When Will You See and Hear Black Trans People, Black Legacy Orgs?

If you are wishing to become competent on transgender human rights issues, wouldn't hurt for you to hire the people who are experts at it and who are also culturally competent in the issues that ail Black America as well-TransGriot,  June 2015


Been talking about this it seems for years on this blog, and I and Black Trans America are still waiting for our legacy orgs to actually hire Black trans folks to do advocay work for ours and the Black TBLGQ community.

Black trans women are and have been in a state of emergency for the last several years.   We're getting slaughtered out there, without even a peeps from our legacy orgs or even Black politicians at the national stating that our Black Lives Matter.

Really makes me pine for the halcyon days of the Obama Administration when then Attorney General Loretta Lynch

"Let me also speak directly to the transgender community itself. Some of you have lived freely for decades. Others of you are still wondering how you can possibly live the lives you were born to lead. But no matter how isolated or scared you may feel today, the Department of Justice and the entire Obama administration wants you to know that we see you; we stand with you; and we will do everything we can to protect you going forward. Please know that history is on your side." 

This country was founded on a promise of equal rights for all, and we have always managed to move closer to that promise, little by little, one day at a time. It may not be easy—but we’ll get there together.

Where y'all at NAACP?   Your silence as trans people's humanity and human rights have been attacked has been deafening.   Black trans folks, their parents, and their supporters need to see and hear the nation's most respected and legendary civil rights organization stand up for Black  transgender Americans the way you did for our people over much of the 20th century.

Happy Wakanda Day!

The hate is still flowing from vanillacentric privileged folks mad that Black Panther is hitting the multiplexes today and probably by the end of this weekend will be the number one movie in America

You mad about that?   Stay mad.

White supremacists are tripping about this film to the point where they were plotting to jack with the film's scores on the Rotten Tomatoes website by inundating it with negative reviews.  Wouldn't be surprised in FOX Noise VP John Moody comes up with another racist op-ed attacking this movie.

Even Breitbart's shady azz, that never missed an opportunity to demonize trans people and the LGBTQ community, had the nerve to post a story asking where was the TBLGQ representation in this movie.   Your azzes were mute about the topic when it came to Star Wars and every other white dominated superhero movie, so stay mute about this one.

While they hate, Black Panther is selling out theaters and has become a cultural touchstone moment for Black America.

Happy Black History Month!   What was that noise Hollywood that movies with Black superheroes don't draw a great box office?   Blade ring a bell?

It's also nice seeing a superhero who looks like us and coincidentally happens to be royalty on top of it.  It is a joy to see a movie that is unapologetically immersed in our African culture.   It is also going to be so cool to see all the kick butt women who are part of this movie from Queen Mother Ramonda to Princess Shuri, the genius kid sister of T'Challa, to the Dora Milaje.

So no conservadevils, we will not allow you to steal our joy in Black Panther debuting now that Wakanda Day is finally here.

It's even more important for our kids to see themselves reflected on the silver screen   That's probably the major reason why you conservafools and vanillacentric privileged clueless peeps are hatin' on the film.. 

This is not 'just a movie' to Black America.  My friends who have already seen it are raving about it in their words being a love letter to Blackness, and it's making me even more determined to see it this weekend.

Well, y'all can be mad and stay mad as we in Black America and our allies and accomplices head to the multiplexes to see this long awaited  movie which will probably end up getting a sequel.

A sequel in which if they follow the Black Panther story, will end up with Princess Shuri becoming Queen of Wakanda and by extension, the next Black Panther. 

If You're A Black TBLGQ Person, We KNOW TBLGQ Rights Aren't Safe

"Should the self destructive white privilege fueled racist tendencies of white voters prevail on Tuesday, we will be stuck with people who hate us having offices in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building and the Justice Department gleefully making policy backed by the federal government that rolls back all the human rights games we have made since Stonewall. ".   
-TransGriot, November 4, 2016 

In the wake of the disastrous 2016 election, one of my Black lesbian homegirls told me a story about a conversation she'd had with two white gay men at her job who were gleefully bragging about voting for Trump. 

"He's going to shake this PC crap up," one of them said while the other recited Trump's demonstrably false narrative about the country being 'terrible' under President Obama.

My homegirl then calmly reminded both of the gay Trump supporters they had just voted for the guy who would take away gay marriage.   Upon hearing that comment, their previously gleeful expressions turned to shock and horror. 

"He can't do that, can he?" one of them asked her in a concerned tone.

"He most certainly can, now that you voted for the guy who will put an anti marriage equality justice on the Supreme Court, and has Mike Pence as his vice president egging him on to do it,"
 said my friend

I'm recalling that now year old conversation because I thought about it as I read the Washington Post story by Colleen Curry in which she talked about the epiphany she had that gay rights weren't safe.

Well, if you had talked to any member of the Black, Latinx or Asian TBLGQ community prior to or since the 2016 election, we could have told you that our community's human rights aren't safe based on our people's long tortured human rights history in the US and our people having to constantly fight tooth and nail just to have our humanity and human rights recognized.

As a matter of fact, just four days before the 2016 election I wrote a post that stated in blunt terms that the humanity and human rights of trans people were on the ballot.

There was a clear choice in this 2016 presidential election in terms of who needed to be in the White House if we wanted as a community continued progress on TBLGQ rights issues  But far too many people in this community were more committed to hatin' on Hillary than electing her to become POTUS so that we could have continued our TBLGQ human rights progress.

My people's history is full of stories like the Reconstruction, in which we made fantastic human rights progress after emancipation only to have it wiped out because of an at times violent conservative backlash that erased those gains before the turn of the 20th Century and saw the birth of Jim Crow Segregation.

The Civil Rights Movement of the 50's and 60's (sometimes called the Second Reconstruction by historians) led to African Americans making fantastic human rights gains during that period only to have them steady chipped away or rolled back by conservative Republicans hostile to any progress for Black Americans

Anyone with a grasp of American history and who was paying political attention over the last several decades could have seen this same pattern coming in terms of TBLGQ rights.    Black women, and especially Black trans women saw this coming which is why we were voting at a 94% clip for Clinton and the Democrats to avoid this disaster.

Rights that you gain by executive order and court cases aren't safe and can be easily reversed.   The only way to make them permanent or harder to roll back is to pass them legislatively  To pass them legislatively, you have to have either TBLGQ legislators or allies doing so.

Elections matter.   As long as the Trump misadministration and people hostile to us are in charge in Washington and our state capitols, TBLGQ human rights will always be under attack and we must fight tooth and nail to ensure there's no slippage in our human rights coverage. .

Good to know that some of you in TBLGQ World are finally waking up to that reality

Being A Black Trans Leader Means I Have To Call Crap Out

Been checking out the reaction of white feminists to Rose McGowan's anti-trans outburst, and the first thing I have to say about it is directed at McGowan herself.

No Rose,  I was born on Planet Earth in this solar system.  I don't agree with a world that thinks it has a right to demonize and dismiss trans women and their issues because it doesn't neatly fit with your white feminist agenda. 

And to the white trans women (and others) rushing to try to defend her and trying to call the trans woman out for confronting her (and I wouldn't be surprised if that trans woman in question was Black) what I have to say to you is this:   

Well behaved trans women don't make history or advance policy agendas.  Sometimes you just have to call bull feces out when you see it.   It is also an intrinsic part of our leadership style as Black people to do precisely that, even if it makes friend, foe or frenemy uncomfortable.

It is not a 'cult of intersectionality' as one white trans woman described it on my FB page, and to say that means you really don't have even a 101 level of understanding what Dr. Kimberle Crenshaw was talking about when she was discussing intersectionality in the first place.

Black trans folks, no matter where we are across the African Diaspora, have always had to stand up, call crap out, speak truth to power and follow that truth telling up with concerted, committed action to back it up.   And if I or any Black trans person is going to properly lead and represent our Black trans community, we have to be willing to put ourselves in the situation as this trans person did of calling problematic folks out, even if that action is considered unpopular at that moment in time.

If you think Moni is selling you woof tickets about the principles of Black leadership part, this is what the late Dr. Ronald Walters had to say about it.

Dr. Walters defined the task of Black leadership as providing the vision, resources, tactics, and strategies that facilitate the achievement of the objectives of Black people.

Those goals according to Walters 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 makes some people uncomfortable and causes controversy at times as well.

Speaking truth to power also disturbs the status quo.  It makes people uncomfortable who think that being confrontational is 'disturbing the peace'.  They mistakenly think that being nice, non threatening and non confrontational in the face of oppression will get of the policy change and social justice advancement we seek.

Nope, respectability politics will not make that happen. Demanding what you wish and taking coordinated action to make it happen will.   Black trans people don't care that the calling out crap part of our Black leadership mission tradition is making you uncomfortable.

If it is making you uncomfortable, you need to ask yourself why, and deal with it.
Because Black trans people, myself included, are not going to stop calling out injustice or crap within our movement when we see it.

Note To Nikki Haley: All Music Is Political

Laughed my azz off at Nikki Haley's comment complaining about politics at the Grammys and saying that music and politics shouldn't mix.

I also find it more interesting the critique coming from Haley in light of the fact that one of the first things that GOP administrations do is cut funding to arts, music and education,

She was also born in 1972, when the music industry was blowing up.   The 70's and the 80's were one of the most creative and unapologetically political periods for popular music.

News flash for you Nikki. Art, music and politics have been joined at the hip.    Some of my fave songs have had political themes in them like Stevie Wonder's 'You Haven't Done Nothing' slamming the Nixon Administration.   In fact Stevie has written a lot of politically themed songs over his distinguished career..   Billie Holiday's 'Strange Fruit'.  Sly and the Family Stone.  The Isley Brothers 'Fight The Power.'   The Impressions 'Keep on Pushing' which was inspired by the civil rights marches of the era.    Freda Payne's 'Bring The Boys Home'  critiquing the Vietnam War.   Edwin Starr's 'War'.  Various Parliament-Funkadelic songs.  Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes 'Wake Up Everybody.  George Clinton's 'Bullet Proof/, Public Enemy's Can't Truss It.  NWA's F*** tha Police.  Beyonce's' Run The World'

And that's just from the R&B, rap and hip hop side.   Black music has always been unapologetically political    Music of other genres has also been political like Men At Work's 'It's A Mistake' and Nena's '99 Luftballons' being two examples on the same theme of an accidental nuclear war. 

So it's laughable that you, being part of a misadministration that politicizes everything including NFL players simply taking a knee during the national anthem protesting police violence against our community and turning it into something sinister, are now whining about the Grammy Awards and the numerous political shots they took at your reprehensible boss up to and including Hillary Clinton reading from Fire and Fury..

So just deal with the fact that all music is political, and thanks to the First Amendment to our Constitution, here will be more musical critiques of your boss coming over the next two years

I Repeat: Chelsea Manning Is NOT Getting My Endorsement

Ever since I wrote the post which stated why I wasn't endorsing Chelsea Manning in her doomed to failure run against Sen. Ben Cardin in Maryland, I've had people trying to defend her behind.

They tried to claim she'd been pardoned (nope she hadn't) and throw up every other spin line to try to convince me to change my mind about my decision to not endorse her candidacy.

And right on cue, Chelsea Manning gave me even more reason to not endorse her by palling around with white supremacists.

When the backlash started hitting her, she then tried to weakly claim she 'crashed the party and was 'gathering intel' on the group.   Yeah, right.

FYI Chelsea, Maryland has 29% Black population.  Despite what you might have heard from the far left, Black voters are the base of the Democratic Party and its most consistent voting bloc.  You're not going to get many votes in a Democratic primary from the Black community hanging out with white supremacists.

So spare me whatever excuse du jour you try to use to justify it.  All you've done is proven once again your lack of judgment in this situation.

And in a political race, optics matter.   Being at a white supremacist party and palling around with them is not a good look period   

Cecile Richards Is Right : White Women MUST Do Better

I loved Ann Richards when she was my governor, and it seems as though Cecile Richards is cut from the same straight talking cloth her mom was.

At the Las Vegas Women's March she said something that Black women have been saying to ourselves for years now in terms of it is not just Black women's job to do the heavy lifting work of saving this country.

We Black women, cis and trans have known since the 60s that the GOP ain't shyt.   The rest of y'all have been slow to resistant to getting in formation with us to vote the GOP bastards out at all levels of government.     Thanks to Richards, the conversation can get started about the elephant in the room in terms of this problematic pattern.

And it's past time you #TrustBlackWomen.  While Cecile Richards' words were welcomed by Black women activists and leaders, we will be watching the deeds of white women in 2018, not just your words. 

53% of white women voted for Trump. 63% of you for the detestable Roy Moore.   It's not  just a recent patten, it's a historic one going back to the suffragist moment in which you threw women of color under the bus to get the right to vote for yourselves.

In my home state of Texas,  during the 2014 election cycle, despite having  two women on the ballot running for governor and lieutenant governor in Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte,  66% of Texas white women overwhelmingly cast their ballots for Greg Abbott.

What were Texas Black and Latinx women doing?  As usual, handling their business.  Texas Black women were putting intersectionality into pragmatic action as 94% of them supported Davis, and Texas Latinas voted 61% for Davis.

So yeah white women, Cecile Richards is right.   Y'all must do better.  You must tackle that internalized misogyny and your transphobia and make true sisterhood a reality, not a dream..

It can't be just Black and Latinx women doing all the heavy lifting to make this country better  while you keep throwing a monkey wrench in the process by voting overwhelmingly for Republicans who oppress all of us.

Y'all have some work to do in Texas and elsewhere in 2018, and it starts today .

Thanks Cecile Richards for saying it.

Happy King Day 2018!

'In a time when it's hard for us to generate infinite hope in the face of the crushing disappointment of the November 8 election results, it's what we must do right now.  Our kids are counting on us to fight for them and the America we want to see harder than this conservafool nightmare the right wing fought hard for decades to make happen.' 
-TransGriot, January 15, 2017 

Happy King Day TransGriot readers!  This is one of those King Day federal holidays that every few years also falls on his January 15 birthday. 

But on this King Day I'm thinking in terms of the hell we went through and the New York village idiot in charge of the Oval Office.

The past year was one that will live in historic infamy. Rampant racism coming from Trump and his GOP.  A media that needs to do their job and call the unjust actions out and call a lie a lie instead of trying to sugarcoat crap. 

But it's a year later, and the signs are we didn't lose infinite hope in this nation.

In Texas we killed the unjust SB 6 bill twice.  We made it die in the regular season and again in the Special Oppression Session.   In Virginia we finally got a trans person elected to and seated in a state legislature while unseating one of our community's legislative enemies at the same time in Bigot Bob Marshall.   We also got two Black trans people elected to the Minneapolis City Council in Councilmembers Andrea Jenkins and Phillipe Cunningham

The resistance to the Trump tyranny is continuing to grow.   Whether it's federal judges who follow the rule of law and block his unjust executive orders and policies to good men and women who can't stand what has happened to this country since his election, people are choosing to fight the Orange Power instead of bow down to it as Omarosa claimed we would.  .

Oh yeah, has anyone seen Omarosa lately since she got bounced from the White House?  Her useful fool time is up and she got kicked to the curb.

And with no nonsense media people like Joy Reid and April Ryan leading the way (#TrustBlackWomen), the media seems to be finally pushing back against the nonstop Trump lies and conspiracy theory idiocy instead of letting them pass without being called out.

A critical midterm election is coming up.   In Texas alone after their attempts to legislate injustice aimed at the LGBT community failed, we have seen 50 TBLGQ community members step up to run for office. in the Lone State State, and five of those candidates are transgender.

November 6 will be here before we know it, so get registered and handle your 2018 election business

And I'm hopeful this is the year my Black cis family stops looking at their trans siblings as embarrassments or worse and start respecting and recognizing out humanity and the talents we bring to our kente cloth covered family table .

And kids, Happy King Day!   I hope we elders make you proud as we fight for a better America and better world on your behalf. 

Hey 45, This Is What A 'Stable Genius' Looks Like

Funny, he looks a lot like the previous well loved Ivy League educated president who was the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review and a constitutional law scholar.

Funny, it looks a lot like this woman you hate so much, who was a National Meit Scholar back in the day and this country's previous Secretary of State.

Funny, it looks a lot like this distinguished award winning theoretical physicist

Not you. Dear Cheeto Misleader .  They also have something you don't.   Class and a vocabulary.

A person who is intelligent doesn't have to brag about it because everyone they come into contact with is already aware of their brilliance.

When you have to constantly brag about it as you do, it makes that attribute you claim to have suspect.   And that's true about a lot of things you brag about, Tiny Hands..

What A Difference A SB 6 Free Year Makes!

One year ago today a group of us were gathered at Houston City Hall to await a press conference from Austin in which Lt Governor Dan 'Potty Man' Patrick (R) and Sen Lois 'Locker Room' Kolkhorst (R-Brenham) , giddy over the election of Donald Trump, were there along with several Republican state senators and that sellout state senator Eddie Lucio, Jr (DINO-Brownsville) to announce the filing of the unjust anti-trans SB 6 bill.

Patrick and Kolkhorst had their say, and then we had our not only in the press conference from the City Hall rotunda along with Sen. Sylvia Garcia (D-Houston), but during the regular and Special Oppression Session.    Before that press conference I'd already had a discussion with Sen Garcia about what needed to be done along with other H-town leaders.

We said what we needed to say along with our allies, then rolled up our sleeves and got to work killing an unjust bill that no one outside the state of Texas thought we had a prayer of stopping.

We made multiple trips to Austin to talk to legislators.  We waited hours to testify in in hearing rooms that were standing room only at some points until others were opened to handle the overflow crowd of Texans from across the state determined to have their 2 minutes to testify against this waste of legislative time in the Senate SB 6 hearing.

And our efforts weren't in vain.   Even though the Senate GOP majority and their sellout DINO voted for it over the objections of the rest of the Texas Senate Democrats , we were being heard, especially in the court of public opinion and most importantly by the adult legislative chamber, the Texas House.

Police chiefs across the Lone Star State spoke out against it along with business leaders.   Progressive pastors spoke up to counter the white fundamentalist ones in favor of oppressing trans Texans.  Parents of transgender kids and our allies. 

And the most important voices saying no to SB 6 were Texas House Speaker Joe Straus (R-San Antonio) and Rep. Byron Cook (R-Corsicana) the chair of the House State Affairs Committee.
 
Thanks to these two Texas Lege grownups, SB 6 never got a hearing in the House, and far right Republicans, upset about that development, floated a substitute bill that did get a hearing.

Once again the Texas trans community responded and spent the entire day at the Texas state capitol waiting until the hearing kicked off in the wee hours of the morning to express their displeasure with this attempt to legislate discrimination.

The regular session came to a close, SB 6 and HB 2899 were dead, and we could exhale for a moment until the expected Special Oppression Session was announced.


Once that happened, we rolled up our sleeves and got to work on killing SB 6, now renumbered as SB 3 in its revived attempt by Patrick and Kolkhorst to pass it during the Special Oppression Session. 

Just as in the regular session, the Texas trans community handled its business and said in a collective loud voice NO to SB 3, and repeated that NO during the Senate hearing held for it.

Once again the Texas Senate passed it over the objections of Senate Democrats like Sen Garcia, and once again, thanks to Straus and Cook,  it was DOA in the Texas House until the special session ended 30 days and $800,000 taxpayer dollars later.

But the bottom line is a year later, SB 6 is still dead, and we have a chance to punish at the polls all who attempted to push through that legislative oppression. 

And the most important thing to point out is the Texas trans community won.   We stopped SB 6 and it NOT law in the Lone Star State.   

Moni's 2017 Year In Review

Considering I was dreading the start of 2017 because Dear Cheeto Leader was about to desecrate the White House and we were starting a Texas Legislative session in which the number one priority of the lieutenant governor was to oppress Texas trans people, it turned out better than I thought.

It was also a year in which I did more travel to events inside the Lone Star State than outside of it.

My first event of the year was a panel for Leadership Houston in which I got to talk about the Houston and Texas trans community and the potential devastating impact of SB 6 on us and the state if it got passed.

My first out of state trip in 2017 was one to Philadelphia for Creating Change.  There was also a Trans United Fund board meeting and fundraising event at Philadelphia City Hall I was scheduled to speak at. 

I noted the irony of #CC17 starting during the final days of the Obama administration and the beginning of the Trump one, and I was happy that the TUF board meeting happened on Friday during Dear Cheeto Leader's inauguration so I didn't have to see that train wreck .

One of the instate events I attended was in February.  I traveled to  Irving in the DFW 'burbs for the Equality Texas sponsored Texas Transgender Leadership Institute.  Once again I got to hang out with many of the DFW area Mama Bears, my BTAC family and other Texas trans leaders and allies from across the states for two days     It was also the one in which I met the lovely Jessica Zyrie and Corpus Christi's Kitana Sanchez for the first time, and got to spend some quality time with Rev. Angie Shannon.

Then there was the several moths long long all hands on deck fight to kill SB 6 that lasted through the regular and Special Oppression Session    I made 8 total trips to Austin along with the Texas trans community and our allies to help kill that human rights abomination of a bill.   

One of the 8 trips was in late February to finally get my gender marker changed thanks to Nikki Araguz Loyd and Trans National Alliance

I'll show up from time to time for a street protest in solidarity with other groups.  Was there at an ambush protest of Dan Patrick when he tried to sneak into Houston for the Houston Crime Stoppers dedication of the Dave Ward Building

On one of the Austin trips I went on offense and spoke at a hearing in favor of a Rep. Diego Bernal (D-San Antonio) authored bill that would add gender identity and sexual orientation language to the Texas housing discrimination bill.   Unfortunately that bill died during the regular session.

But y'all know I was there in the ATX giving Lois Kolkhorst and her GOP senate colleagues hell for attempting to pass this unjust bill.    I had to sit in the Capitol a little over eleven hours tht day before I got my chance to chew on the Republican dominated panel, so I had more than enough time to figure out what I wanted to say.to the Texas GOP oppressors

Got a chance to spend some quality time with my TBLGQ  journalist friends in Orlando in March for this year's LGBT Media Journalist Convening.   While we were there we took a trip to the Pulse nightclub to pay our respects to the 49 people who lost their lives in the mass shooting that happened here.

This year LGBTMedia17 was expanded to two days of workshops, and not only did I enjoy the extra day I got to spend with my LGBTMedia fam, I fell in love with the Rosen Center Hotel, especially since it was a block from a 7 Eleven.

I was also given the honor by the coalition of Latinx groups fighting the anti-immigrant SB 4 to speak that their Memorial Day rally at the state capitol to protest this unjust bill.

Thankfully it is tied up in the federal courts and here's hoping that discriminatory and unjust piece of legislative refuse never sees the light of day.

One of my goals in 2017 was to be better at role modeling intersectionality.   I wanted to build connections this year with not only the Houston Black lesbian community, but build and strengthen my relationships within the trans Latinx community.

I got plenty of opportunities to do so in 2017, and one of them was when the Transgender Law Center brought their Latino Leadership Institute  to Houston, and I spent much of the day hanging out with Jennicet Gutierrez and many of the Latinx peeps from around the country who were in attendance.

I was invited by BLMHOU to speak at their rally condemning the Spirit of the Confederacy statue standing for now in Sam Houston Park downtown that unfortunately didn't get swept away in the Hurricane Harvey caused flooding of Buffalo Bayou. 

Was there along with BLMHOU and our allies to successfully help get Wesley Muhammad's transphobic and homophobic 'Chemical Femininity' lecture moved from SHAPE Community Center. and was invited to speak at a #MeToo rally in downtown Houston organized by Kandice Webber

I did receive another award this year and it came from a surprising place in the Human Rights Campaign.

HRC Houston honored me on April 1 with their John Walzel Equality Award for my nearly 20 years of human rights activism on behalf of the community.  Still have it on my shelf, so it wasn't an April Fool's joke knowing the long contentious history I had with HRC in the past.

But things didn't all go my way in the awards department this year.   Was nominated for my second GLAAD Media Award for Best Blog.  That went to Alvin McEwen's Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters..   Was nominated for a F.A.C.E. and OutSmart Gayest and Greatest Awards in several categories but this wasn't my year for them either..  .

My bid  to become the first ever trans woman of color named Houston Pride Parade Female Grand Marshal didn't go my way this time either. 

But it's nice just to have people, and especially people in your hometown and birth state  recognize your work.  I did get to carry the trans pride flag as part of the color guard for this year's Houston Pride parade.

Also got an opportunity to go to Netroots Nation again, which was being held in the ATL.  It was my third Netroots Nation event (2012, 2016, 2017) and the first time I'd ever attended back to back ones.

I also happened to be in the ATL as the local trans community was holding a memorial service for their slain trans sister Tee Tee Dangerfield.  I was just planning on attending and showing my support to the local community, but was asked by the organizers to represent the national trans community and speak .

While I was attending Netroots Nation, I was a participant in two panels.  As the 2016 Netroots Nation Pundit Cup Champion, I was also a judge for the championship round and yep, it fell on me to cast the deciding vote.  I passed the title on to my successor, 2017 Netroots Nation Pundit Cup Champion Tenaja Jordan.   That made three straight years that the Pundit Cup Champ has been a Black woman, and two straight years the finalists had been people of color.

Should be interesting to see how the 2018 Pundit Cup competition shakes out in NOLA August 2-4.

Speaking of interesting, for the first time ever I got to attend San Diego Comic Con, and it was for a panel.   After the panel Faith Cheltenham and I ended up called out a white woman dressed as Whoopi Goldberg's Star Trek Next Gen character Guinan for wearing Blackface. 

Reminder people, Blackface is not apropos anywhere for any reason, even at Comic Con. If you try it, you will get called out for it.     I got to spend the next few days wandering around the convention center checking out the event  as the Texas Senate held their second SB 6 hearing while i was out of the state.

There were radio and television interviews, panel discussions and Trans 101 class conversations at universities, showing up at Houston City Council a few times to speak  and me teaching Texas Trans History at the TTNS in Nacogdoches and a few months later at Gender Infinity on the UH campus.

And yes, me dishing out domino lessons during BTAC in Dallas.  Can't wait to see my BTAC family in April

One of the last events I participated in for 2017 was a somber one.  The vigil that was held at Houston City Hall to honor the 24th victim of anti-trans violence and the fourth in Texas this year in Brandi Seals.   There are some issues that cropped up we will be dealing with in 2018


Guess I was little busier than I presumed I had been in 2017.     With 2018 being an election year and this being my 20th anniversary year of trans and human rights activism, looks like I'm in for more of the same .