HRC, Keep Your Moneygrubbing Mitts Off Our TDOR

The TDOR is a time for us to memorialize the people we lost to anti-transgender violence. It's a event that's designed as a way for our allies to show support to our community.

In Louisville, the TDOR celebration has been organized by the wonderful people at the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. We will celebrate the 5th annual local observance tomorrow night at 7 PM in the Caldwell Chapel on the LPTS campus.

While we deeply appreciate our allies and can't thank you enough for the love, support and help that you have given us over the years, there's one group that in my opinion should NOT be welcome at any TDOR event this year and for the foreseeable future.

In the wake of their odious and morally bankrupt handling of ENDA (which will result in more transgender deaths until we have full civil rights) HRC is co-sponsoring TDOR memorials in Washington DC, Houston, Phoenix and Chicago.

They have revealed themselves to be the Antichrists of civil rights and have no respect for anything but cash, so why should we dishonor the memories of transpeople who died by having an organization that worked to pass a transgender-free ENDA, took $10K-20K of our money at SCC while saying they would oppose a non-inclusive ENDA and has spent a decade opposing our inclusion sign up as the sponsor of TDOR events?

Their opposition to our inclusion in ENDA is a contributing factor along with the anti-transgender hatred to some of the transpeople we memorialize at TDOR's being on that list in the first place.

So until HRC mends its ways, why should we give them the opportunity to keep perpetrating the 'illusion of inclusion' and claim in their fundraising efforts that they are transgender friendly? Their deeds not only speak loudly as to the type of organization they are, it speaks to their moral fiber as well.

On Like Donkey Kong

One of the things I've been chuckling about in the wake of my JCPS Board of Education hearing appearance Monday is when one of the opposition speakers, in the wake of Dr. Frank Simon's three minute 'gays are disease carriers' one note rant, had the nerve to whine about my Forces of Intolerance comment.

Aww, you feeling a little insecure? The truth hurts, don't it? As I told him when he passed me on the way back to his seat, "If the white sheet fits, wear it my brother."

I find it amusingly ironic that the GLBT haters around the country get their noses out of joint and act like offended debutantes when we progressives call them out on their bigotry and faith-based hatred. They get all huffy and grouse like this gentleman did that just because we're on opposite sides of a policy debate doesn't mean we should call them names.

You know, I'd be inclined to agree with that statement except for one thing. You people frequently don't practice what you screech at us.

Over the last decade you Reichers have called us GLBT peeps disease carriers, Sodomites, parasites, Communists, un-Christian, un-American, traitors, terrorists, pedophiles, termites in need of a Godly fumigation (Pat Robertson's words), blamed us for every natural and man-made disaster since 9-11 and said other interesting things I won't waste bandwith repeating.

The way I see it, we owe you a decade's worth of verbal beatdowns and then some. I will be most happy to give you modern day Pharisees what you so richly deserve.

It's on like Donkey Kong as far as I'm concerned. If you think this liberal-progressive is gonna sit back and let y'all get away with disrespecting her, y'all got me confused with a Washington DC Democrat.

I delight in serving up fresh verbal beatdowns to the Forces of Intolerance. It makes my day when you whine and squeal like kindergartners when we give back to you what you have been dishing out to us over the last decade.

So stop whining. Don't start no static, won't be none. Just be warned that when y'all throw that anti-GLBT shade, I'm part of the school of progressives that hits back. So if you truly desire a civilized debate, then stop the hate and communicate.

But if you don't:

Your mama's so intolerant she has a picture of Ann Coulter on her living room wall.

If y'all wanna keep playing the dozens, bring it on. Your side has far more things I can zap you with such as your penchant for wearing pointed hoods, being modern day Bull Connors, crossdressing and engaging in the sexual practices you denounce, admiring and emulating the tactics of a 1930's European dictatorship, your faith-based hypocrisy, using the Flintstones as the basis for intelligent design...

You get the picture.

500 Posts!

When I started TransGriot on January 1, 2006 I just simply wanted to get the voice of an African-American transperson into the blogosphere. I noticed that we were absent from the conversation and in the spirit of my ancestors, decided to do it my damned self and provide that voice.

It took me a little less than three years, but I've now reached the 500 posts milestone. Hmm. I guess I've had a lot to say over the last two and a half years.

Now I'm headed to the next milestone post level. I still have a lot of thoughts to express about myriad issues. I'm glad that you surf your way to my blog and keep coming back, and I thank you for that.

I was reading Alexandra Billings' Stillettos and Sneakers blog the other day and ran across an interesting post. It takes you to a site that asks you to plug in the blog URL and spits back a blog readability level.

I decided to check it out and see what TransGriot would score and it spit back an undergraduate college level score. I'm going to have to play with it and see what ratings other blogs and websites got according to this site.

I found it interesting.

One of my goals when I started TransGriot was to create an informative blog that people would enjoy reading and come back to. My steadily climbing Technorati authority ranking and your comments are a testament to how well I'm doing in achieving that goal.

Speaking of comments, I enjoy receiving them from you TransGriot readers on my various posts, so please keep them coming. I deeply appreciate the feedback.

Even if the rating says it's undergraduate college level reading, whatever your educational level is, don't let that 'scurr' you from checking out what this Phenomenal Transwoman has to say about the world around her.

Congratulations*

The Kentucky Psychological Association is meeting at The Galt House in Louisville and yesterday Dawn and I were taking part in a panel discussion on transgender issues.

While I was getting dressed for the 3 PM start of this panel I'd flipped it to C-SPAN to watch the beginning of the ENDA debate before I exited the house. I arrived back at home just in time to see ENDA get voted on.

It's probably a good thing I wasn't home to watch the entire travesty unfold. I probably wouldn't have a television right now.

I have a good idea now how Dred Scott felt 150 years ago when Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote in dismissing his case, "that not only was he not a citizen of any state as a slave, he had no rights a white man is bound to respect."

That's the message that is resonating with me right now. 150 years later another group of white males, Barney Frank, John Aravosis, Chris Crain, Joe Solmonese and others in the GLB community are now telling me and other transgender people that not only do we not have any rights they are bound to respect, they don't care.

That is the symbolic message you sent to me, America and the entire world when you passed a non-inclusive ENDA yesterday in the House. Some of you are hailing that as a historic victory.

Yeah, right. Yippee. I raise a champagne toast to the fact that once again I've been screwed by the GLB community and I'm supposed to be rejoicing over it.

I'm supposed to be happy about the fact that you replaced an inclusive ENDA with 175 cosponsors for a flawed non-inclusive bill, got savagely attacked by Frank on the House floor as 'selfish' when we called you on it, watched the hidden transphobic hatred come bubbling to the surface from some GLB peeps, and watched as HRC came to our signature convention, collected a bunch of T-bills while LYING to the peeps assembled at SCC in Atlanta that they would oppose a non inclusive bill.

What crack pipe are y'all smoking?

From now on I don't EVER want to hear for the rest of my life the lie that your selfish GLB movement is similar to the 60's civil rights movement. You're not even close to having the moral fiber and spirit of inclusiveness my people exhibited in our fight against injustice.

As of 6:23 PM EST on November 7, 2007 you ceded any moral high ground you may have had when you threw transpeople under the bus to get a bill passed that doesn't even cover 'errbody' in your community.

So yeah, party hearty. have a good time. But mark my words, if Dummya even signs this bill into law (assuming it passes the Senate) I'll be sitting there with a smirk on my face, ready to tell you 'I told you so' when your unfriendly neighborhood homobigots start using the missing 'gender identity' or 'perceived gender identity' language to start terminating the 90% of gays and lesbians who aren't covered in Frank's Folly.

If you don't think that language is needed, ask Ann Hopkins or Khadijah Farmer.

My attitude this morning mirrors Miles Thirst, the ten-inch spokesperson for the Sprite ads featuring LeBron James.

"Congratulations on your no-prize winning hollow victory."

The Day I Permanently Became A Democrat

Today is Election Day, and I've already gone to my friendly neighborhood precinct to cast my ballots. Thank God we are less than a year away from November 4, 2008. The state house and senate seats come up for election, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has to face the voters, the US House election with John Yarmuth (D-KY) versus a yet to be named Republican and of course the presidential one.

I can hardly wait.

In Kentucky we are heading to the polls to elect a new governor, secretary of state (very important office. Just ask Katharine Harris, Ken Blackwell and the Bush administration), state auditor, state agriculture commissioner, state treasurer and state attorney general (another important office). In Jefferson County we have a judicial race on the ballot as well.

It's just a single page ballot for us in this election. In Jefferson County we use a Scantron-like form in which you bubble in the candidate you wish to vote for with a pencil, then once you're done you take it over to the collection machine, insert it and it counts your vote. In case of a recount, the entire sheet is available for the recount.

You TransGriot readers may have noticed that I am an unabashed Democrat and can't stand the ground the Republicans walk on.

I don't believe in 'vote the person, not the party.' The way I look at it, the party you choose to support tells me a lot about you and your character. As for independents, nobody is exactly 50/50 politically. Even as a Democrat I like balanced budgets, a strong defense and believe in the death penalty.

Let's be real, there are some sick and twisted Manson wannabees out there that deserve lethal injection. My point is that if you sentence someone to the death penalty, the trial needs to be scrupulously fair, there needs to be no doubt in the jury's minds that the accused committed the crime and there must be overwhelming evidence that the person being accused of the crime committed it.

But back to the post. I can tell you the exact date I became a committed Democrat. It was exactly 23 years ago today on November 6, 1984.

I've always been as a history buff a politically aware person. One of my dreams is to eventually run for public office. The first election I got to participate in after I turned 18 was the 1980 presidential one between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

Some of the things I said in my idealistic youth phase were "My vote wasn't going to belong to any party." "I'm going to be an independent and choose the best candidate regardless of party."

The problem was that one party was about to become more radical. In 1984 in what is called in Texas political lore 'The Dallas Massacre', at their party convention held in Dallas, the far right took over the Texas Republican Party by kicking all the liberal to moderate Republicans out of party leadership positions. One of the people involved in that exercise was a then little known state legislator named Tom DeLay. The GOP then began using Texas as a laboratory to field test their new tactics that they would use to seize power elsewhere.

One of those tactics was suppression of African-American voters. African-Americans are SOCIALLY conservative but POLITICALLY liberal. Thanks to the 'Southern Strategy' initiated by Nixon in which the Dixiecrats began switching to the GOP after the 1964 election, they were becoming more anti-civil rights and more racist. That caused more African-Americans to vote and join the Democratic party.

The Reagan administration taking power made me reassess my "I'm gonna be an independent" stance. I was not happy with Reagan administration policies. I was still pissed off about the 1980 campaign that Reagan kicked off in Philadelphia, MS. I was even more angered over the 'I believe in state's rights' speech that he made to kick off that campaign. In 1982 I stood in a long line outside the community center in a driving rainstorm in order to cast my vote in my first Texas governor's race. When Jesse Jackson made his first run for president in 1984 I became a Jackson delegate.

Two weeks before the 1984 election the Harris County GOP announced they were 'concerned' about reports of 'voting irregularities' occurring in precincts that voted more than 90% Democratic. They announced plans to put poll watchers in these precincts to monitor them. The precincts they chose were predominately African-American and Latino. My home precinct at Crestmont Park was on the GOP target list for a poll watcher since we'd voted 94% in favor of Carter in 1980 and 94% for Mark White in the 1982 governor's race.

One of the popular shirts in the anti-Reagan crowd was a takeoff of the Ghostbusters movie logo that had Reagan's face crossed out with the words 'No Bonzos' on it, a reference to the movie Bedtime For Bonzo Reagan had starred in. I had one and was planning to cast my ballot on election day while wearing that shirt. I knew it was legal because it didn't have Reagan's name on it nor was it advocating for Walter Mondale.

So I bounced up to Crestmont Park and the community center, showed my precinct judge my voter registration card and picked up my punch card ballot in preparation to vote. There was a white male standing there, who was the GOP poll watcher. My then state rep Ron Wilson (this was before he turned to the Dark Side of the political force and started cozying up to the GOP) was there observing him.

Then it happened. I had to wait a few minutes for a punch card station to open up and while I was doing so the poll watcher made his move to deny me my right to vote on the grounds I was wearing 'campaign material in a polling place'.

When the precinct judge said I couldn't vote, I went nuclear. I pointed out that neither Mondale's name or Reagan's was on this shirt, I bought it at a local t-shirt shop and the money went to the t-shirt shop owner, not the Mondale campaign, which invalidated his BS claim it was campaign material. When she said I either had to take it off or I couldn't vote I stormed out of the community center.

Rep. Wilson caught me just as I was about to climb into my car. He reminded me of what it cost our people so that I would have the right to cast that ballot. He also pointed out that if I went home, then the GOP was accomplishing their mission of suppressing our votes.

After I calmed down, I walked back into the rec center with Rep. Wilson, and he and the precinct judge came up with a solution acceptable to me and the poll watcher. He lent me his Member's Only jacket to cover up the shirt, I again picked up my ballot, marked a straight Democratic ticket, dropped the folded ballot in the collection can and flipped the GOP poll watcher the finger after I deposited it. I also told him before I left, "Tell your bosses that your actions today just turned an independent voter into a Democratic voter for life."

So I felt the pain of Floridians in 2000 and the peeps in Ohio in 2004 because I have firsthand experience with GOP vote suppression tactics.

It's a major reason among others why I'm a Democrat to this day.

Transgender Rights Are A Worldwide Struggle

One of the things I've noticed over the last few years is how transpeople all over the world are gathering the courage to stand up, proudly proclaim their pride in who we are and fight for our human rights to be respected. The battle over ENDA in the United States is just one front in this struggle to not only gain recognition and respect but to be able to openly and honestly live our lives.

As a transgender person, my brothers and sisters are everywhere. I am not limited to the borders of the United States or my ancestral home continent of Africa in this regard. Any success that we as transpeople have somewhere on planet Earth affects me positively. I also share the pain and disappointment when I hear about the violence and repression faced by transpeople in many parts of Africa, Central America, South America, Jamaica and the United States or the legal setbacks in various countries when it comes to transgender issues.

I cheered when Israel's Dana International won the Eurovision song contest. I'm envious of my sisters in Thailand who get to transition early without the faith-based hatred that we face here in the States. I marvel at the beauty of the transwomen from Mexico, the Philippines, South Korea, Japan and other parts of the globe. I was moved to tears when Georgina Beyer became the first transwoman ever elected to a national legislative body as a member of New Zealand's parliament. I was happy to see that then 12 year old Kim in Germany was allowed to transition and is now happily growing up as a teen aged girl. I'm thrilled by the victories that Spanish transpeople gained in terms of their name change rights. I was fascinated to discover that transpeople even exist in Iran and other parts of the Middle East.

I jumped for joy when the Gender Recognition Act of 2004 was passed by the British Parliament. The recent Irish case allowing a transwoman there to change birth documents will hopefully help us here in the States.

Some of my early role models when I was growing up in the 70's were international in scope such as Britain's Caroline Cossey. I'm inspired to fight harder for my rights here in the States by drawing on the examples of courage from Ugandan Victor Juliet Mukasa , the Queen of Africa and transactivists in Argentina.

And my thoughts are reciprocated in other parts of the world as well. The upcoming Transgender Day of Remembrance started here in the States but has quickly become a worldwide event. I was pleased to discover that my blog is read internationally when I noted that Portugal's Eduarda Santos links her transgender blog to various posts of mine on occasion. I hope that you international readers are enjoying getting to learn about what life is like for a transgender person who also happens to be an American proud of her African roots.

I'm delighted to see that transgender pageants are exploding in popularity in the Philippines, Thailand and Great Britain and that our transpeeps in South Korea, thanks to Harisu, can not only get their name changes done but get married as well.

Even China has an emerging transgender community with Chen Lili as its poster girl. And like Georgina Beyer, more transpeople are getting elected to public office in various countries, including my own.

We are all interconnected. Transpeople know this lesson better than anyone. Just look at how SRS technology advanced. It was an international effort and we traveled to wherever it was available.

In 1952 the late Christine Jorgenson got her pioneering surgery done in Denmark. Others later flocked to Morocco in the 1960s to get the updated techniques from Dr. Georges Burou that modern SRS is based on. The late Dr. Stanley Biber of Trinidad, CO built upon and perfected it during the 70's and 80's. Montreal surgeons Dr. Yvon Menard and Dr. Pierre Brassard built on that work and Dr. Michel Seghers was doing cutting edge SRS surgeries as well in Belgium. Now transpeople flock to Thailand from all over the world to take advantage of the reasonably-priced cutting edge work of the Thai doctors to get it done.

The civil rights struggle, like the medical advances in SRS techniques is an international one as well. We may feel in our various countries from time to time that we're fighting it alone, but we aren't.

But the fight is an ongoing one. Just as we have religious zealots in the United States seeking to retard our progress, so do our brothers and sisters around the world. Islamic fundamentalists are opposing our sisters in Malaysia and Indonesia. Nigerians have the double whammy of being opposed by Islamic and Christian fundamentalists.

Like the US Republican party, there are politicians pandering to the bigot vote like Prime Minster John Howard of Australia and our transsisters are caught in the crossfire. The Catholic Church has moved from an affirming position on transgender issues to an increasingly intolerant one under Pope Benedict XVI. Our sisters in the Philippines have recently suffered a blow from their Supreme Court in terms of being able to change their birth documents.

As former South African president Nelson Mandela so eloquently stated, 'the people are their own liberators.'

We must take his words to heart and act as our own liberators. We must continue to support each other, reach out to supportive family members and friends, win allies, pool information, strategies, tactics and information so that we reach our ultimate goal: respect of our humanity.

We transpeople should never give up hope. We must continue to fight to have our basic human rights in our various homelands respected and protected. That must happen if we wish to contribute our talents to help build our communities and our respective nations. We must be able to work without being harassed or denied employment we are qualified for. We mush be able to live quality lives without having fear, shame, guilt and the specter of violence heaped upon us. We must be able to freely use our talents to accomplish whatever we set our minds to do and have the faith to believe that one day we will prevail over the Forces of Intolerance.

And yes, I believe this will happen in my lifetime.

I Got My Rights-Forget Y'all

One of the things that will make me go straight the hell off is when people utter the statement "I got my rights. I don't need to lobby nationally". I hear this far too often from many GLBT people who live in areas that have local or state protective laws. When you ask them to help us lobby on a national level, they'll look at you disdainfully and say, "Why?"

Why? Let me break it down to you why you peeps who are fortunate enough to live in areas where your rights are covered need to get off your asses and help the folks that don't.

While I reside in Louisville, which has a local GLBT protective law along with Lexington and Covington, other parts of the state don't. Henderson, KY passed one in 1999 but had it rescinded a year later when one of the members of the narrow 3-2 pro-GLBT rights majority on the Henderson city council retired. He was replaced by a member of the Forces of Intolerance which flipped the 3-2 majority to the anti-GLBT crowd.

In 2004 we had to pick ourselves up one month after a devastating defeat in the anti-marriage equality amendment battle and fight tooth and nail in Louisville just to keep our Fairness law on the books.

Every year in Frankfort we have to fight a bill a right-wing Republican state legislator is proposing that would take away a city's ability to enact civil rights law, reserve that power for the state level and ivalidate the inclusive laws we painstakingly passed at the city level.

And please don't send me any comments that say,"Why don't you move to (insert your inclusive city/state here), then you'll have rights?" Been there, done that.

As much as I like Louisville, it isn't home. Texas is my birth state, Houston is my hometown and my family's roots on my father's side in the Lone Star State predate the Civil War. But because my hometown only protects transgender employment for city employees, I made the reluctant decision to relocate.

But why should people have to move to get their rights? Transpeople live in other areas besides northern and southern California, the Northeast Corridor, the Pacific Northwest and Chicagoland. We have people that live in the reddest of red states, like it and no offense to you peeps that live there, have a variety of personal reasons why they would rather not live in Massachusetts or California.

So shouldn't they be able to live in the areas that appeal to them and have their constitutional rights protected and respected?

To get those rights, since hell will freeze over before some 'flyover country' state legislatures pass GLBT inclusive laws, the only alternative in the rest of the country is to have those rights codified at the federal level.

We need help. For example, you Californians have the largest Congressional delegation with 52 members, but we rarely see you, much less anyone west of the Mississippi River besides Texans, Arizonans or the occasional person from Colorado at national lobby days on a consistent basis.

It would be extremely helpful to the transgender rights cause if you Westerners helped your fellow transpeople east of the Mississippi and not only showed up for a Washington lobby day in force, but hit your local offices, meet with your congressmembers at local events, develop a relationship with them and call them up when we need you to. It's one thing for those of us who are participating in these lobby days to show up in these offices, but there's nothing that impresses a congressmember more than a constituent who took the time and made the effort, especially from Western states to come to DC to chat with the member about issues that concern them.

As a minority, you have to think nationally and globally. You have to be vigilant on aything that may remotely affect your civil rights. We African-Americans know all too well how fragile civil rights are in the face of determined opposition to gaining those rights. Everything affects you on one level or another even if it's not happening in your backyard. That's why people from as far away as California were part of the 40,000 people who showed up in Jena, LA for that September 20 protest.

John F. Kennedy once said in a nationally televised speech on civil rights in June 1963, "When we give rights to others, we expand rights for ourselves."

Think of it this way. By getting more involved in helping an inclusive federal ENDA to pass for example, you'll expand rights for yourselves. You'll have an extra layer of protection for the inevitable day that the Forces of Intolerance try to take away your local civil rights laws. You'll also be helping your brothers and sisters in conservative-dominated states enjoy the same rights you have.

Monica's Recipe For A Phenomenal Transwoman

3 cups of faith
2 cups of fortitude
1 cup of courage
1/2 cup of fashion sense
1 cup of divatude
2 cups of estrogen
1 cup of progesterone
1 cup of pride
3 cups of broad-based knowledge
2 cups of healthy self-esteem
1 cup of self-love
1 cup of sisterhood
1 cup of patience
A pinch of flava
Add surgical enhancement to individual taste

Sprinkle a sense of humor into the mixture and stir well. Yields one Phenomenal Transwoman when done.

This recipe does not use any self-hatred, shame and guilt, or silicone

Barney Come Clean

Today is National Coming Out Day. In the spirit of that and in the midst of this ongoing family feud over ENDA, we've had some folks in the GLB community have a coming out of sorts as well.

The transbigots.

Their poster child just happens to be the guy who is quarterbacking ENDA throughout the House, Rep. Barney Frank.

The transbigots, like their kissin' cousins in hate groups and the Religious Reich use their power, White Male Privilege and media bully pulpits to thwart the progress of a minority group for their own selfish gain.

It should be clear at this point who the leading transbigots are in this community. John Aravosis and Chris Crain along with Barney head the list. There are other transbigots that operate on a national, state and local level who see it as their mission to make the GLB community rainbow pure and transgender free.


But as I know from my African-American history, nothing is more dangerous to civil rights than having bigots in charge of writing and enacting civil rights law.

So Barney, come clean and stop prevaricating. You hate transgender people and have since your days in the Massachusetts Legislature. You're not a friend to our community.

Can you handle that truth?

A friend of our community would fight just as hard or harder to include us in legislation that we need, instead of engaging in Orwellian doublespeak and blaming the transgender community for the failure of your 'with all deliberate speed' approach to including transgender peeps inro federal law.

If you were the transgender community's best friend, you'd be honest with the GLB community and tell them, like Lambda Legal did that transgender inclusion in ENDA is necessary for this bill to cover 'errbody' in this community.


Khadijah Farmer's suit is Exhibit A to the fact that discrimination based on 'gender identity' happens not only to transgender peeps, but gay, lesbian and straight people as well.

If you were the champion for transgender people you claim you are, then you need to stop telling the lie that we haven't done the education on the Hill. We been educating folks on the Hill since 1994. I've personally taken part in lobbying efforts in 1998, 1999 and 2007 and helped plan NTAC's 2001 lobbying effort.

Maybe that education isn't getting through because of the HRCites that inhabit many of the congressional staff positions on the Hill in liberal-progressive offices. It wouldn't shock me if these aides are conveniently failing to pass on the information from transgender people that visit their offices or shield you congressmembers from it.

There are reams of information on the Internet and elsewhere about the violence, the unemployment/underemployment we face, and the general lack of respect for our civil rights that transpeople face. If you claim there are legislators who need 'more educating', who are they?

You're not going to tell us that because you know that 24 hours after you utter their names, they'll be flooded with calls from the transgender community and our allies.

Barney, you don't want that education to happen because you and the Mattachine clones in the GLB community DON'T want a transgender inclusive ENDA to pass. You have been duplicitous and underhanded not just during this entire sorry affair, but the entire time you've led the effort to pass ENDA.

So why should we transgender people trust you, much less believe anything you say now? You have let your personal hatred of transgender people get in the way of doing what's morally right and just. Having you as the lead legislator for the efforts to pass ENDA is the equivalent of asking the KKK Grand Wizard to pass federal legislation that would benefit African-Americans.

He'd do to African-Americans exactly what you're doing, Rep. Frank. Cut us out of the bill, then come up with some tortured logic and spin to try to justify it.

Oh snap, that was the modus operandi for the Dixiecrats.

It's past time for somebody that doesn't have a personal hatred for transpeople to become the lead legislator for getting ENDA passed.

Wait Your Turn?

Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was 'well-timed' according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation.

For years now I have heard the words "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never".

Rev Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr
'Letter From Birmingham City Jail', April 16, 1963.

Ever since I begun fighting in 1998 in conjunction with other transgender people around the country to expand the work of Dr. King, I have heard a late 20th-early 21st century variation of that paragraph uttered from the lips of numerous gay and lesbian people when it comes to transgender civil rights.

Wait your turn.

Wait my turn? Wait my turn for what?

Did you gay and lesbian people 'wait you turn' when you pushed for inclusion in civil rights legislation in the 70's?

Did you gay and lesbian people 'wait your turn' when you demanded that funding for HIV/AIDS research and finding a cure for it get higher priority in the 80's?

Did you 'wait your turn' when you demanded that your rights be acknowledged and respected in the 90's?

Did you gay and lesbian people 'wait your turn' in 2003 when you disastrously pushed for marriage equality one year before a critical presidential election?


How dare you part your lips to even say that to us. We transgender people are the ones who had the cojones to stand up to police harassment in San Francisco in 1966 and during the Stonewall Rebellion in 1969 while you gay and lesbian peeps were cowering in your closets. It is transgender blood that is being shed and transgender peeps who are discriminated against, denigrated, and disrespected by our foes and even by you, our so-called allies.

You have repeatedly cut us out of civil rights legislation on every level of government with the soothing words of 'we'll come back for you'. That has been proven over the years to be an odious lie as we wait for you in many jurisdictions across the United States to fulfill your broken promises.

Yesterday, led by your point gay Rep. Barney Frank, you once again cut us out of a bill that frankly, we need more than you do. You uttered the lie that 'we'll come back for you' and help you pass the 'GENDA bill' while pulling HR 2015 that was inclusive and replacing it with a gay and lesbian only one in addition to GENDA.

We transpeople know that you will bury that GENDA bill in a subcommittee, never call hearings on it and let it die a painful death while you selfishly fast-track your gay and lesbian only ENDA bill to the House floor for passage.

The sad part is that President Bush isn't going to sign it, so why start a civil war in the GLB community over this issue?

If there's anything that the misguided pastors of the Hi Impact Leadership Coalition have been proven right on is that your GLB civil rights movement is not like ours. Your GLB movement is selfish, morally bankrupt, exclusive and has been so since 1971, while the Civil Rights Movement led by Dr. King was a morally strong and inclusive one. You have more in common with the Dixiecrats than with civil rights warriors such as Rep. John Lewis (D-GA).

You say the country is not ready for transgender inclusion in civil rights law. Just today Oprah Winfrey did a show on transgender people and is doing another one on October 12. Transgender people are getting more positive coverage every day. Surveys prove over and over again that the public is more enlightened on the transgender issue than the Barney Franks of the GLB movement who are still drinking the hate-on-transpeople Kool-aid of Janice Raymond and Jim Fouratt.

As a transperson who also happens to be a proud African-American, the 'wait your turn' to me and transpeople who share my ethnic heritage sounds eerily similar to what Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney wrote in the Dred Scott Decision majority opinion 150 years ago: That I have no rights that you are bound to respect.

Wait your turn.

Rep. Frank and all you gay and lesbian conservaqueers who share his myopic self-centered views, how long must I and other transgender people wait for their constitutional rights in your infinite wisdom? It's sickening that transpeople in other countries around the world such as Spain and Great Britain are gaining and have more rights than those of us who live in the so-called cradle of democracy.

Will little six year old Jazz, the transkid profiled in Barbara Walters 20/20 story on transgender people have to wait until she's 21 to get constitutional protection?

How about Rochelle Evans in Fort Worth? Will she have to wait until she's 45 to get a law that protects her civil rights?

How long will transgender prom queen Crystal Vera have to wait? How long will Jake, the 16 year old transman profiled on today's Oprah show have to wait?

Rep. Frank and Speaker Pelosi, do you have the balls to tell the parents of these transkids that they must 'wait their turn' for their constitutional rights?

How long will transpeople who've been fighting this pitched battle with you for a decade over ENDA and simple inclusion in the GLB community since the 1970's have to wait? Can you walk into a TAVA meeting and tell our transgender veterans who honorably served our country, fought to protect, extend and defend people's civil rights and freedoms abroad that they have to 'wait their turn' to have the same freedoms extended to them at home?

Can you look all the parents and family members of deceased transpeople such as Rita Hester, Tyra Hunter, Gwen Araujo, Brandon Teena, Deborah Forte, and hundreds of others in the eye and tell them that transpeople have to 'wait their turn 'to have their civil rights codified into law?

So if you couldn't 'wait your turn', then why would you dare ask us, the shock troops of the GLBT movement to do something that you yourselves are unwilling to acquiesce to?

Why Don't You Do More Transgender Posts?

Every now and then while I'm out and about in Da Ville I run into peeps who when they find out I'm the TransGriot, rave about my column or the blog.

One of the questions I got asked recently was why I don't have more content on transgender issues.

While transsexuality is a subject that I could literally find tons of angles to discuss, being a transperson is only one aspect of all the things that make up me. There are transgender bloggers, but not many of them focus on the issues of being TWB (transgender while Black).

As you TransGriot readers have discovered, I had (and still have) a relatively interesting life prior to transition that I've barely scratched the surface of. I have interests beyond just talking about being trans. I have sistafriends I hang out with, talk to on a regular basis and help sort out their drama. I'm keeping abreast of the news. I'm reading various books and listening to my massive CD collection. I'm also working 40 plus hours a week while squeezing time in to work on my novels.

I deeply appreciate the fact that many of you enjoy your time on TransGriot and keep coming back. As any writer will tell you, we love it when the work and sometimes late hours we put into compiling interesting and quality blog content is acknowledged by the comments you leave on the various posts. (hint, hint)

But as one of the few African-American peeps who talk about transgender issues, some of the stuff I relay to you is personal. My own family is struggling with a lot of the issues as well, so I have to balance what I can personally talk about versus a desire to not have too many details of their lives exposed to millions of people. I chose to do that in the name of educating peeps on transgender issues, they didn't.

Then there's simply writer's block. There are days or nights I sit in front of this computer and have a wonderful idea for a post, then I start typing, don't like the first, second or third draft and set it aside for a few hours. Sometimes I just hold the idea for a later time. Sometimes I end up just sitting there staring at the computer screen until I give up, shut it down and do something else for a while.

Rest assured, there will always be transgender content in this blog. It isn't called TransGriot for nothing. But the 'griot' in the blog name also means that I'm living up to the West African griot tradition of kicking knowledge to you on a wide variety of subjects as well.

I'm Not Surprised

During the time I was working for Continental Airlines, Houston hosted the 1992 GOP convention. Many of those delegates went through IAH to get to the convention and return to their homes scattered across the country. I met some of the GOP leadership like now Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), other George HW Bush cabinet peeps, and convention delegates from various states as I worked flights during this period.

The day after it ended, I had a Seattle flight I was working. I was killing time until a short air traffic control delay was lifted before I could board the plane. In the lobby there was a group of teenaged kids who had just attended the convention. They had their GOP t-shirts on and were energized about working for George HW Bush's reeelection. Three girls approached the podium and engaged me in a discussion about joining their party and voting for Bush senior.

After politely listening to them for a few moments I replied, "No thanks, I'm voting for Clinton."

"But why?" one of the eager young white females replied.

"Your party has engaged in practices and behaviors over the years that have led me to conclude that people who look like me aren't wanted. Until your party gets serious about competing for my people's votes and doing the things necessary to get those votes beyond symbolic measures, I'll continue to be a Democrat."

I'm recounting this conversation because of the news that GOP frontrunners John McCain, Rudy Guiliani, and Mitt Romney all declined invitations to the All American Presidential Forum to be held on September 27 at Morgan State University for the GOP candidates. A similar forum was held on June 28th for the Democrats and all eight contenders showed up at Howard University for it.

I'm not surprised that Guiliani isn't gonna show up. He's 'scurred' about the questions that will pop up about his contentious relationship in NYC with the African-American community and the Abner Louima and Amadou Diallo NYPD incidents that happened under his tenure.

McCain has 'F' grades on his NAACP Civil Rights report cards and Romney is probably afraid he'll get hit with questions about the Mormon Church's negative beliefs about African-Americans. Only one of the GOP candidates, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) even bothered to show up for the presidential forum during the recent NAACP convention in Detroit.

The journalists who will be asking the questions for the five confirmed Republican presidential candidates showing up in Baltimore as I write this are Ray Suarez of The NewsHour, columnist Cynthia Tucker of The Atlanta Journal Constitution and NPR's Juan Williams. Tavis will once again be moderator for the event which will air on PBS starting at 9 PM EDT.

I read Tavis' comments on the snub and he's not a happy camper.

"The word frontrunner has taken a whole new meaning for me," said Smiley in an interview with Lee Bailey. "I didn't know it meant being out front and running from people of color."

"The frontrunners, specifically Mr. Romney, Mr. McCain and Mr. Guiliani, have said to us they will not be on stage at Morgan State University on September 27th. All the Democrats showed up in June, but the front running Republicans have said they will not be there. They have also told Univision that they will not be there for the Hispanic debate. So, collectively, what the Republican frontrunners have told both black and brown Americans is that we don't appreciate you, don't value your issues and you're not a priority to us."

"You can't go through an entire primary process and refuse to talk to black and brown voters," he continued. "It's unconscionable, it's untenable, it's unthinkable and no one should be elected president in 2008, in the most multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-racial America ever and, in the process, ignore and ditch those voters. If you're not going to talk to all of America then you don't deserve to be president of all of America."

That's been the GOP game plan since Nixon concocted the 'Southern Strategy'. Like Tavis, I'm sick of Black conservatives spouting that bullshit 'you need to get off the Democrat plantation line'. You Black conservative clowns continue to apologize and make excuses for your GOP massas. These GOP peeps say they want to compete for our votes, but don't have the cojones to show up at our conventions, our events or give interviews to our media peeps to address our issues.

You black conservatives have shown the African-American community repeatedly over the years where your loyalties lie.

In 2004 the negro Ken Blackwell led the charge to suppress our people's votes in Ohio (he doesn't deserve to be called Black). Ward Connerly is the point negro in trying to get affirmative action programs killed. Don't even get me started on Uncle Thomas, the 'honorary white man' as conservative commentators call him on the Supreme Court.

And all you Black conservative bloggers and GOP butt-kissing preachers have been deafingly silent about how your vaunted GOP showed the world how much they cared about New Orleans and its African-American residents, but can flap your gums ad nauseum when it comes to same-sex marriage and hatin' on GLBT people.

And you want to know why reality based African-Americans vote at a 90% clip for Democratic candidates?

Thanks to the naked racism that's spewing out of your base over the immigration issue, you're driving Latinos away from your party as well at a record clip. 'Bout time they woke up to the true nature of the Republican Party.

Can't wait for September 27 to get here. I'm gonna make sure I have plenty of popcorn on hand to munch on for what promises to be an entertaining evening.