your campaigns and use vote suppression tactics if your conservative ideas are supposedly superior election winning ones? Why is it necessary for you to use Orwellian weasel words and deception to articulate and implement your policies? Why do you come up with bogus theories, excuses and spin to hide your policy failures?

With such a losing track record and a political philosophy that has more in common with communism in terms of stifling freedoms and individual rights, I can see why you'd attempt to falsely attempt to claim our progressive icons as your own. If I had folks like Richard M. Nixon and George W. Bush as shining examples of conservative leadership I wouldn't claim them either.

Oh well, at least y'all have Ronald Reagan.

I Have To Prove It Every Day

photo-Grace Park as Sharon 'Athena' Agathon

There was a recent Battlestar Galactica episode in which Sharon and her husband Helo were discussing some issues. During the conversation Helo remarked that to him his Cylon wife was always human. She countered that to the rest of the fleet she has to prove that every day.

I feel her on that.

There are times during this gender journey that I feel like Sharon. No matter how fly I look, how smart I am, how many awards I garner, how good a job I do and how many times my genetic girlfriends, supportive family members and classmates that are still in my life tell me that I am what I've known I was supposed to be, I still feel like Sharon in the fact that I have to prove my womanhood every day.

Sometimes that can get to be a pain in the ass.

Yeah, I'll admit that there are some days that I wish that I'd been born female from jump and get to experience everything about it. Usually the transmen I know will tell me otherwise and extol how happy they are to escape cramps, bloating, the cycle, et cetera. Even my girlfriends will tell me they consider me the lucky one. I'll sometimes respond with the comment that no one questions your femininity nor do you have to think about it on a regular basis. However, I do share one aspect of it with my genetic sisters. I now have a heightened risk for breast cancer and have to do mammograms and regular breast exams.

But as philosopher Simone de Beauvoir once stated, 'Great women are made, not born.'

I may have only been female externally for thirteen years, but in a sense I've been prepping for this point in my life for a long time. My goal is to be the best woman I can be despite being born in a male body. To me that means observing the great examples of positive women in my own family, my feminine role models famous and not-so-famous (which I'm profiling in my Women I Admire posts) and incorporating their best qualities into my own life.

One thing I'm acutely aware of growing up in a family of historians is the great contributions that Black women have and continue to make to advance our people. Uplifting the race in terms of community service is a part of Black womanhood that I eagerly embrace. All the sisters that I've read about and witnessed doing positive things inspires me to step it up another level.

I'm cognizant of the fact that Black women are considered trendsetters in terms of fashion and their images. I'm considered a role model in the transgender community and have to pay attention to the image that I project to the outside world. Not a problem since I like fashionable clothes, get a manicure and pedicure every two weeks, hair is on point and I rarely leave the house without my face done. The fact that I have a fashionista diva as a roommate who will not hesitate to call me out along with my best girlfriends doesn't hurt either.

With hormones, electrolysis, laser hair removal and surgery the physical part of transition is easy. The toughest part is the spiritual and emotional end of it. That part of the feminine journey doesn't end until they close the coffin lid on you. Getting in tune with the spiritual and emotional side is a must and too many of my transsistahs ignore or are unaware of that aspect of womanhood.

Black womanhood is a lofty goal to live up to. Sometimes I believe that some of the genetic women in my family dismiss the prayerful seriousness I place on being a compliment and not a detriment to the women (and men) that are related to me. I realized in my youth I don't just represent me, I represent my family and the entire African-American community. My interactions with society must be on point and reflect that at all times.

Nothing in life is easy. Being an African-American transwoman definitely isn't. It's hard work and frustrating as hell sometimes. All these words about my latest take on being transgender get boiled down to one simple fact: I'm happily living life in my own skin.

Even if I have to constantly prove that I'm one of the girls.

Angelica's Had It Up To Here (And So Have I)

Yesterday Elizabeth (one of my TransGriot guest colmunists) posted a link from You Tube of a video from Chicago transwoman Angelica Love Ross.

Angelica expressed her frustration with the images out there of African-American transwomen. She made it clear that she wasn't criticizing those people who are involved in the pageant, showgirl and adult entertainment worlds, but implored them to think about life after being in those worlds. She drove home the point that we are capable of doing far more than that. Angelica does shows but has a real estate license and a business she's putting together that she's launching later this summee.

She drew from her Native American heritage and personal example to implore African-American transwomen to look past fleeting beauty and stretch themselves spiritually and emotionally to become better human beings that can make positive contributions to society.

I couldn't agree more.

It's a subject that I and other African-American transwomen have discussed for almost a decade now. Many of us are beyond Fannie Lou Hamer status when it comes to 'being sick and tired of being sick and tired' of negative images. Somewhere along the way we veered away from the classy image of Justina Williams to shemalewhatever.com and I have a theory as to when it started.

My suspicions point to the early 80's. That's when AIDS was ravaging the GLBT community and taking out those people who would have been mentors to my generation of transpeeps. Those who were willing to do so, that is.

Factor in what gender clinics told their patients back in the day about gender transition. They advised them to have SRS, blend in with society and cut any ties to the transgender community. Many did. In the case of some African-American transpeeps they went stealth for employment, personal security reasons or both.

The problem with 'stealth' is that we end up not having any knowledge about successful transwomen like the Lynn Conway's of the world unless they come forward or are outed. That becomes more critical when you are part of a minority community and you look for role models for additional inspiration and strength. One of the factors that held up my transition was because I didn't have multiple examples of college-educated transpeeps who looked like me. I didn't meet any until the late 90's.

There's an old saying that 'nature abhors a vacuum'. The lack of visible role models, the death of many in the 80's due to HIV/AIDS, stealth status of others who could have acted as mentors, lack of a community information and support structure similar to our Caucasian sistets and brothers and lack of media coverage created a vacuum that allowed the 'only thing a Black transperson can do is shows or adult entertainment' myth to flower into existence. That's BS, but until you see out and proud African-American transpeeps that are successful in life and the business world, then that negative perception is one we are going to have to expend a lot of energy counteracting.

That image makeover needs to happen right now. We have some churches in our communities preaching hate sermons against us. Because of ignorance and misperceptions about gender identity in our community we comprise a disproportionate share of the people tragically affected by anti-transgender violence. Some 'ejumacation' is sorely needed in the African-American community about who we are and what we have to offer our people.

That information dissemination also needs to happen amongst our fellow transpeeps. There are other ways to 'get paid' and education is the key to a better life. There are African-American transistahs and transbrothas who not only sucessfully work nine to fives but are helping uplift our race as well.

Why Can't We Be 'Just Americans'?

TransGriot Note:
This one started as a response in a Think Progress blog thread discussing Tom Tancredo's (R-CO) disengenuos desire to amend the House rules and abolish the Congressional Black Caucus. Several people agreeing with Tancredo used the conservative buzz words 'why can't we hypenated folks be 'just americans?'

Some of you ask the question why we African-Americans can't be 'just Americans?'

Because for 400 years y'all have refused to let us be 'just Americans'.

You brought us here in chains and refused to compensate us for the 246 years of chattel slavery. Every time we sucessfully built up our own neighborhoods, towns, institutions and economies without your help you started race riots on false pretexts and swooped in to burn those very neighborhoods down.

You organized gangs of white-hooded terrorists to invade our neighborhoods and homes and engage in an orgy of lawlessness, rape and murder designed to intimidate, brutalize and 'keep the Blacks down'.

You lynched us by the thousands and called it 'entertainment'. You discriminated against us, jacked with our voting rights and refused to let us participate in making the laws that affect us even though it stated in the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments of the Constitution that you couldn't do that to fellow American citizens.

You have called us 'stupid and ignorant' when it is my people who have created many of the inventions, medical procedures, scientific advances and processes that have enriched this country and improved life for all of us.

You have called us 'lazy' when it is our labor that built Washington D.C., the railroads and much of this country's infrastracture.

You have mocked our beauty and called us 'ugly' even as your women rush to spend thousands of dollars to bake their skin under ultraviolet light and surgically acquire the features that African-American women possess from birth.

You have called us 'Unamerican' even though we have fought and shed our blood in EVERY war this country has been involved in and come home from battle to have the rights and freedoms we fought to extend overseas to others denied to us on American shores.

You have repeatedly denigrated and disrespected my people and my culture even as you secretly admire our creativity and seek to emulate it.

You have never apologized for the centuries of pain and suffering that you have inflicted upon my people, but have the nerve to tell me to 'get over it'. Why can't you humble yourself to say to my people "I'm sorry?'

Why can't we be 'just Americans'? I don't know. Why don't you answer your own question for me?

Disrespecting My Race Is NOT Okay

And whites... I'd have to say there is still racism in our society and there are still attitudes based on race. Suprmeme Court Justice Clarence Thomas

News flash, people. Race permeates everything in American society. The sooner we admit that the sooner we can all deal with it. Until the white folks who are in denial (and clueless folks like Dinesh D'Souza) buy a vowel and get a clue about that fact we are going to continue to have situations like this blow up.

African-Americans feel that despite the progress that we made during the Civil Rights Movement, under GOP rule this country has reversed course on race relations just like it did after Reconstruction. We are weary of pointing out ad nauseum that we are STILL expericing the aftershocks of slavery's effects on this country and tired of being disrespectfully ignored. We see incidents like the racist parties as a sign that confirms our suspicions that America is indeed backsliding on working toward making Dr. King's dream a reality.

Some whites that I've had the chance to have honest discussions with on this topic over the years feel that 40 years of talking about it and other actions that occrred in the wake of the Civil Rights Movement are enough. Since African-Americans don't face overt racism in many areas of American life they feel that the country has moved beyond it.

One thing that 'errbody' forgets is that chattel slavery in this country lasted for 246 years and Jim Crow racism was around for 100 more. There was a lot of disinformation disseminated to justify slavery that if you're honest about it, reflects itself in today's racial attitudes. It's difficult for some whites to acknowledge that there is a problem with race when they go through life without having to deal with the issue because they're at the top of the societal pecking order.

So if you want to know why we go ballistic when we see those stereotypes acted out at a college party or a white gay man dressing up in blackface and claimong to honor Black women in his act, now ya know.

It's all about respect and right now African-Americans don't feel the love.

I Have Another Dream

364 days ago I began this TransGriot blog. I started with a general idea of it being an extension of my monthly column, but I've discovered that it's taken a life of its own. I've found that I've commented far more on general news events than anything strictly transgender related.

That's what I wanted.

While being transgendered is a topic that I could expound on every day and still find fresh ground to cover, the transgender aspect is only a small portion of who I am as a person. I have interests that don't necessarily involve or require total immersion in the transgender community.

One of them I will be striving mightily to achieve in the '07 is publishing one of my manuscripts. I've put that on the back burner for too long trying to get other projects off the ground like the TSTB Convention and it's time to focus on doing something for me.

As evidenced by the 100 plus posts on this blog, I love to write. I wish I had time to do ONLY that. I want (and need to) explore options that would allow me to make a living at what I love to do. I'm tired of scribbling down my ideas and character sketches on a note pad so that it's recorded until I can get home to my computer and type it up. I've got a lot of creative energy that needs to find another outlet besides the blog. I want to see my work on bookstore shelves everywhere.

But just as E. Lynn Harris and Eric Jerome Dickey did other jobs before they got the big breaks they needed to become published best-selling authors, I'm in the 'paying my dues' process as well. Those other jobs aren't exactly a waste of time. The things that have happened at my various workplaces and the interactions I have with people on a daily basis help give me story ideas. They also provide background info that I can incorporate into future manuscripts as well.

I'm just looking forward to the day when I can sign my name onto a contract with a publisher and I'm getting asked about my latest novel at a book signing event.

My Comments-Miss USA Controversy

As you probably guessed, I have some thoughts about the Miss USA controversy and they are rooted in what happened to Vanessa L. Williams.

I realize this is The Donald's pageant. As the owner of it he can make whatever decision he chooses to make concerning the status of Tara Conner. But I still have to wonder what would have happened if it was Tamiko Nash running buck wild in New York. Based on what happened to Vanessa Williams, my highly skeptical answer would have been no.

Let's flip da script for a moment. Let's assume that Tamiko Nash is wearing the MIss USA crown instead of Tara Conner. If Tamiko Nash had been hanging out with gangsta rappers, caught drinking while underage, running around with various Manhattan playa-playas and was headed to rehab for an alleged coke addiction, I have to question whether US public opinion or the media would have allowed a sistah to screw up on that massive scale with little or no media attention when there was a Caucasian first runner-up available to replace her.

Now let's take our alternate history scenario further and assume that The Donald did cut his wayward African-American queen some slack and offered her the same deal that he gave Tara Conner. I can see the right wingers screaming on Faux News and right-wing talk radio that he was caving in to the Black community. They'd be railing about his 'keeping a woman of questionable morals' in that spot to represent the USA at the Miss Universe Pageant and taking every opportunity to use the incident to attack African-Americans in general.

Let's exit our alternate universe and slide back to reality. In terms of how most African-Americans perceive our culture, young White people get multiple chances to screw up, young Blacks and other minorities do not.

Whether that's an accurate perception or not, the differing results as to what happened to Vanessa Williams in 1984 and Tara Conner in 2006 only confirm the suspicions of African-Americans that there IS one.

Double Standard

Trump Blasted for Keeping `Party Girl' Miss USA While Black Runner-Up Waits In Wings

Wednesday, December 20, 2006
By: Monica Lewis, BlackAmericaWeb.com

Let the conspiracy theories begin.

Despite developing a "party girl" reputation and even breaking the law by engaging in underage drinking, Miss USA Tara Conner will keep her crown, knocking down any chance of first runner-up Tamiko Nash taking over the title.

In a press conference Tuesday, Donald Trump, who owns the Miss Universe organization, said he would not dethrone Conner, whose alleged behavior has come under serious scrutiny in recent days. The former Miss Kentucky has reportedly been caught drinking in numerous New York nightclubs, engaging in an open mouth kiss with the reigning Miss Teen USA and been involved in flings with some of Manhattan's most eligible bachelors.

But Conner, who is white, stood by Trump's side as he publicly issued a vote of confidence, calling his wayward beauty queen "a good person." Had Trump pulled the trigger and sent Conner packing, Nash would have stepped in becoming the fifth black woman to hold the Miss USA title. Instead, Nash remains in her current role while Conner keeps the crown -- and enters rehab for drinking and after allegedly testing positive for cocaine.

"I've always been a believer in second chances," Trump, who owns the Miss Universe Organization, said at a podium inside the atrium of Trump Tower along New York's famed Fifth Avenue. "Tara is a good person. Tara has tried hard. Tara is going to be given a second chance."

According to reports, Trump was prepared to dethrone Conner, who just turned 21 Monday, before meeting with her prior to the scheduled press conference. However, he chalked up Conner's behavior to what happens to many small-town women who come to New York, the city that never sleeps.

In 2002, Miss Russia Oxana Fedorova won the Miss Universe pageant but was stripped of her title after violating her contract. Trump said Fedorova didn't show up for some photo shoots and charity events. It was the first time a titleholder had been ousted in the contest's more than 50-year history. Fedorova denied she was fired and said she gave up the title voluntarily.

In Nash's home state of California, many people have been talking about the controversy and the apparent blind eye given to Conner.
Paula Kimber, publisher of the California Advocate, a Black newspaper, said she disagrees with Trump's choice.

"The general feeling here is that if the races were the other way around, it wouldn't be the same result," Kimber told BlackAmericaWeb.com. "I couldn't imagine (Nash) keeping the title if it had been her who did all of this stuff."

This turn of events has many looking back to the mid-1980s when Vanessa Williams was forced to relinquish her crown when nude pictures of her, taken before she became the first Black Miss America, surfaced. Williams, who went on to have a professional
acting and singing career that could be envied by other beauty queens who served out the duration of their reigns, was thought unfit to represent a title that makes its holders an instant role model.

Melissa Lacewell Harris, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, said the situation speaks volumes about white privilege in America.

"Giving her a second chance is indicative of how White America works.
It's true for everyone from white fraternity boys to even people like George Bush, who can have mediocre grades and a failing international war and still be given a second chance," Lacewell Harris told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

"Over and over again, the mistakes young white people make are not held against them," Lacewell Harris said, adding that, if true, Conner's behavior don't seem to flow with the family values that a person in her position should display. "But when young Blacks make mistakes, it more than likely limits their opportunities forever.

"For the privileged people, whether it is white or the wealthy, they don't have to live perfect lives to have equal opportunities," Lacewell Harris continued. "They're allowed to make mistakes and even fail. Yet with (blacks), any moral misstep or miscalculation can lead to a lifetime of pain."

While some may feel as if debating whether or not Conner should keep her crown is a trivial matter, Lacewell Harris said, this latest turn of events could address some larger, more compelling issues plaguing society.

"This type of scenario is a litmus test and sets the stage for what's possible, not only on the cultural front but in a political sense," she told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

"In a certain way, the way Barack Obama is playing with the idea of running for president leaves us in the position where we need to asking are we ready for Black leaders," she added. "If there's a sense of discomfort of going to a Black girl when there's a problematic white girl holding the crown, maybe Barack should wait."

New Game Plan

Another guest column I wrote that was published by THE LETTER in August 2003
-----------------------------------------
New Game Plan
By Monica Roberts
Copyright 2003, THE LETTER


During the summer of 2002 I wrote an article directed at the
Caucasian male to female transsexuals in the community. I stated to
them that they are now considered whether they like it or not,
minorities, and the old rules of white male privilege that they are
used to operating under don't apply. Some of my own people have hard
heads too, so I'm now going to turn my attention to African-American
transgendered peeps.

I've been observing the Black GLBT community since the early 80's, and
I've been considered one of the trail blazing leaders in the national
trans community since 1998. One of the things that I admire about the
Caucasian trans community is that there is far more discussion and
information sharing concerning the process of transition than among
my own people.

And why is that happening? I believe that too much time is spent in
the African-American trans community focusing on having sex and
partying instead of intelligently discussing the process that leads
to us becoming recognized in the eyes of mainstream society as a
female. I witnessed too many Black T-girls who allow their lives to
get wrapped up in the short term pleasures of having a 'husband' or
finding 'trade' to sleep with for the night. There is much more to
being a woman than swallowing estrogen, developing a feminine body,
and spreading your legs or bending over to screw everything that
moves. That short-sighted thinking is dangerous, and has probably put
the entire African-American community at risk.
When studies like the 2000 Washington DC Transgender Needs Assessment
show that 32% of our sisters are HIV-positive out of a sample group
of 250 people, it's time to consider a new game plan.

Another is the fact that those T-girls who have acquired the
knowledge on how to transition jealously guard it like the secret
recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken. The persons who've already
transitioned want to cut out the potential competition. I remember
bumping into that problem when I was trying to find out how to get
the process started back in 1981. Most of the girls I asked were
tight-lipped on where they got their hormones, who did their hair,
or the other points of Transition 101. They ignored me instead
of seeing me as another human being who wanted to get to the place
where they were. They had forgotten the cardinal rule of the African-
American community: Each one, teach one. The spread of the
Internet has largely eliminated this problem, since much of the
information that I was seeking at that time is readily available
online.

Just once I'd like to see discussions for example, on what's
happening with T-sistas in various parts of the country. I'd like to
see us form our own organizations so that we can openly discuss
what's on our minds, and try to bridge the gaps between the
professional T-girls, the club T-girls, and the street T-girls.

I'd love to see T-sistas show up in significant numbers one
September at Southern Comfort in Atlanta or have our own.
I'd love to have conversations with them about aspects of the
transition process that are working their nerves. I've love to be
able to network with other T-sisters to build a foundation for a
nationwide support apparatus. I'd like to see African-American T-
sisters write about their feelings, how they grew up,
what drama they dealt with, what age they started the change, and
have them published in gay and straight media.

Most of all, I'd love to see the professional T-girls come out, if
possible,and become role models for the next generation of T-kids.
I'm in contact with many African-American T-girls who are college
educated. Some are holding advanced degrees. They are working in
various professional fields, and a few I know are wives and mothers
successfully raising children.
It's sad that unlike Caucasian T-kids, many of our T-kids have never
been exposed to a successful professional T- person who looks like
them. That's critically important in building our T-kids self esteem
and showing those kids that there is another path besides sex work
to a better life.

Finally, we need to impress upon people that transition is a slow
time-consuming process, and a major life altering decision. There
are no shortcuts, so put the silicone away. Your mother and your
sisters had years to learn everything about Femininity 101, and their
bodies developed over time. In my case, I started transitioning at
age 27, so I not only had to learn everything about femininity (and
I'm still learning at age 40), but at that moment I needed to have
the level of knowledge appropriate for a 27 year old Black woman.
The rub was that I didn't have 27 years to learn it.

How I did it was asking questions of my genetic female sisterfriends,
accepting the advice that they gave me, and observing their behavior
in various social situations To paraphrase the old joke about
getting to Carnegie Hall, the best way to become a woman when you
weren't immersed in femininity at birth is practice, practice,
practice. Much of my early progress in assimilating into Black
womanhood happened because of the help I received, and still get to
this day.

We Black T-girls have a lot to live up to. Black women are the
mothers of civilization, and we have a long, proud history of
achievement and success despite tremendous odds. I look at it as an
honor and a privilege to finally become part of that sacred circle
after being on the outside looking in for so long.

Anybody else care to join me?

My Favorite Things

I was playing Christmas music the other day and Luther's version of the song 'My Favorite Things' popped up in my random MP3 rotation. While listening to him croon (God, I miss Luther) I recalled a post that IQ had written on TSTB that asked people to list their favorite things Oprah style.

Well, here are my Top Ten Favorite Things

1-Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream

Everytime I eat Blue Bell ice cream it brings back fond memories. Blue Bell is just the bomb ice cream wise. It's not just me bragging about something Texan, people in the industry have said the same things. Since there are no local Blue Bell distributors in the Da Ville yet, the only places that I can get it are at Carrabas and Ruby Tuesday restaurants. They serve it as their dessert ice cream.

2-Texas high school football

Kentucky high school football is about a predictable as a George W. Bush press conference. Either one or a combination of three Louisville area schools (Trinity, St. Xavier or Male) will be involved in the 4A championship game and win it. Every now and then a Lexington area school or a Cinderella team from another part of the state crashes the party.

In The Lone Star State we have dominant teams, but they aren't guaranteed almost every year to play in the championship game, especially if they play in Region III (southeast Texas). Texas high school football history is chock full of stories of teams that made Cinderella runs to the championship. They either did it with star players that eventually went on to college and NFL glory in their various classes or made deep playoff runs before getting knocked off. Like Indiana and Kentucky basketball it's an ingrained part of Texas culture.

3-An Eric Jerome Dickey or Kayla Perrin novel

I've loved Eric's books ever since I read 'Friends and Lovers' and haven't missed one since. I discovered Kayla by accident. I was browsing a bookstore one day, saw 'If You Want Me' on the shelf and picked it up. I'm glad I did. I now have seven of her novels.

4-R&B and Jazz CD's

Growing up as the child of a disc jockey that programmed an R&B station it's no surprise that I love R&B music. Being that Houston is a jazz hotbed I used to attend a lot of live jazz performances. I got to see Kirk Whalum perform more than a few times at Midtown Live before he hit it big along with HSPVA alum Everette Harp.

5-A sistah that has it together from head to toe

I love seeing a sistah that has her hair and nails freshly done, wearing a fly suit or dress that accentuates her curves, shoes and the purse to match and entering a place like she's the Queen of Sheba. Whether she's light skinned or dark skinned, full figured or slim build, genetic or transwoman, young or senior citizen, I just love seeing a together, confident woman.

6-A brotha that has it together from head to toe

Ditto for the brothas. Nothing like a handsome Black man in a suit or just wearing the hell out of some jeans and a sweatshirt.

7-Any spare moment I get to write

Nothing calms me down and centers me more than sitting down at my computer and spending a few hours writing, whether it's my TransGriot column, my novels, a short story, poetry, or posting to various Yahoo lists.

8-Fresh seafood

One of the things I miss most about Houston next to HS football. We're only 55 miles from the Gulf of Mexico so I always had access to fresh seafood. In some cases I'd make the 30 minute drive to Galveston to go get it. Usually it involved a trip to a neighborhood fish market.

9-A road trip

I've always loved doing long drives. Whether it was trips to New Orleans, Dallas or Jackson, MS or the long ones I've done to LA, Washington DC, Atlanta or Phllly, I just relish the opportunity to get on the road, enjoy our nation's beautiful scenery, the conversation with friends or if I'm solo play some of my massive collection of 500 CD's and just drive until I arrive at my destination.

10-Intelligent conversation

I love to talk with people who have interesting jobs and lives. I like to discuss current events, politics, sports, and whatever subject du jour that piques my interest. I love diverse viewpoints that allow me to expand my own mental horizons.


There's a lot of other things that I love such as chocolate, fly clothes, movies, barbecue, Frenchy's chicken and history. But when you have to choose only ten, something gets left out.

Then again, I can always write a separate post about them. ;)

School Days

The Supreme Court is currently hearing a school desegregation case that has local ties to Da Ville. It has caused me to reflect on my own experiences with desegregation many moons ago.

It is ludricous to think that the Civil Rights movement of the 60's magically wiped away 246 years of slavery and 100 years of Jim Crow racism. The racial attitudes that helped shape and support the institution of slavery and Jim Crow are STILL around and permeate every aspect of American culture.

Too many white people have a naive concept of race and fail to note (or ignore) the historical contexts and reality of race in America. White privilege, atttitudes and its dominant position in American society is built on the foundation of slavery. It's also built upon 100 years of denial of opportunities for African-Americans to peacefully assimilate into American society after the Civil War.

I grew up in Houston and matriculated in HISD schools, which are themselves under a federal desegregation court order. As much as people gripe about busing, it wouldn't be necessary if white parents weren't leaving public schools for private ones with the usual 'to get a better education' cover excuse.

To give you an example, HISD has a magnet program for academically gifted and talented students called Vanguard. At the elementary and junior high/middle school level the Vanguard schools were housed on campuses in white neighborhoods. At the high school level it was housed from 1977-2001 at majority Black Jones High in the heart of South Park.

It was interesting to note that the white parents who sent their kids to VG schools in elementary and junior high, regulary bumped the 40% cutoff for white enrollment at River Oaks Elementary and Lanier Junior High suddenly had concerns at the high school level. Those parents tried for two decades to get the HS VG program moved off the Jones campus. They were usually opposed by former students and Black and Latino/a parents. They finally suceeded but the ironic twist was that all of their efforts resulted in the HS Vanguard program being moved to the former Carnegie Elementary campus in another BLACK neighborhood four miles away.

I was gratified to read a recent study that confirmed what I have known and suspected for a long time: Private school kids DO NOT outperform kids that matriculated in public school. (George W. Bush is Exhibit A for that).
It's also interesting to note that many of these so-called elite private schools have been set up SINCE the 1954 Brown v. Board decision.

It's amazing that some peeps are still so mortified at the prospect of Mackenzie and Jackson sitting next to Taquan and LaKeisha in a classroom that they are overpaying for the same level of education you can get for free in the public school arena. Maybe they should consider sending their kids to public schools and save some of that cash they pay private schools for their child's college years. The way college tuition rates have been exponentially climbing they'll need it.

I didn't get into Vanguard until the high school level. I had the grades but stayed at Albert Thomas, my neighborhood junior high. Just because a school is located in a majority Black neighborhood doesn't mean that we don't strive for educational excellence. I was in Major Works, the accelerated academic program for non-magnet school gifted students at the secondary level. Our teachers continually pushed us to excel and encouraged us to compete in academic contests. That concern even extended after we left their campuses. My brother was two grades behind me and let it slip to one of my old Albert Thomas teachers that my grades dropped during one report card period when I was in my sophomore year at Jones. She and several of my old teachers sent messages through him that it was unacceptable. Even my Little League coach got on my case when I came to watch my brother play a game one night.

If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing. I'd still go the same route. There are certain experiences that I had at Thomas that I wouldn't have gotten in a private school environment. I wrote an essay in 8th grade that helped me win a NASA sponsored districtwide contest and was captain of the back-to-back champion History Prep Bowl team. Those History Prep Bowl championships were even sweeter because we were the ONLY predominately Black school competing in this event.
For some strange reason we didn't get an invitation to defend our title during my 9th grade year and threepeat.

Thanks to my writing skills, I earned a trip to the Johnson Space Center and got to take a tour of it beyond the standard one they usually give. I sat at the computer consoles in JSC's Mission Control. We went to the building that houses the giant water tanks that they use to train astronauts for spacewalks. We got to walk through a mock-up of Skylab. I got to meet not only Nichelle Nichols from Star Trek but the first group of Black shuttle astronauts: Guy Bluford, Charles Gregory, Dr. Mae Jemison, and the late Challenger 7 astronaut Dr. Ron McNair.

I have problems with No Child Left Behind. It was designed by people who hate public schools. As a child of an educator and coming from a family of them I'm not a fan of teaching a test. Schools are supposed to teach you how to critically think, not rote memorization of a test or unquestioning obedience to authority. I am skeptical of a program designed by voucher advocates and highly suspicious of an education bill that DOES NOT apply to private schools. Either private schools need to be held to the same standards or else NCLB needs to be abolished. Some of the more memorable teaching experiences for me were situations in which teachers were allowed to unleash creative lesson plans on us.

In 8th grade, my history teacher Mr. Sanders went BEYOND the textbooks and taught us the little known historical events that had major implications on history. In high school I had the history of the Holocaust come to life thanks to Kaye Arnold. We spent a day role playing various characters in Nazi Germany. I found myself tossed in the 'concentration camp' when my character was trying to rat on his suspected Jewish neighbor to an 'SS officer'.

I went through such trying times in junior high with math to the point where it made me loathe the subject with a passion. My high school math teachers Dana Read, Diane Servance, and Henry Stevenson Jr got me to a point where I actually liked math again.

I also had memorable teachers in elementary school like my kindergarten and 1st grade teacher Ms. Ray Williams, Ms. Emily Hurd in 2nd grade, Ms. Carolyn Dickson in 4th grade, and Ms. Dorothy Ware-Hagans in 5th and 6th grade.

Can't leave out some of my more memorable junior high ones like my History Prep Bowl coach Ms. Melina Harris, my English teachers Ms. Doris Maxie and Ms. Faye Mitchell, and my typing teacher Ms. Felecia Thomas. She was fresh out of college herself and her sense of style and fashion combined with her model quality beauty had many boys on campus drooling over her. I admired her for another reason ;)

But back to my experiences with integration HISD style. HISD came up with a pairing plan in which an all-white and all black school were zoned together. One would teach grades K-3, the other grades 4-6. When it was implemented I was in second grade at newly opened (and all-Black) Law Elementary School which I was zoned to attend after I finished kindergarten at JJ Rhoads. My neighborhood was rezoned to the school I'd just left, JJ Rhoads. I had go back to Rhoads for one year, then to Frost. I ended up attending three different elementary schools in a two year span because of the pairing plan. It would have been four had I gone to River Oaks Elementary where the Vanguard gifted and talented student program was housed. But once again I would have been there only for a year before moving off to junior high school. Unfortunately, because of white flight from South Park to southwest Houston and to the counties surrounding Houston Frost Elementary became majority black by the time I hit 5th grade.

By my sixth grade year HISD shifted focus to using magnet schools with voluntary busing. But that meant that since many of these initial magnet school campuses were in white neighborhoods the Black kids attending them were enduring one to two hour crosstown bus rides in Houston rush hour traffic. Magnet campuses housed in Black neighborhoods didn't get the same level of white participation.

Was it worth it? Yeah. I got to flex my intellectual muscles with Asian, white, and Latino/a kids from all over Houston. At Jones I attended a school equipped with two state of the art (for the late 70's) Control Data PLATO computers. In my junior year I participated in the Houston area Model United Nations hosted at the University of Houston. I expanded my circle of friends beyond my immediate neighborhood and was exposed to people of many different cultural and religious backgrounds. Some of those friendships endure today and being exposed to various cultures has helped me immensely during my lifetime.

When I describe the things I did and experienced to people in this area many assume I went to private school. Nope, I'm a proud HISD alum.

So yeah, good old fashioned racism STILL plays a part in the education issue, too. The sooner that we realize that, the sooner we can come to a consensus on what to do about it. Here's hoping the Supremes do the right thing and leave the Louisvlle and Seattle school districts alone.

I'm not holding my breath on that.

Welcome to Minority Status

Transgriot Note: One of my first published articles. I was expressing my frustration at the time (2003) with white transwomen and my perception that despite transitioning to womanhood, they were desperately attempting to hold on to White Male Privilege.)

Congratulations! If no one else has done so, let me be the first person to welcome you to minority status. You are now about to experience firsthand what I and other people of color have seen and grown up with since birth. I know you are a little disoriented trying to adjust to being transgendered, so I will happily help you out by giving you the four-one-one on how to cope with your new station in life.

The first order of business is to get it through your heads that you are no longer part of the white male clique, so quit trying to hang on to white male privilege like a wino clutching his last bottle of MD 20/20. News flash: You gave up your claim to white male privilege the second that you took your first hormones and began developing a feminine body. Your former colleagues now see you as a confused soul who surrendered your membership in the fraternity, and worst of all is getting rid of the Almighty Phallus. You are nothing more than a traitorous queer, excuse the expression, to them and you will be severely punished for your 'crime'.

Get used to the fact that you will be looked upon as 'the enemy'. You are more dangerous to your former gender colleagues because you were once one of them and know their secrets. They are going to do whatever is necessary to ensure that you are NEVER their equal. That includes negative comments, stereotypical statements, disinformation and outright lies told about you by them in the print and broadcast media outlets they control.

Let's touch upon the financial aspect of your new minority status. You are now going to have to work twice as hard for less pay. If you mess up at work, you will not get multiple chances to hang on to that job. In some cases you can compile an exemplary work record and still be terminated. When you begin searching for employment, you will constantly run into the maddening situation of being passed over for jobs that you are eminently qualified for in favor of someone who doesn't have your educational background or experience. The same dynamic will apply when you are employed and get repeatedly passed over for promotions.

I know it's going to be tough on you, and unlike transpeople of color you're not used to being in this situation. Hey, I've never been part of the brotherhood, either. One advantage that I've obtained over you is that I along with many other people of color have been equipped since birth with the coping skills and mental fortitude necessary to operate in this problematic environment. This is the first time in your life that you have had to deal with discrimination, less-than-equal treatment, someone discounting your intelligence, or the realization that someone hates you simply because of who you are.

Speaking of someone hating you for who you are, as a new minority member you must be vigilant about your personal safety. There are some people out there who will read that cultural disapproval of transgendered people as a signal that it is okay for them to do whatever they want to you, up to and including murder, without fear of retribution.

Think I'm kidding?

Ask Chanelle Pickett's family in Boston what her killer was sentenced to. Ask Tyra Hunter's mother in Washington DC what happened to the EMT who stopped treating her after a car accident once he found out that Tyra was transgendered. If you have an Internet connection, check out Gwen Smith's Remembering Our Dead list. It has grown to over two hundred names and counting, so watch your back when you go out.

As a minority an understanding of politics and how it works is now essential to your survival. You can no longer afford to be apathetic to what goes on in City Hall, your county courthouse, your state capitol building, or Capitol Hill because you don't have the influence you once had. You can't ignore the court system, either. If you do, yo do so at your peril. Just ask the transgendered people who have turned to the legal system expecting simple justice and gotten screwed in the process by judges injecting their personal biases in their opinions.

Politics and the law will now be used as a weapon against you. You must concern yourself with electing candidates whose primary mandate is to strengthen civil rights laws in this country, not weaken them. It is vital that you know the difference between your friends and your enemies. You will now have to immediately learn how coalition politics works and how to come together with your partners to fight a common foe. Unfortunately that's something the T-community still hasn't learned how to do, and we're running out of time to get it right.

You will hear in the course of your interaction with other transgendered people the term 'horizontal hostility'. It refers to he vicious cycle of good people putting their necks on the line and offering their talents to help lead this community, and then quitting in frustration. Many times it is because they are tired of defending themselves from the very people that reap the benefits of their hard work, the street trannies and the stealth trannies quivering in their closets. Neirher group is doing anything constructive to help us gain our rights, but excel in posting destructive comments on transgendered Internet lists criticizing the people who are.

The street trannies rail about 'elitist' sellout conservative trannies not caring about the plight of their poor brethren working the streets. When those so-called 'elitist' trannies call their bluff and offer their help, they'll defiantly huff that they don't want their handouts. The stealth trannies want nothing more than to protect their closeted status. They whine that if the activists would just leave well enough alone and stop rocking the boat, everything will be fine and our enemies will move on to other targets.

Hate to tell you this, but it ain't happening. The high yellow passing argument in which this misguided lament is descended from didn't work during the Civil Rights Movement, and this one won't fly either. The Religious Right doesn't have 'godless communism' to pick on anymore. They tried to take on the feminists and have been battled to a standstill. We are now the people that the Pat Robertson's and Jay Sekulow's of the world are gunning for. They are turning transgendered peeps into the bogeyman they need to generate the funds they require to keep their organizations viable. We are the peeps that they are going to use to justify to their money men (once again predominately white males) that they can win for a change and we'd better be ready to oppose them.

Before we can even think about building a community, we T-people must overcome the shame and guilt issues that plague us. We need a new attitude. We should be mature enough to realize that we are not going to be in lockstep agreement on many issues, and we must respect our fellow T-people who express divergent opinions. We need to accept constructive criticism that comes from individuals within the community instead of viciously attacking the messenger.

We must also stress personal responsibility. Like it or not, you must conduct yourself as a role model. My behavior in society reflects on you as a transgendered person, and what you do reflects on me. What we both do impacts the entire transgendered community, and we need to be sensitive to that. That 'rugged individualist' John Wayne mentality no longer applies. You are now a minority and you must be better than the society at large that we interact with.

We must be proud of being transgendered human beings. There is an old African-American saying: Nothing you know is worth anything if you don't know how to be proud of yourself. In terms of expressing that pride, we must not only talk the talk, but walk the walk. Too many of us are content to hide in the closet. Thanks to the Littleton and Gardiner cases and the Religious Right retraining their targets on us, that will not be a viable option much longer.

If the Right is going to come after me, I'd rather be in a fighting stance battling tooth and nail for my constitutional rights than in a kneeling position submitting to whatever evil they have planned for us. I hope you feel the same way, too. Your life depends on it!

Welcome to minority status.

The Night I Almost Became A Hate Crime Victim

In 1996 I almost became a hate crime victim.

I was visiting a friend's apartment after coming back from my session with my Galveston based gender therapist and endo. We were having such a great time running our mouths that I didn't leave her place until a little after ten pm.

I was a half mile from my complex and had been picking up some weight from the HRT, so I decided to get some exercise and walk down Bissonnet. It's a heavily traveled four-lane divided major street in SW Houston. The traffic in that section of it between Fondren Road and the South Braeswood split after ten p.m. is pretty light until you get past the Southwest Freeway and it picks up again.

I was still clad in the nice dress, hose and heels I wore to my appointment and was headed westbound on my merry way home when a car passed me with four young brothers in it. They slowed down to check me out, then did a U-turn and headed eastbound.

At that moment my intuition kicked in at red alert level. I was alone and still a long way from home. Bissonnet has a METRO bus route that runs until 2 AM but that bus wasn't due at my location for at least 30 minutes.

While I was considering my options I noted that the car had executed another U-turn and was headed back in my direction. I had to move fast and decided to immediately cross the street and duck into a condo complex.

I watched in horror as the homeboys parked in a lot precisely where I would have to walk to get home. I could see them but thankfully they couldn't see me and I decided to wait them out.

After a nerve racking 20 minutes I watched them start the car, pull off and head eastbound on Bissonnet. When they were out of my sightline and I was certain they weren't coming back, I emerged from my hiding place just in time to see the westbound 65 Bissonnet bus letting people off at the stop just two blocks up the street from me. I quickly walked to the next stop and caught it the rest of the way home.

I have no doubts that if I hadn't crossed the street I would have possibly become a victim of a sexual assault. That assault would have turned even uglier once they found the little surprise hiding in my panties. There is no way with my reduced strength level I would have been able to fight four pissed off guys.

That night permanently drove home the message that safety was now a major priority in my life. The Lynn Vines incident in Baltimore, Amanda Milan's murder and the Tyra Hunter tragedy underscored the fact that some of the violence and ignorance that has been visited upon African-American transpeeps has unfortunately been from our own people.

If I hadn't listened to my instincts, I might not be here typing my story right now.