News that COVID 19 is spiking in Houston because of Gov Greg Abbott's idiotic decision to open the state for business before the Memorial Day weekend is now biting us in the behind.
Instead of our curve being on the downward trend that Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, and Houston mayor Sylvester Turner had it trending on, no thanks to TXGOP interference, our cases are now exploding toward New York levels.
Lina warned y'all. But you conservafool Chads and Karens were too busy whining about haircuts, wearing masks and wanting to go to the beach rather than staying your azzes at home and letting this curve flatten out some more in the month of June..
And I damned sure didn't appreciate the racist 'Dora The Explorer' remarks you conservafools were flinging at her because she cared more about your lives than your own party did.
But naw, y'all wanted to listen to that orange pustule contaminating the White House and not wear masks like you were advised to by Judge Hidalgo and Mayor Turner.
I know the news coming out of Houston has y'all concerned about me, my family and everyone y'all know down here in the 713, and you have like I am, every right to be concerned. I have had people i know now test positive for COVID 19 as my behind sits and chills out with her dwindling bottles of amaretto and wine at Casa de Monica.
The only time I leave my place is to go grocery shopping, load up on cleaning supplies and toilet paper, and as I did two weeks ago, do some blood work in advance of my doctor's appointment that happened back on June 11. I also bounced out of the house on Juneteenth to speak at a socially distanced rally at Discovery Green
My immediate family and I are okay for now. I thank all of you here in Houston, Texas and around the nation and the world who have made it your mission to check on me. I deeply appreciate every call, message, e-mail, and texts that you send or make asking how I'm doing health wise.
I ask that you not only keep sending me your warm thoughts and prayers, I ask that you also do so for all the people I'm aware of who tested positive for the 'Rona. May they all have speedy recoveries with no serious post-COVID complications.
I also hope that Abbott stops stalling, corrects the mistake me made and shut the state down until our COVID curve starts going down for good
But then again, I'm asking for far too much when it comes to TXGOP peeps who demonstrate failed conservative leadership every day.
Is it November 2022 yet?
I can't fire Abbott, Patrick and Paxton yet, but I can fire John Cornyn every other Republican who is on the ballot in 2020
We are a few hours from me and other Houston-Harris County residents having to deal with a stay at home order starting at 11:59 PM CDT tonight.
But instead of thinking about that, I find myself thinking about the younglings. The ones I'm specifically thinking about are the ones in the Class of 2020.
My own high school graduation was 40 years ago, and assuming the COVID-19 crisis has calmed down by the second week of October, I'm eagerly anticipating getting together with my JJ classmates for our 40th high school reunion.
Hollywood has frequently produced over the last few decades movies from The Breakfast Club to Cooley High to Fast Times at Ridgemont High and TV shows like Boy Meets World and Saved By The Bell that all have high school as a backdrop or as a major part of the story.
So when you finally do get old enough to enter high school yourself, you have because of all those different depictions of high school life Hollywood style, all these heightened expectations as a high school freshman or sophomore because of it.
On top of that is your parents reminiscing about their high school days as you begin to tackle navigating that new world and figuring out your place in it.
But back to talking about the class of 2020.
The reason I'm feeling some angst for them is because I remember what it was like to go through my own senior year and my excitement when the 1980 calendar page turned to May. While I had my own challenges graduating while trans, I and my Class With Class schoolmates had waited three years for our turn to go through Senior Week after watching the Classes of 1978 and 1979 do so.
And it's why I feel sad for the Class of 2020.
Their senior year just abruptly ended with no Senior Week, no Senior Skip Day, no prom, and no graduation commencement ceremony with all their friends and extended family in attendance.
The Class of 2020 also gets no last day of high school to add an exclamation point to the reality that ready or not, a chapter of your life is closing, a new one is beginning, and you've just gone through a rite of passage into young adulthood from your teen years.
For those Class of 2020 seniors involved in spring sports like basketball, baseball, track and field, tennis, wrestling and soccer, the pain is particularly acute.
While in Texas the girls managed to get their full state basketball tournament schedule done in San Antonio and crown champions from Class A to 6A, because the boys tournament happens a week later, that wasn't the case for them.
The boys got to play and complete one 3A semifinal game in San Antonio's Alamodome before the UIL made the reluctant call to shut down the rest of the boys state tournament.
Imagine how the 2020 senior kids feel who participate in spring sports that didn't get a chance to progress to state championships, or who may have been working on historic seasons for their schools when things were shut down.
If I was in a Class of 2020 member's shoes, I'd feel a little cheated, frustrated and mildly pissed off about how my senior year ended.
Deep down, my rational thinking self would note the fact we're in the uncharted territory of a worldwide pandemic, but my thoughts would still go back to we'd waited three to four years for our turn to bask in the glow of Senior Week, and now that's been shut down and ripped away from us.
The gut punch to all of this is that you only go through high school once, and once this moment in time passes, that;s it. It's gone as soon as you step off that high school campus for the last time. .
So yes Class of 2020, I do feel your pain right now
If you follow me on social media, you may have seen posts referring to me as the Air Marshal, and wonder how I got that nickname. I'm about to tell you how.
I was still working in the airline biz when I started doing activism work on behalf of the trans community in 1998. There was also another Monica besides moi in the trans activism ranks who started at roughly the same time in then Phoenix based Monica Helms (as in trans pride flag creator Monica Helms).
Not only did we start getting into trans activism at roughly the same time, our writing styles were close enough in tone that people frequently mixed us up in online forms.
To make it clear in online communication which Monica a comment was being directed at or which one of us Monicas was talking in a comment thread, because Helms served in the Navy, she became known as Monica of the Sea, or Sea Monica for short. Because I was in the airline biz, I became known as Monica of the Air, or Air Monica.
Since I also had as a decade long airline employee the perk of free standby air travel and other discounts to go with it, I quickly became the national trans community's rapid response person when we needed an immediate trans physical presence on short notice for meetings, protests or lobbying efforts at the federal, state or local level.
Since we called trailblazing leader Phyllis Frye 'The General' because of her time in the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets and the Army, as the newbie Texan to the trans activism community and her mentee, I received the nickname from Polar of 'The Air Marshal.
Air Marshal is a senior three star rank in Great Britain's Royal Air Force, and because I also became when the national Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC) was founded in 1999 their Lobby Chair/ Political Director tasked with developing trans public policy, the Air Marshal nickname fit and stuck.
I liked the Air Marshal nickname better at the time than the one that I was being called by racist vanillacentric privileged TS separatists, Darth Maul.
I actually grew to love that Darth Maul nickname so much that when I won my IFGE Trinity Award in 2006 (becoming the third African American trans person to win it after Dawn Wilson and Marisa Richmond), I was going to enter the hotel ballroom in Philly where they were having the IFGE convention award ceremony to the Imperial March.
That's a story for another time. Back to the Air Marshal one.
So when you see me post on FB that 'the Air Marshal has landed' , it's basically a nod to my early days as an activist and acknowledging that being my kind of trans activist has at times involved lots of air travel.
Happy Valentines Day people! This is the first V-Day of the 2020's and I'm spending it like I have for the majority of the 2000's and 2010's.
As usual I bought my own damned candy, and will probably be on the couch later tonight watching rom coms while scarfing down a pint of Blue Bell
It's ironic that just a few days ago I found the open letter I wrote to Trinity about relationships while searching for another post.
While I'm alone on this Valentine's Day 2020, I'm not lonely. I basically made the call that I'm waiting for a quality person to come into my life, whoever they may be. I continue to draw inspiration for all the couples i see in Trans World who are happily married, and keep hope alive it may happen for me someday.
Then again, I've been notoriously slow to recognize that person until they have moved on.
So for all you peeps booed up, especially in Trans World, more power to you. Hope you have a wonderful and amazing V-Day.
For those of you who are celebrating Single Appreciation Day, may you find someone either today or in the future who looks at you like Melania does PM Justin Trudeau
And now, it's time for me to start tackling this pile of rom-com DVDs I have waiting for me to watch them.
One of the things that peeps are surprised to find out about moi is that I am not only a trans grognard or warganer, I also love computer and video games.
They are one of the things I do as part of my self care regimen, and it also satisfies my inner blerd.
What's a blerd you ask? Blerd is a term I picked up (and I like) from my homegirl Kandice Webber to describe a Black nerd.
One of the computer games I fell in love with back in the 90's was Sim City. I loved it so much I bought Sim City 2000, Sim City 3000 and Sim City 2013 because I absolutely love the city simulator games. Why don't I own Sim City 4? Because by the time I was able to buy it, Sim City 2013 was out.
Then I discovered Cities Skylines.
One of the things that irritated me about Sim City 2013 is that they took away the ability to build subways and freeways from your game cities. It also limited you to one 2x2 km tract to build the city on with no ability to alter the terrain if you needed flat areas to build stuff on.
It also wasn't as realistic as Cities Skylines is where you can get granular about everything from traffic to city governance policies
The thing I love about Cities Skylines is I have far more options for mass transit in this game than just the light rail streetcars and buses in Sim City 2013. You have those plus subways, monorails, commuter rail, ferries, and even blimps.
I also have the ability to modify terrain, and choose up to nine 2x2 km tiles to build a sprawling city on to my hearts content.
One of the things I also love is that when I'm playing this game, I'm so focused on concentrating on what I need to do to build the city and clean up any problems that arise while doing so, I'll look at the wall clock next to my computer desk and realize that a few hours had elapsed since I started that game session.
So on those weekends I take a moment to unplug from The Net, this is one of the me time things I love to do.
Now if I could download some real world buildings and Houston ones into my game, I'd be a happy camper.
Happy New Year to all of you on the eastern side of the International Date Line. My friends west of it and Down Under already celebrated New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.
The arrival of January 1, 2020 also means I'm celebrating another TransGriot blogiversary.
Hope that 2020 is one that is chock full of amazing accomplishments and abundant blessings for you all. May we also receive the blessing of watching Trump go down in flames on November 3, 2020.
That's Election Day for those of y'all who were wondering about the significance of that date.
2020 also means I get to celebrate another high school reunion, my 40th. It is still mind blowing to me that I walked out of high school with The Class With Class in 1980, 20 years before the year 2000 happened. Now me and my classmates are 20 years beyond the year 2000.
My niece Chantoya, who was born on January 20, 2000, will be turning 20 this year.
And just warning y'all now BTACers, Moni will be at the 9th annual conference May 5-10 will be ready to lay down some dominoes beatdowns in defense of my BTAC dominoes championship.
So you better bring your dominoes 'A' game. I don't wanna hear any excuses when I'm calling out points in multiples of ten. I'm also looking forward to celebrating my 58th birthday with y'[all as well
The ladies of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc are also celebrating a birthday this year.. January 16 will mark their centennial year, and every Zeta I know is ready to pop their collars and celebrate the occasion.
The sorority was founded on the Howard University campus in Washington DC back in 1920.,
And yes, besides attending a few conferences and conventions along the way, 2020 will definitely have some domestic travel in my near future.. Will it finally see me going to an international destination for the first time ever? I do have an international travel bucket list that is several pages long.
In July, the world will get to watch the dawn of another Olympiad in the Land of the Rising Sun
I'm anxious to see if my Houston homegirl Simone Biles will make history and dominate the gymnastic competition in these Tokyo Games just as she did four years ago in Rio.
She been collecting gold medals at all the gymnastics world championship events since 2016 and is now the most decorate athlete ever in the sport.
And yes, with the USA men's basketball team handle their Tokyo business, or will they finally get beaten for the first time since 2004 on an Olympic basketball court?
Will the World Champion USA women's soccer team repeat their FIFA Women's World Cup success in the 2020 Olympic tournament after being shut out of the medals in the 2016 Rio Games?
The wonderful thing about New Year's Day is that it is a chance to hit the reset button on your life. You can celebrate the things in your life that did go right, and glean lesson from the stuff that didn't.
Whether you did New Year's Resolutions or not (I did), the one thing that we should all have on our 2020 to do list is to be better human beings this year than we were in 2019.
2020 is here, whether we are ready for it or not. You have 366 days to make this year a great one!
Merry Christmas TransGriot readers! This is the last Christmas Day we will celebrate in the 2010's as a new decade starts a week from now
Hope this day is turning out to be a pleasant one for many of you and the food at your holiday tables is tasty and plentiful. i also hope that Santa brought you everything on your Christmas wish list as well.
Happy Birthday to all of you who were born on this day as well.
What I wished for as a Christmas gift won't happen until November 3,2020. But I did to see his azz impeached as an early Christmas 2019 gift.
If you have extra Christmas cash lying around and want to reward someone who was up to angelic trouble for our community this year, you can always hit me up on my Pay Pal at paypal.me/TransGriot or my Cash App at $TransGriot
I also have a link to my PayPal in my TransGriot Tip Jar in the upper left hand portion of the blog
The other early Christmas gift was my transphobic Harris County Commissioner Steve Radack deciding not to run for another term.
Speaking of Christmas gifts, here's hoping that all the tarns younglings celebrating their first ones as their true selves are getting the stuff they always wanted under the tree today.
For those of you who are not with your blood family, much love to you today and hope you are hanging out with your chosen fam.
Here's also hoping we lose no more trans people between now and New Year's Day.
As someone who has gotten to do a lot of interesting things in my life, 2019 definitely was one that was chock full of milestones and amazing events.
Going into 2019, it was a personal double anniversary year. April 4 not only marked my 25th transiversary, it was also marked the 20th anniversary of activism on behalf of this community.
Because 2019 is an odd numbered year, it also meant I knew as soon as the ball dropped in Times Square I would be making a lot of trips to Austin for the Texas legislative session.
Seven of them in fact. I also made a few trips to the ATX after The Lege mercifully hit sine die on May 27.
This was also a year in which I made more trips inside of the state of Texas than I did outside of it.
I made several trips to Dallas besides the usual birthday week one for the Black Trans Advocacy Conference (BTAC) and three to San Antonio.
One of the Dallas trips was for Muhlaysia Booker's funeral. Another was Dallas Pride which was held on the Texas State fair complex for the first time. Less than three weeks later was back for the BTAC Leadership Institute in Dallas, and another was for the March For Black Trans Lives.
The trips I made to San Antonio were a May 4 birthday trip to witness the end of Frankie Gonzales-Wolfe's historic campaign for a San Antonio City Council seat that unfortunately fell short, and one in September to the Excellence in Journalism Conference.
That's a nice segue into me talking about how much I was on TV this year.
Much of it has been local. I went on The Isiah Factor Uncensored multiple timeson FOX 26, and had two interviews with Natasha Geiger. Multiple interviews on ABC13 with Chauncey Glover, Miya Shay, and Mycah Hatfield. Various newspaper and media interviews in which I got quoted in everything from CNN to OUT Magazine.
The icing on the cake was taping an eight hour conversation about trans issues for ABC News Nightline with Dee Dee and Diamond.
I even got to go to NYC World Pride, even if it was for 36 hours, thanks to Sara Ramirez. I was one of the movement leaders across the country along with my other H-Town peeps Ashton Woods and Ana Andrea Molina honored onstage as she sang 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' during the opening concert for it at Brooklyn's Barclay's Center
Speaking of Pride, which was marking its 50th anniversary this year, I got to serve as an honorary Grand Marshal during Houston's Pride Parade this year.
Lot more fun riding in a jeep for the entire length of our nighttime parade and sitting in the VIP section afterwards instead of marching in it. Also got to attend a few events during the week in my role as a honorary grand marshal.
And this year, probably in large part to the heightened media visibility and the recognition that I have been doing this for 20 years, received some major awards.
The Harris County Democratic Party gave me the Barbara Jordan Breaking Barriers one at the JRR Luncheon in May in which I spoke just before Secretary (and should have been president) Hillary Clinton
I also received the Transgender Activist Award from Equality Texas at their Austin gala in November, and the Minnie Fisher Award from the Texas Democratic Women of Galveston County.
I was also named this year for the first time ever to Out Magazine's OUT100.
It wouldn't be a Moni year without me going to a few conferences. In addition to the BTAC and Excellence in Journalism ones I mentioned earlier in this post, I also attended the Netroots Nation one in Philadelphia for the fourth consecutive year, Gender Infinity and the Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summit which were both held at UH Clear Lake this year and the NLGJA Conference in New Orleans.
It's also cool anytime I go to these events to reconnect with old friends, meet new ones and also talk to the next generation of leaders in our movement.
It was also nice to make progress toward living up to one of my 2019 New Year's resolutions of getting better connected with the Houston cis Black women community and our local activist community
I got to attend a few events throughout the year that helped facilitate that goal, and looking froward to doing the same in the near future. And yes, got to spend some quality time with my high school classmates. Our 40th reunion is coming up in 10 months.
And always cool to spend some time with my trans fam, where it be in Dallas at BTAC, here in Houston, or wherever I'm doing an event around the country.
Some of those events happen on college campuses and corporate settings, where I'm doing my part to educate people about our Black trans lives and the challenges we face inside and outside the Black TBLGQ community.
So yes, 2019 was definitely an amazing year for me to close out a decade Hope that 2020 is even better
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