I Love Interviews-Except At Queerty

One of the things I love to do and see as an important part of informing and educating our allies and others about transgender issues is transgender people speaking openly and honestly about our lives if you feel comfortable doing so.

Over the course of my 15 year transition I've done numerous print, radio, blog and podcast interviews with GLBT and non GLBT media. I've even been shown on TV twice for non transgender reasons. The people who have conducted them have done so in a courteous, loving and intellectually curious manner that made it a joy to be a part of those situations.

As the leading (and so far only) transgender blogger who focuses on transgender, GLB and other issues from an African-American perspective I get interview requests that if I can work them into my schedule I'm happy to do, especially if it involves POC or African-American media.

But there are limits to that availability. If the publication is openly hostile to African-Americans or transgender people, or is seeking the interview more for sensationalist rather than serious educational reasons, I'm turning it down.

Jerry Springer's people actually called me back in 1998 to ask me if I'd come on their show. He had long since slid into treating transgender issues as a joke or a sweeps month ratings boost, so I told them 'hell no and lose my number'.

In the wake of my 'Your Pink Sheets Are Showing' post that criticized the racism in the GLBT community, was posted on Queerty and led to me being viciously attacked by its readers with racist and transphobic comments, its editor Japhy Grant wanted me to do an interview on Queerty with him which I have repeatedly declined.

One major reason is because I have not received an apology from him for the attacks from his readers when he posted the Pink Sheets article on his blog. Second, it is my right to do so, especially after Queerty has continued to live up to its perception based on its comment threads that it is a less than friendly place for transgender people. It devolves to hostile for transgender people of color and our allies who express opinions that run counter to the groupthink of the Log Cabin Republican/HRC gays that comprise some of its readership.

But Japhy seems to arrogantly think that he can bully me into doing an interview on his site. You can't bully a Taurus once their minds are made up into doing anything they don't want to do except pay taxes and die.

I'm making it clear that I'm not doing a Queerty interview. I just posted a commentary which gives crystal clear evidence of the depth of the transphobia that's endemic with some of the commenters on Queerty.

So why would I subject myself to that again just because Japhy wants an interview and I'm not giving it to him? Calling me names isn't going to make me change that position any faster, and all it's doing is setting my original decision in concrete.

So yes, I love to do interviews-except on Queerty.

I'm A PETA Member

No disrespect to anybody who is a vegetarian or vegan, but I'm taking a moment to declare that I'm a card carrying member of PETA.

In this case PETA stands for People Eating Tasty Animals.

Hey, as a Texan I don't pass by any barbecue restaurant without stopping and chowing down on some ribs or brisket. I love burgers and steaks, especially if they're grilled to well done perfection. I enjoy ham and turkey on Thanksgiving and Christmas and have even had a turducken. Living here in Da Ville I have learned to appreciate a good bratwurst and have no problems chowing down on KFC, my mother's, or anybody's tasty yardbird.

Don't get me wrong, I don't like to see any animals mistreated, including human beings. Seeing news film of starving or neglected horses and other animals pisses me off. At various times during my childhood I grew up with cats and dogs as pets in our household. I'm also aware that the common link between serial killers Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Daumer and David Berkowitz was all of them tortured and killed animals in their childhoods.

But I have major problems with PETA the organization.

The cause is admirable in terms of calling attention to the cruel treatment of animals, but their racist tactics through the years have turned me off toward ever supporting them.

This latest case in which they wore Klan hoods while protesting New York's Westminster dog show only solidified my desire to roll up to my nearest KFC restaurant and order a bucket of original recipe.

When you are descended from people who are still disrespectfully compared to primates, and you run campaigns comparing Black people to animals, your message is not only willfully ignorant and racist, it's DOA.

In addition, their anti-fur campaign has my attention as well. You have the First Amendment rights to protest people wearing fur all you want, but defacing celebrity stars on Hollywood's Walk of Fame and throwing paint, blood or flour on people wearing those coats is going too far.

Dissing the Queen of Soul or any other African-Americans for wearing a fur ain't gonna win you any brownie points either given your previous documented racist history. If I bust my ass to make the money to get a fur coat and PETA idiots attempt to throw paint on it, they'll be surgically extracting my pumps from their anus after I beat them down for doing so.

On that note, time for me to head to Famous Dave's and grab some ribs.

Why Barack Obama Will Be An Outstanding President

If you readers wonder why I and other African-Americans have this rock solid faith that President Barack Obama will be an outstanding one, I'm about to let you in on a little cultural secret.

Over the last 400 years of African-descended people residing in the Americas, ugly stereotypes have been created and propagated about us that still persist to the present day. So in order to overcome the stereotypes that we are less intelligent, lazy, unpatriotic (well you get the drift), every African-American kid has had it drilled into us by our parents and elders that because of America's original (and continuing) sin of racism, it would never be enough for us to just meet expectations, we have to exceed them. We were taught that we have to be quicker, faster, better, smarter and more prepared than non-Blacks. We were also taught that if and when we get a job, we have to get it done right the first time.

That pressure only increased if you were the 'first Black' in a position. You not only had to excel for yourself, but were cognizant of the fact that the hopes and dreams of an entire people rested on your shoulders.

You were also aware that, rightly or wrongly, our people would be judged in some cases based on your behavior and performance. If you didn't do the job right, there might not be a second, third, fourth or 100th African-American following you and it might make it harder for other minorities to catch a break as well.

This shared cultural value is what we Black peeps zeroed in on as we examined Barack Obama's background and history. It's why as we learned more about the man, we enthusiastically warmed up to him as the primaries and eventually the 2008 campaign resulted in his historic election on November 4.

The last 43 occupants of the White House didn't enter it with that kind of pressure. He does.

When he took the oath of office January 20, he knew that he didn't have wiggle room to mess up, especially in light of the jacked up country his predecessor left him. He had to not only hit the ground running, but have an administration chock full of the best and brightest minds to help him. Thanks to the slimy, amoral and secretive way the last administration was run, it had to have people of high moral and ethical character as part of it.

The Obama administration has the equivalent of an electron microscope up its collective butt. In addition to dealing with white anxiety about what the Obama family living in the White House means for them, it's taking office during one of the worst financial crises since the Great Depression.

It will have the nattering negativity of Faux News chirping away over every perceived misstep. It cannot afford to have scandals, inefficiency, waste or unethical behavior. It will be held to a much higher standards than the previous grossly inept one.

But to his credit, he wants and has said repeatedly he wishes to be held accountable for his performance while he's there for the next four to eight years. He has the temperament, the education, the political skills, the intelligence and the communications skills to be a great president.

Note I didn't say 'potentially'. I have the confidence to say that he WILL be a great president. If we were going to have a first Black president I like my African descended brothers and sisters wanted him or her to be the best and brightest member of our community.

Hopefully at the end of his second term, the nation will be lamenting the fact that we couldn't elect him to a third term.

The Tall And Short Of It

One of the things I hear a lot from my biowomen friends when we're chatting at various times is that they sometimes wish they were my 6'2" height, to which I'll usually reply "No, you don't".

While I'm proud to be a tall sistah, revel in my long legged body and love the fact that there are numerous examples in the world of statuesque sistahs representing and doing positive things like our new First Lady for example, every now and then I check out my stylishly dressed shorter sisters and wonder what life would be like from that perspective.

Based on what I've been told and observed, I'd have the same frustrations about clothes except from the petite end of the scale. It would be a little more challenging for me to reach the top of shelves without assistance or a small step ladder, and if I picked up weight it would be more noticeable than it is right now.

I think a lot of both sides yearning for the others height is the 'grass being greener on the other side of the street' syndrome. And like it is with any other 'I wish' scenarios, you'll find that if you actually had the opportunity or the chance to actually have that wish fulfilled, it has a set of challenges and problems that you didn't know about until you experience them first hand.

But the bottom line is short, tall or in between, we look in the mirrors, thank God that we are healthy happy and well adjusted beings, and love every millimeter of our bodies no matter what the height is.

Being A Truth Teller

During and after the wake of the racist attacks on me from the Queerty commenters over my Obama post, my mind kept drifting back to a quote attributed to the late poet Gwendolyn Brooks.

Truth-tellers are not always palatable. There's a preference for candy bars

One of the things about me and this blog (and any other one that I'm given the honor to post to) that won't change is that I'm blunt and to the point about calling out bullshit when I see it. It hasn't made me the most popular person sometimes in GLBT circles, but that's the cross you bear when you are striving for the higher goals of passing broad based civil rights legislation, creating an inclusive community and a better world for all.

If you're going to solve the tough problems we have in the GLBT community and beyond that revolve around race, gender, class and inequality, you have to honestly and openly talk about them, even if that discussion gets contentious at times.

As an African-American leader, I subscribe to the principles of Black leadership and try my best to role model them. In addition to as Dr. Ron Walters articulated it, the task of Black leadership being to provide the vision, resources, tactics, and strategies that facilitate the achievement of the objectives of Black people.

Those goals are freedom, integration, equality, liberation, or defined in the terms of specific public policies. It is a role that often requires and results in you as a Black leader disturbing the peace when you speak truth to power. It also make some people uncomfortable and causes controversy at times as well.

Yes, we have those problems in the GLBT community since we are a microcosm of the parent society. Ignoring those problems or candy coating them won't make them go away. Neither will viciously attacking people who bring them up in the course of fostering honest discussion or because they are expressing an opinion which runs counter to your worldview.

One of the promises I made when I started this blog that in the best traditions of my people, I will tell it like it T-I-S is. If I see something that's wrong, or feel that we can and should be doing better on an issue, I'm not going to hold my tongue or shut down the word processor to placate the folks that prefer doing nothing or chomping candy bars on tough issues.

Goodbye 2008

The clock is ticking down not only on the end of this historic year, but the end of the Bush presidency as well.

It's been a up and down year for us in the transgender community. We've added a few more cities to the long list of areas that believe our civil rights are worth ensconcing into law. We backed the winner in a historic presidential race.

It was a historic year for African American transwomen. Dr. Marisa Richmond became the first African-American transwoman to become a delegate at a major party convention. Isis King and Laverne Cox made ground breaking television appearances showcasing our beauty and intelligence.

Oh yeah, some African-American transgender blogger emerged as a finalist for the 2008 Weblog Awards Best LGBT Blog award.

Unfortunately we lost 30 more of our transsisters to anti transgender violence, with the latest one just happening days ago in Indianapolis.

We are receiving renewed attention from the Forces of Intolerance. They have decided to use any unchristian means necessary to oppose the inevitable arching of the moral universe towards justice for transgender people.

Sadly, one of the willing members of that cabal of intolerance is the Roman Catholic Church.

But one of the things I'm looking forward to in 2009 besides the Obama inauguration is exploring the exciting possibility that our African descended biosisters are not only keenly interested in learning more about us, but may finally be realizing that we transwomen are their natural allies.

I'm also encouraged that while we still have a long way to go, we have taken major strides toward destroying some negative myths about African descended transgender people and what we bring to the African American family table.

So change is coming, and it's not just at the White House on January 20 either.

Leave The TDOR Alone

As TDOR 2008 recedes into the rear view mirror of history I wish to comment on the efforts of some people in the transgender community to turn the Transgender Day of Remembrance ceremony into a happy-happy joy-joy event.

Leave the TDOR alone.

There are 365 days in a year (366 during leap years), which is probably why our presidential election campaigns seem so endless.

If you wish to have an event that takes a happy-happy joy-joy approach to publicizing transgender issues, by all means organize it and promote the hell out of it. If it's a good one and has no connection whatsoever to the Homosexual Rights Corporation, I'll even post whatever press release you put together for this event on TransGriot.

Just pick some other calendar date to do it.

Just as Memorial Day and Veterans Day are two calendar days specifically set aside to memorialize veterans and anyone who has paid the ultimate price for us to have what freedoms we do enjoy here in the States, we transgender peeps need that same kind of day to memorialize the people we've lost as well.

The TDOR is a memorial service and as such is a serious, contemplative event. The core element of it is the reading of the names and lighting of candles for the dearly departed.

The TDOR in addition to us ensuring the names of our fallen brothers and sisters don't fade from our memories with the passage of time, is also a way for us to initiate teachable moments with our allies, do coalition building, talk to the general public about our issues, and sometimes get the bonus of media coverage as well.

The TDOR is also important to transgender people of color as well. We get precious little media coverage and people of color make up the disproportionate share of the 412 people (and counting) memorialized on the Remembering Our Dead site.

As a matter of fact, since the other thing we African American transgender peeps share with our non-transgender brothers and sisters besides our heritage is a near invisibility in the media, there was a proposal a few years ago by some peeps in the African-American transgender community to have our own event.

It would be centered on the August 7 date of Tyra Hunter's death due to the ignorant negligence of an African-American EMT in Washington DC.

The proposed day's mission would be to publicize the fact that many of the anti-transgender murders of African-American transgender people are committed by our own people. It would also seek to do some 'ejumacation' of our community around those and other issues affecting us and point out that 60% of the ROD list is transpeople of color.

But when it was pointed out that Rita Hester's murder was the impetus that led to the TDOR, and that day was now being celebrated around the world, the chatter about a separate day, even though it's a wonderful idea that probably needs to happen, went dormant.

If my fellow transpeeps of African descent realize the importance of the world pausing to contemplate anti-transgender violence, then what's the problem with the cognitive abilities of those of you trying to mess with the TDOR's simplistic perfection for specious reasons?

I will go Maya Wilkes on you quislings if what I'm hearing about this effort to change the 'morbid and depressing' TDOR's is true and the unstated purpose is to grease the skids for HRC to resume raising funds in our community on the bones of our fallen brothers and sisters.

There Is No Oppression Olympics

I’m a little sick of this nouveau trendy slogan of ‘oppression Olympics'.

Stating facts about a minority group’s issues, struggles and being oppressed is simply that, stating facts about those problems and issues. It is not as some people derisively put it, engaging in a competition to pit one ethnic group's issues against another ethnic group's issues.

The 'oppression Olympics' moniker is as disrespectful and disingenuous as the 'race card' one.

Explain how in Hades you can solve the issues that divide us along racial lines if you don't know what they are, tiptoe around identifying them and refuse to discuss solutions to those problems?

Reading

Hey peeps. I'm spending the day catching up on my reading. I have a ton of material I have to review in preparation for these C-FAIR candidate interviews I'm participating in.

There are also a few books I've checked out from the library that I want to take some time to read before I have to turn them in.

Will tell y'all all about it later

Miss Me?

Hallelujah! I've got four days off from work, I've got power, and my cable and Internet service are back on and functioning.

So did you miss me loyal TransGriot readers?

Seriously, thanks for all the love, well wishes and prayers you have and continue to send mine, my roomies, and my family's way as we cope with the aftermath of Hurricane Ike.

Just finished talking to my sister in Houston who gave me the latest updates on what's happening in the hometown. I'm also planning to catch up with various peeps back home and see how they're faring like my homegirls Vanessa and Crys.

As I stated in the Whacked By Ike post, I was blessed, but some people are dealing with serious situations up to and including burying loved ones. There are many people who still don't have power. Others who are on government assistance bought their frozen foods for the month only to lose it when the power went down.

You unfortunately have some criminals taking advantage of the situation in blacked out areas of town to rob peeps while others are doing it in broad daylight.

They're called gas station owners.

But while it's a pain in the butt, I have to admit that having everything off for two days allowed me to do as Dr. King would call it, some uninterrupted 'hard, solid thinking' about various issues. It allowed me time to brainstorm and work out the backstory and character sketches for a couple of novel manuscripts and short stories I'm working on. I did some reading during the daylight hours and on my breaks at work, and got to know our neighbors on either side of the house a little better.

Once I sort through my e-mail backlog I'll start getting back to people about the various issues I was juggling prior to the power outage. I still haven't forgotten about Nikki being dissed by our local media.

Latoya, haven't forgotten about the posts I was working on for Racialicious either.


While I was at the library Tuesday enduring a 45 minute wait to get on the computer I'd reserved, I spied the James Carville and Paul Begala book Take It Back on the shelf. I started flipping through it while I was waiting for the kid who was on the computer perusing right-wing websites to get off of it. You know that book went home with me when I was done.

I also sprayed and disinfected the computer to eliminate the right-wing stench before I started compiling my post.

Life is slowly returning back to normal, such as that is. While browsing Borders the other day on my lunch break (I work downtown) perused a few titles that I'll pick up when I get paid.

I also checked out some of the Ryder Cup hoopla that was going on at Fourth Street Live and bumped into a few members of the European Ryder Cup team enjoying a beer on the patio of the Hard Rock Cafe. The Ryder Cup is gearing up to start at Valhalla tomorrow. U of L played and beat K-State last night at The Pizza Palace (aka Papa John's Cardinal Stadium).

Best of all for you peeps who love this blog so much (and I thank you for stopping by TransGriot on the regular and all the link love you lavish on me) you'll start seeing my commentary soon on the various issues of the day.

Goodbye Nikki

Hey TransGriot readers,
As y'all know I've been dealing with the untimely death of a friend over the last few days and just got back home an hour ago from Nikki's service.

I was pleased to not only see the overflow crowd of Nikki's friends and family, we even had besides yours truly, the Louisville transgender and GLB community there in full effect.

It was hard looking at Nikki peacefully sleeping in that white casket realizing she died a few months short of her 30th birthday. There were more than a few tears shed, but simmering under the surface this morning was anger. Anger over the way she was taken from us and anger over the disrespectful way the story was covered by the local media.

BTW, had a chat with GLAAD about that. Will keep y'all updated as to what they're hearing from WLKY and WDRB about it.

The service was a combined wake and funeral that started at 9 AM EDT with the funeral portion starting precisely at 11 AM EDT. They kept the service on a tight schedule, so unfortunately people weren't allowed to speak.

During Rev. Barry Washington's eulogy he talked about love and how it is the binding force that keeps this world from tearing itself apart. He also talked about the love that was in that room.

I was struck by the fact that we had an interesting contrast of people in there. Nikki's family and friends, the GLBT community, and her mother's U of L coworkers.

It was also interesting to note that the transwomen were dressed conservatively church service stylish, while some of the biowomen in the room were wearing jeans and t-shirts.

After the service I went home. I decided not to go to the cemetery. I'd had a rough night trying to get to sleep and Nikki not only was on my mind all day yesterday, she's even moreso in my thoughts today.

But no more pain and suffering for our sister. She's doing her painting and writing her poetry in heaven now.

It's funny, but just as I wrote this line, the cloud cover that has cast an appropriately gloomy start to the day here suddenly parted to allow some rays of sunshine to beam through my window. It was predicted to be sunny and 83 today, so maybe it'll help lighten the sense of loss I and everybody who knew and loved Nikki feels.

What will really help me is for LMPD to find, arrest, convict and permanently send to Eddyville the wastes of DNA who committed the crime.

Nikki, say hello to Tyra, Channelle, Gabrielle, Kellie, Ukea, Stephanie, Saneshia, Ebony and all our other fallen sisters for us.

We'll see you again soon.

Just Because I'm An Obama Supporter Doesn't Make Me A Zealot

Main Entry: zeal·ot
Function: noun
Etymology: Late Latin zelotes, from Greek zēlō tēs, from zēlos
Date: 1537

1: capitalized: a member of a fanatical sect arising in Judea during the first century a.d. and militantly opposing the Roman domination of Palestine

2: a zealous person; especially : a fanatical partisan a religious zealot

I've been an Obama supporter since January 1. I've liked him ever since I watched him deliver his prime time speech during the 2004 Democratic Convention. My Chicago relatives and friends I've talked to who know the man, have met him or lived in his Illinois senate district rave about him.

I've read his books, researched his policy stances and found much to like in them. I really love his thoughtful intelligence, his compelling life story, his teaching constitutional law, having a vision about where he wants to take this country, and wanting to fundamentally change the way politics is done in the United States.

I grew up during a time in which political campaigns were not always slash and burn, assassinate your opponent's character affairs. They actually used reason and logic based arguments to explain to the electorate why they and their particular set of policy stances made them the best candidate to be elected to that particular office.

Sen. Obama is the first candidate in a long time that actually has campaigned in an old school style. I'm excited about that, so are a lot of African-Americans and many Obama supporters of all colors.

I'm excited that I have a man as a presidential candidate for my party that unlike John McCain and his running mate, understands the Constitution and has taught constitutional law. I like the fact he understands the issues that working class people deal with because he was a community organizer. I'm thrilled about the fact that world leaders and people in various countries around the world see the same things I do. I'm intrigued by the knowledge that he spent time growing up in Indonesia. I like the fact he chose an intelligent statuesque sistah (and AKA) from Chicago's south side to spend his life with.

And yes, the thing I'm most excited about is this man shares my ethnic heritage.

Far too many times people judge African-Americans by the worst we produce. Here's a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to get behind as a community someone who represents the BEST we can produce.

It was beautiful seeing an African-American family similar to my own on stage in Denver waving to that Mile High Stadium crowd. It will be nice seeing that family live in the White House for the next four years assuming the election goes the way I hope it does.

But I'm a little sick of Republicans, Greens, some disgruntled Hillary supporters and some independents mischaracterizing the very real and logical reasons I and others chose to support Sen. Obama for president as being 'zealotry'.

Hillary supporters who had the very same reasons for supporting her candidacy aren't being tarred and feathered with that 'zealot' brush. Is it because they are predominately white women?

When you call me and other Obama supporters zealots, it's a 21st century remix of that old slur that is thrown at African-Americans during political campaigns that we can't make 'rational decisions' on who we support politically unlike white people, who use 'logic and reason' to do so.

If that's the case, then explain the logic and reason you used for overwhelmingly voting for an inarticulate ignoramus in the White House for a second term and are with McCain seriously considering electing a man who graduated 894th out of 898 people in his Naval Academy class?

Just as John F. Kennedy's election to the presidency in 1960 changed the way we look at Catholics in this country, the election of Barack Hussein Obama Jr. will change the way that African-Americans not only are viewed in this country, but abroad as well.

It will also fundamentally change the way we look at ourselves. No longer will an African-American kid be able to sarcastically respond to the 'you can be anything you want in the United States' line with 'I can't be president' as I once did in elementary school.

So just because I'm an Obama supporter does not make me a zealot. It makes me an American wanting to see an eminently qualified man who happens to share my ethnic heritage run this country for the first time in its 232 year history.

1000 Posts!

This is my 1000th post on TransGriot!

I didn't expect to hit this milestone so soon. I actually beat my projection for it by three weeks. There's been so much going on this month in terms of the Olympics, the just concluded historic Democratic convention, and various African-American transgender people either achieving milestones or being screwed by the judicial system that I had a lot to write about this month.

I had a few goals in mind when I started this blog on January 1, 2006. At the time I started it there weren't many African-American transgender people blogging about transgender and host of other issues through the eyes of a proud African-American transwoman.

I also wanted to look at things with an international view as well and include news about transpeople of African descent from across the Diaspora in order to broaden the conversation about transgender people. It made no sense to me that there was little or no news from the second largest continent on our planet about transgender issues. I wanted to point out that transgender people are not just concentrated in Europe, Asia, the Pacific islands or the Americas.

As I compose this 1000th post there are as of now four known African-American transgender blogs. I'm beginning to be frequently linked to and quoted in the blogosphere, even by organizations like the Evil Equal Sign one that I've castigated for years for their callous disregard of transgender people.

I've written about how critical ENDA is to us living a quality life. I'm starting to be presented with some speaking opportunities and people on other blogs have begun to ask me to compose guest posts. I'm shocked sometimes when I hear people tell me or put in writing not only how much they admire me, but see me as a role model. I'm humbled that people value my opinion that much to ask, and I feel honored and blessed by the opportunity to do so.

I'm a member of the AfroSphere, my Black Blog Ranking is exponentially climbing toward becoming one of the Top 50 Black Blogs and my Technorati ratings are rising. I've been a contributing writer for The Bilerico Project for almost a year.

I've even gained some wonderful friends here in the States and internationally as a result of starting TransGriot.

Wow, 1000 posts in just a little over three years. And I'm still not done yet.

Difficult Days Ahead

Like many African-Americans I was literally crying tears of joy last night as I saw a major political party nominate someone of my ethnic heritage for the highest office in the land. The fact that it was my party, one that I have supported since my late teens and it occurred on the 45th anniversary of Dr. King's 1963 March on Washington 'I have a dream' speech made the moment even more special.

But what triggered my tears was thinking about my late Grandmother Tama at the moment Sen. Obama recited the magic words accepting the Democratic party nomination. My grandmother was a poll worker in her precinct for several years.

As y'all probably noted, I'm a serious political junkie. I love politics along with 'errbody' else in my family. My grandmother and I talked about local, state and national politics regularly when I'd spend my off days hanging out with her in her Sunnyside area home. I'd get us a couple of fish baskets from a fish market around the corner from her house and listen to her expound on all the history she'd witnessed over her 82 years and talk about the issues of the day.

I remember how happy and proud she was along with all African-American Houstonians when we finally got Lee P. Brown elected as our mayor in 1997. He also made Houston history as our first African-American police chief and his picture went up on her wall next to the ones she had of Dr. Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy.

Unfortunately my grandmother passed away in February 2002 before she had a chance to witness former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk unsuccessfully make a historic run for the US Senate seat John Cornyn narrowly won in the Lone Star State.

Hopefully Rick Noriega can take back the Texas senate seat this fall that Lyndon B. Johnson once occupied.

The conservatives were not only drinking Republican red Hateraid from 55 gallon drums on Faux News last night and all week, their prayers to Conservagod for rain weren't heard since the weather was clear and cool last night. In fact the weather in Denver all week was nearly perfect save for the tornado that dropped in the 'burbs on Sunday.

The one thing that I've noted is that the echoes of history and its imprint were all over this particular DNC convention. I wrote about the efforts of Denver area African-Americans a century ago who jump started the debate about whether to pursue our people's interests in a Democratic Party that was then hostile to us or stay in a Republican one that was increasingly ignoring us.

Our African-American ancestors who conducted that spirited debate 100 years ago in Denver and elsewhere in the country would have been pleased and proud to witness last night's events. They would have been amazed to see the television camera pan the stadium and see the rainbow of humanity that is the Democratic Party. I can guarantee that what you'll see in the Twin Cities won't even approach that and will be overwhelmingly monoracial and predominately male.

24% of the delegates at this just concluded Democratic National Convention were African-American, the highest percentage ever. One of those delegates was a transwoman who shares my heritage. There were 44 congressmembers of African-American descent who are also wielding historic levels of power as well as being members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Oh yeah, there was a CBC member US senator who just got nominated for president.

I thought about how pleased and proud my grandmother would have been to witness not only last night's slammin' acceptance speech, but the campaign he ran just to get to this historic point

But to paraphrase Dr. King, we have some difficult days ahead of us in order to make this particular dream of a President Obama become a reality. The Republican Attack Machine and their Status Quo donors will throw everything but the kitchen sink at him. The nut jobs like the ones caught during the convention will redouble their effort to gain with the bullet what they've failed to accomplish so far at the ballot box.

We have recalcitrant people in our own party still miffed that their candidate who was also on a historic quest on behalf of women lost. All I have to say to you right now is that if Cindy McCain's own half-sister isn't voting for McCain, why should you?



The next sixty days are going to be a historic date with destiny. While I'm exceedingly proud that for the first time in my life, we'll have a Democratic candidate that not only reflects my values by my ancestry as well, I'm still anxious about the outcome on November 4.

I'm damned sure going to do my part to help give my niece a wonderful birthday present on January 20. I want my niece to wake up on her ninth birthday to the historic sight of an African-American being inaugurated for president.


Crossposted from The Bilerico Project

Anyone Asked Obama Supporters Why We're Pissed At Hillary?

I watched Sen Clinton's convention speech when I arrived home from work last night. She nailed it and I loved it.

As you long time TransGriot readers know, I'm a huge Obama supporter. I not only voted for him when I got my chance to cast my ballot during the Kentucky primary last May, he's been my candidate since January 1 of this year.

I was at one point in 2007 an enthusiastic Hillary supporter but I had reservations about whether she'd be able to win knowing what the Right Wing Noise Machine is capable of. I was also cognizant of the fact they were salivating at the prospect of attacking Hillary in a fall election campaign if she became the Democratic nominee. The Evil Equal Sign Empire's early endorsement of Sen. Clinton also sent me scrambling to find a transgender-friendly candidate, and I found that in the person of Sen. Obama when he announced his candidacy for the office.

But as an Obama supporter I keep hearing the MSM interview Hillary supporter after Hillary supporter who say they won't vote for him or arrogantly state he needs to come to them to get their vote. They keep citing this mysterious list of grievances which we never hear them articulate as to why they're mad or we only hear in the MSM one side of the story.



I guess since Hillary's supporters are mostly 'working class' white people their words and hurt feelings matter more to the MSM than the hurt feelings of Obama supporters. I rarely see or hear Obama supporters interviewed for their side of the story or media outlets ask this question:

Why are Obama supporters pissed at the Hillary Clinton ones?

Here's why.

The ironic thing about this whole family feud is that there isn't a millimeter's amount of difference in his or Sen. Clinton's positions on the issues I care about. I honestly wouldn't have had a problem if the election results had been flipped. Yeah, I would have been upset because yes, I would dearly like to see someone of my ethnic background before I leave this planet holding the highest political office in the land.

But you can bet that I wouldn't have been acting as nekulturny as some of the Hillary supporters have been. My attitude would've been (and still is) all I care about is that we have a Democrat moving into the White House on January 20, 2009.

I'm supporting Sen. Obama because he's the person I believe is best qualified to be president, but I freely admit for a few months mine was the minority opinion in my immediate family. Then came the South Carolina primary and the infamous remarks of Bill Clinton in that campaign comparing him to the man most white males love to hate, Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.

My sister was so turned off she began supporting Obama that day. For my mother, being the historian she is, she dearly wanted to see a woman become president and it took her a little longer to become an Obama supporter.

But as the race baiting continued from the Clinton camp and surrogates like Geraldine Ferraro and others kept making insensitive remarks about Sen. Obama, that incensed the African-American community to the point that by the time the Texas primary happened, Mom was supporting Obama as well.

What has really stoked much of the anger between the two sides is the incessant comments from some Hillary supporters saying that if Obama won, they'd vote for McCain.

Now, as a loyal yellow dog Democrat, that is idiotic heresy to me. As part of the group that has been the most loyal constituency to this party and having to swallow a bitter 1988 loss by Jesse Jackson Sr. 'for the good of the party' in favor of Michael Dukakis, I and many African-American Democrats who poured our hearts and souls into getting Jackson the nomination were just as disappointed as Hillary supporters are today.

I wasn't exactly enthused about Dukakis, but I did what many African-American Democrats did that year. We sucked it up, kept our grousing to ourselves and voted for the nominee of our party.

Now that the script has been flipped, we African-Americans expect you to do the same for us that we did for you 20 years ago and for every Democratic presidential nominee since 1964.

If you are that obtuse (or racist) to vote against your own political or economic interests because it would result in an African-American family living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or you think that if Obama loses it will grease the skids for Hillary in 2012, better rethink that strategy.

If this is a close election, there's no electronic machine chicanery and it's proven that Hillary Democrats staying home or crossing over cost us the White House, don't think Hillary will be off the hook. She will get the blame for it and the fallout will be vicious.

Are you really willing to suffer through another four years of GOP misrule just because you're pissed the primary didn't go your way?

Many African-Americans are deathly afraid that there are enough vindictive short sighted Hillary supporters out there who would not only say yes to that question, but the unhinged elements out there will resort to using bullets to accomplish what they couldn't at the ballot box. If that happens, the resulting insurrections will make the riots in the wake of the King assassination 40 years ago look like church picnics.

And if you really are that selfish, shortsighted, and politically obtuse to fail to see just how much danger this republic and our civil liberties are in if we don't have a President Obama being sworn in on January 20, then I fear that the prediction that W.E.B. DuBois made at the beginning of the 20th century will begin to come true in the 21st.

Either the United States will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.

In the words of another King, Can't we all just get along?

For the good of the party and the country I'm willing to try, but the Hillary folks are gonna have to meet us halfway.

Speaking of Ignorance...

This is an example of what I was talking about in the 'My Peeps Transgender Ignorance' post

I posted this rebuttal comment to Smokie's 'The Wendy Williams Disconnect' post that I linked to as an example of the ignorance on transgender issues that is pervasive in some elements of the African-American community and the African-American blogosphere.

The ignorance level prevalent in this post is so breathtaking I don't know where to begin.

You get half your genetic material from mommy, half from daddy. Despite what some of the scientifically challenged may think, no one on this planet is '100% man' or '100% woman.'

There are also women who have the parts but can't bear children. Does that make them men too?

There are more than a few guys walking around who look like their mothers and vice versa.

Ever heard Toni Braxton sing? I also know of genetic women who have more bass in their voices than some so called men.

FYI Smokie, not all transwomen are the height of WNBA point guards. There are also transwomen that are of average height as well.

So in your wisdom, any genetic woman who is sensitive to the plight of GLBT people or gay men, or has a mix of physical or social traits that are associated with the opposite gender is automatically a 'man' herself?

And what was Smokie's reponse?

Thanks for stopping by, Dude!

You're welcome, Sir Smokie. No, thank you for brilliantly illustrating in one sentence what I was talking about in that post. That some people in the African-American community are so narrow minded and Bushian level stupid that they can't, won't or refuse to open their minds, much less even give another human being the dignity and respect that they demand for themselves.

It's kind of ironic that this commentary was inspired by a response to a Wendy Williams post. I'm not a big fan of hers since she spends too much time on her syndicated afternoon WBLS radio show obsessing over who's sleeping with transwomen, who's gay and calling female celebrities 'men' while getting painted with the same 'transgender' brush she wields on her show.

Smokie, you claim you're fly on your blog, but your actions and intellect sure don't reflect that. A fly person carries themselves with class, elegance and sophistication. They are open to learning things in which their knowledge base is insufficient and can have an intelligent conversation on many subjects.

Nice feminine gesture on the picture, too.

So what's your beef with transgender people? Go ahead, share with us since you seem to have some prescient ability that allows you to discern who's biofeminine and who's not. We call that T-dar, and usually people who have that ability are either transgender themselves or part of the rainbow family

Smokie, I hope and pray that if you have a child, that child doesn't turn out to be transgender or gay. Based on the disrespectful comments that you've previously posted on this blog and the post highlighting your own homophobia and transphobia, you'd be the type of mother that if you discovered your child was wearing your pumps and a dress, told you they were transgender and wanted to transition, would put her child on the street.

And that's keeping it real for you, dude.

It's My Life, Not A 'Lifestyle'

One thing I hear from our opponents and people struggling to grapple with transgender issues as they come into contact with us is erroneously saddling us with the 'lifestyle' tag.

The recent comments of Greeley Police Sgt. Joseph Tymkowych, stating that Angie's murder was 'provoked by her lifestyle' are what triggered this post. Like Andres Duque at Blabbeando, I was bothered not only by Sgt. Tymkowych's comment, but by how the word 'lifestyle' was used.

In the context it was used, and especially in right-wing circles, they spin 'lifestyle' to imply by their use of the word that I or any transgender person chooses to be transgender. The only 'choice' in being transgender is choosing when you start your inevitable transition from your birth gender to your true gender.

You choose your friends, choose what clothes you're going to wear, choose what political party you support or even what church you're going to attend.

Contrary to what the scientifically ignorant Reichers tell you, you don't choose to be transgender. You just are.

I get tired of hearing that being transgender is a 'lifestyle'. Too many times in the GLBT community we help buttress that conservaspin in our own writings, conversations, and media interviews as a shorthand code for talking about being GLBT.

I have a suggestion. Instead of using 'lifestyle', try using the more accurate word 'life' to describe our reality.

I Went Off...Got Quoted...And Got Results

There's a quote from Laurel Thatcher Ulrich that states 'well-behaved women seldom make history'. You can probably edit that to cover well-behaved transwomen as well.

Now there are times and many situations as we go through life in which decorum and civility is not only needed, but required.

Then there are those times when you need to go straight the hell off to make your voice heard.

One of those times was in referring to the disrespectful way that Angie Zapata was depicted in a recent story about her murder despite having AP Stylebook guidelines in place since 2001 describing how to cover transgender people in media stories.

I have watched, written about and complained about repeated violations of these AP guidelines in blog postings over the last few years and they continued. But after reading the third story in succession this year that disrespected a transperson, (Saneshia Stewart, Duanna Johnson, Ebony Whitaker) I'd had enough.

My policy on TransGriot is to rewrite an offending transgender story using the AP Stylebook guidelines. I also follow the rules of giving full credit to the person and publication in which it appears when rewriting original source material.

So after composing this post, I was amazed to see this update forwarded to me by one of my TransGriot regular commenters Veronique.

The story was also picked up by Latino blogger Andres Duque at Blabbeando, who found the link to the local TV news footage of Angie's funeral service that has since been uploaded to YouTube.

Andres also has a followup piece on this story on Blabbeando as well discussing ABC News headline change on their blog post discussing the murder.

But let's ponder this for a moment. I've gotten some private communications from people that don't share my ethnic heritage implying that this blog is 'angry'. I have over 900 plus posts on various subjects from WNBA basketball to celebrating the 90th birthday of Nelson Mandela to short stories and poetry, but it's ludicrously considered an 'angry' or has an 'angry tone'.

It's also repeating the same borderline racist shade that has been thrown at me by some people because I dare speak out about injustice no matter where it comes from.

So ask yourself this question. If I hadn't wrote the post on Tuesday, would the story actually be getting legs in the media or the blogosphere, much less the mea culpa story in the Greeley Tribune later that day?





And to ask another question, would Angie be getting this type of respectful positive coverage instead of the initial negative spin if I hadn't complained about it on this blog and gave people the information and the impetus to call and complain to the Greeley Tribune and the writer about it?

Why A Transsistahs Convention?

TransGriot Note: This was written in February 2005 to explain to our Caucasian brothers and sisters why we were planning a convention of our own that took place later that year.


Why a Transsistahs Convention?
By Monica Roberts

Ever since the word got out that Dawn Wilson and I are helping a committee of young African-American transpeople to organize a convention for later this year, there has been much weeping and gnashing of teeth in the Caucasian transgender community. What does the Caucasian transgender community have to fear from a group of African-American transpeople getting together in Louisville to spend several days networking, learning and bonding with each other, just like you peeps have done at Southern Comfort, Gold Rush, IFGE, and various other events?

The simple fact is that we have cultural differences that aren’t being reflected in the current organizational setup of the Caucasian transgendered community. Our community is built with a belief in God as the central pillar of our daily lives. We don't see that reflected in the Caucasian trans community and we have issues and concerns that aren’t being addressed.

What issues you ask? Issues such as HIV/AIDS, the disproportionate number of African-American and Latina transpeople that make up the Remembering our Dead list, socioeconomic issues, ignoring the roles that people of color have played in shaping transgender history, and the pervasive racism within the community. When African-American transactivists and other activists of color have tried to point them out they are dismissively told that their concerns ‘aren’t trans issues’ or ‘quit playing the race card’.

We have qualms about the Caucasian transgender political leadership continually trying to align itself with HRC. It’s a group that has a sorry history of being disrespectful to the African-American GLBT/SGL community and repeatedly sabotaging transgender lobby efforts. The Caucasian TG leadership even sabotaged a 2002 African-American transgender led initiative to the Congressional Black Caucus that would have benefited the entire trans community and boasted about it afterward.

A conservative administration is entrenched in Washington DC. Many African-American transpeople reside in areas run by conservative state and local governments. It was past time for us to build our own institutions so that we may better weather the storms of ‘compassionate conservatism’ and the backstabbing from our so-called allies.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that there have been people and organizations within the Caucasian trans community who have tried to be inclusive and sounded the alarm that we needed to be welcomed into the fold or else. Their pleas and ours have fallen on deaf ears. I’ve noted the growing frustration within our community reflected in the posts on my Transsistahs Yahoo discussion list that I founded a year ago and other African-American GLBT/SGL lists. Those posts have repeatedly called for us to build institutions that will give African-American transkids something to be proud of and resources that they can tap into that reflect their cultural heritage. We’ve finally decided to act on that.

The gathering in Louisville is in the mold of our African-American cultural tradition. We have a proud heritage as African-American women of doing things that not only help us but also uplift the race at the same time. The sistahs are doing it for ourselves to paraphrase an old Aretha Franklin song. We’re not doing it to permanently separate ourselves from the Caucasian trans community, but so that we may work together with our mainstream African-American brothers and sisters. Kwame Toure (Stokely Carmichael to you folks who remember the Civil Rights Movement) stated, 'Before a group can enter the open society, it must first close ranks.'

Well, the African-American transcommunity is closing ranks. Louisville, here we come.