What I'd Like To See At Netroots Nation 2013

It's been almost a week since I was part of that historic trans panel at Netroots Nation 2012 in Providence and in the room for the LGBT pre-conference event that was a week ago today. 

I'm still sorting through the e-mail from the people I met, the conversations we started, pondering some offers and invitations, and fleshing out the parameters of some of the commitments I made on behalf of myself and the African-American trans community during the event.

I'm following up on many of those and want to make them happen. 

It was announced on Sunday that Netroots Nation 2013 will be held June 20-23 on the West Coast for the first time in the history of the event in San Jose, CA and they are expecting 3000 people to attend.  Of course I enjoyed my first timer experience in Providence so much I'm seriously thinking about being in the house at the San Jose Convention Center if my schedule allows it to happen.

But lets presume I'm standing there as an attendee, a panelist, or a speaker a year from now. and I'm checking in at the desk to get my credentials and my Netroots Nation 2013 programming guide.

What would the TransGriot like to see in terms of some of the panel discussions being offered at NN13 to the huddled liberal-progressive masses yearning to breathe free from conservatism?

You know I've been pondering this, and I'm about to share some of those thoughts with you.

One of the things I'd love to see, and I kicked this idea around in Providence with Viktor, Pam Spaulding and Alvin McEwen is a Black LGBT bloggers panel to discuss some of the issues and challenges we face in the liberal progressive blogosphere..

I'd also like to see multiple trans specific panels spread throughout the convention calendar and that sentiment was echoed by my fellow trans panelists as well.

One of the panels that is definitely needed is a trans POC only panel.  One of the things that bothered me with this Netroots Nation 2012 one I was cognizant of is we didn't have a trans Latina on this panel or a trans man, and before I left Houston I reached out to trans Latinas to ask what issues I needed to bring to the table during this 90 minute discussion.   Immigration and police harassment were the ones that came up, and we did get to discuss both.

Speaking of trans men, there needs to be a trans men only panel that allows them to discuss the issues unique to them and interpret trans human rights events from a transmasculine perspective.  

I'd like to see trans people discussing issues not specifically part of the rainbow community on different panels throughout the Netroots Nation programming blocks in the various communities we intersect and interact with.

I also want to see trans people as moderators of panels or even keynote speakers leading the discussions.

If we have an LGBT pre-conference event in San Jose like we did in Providence, I'd like to see some of the discussion time during that day long event geared toward the issues of transfolks and TBLG people of color so we can continue to have those honest discussions and formulate better policy in our rainbow community movement..

Well folks, we have a year to make it happen.  Y'all know my e-mail address and some of you lucky peeps have my phone number.  So let's get busy making it happen.

Parties And Elections Matter

Just up the street a few short blocks from me is an early voting location in easy walking distance from the house.

Friday afternoon I took some time out of my day to do my civic duty.and cast my ballot in the Texas Democratic primary.

We normally have primary elections in March, but no thanks to the Republifools trying to play racist games with the redistricting process and their voter ID suppression law they tried to implement at the behest of ALEC, the Department of Justice filed suits to legally pimp slap them on.both issues.

Thank you Section V of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which by the way was upheld by a federal appeals court in the Shelby County, Ala. v. Holder court case last week.. 

So as I was handing my voter registration card to the clerk and signing in as I have done in every election I have been eligible to cast a ballot in since 1980, I thought about the fact that if the 2008 election had gone the other way, a McCain run DOJ would have let those unjust laws slide.

Fortunately, there's an African-American president sitting in the Oval Office, and I'm damned sure going to do my part to ensure he stays there until January 20, 2017 


So if you read my May 15 post slamming conservatism and thought I was being harsh about it or 'generalizing' as someone accused me of being in a FB comment thread, nope I wasn't.

I'm just getting started eviscerating conservatism.

Check the record of conservatism when it comes to the concerns of people of color.   There is no compassion in conservatism except for the 1% of them running corporations that they delusionally think are 'people' and hasn't been since 1964.

Conservatism only cares about keeping whiteness and white supremacy in power.  Those of you who are 'proud conservatives' are enabling a political system that let's tell it like it T-I-S is, is primarily designed to keep the status quo white supremacist power structure on top and oppress people of color.

Let me repeat that once again for good measure so you understand it.  Conservatism is NOT a compassionate political philosophy.

If you can't handle that inconvenient truth and feel the Republican Party is better than that, then it's time for you to get busy taking your party back from the batturd crazy neo-fascists and dominionists  running  ruining it now.

That old slogan of 'vote the person, not the party' does not compute in this 21st century hyperpartisan personal destruction political environment.  There are stark, crystal clear differences in the Democratic and Republican parties in terms of their platforms and vastly different ideas on how to run this nation and the role of government in doing so. 

Party label gives you a major insight and informational tool into that person's character when they are running for office and how they will govern if elected..  And speaking of governing, you cannot get liberal progressive policies out of a conservative politician.  The Tea Klux Klan run state governments and the neo-Know Nothing Teabagger faction Speaker John Boehner can't control in the GOP run House should be enough of a wake-up call for your behinds to let that last paragraph burn into your brains and send you running to your nearest polling place on November 6.



Elections matter and what party controls your government matters. 

Mixed Emotions About POTUS Marriage Announcement

Well, President Obama finally said yesterday in an interview with ABC's Robin Roberts (not sure if we're related) the words that elements of the rainbow community have wanted him to say since 2008 about same sex marriage.



I had no doubts he felt that way based on statements he'd made back when he was an Illinois state senator in 1996 and his record on rainbow community issues since taking office.

As I've said more than a few times, I support same gender marriage and I'm exceedingly proud that it was an African-American president who announced he supports this issue.  Where I part company is not sharing the feeling prevalent in some quarters of the rainbow community that marriage is THE most important issue in the TBLG community human rights push.

And just to remind you what issue I think is most important for the rainbow community, having and keeping a J-O-B is.   But back to this post.

I'm also looking at the big picture here and wondering if in the feeding frenzy to hound President Obama into stating six months before the election that he supports same gender marriage, did the vanillacentric GL community just repeat the political mistake they made in 2004 by pushing same gender marriage when we had the chance to defeat George W Bush that year.

To me and many African Americans trans, gay, straight and cisgender, it is vitally important that President Obama be standing on the steps of the Capitol on January 20 taking the oath of office for his second term.   It puts him in the same historic territory with other two term presidents, gives him a chance to continue building on his legacy and forever removes the possibility that the conservafools can stamp his presidency as a failure despite their best attempts to do so.

It is also important to the African-American community that he be there along with his family in that nice white mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue my ancestors built with their unpaid labor through January 20, 2017.  

The next president will have the opportunity to possibly select three Supreme Court justices.  

Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy were selected by Ronald Reagan, and Clinton appointee Ruth Bader Ginsburg is hinting at retirement from the SCOTUS. 

We have 50 federal judiciary seats open because the GOP is playing the massive resistance game and hoping y'all fall for the okey doke and elect Willard  to the presidency so he can start filling them with federal judges selected by Robert Bork

So yes, GLBT community, it IS about the federal judiciary.   When you can't get legislation through a logjammed Congress, the court system is the next place to redress those grievances we have. 

As we trans people have discovered when we've gone to federal court lately, the president who appoints the people who sit in these judicial seats in an era of hyper partisanship matters. 

As for the assertion that it will cost the off the charts popular President Obama votes in the African-American community, I will defer to the wisdom of Aisha Moodie-Mills and what she had to say about that. 

“It’s really quite ridiculous to believe that black folks would stay home and not vote for the first black president over gay marriage. It’s just ludicrous! No megachurch pastor, as bigoted as he may be, has the power to persuade a whole congregation of black folks to turn against this president.”

So yeah, I'm not fazed about the 4% cookie chomping segment of sellout GOP knee-grows that were already planning to vote for Mitt version 2012.   The last Republican presidential candidate to get more than 15% of the African-American vote was Junior in 2004, and he had the help of 18 anti-gay marriage referenda on the ballot and a legion of sellout knee-grow megachurch pastors such as TD Jakes, Bishop Eddie Long and Donnie McClurkin acting as surrogates to do that.

But I'd be lying if I wrote in this post I wasn't concerned about how this announcement will affect a presidential election that has six months to go.  The facts are many non-white peeps are nervous about this election.  

We already know there's a certain percentage of this electorate who will not vote for an African-American period.   Combined with the fact that ALEC and their GOP legislative partners have been merrily passing voter ID suppression legislation targeted at reducing the number of Black, Latino, senior and student voters going to the polls on November 6 that were the major reasons he took Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico and Indiana, and you can understand why I'm spending a lot of time in prayer hoping that the justice loving part of the American electorate shows up on November 6 to overcome the bigots who will be even more frothing at the mouth motivated to defeat the POTUS.   


I will be watching to see if the Internet chatter and other rhetoric I heard from vanillacentric GL peeps hollering for him to 'evolve already' comes to pass.

May I remind y'all that non-white BTLG people never left him along with those of us liberal progressives who remember our Political Science 101 and 102 that see the big political picture beyond the 'all marriage all the time' agenda. 

I had more than a few testy conversations with the 'evolve already' peeps and GetEqual folks who asserted that the POTUS announcing support of same gender marriage will 'energize the base' and increase support amongst 'the gay community'.

Yeah, I noted the news blurb that stated the POTUS raised $1 million within 90 minutes of making that announcement at 2 PM CDT, but how much of it was from the gay community and are the GayTM's that y'all declared closed to him reopened?


Now that the President Obama has said those five words you wanted to hear, time for y'all to stand and deliver.  Time to circle November 6 on your calendar, get registered to vote and take a bunch of friends to the polls with you because the Tea Klux Klan and friends are damned sure organizing to do the same. 
  .
Now where's my Maalox?
   

Let My Transpeople...

Let my transpeople pee in peace without being messed with by ignorant cis people.

Let my transpeople access trans specific and non trans specific health care without the Janice Raymond restrictions being used by insurance companies and transphobic doctors to deny them coverage.

Let my transpeople be able to work and keep a job they are qualified for.

Let my transpeople be able to have identity documents that accurately reflect the person they are now.

Let my transpeople be able to change those identity documents to reflect the persons they are now without  having to go through major drama to do so.

Let my transpeople have their human rights respected, protected, and codified into law.

Let my transpeople have first class citizenship in whatever country they reside in on this planet.

Let my transpeople be able to participate fully in setting the policy agenda of the rainbow community without being disrespected or ignored by gay and lesbian people

Let my transpeople be able to participate fully in setting the policy agendas of the other communities they interact with without being disrespected or ignored

Let my transpeople be able to live their lives without faith-based ignorance or interference from misguided lawmakers. 

Let my transpeople be able to date and marry the person they love.

Let my transpeople see themselves being accurately represented in media.

Let my transpeople see people who look like them discussing trans issues in the media, on college campuses, and other policy forums

Let my transpeople see their heroes and sheroes contributions to society included in the historical narratives and not excluded from them.

Let my transpeople be able to walk the streets without being murdered because of somebody else's fear, loathing and hatred of them.

Let my transpeople overcome their shame and guilt about being who they are realize they must own their power in order to make everything on this list become a reality.

Imagining 'A Different World' 2K12

With the 25th anniversary of the first episode of the groundbreaking show A Different World happening this September (and yes peeps, you will be getting another one of my A Different World trivia quizzes to ponder) , one of the things that has mystified me is why Carsey-Werner won't release Seasons 2-6 of A Different World on DVD, much less do a reunion show.

Is it because that show not only was talking about some groundbreaking subjects back in the day such as date rape, HIV/AIDS, and South African divestment to force the end of apartheid and the 1992 LA Riots, it was also one of the few that showed Black college students in a positive and intelligent light doing mundane things like going to class, intelligently discussing issues and falling in love with each other?

Surely that can't be the reason A Different World hasn't been released much less had a reunion show?

With the 25th anniversary coming up, it is unlikely a positive Black oriented show like that will see air time again since Hollywood is too 'scurred' (and racist) to greenlight it.  So I did some hard solid thinking and tried to imagine what an A Different World 2k12 would look like.

My vision of it is centered around Whitley and Dwayne Wayne's first born child who I've named Courtney Marion-Adele Wayne.   She's got her mom's looks and intelligence along with her dad's brains, and has to struggle with the expectations of being the daughter of Dwayne and Whitley and her parents competing visions for their firstborn child who is following in their Hillman footsteps.

Complicating Courtney's life is her freshman brother Dwayne C.Wayne, Jr. who while not as intelligent as his genius sister, has off the charts basketball talent his athletically challenged dad and godfather Ron Johnson never had.  He turned down several scholarships to collegiate basketball powerhouse schools in order to make his parents happy and attend their alma mater.  He is once again in his sister's and parents considerable shadows, wondering if he made a mistake in attending Hillman and is considering a transfer to another school. . 

DJ also inherited his godfather Ron's way with the ladies, but has become interested in an attractive half Black, half Japanese sophomore world history major named Midori.  His growing attraction to her has him shelving his plans to transfer and successfully concentrating on his academics and raising his GPA with her help.  Her mother is the top female VP at Konichiwa Electronics and when Midori tells her during a homecoming weekend visit to Hillman that she likes DJ, her mother frowns at the mention of his name.

DJ's best friend is teammate Marcus Heywood, who also shares the same drama of being the child of noted Hillman alums in that his father is Bishop Dorian Heywood and playwright and poet Lena James-Heywood.

Olivia Kendall is on the Hillman campus as well fulfilling a several generation family tradition on her mom's side of attending Hillman.  She's a prelaw student who has admired the legal career of Winifred Brooks, who is now teaching law on the Hillman campus.   She's a roommate of Kendra Boyle, the daughter of Dr. Kimberly Reese-Boyle who has her own career plans that do not involve following in her parent's medical footsteps, but her grandfather Clinton's law enforcement ones to her mom's displeasure.

The Pit is still around, but now run by a more mature and wiser Darnell Gaines or a totally new character.  .  

My imagining the show calls for it to focus like it did in the 80's and 90's on issues of importance to HBCU college students in the 2K10's.   Since the fictional Hillman campus is also in Virginia, it has a platform to comment on current Virginia state politics as well.

And yep, you know you'd have to have on A Different World 2k12 cameo appearances from Kadeem Hardison, Jasmine Guy, Karen Malina White, Dawnn Lewis, Darryl Bell and some of the other folks we know and love from the show..

I can also see grandmothers Patti LaBelle and Diahann Carroll (AKA Adele Wayne and Marion Gilbert) hilariously popping in on their grandbabies at Hillman when they least expected it, or Alisa Gyse Dickens reprising her Kinu role and visiting her daughter Midori on the same weekend Whitley is visiting her kids.
 
So will we see A Different World 2K12?    Probably only in our dreams.

Milestone Birthday Musing

As y'all know Cuatro De Mayo, AKA Moni's birthday is rapidly (with an emphasis on the rapid part) approaching.   The annual birthday introspection I do in the month leading up to it has become more acute since 2012 happens to be a milestone one.

Been thinking a lot about my life lately and some of the things I'm happy about, some of the areas I need to improve upon, and about my ongoing mission in trying to be the best person I can be.

And yes, as a person of faith, I've also been taking stock of my many blessings.  In addition to relatively good health, I've had some old friends reenter my life in the past year and made some new ones.  I've thought about some of my past milestone birthdays.  Some were good, some not so good but the thing I can be most thankful about was I still reached them.  

I've also taken some time to think about the people that were in my life who are no longer around either because they passed on or various circumstances have removed them from contact with me on a regular basis.   They were just as instrumental in their own ways to shaping the person I am today and had lessons to teach me good, bad and indifferent.   Some I'd love to see and talk to again even if it's just for a few hours in one phone conversation, while others are in the good luck and good riddance variety.  

And yes, I've pondered my pre-transition life and wondered what it would have been like if I'd taken the opposite fork in the road if I had a chance to revisit that point in my life.   However, nothing I can do about that now because I had to make that snap decision at that time and time travel isn't possible at this point so i can get a do-over.  

As the saying goes, you only get one shot in life and this ain't no practice run so Moni 2012 has to suck it up, pull up the big girl panties and work with the ramifications of those long ago decisions to the best of her ability.

I've also thought about the ladies who at various times liked my 'twin' enough to consider me marriage material and what they're up to now.  While I know the fates of four of them, there are others I haven't been in contact with for a while.  I wonder if they finally found someone worthy of them who appreciated the beautiful women they were inside and out, hopefully were smart enough to realize it and give then what I couldn't.

Nice segue into the trans part of my life.   There were some special women cis and trans who popped into my life in the early phases of my transition and taught me more than a few things about what I call quality Black womanhood.    I also have some cis women in my life now who are building on those early lessons and helping me gain a deeper understanding about what it is to be a Black woman in the 2k10's

Thank you all for being there for me and I am blessed to have a sistahcircle around me that helps me to evolve, thrive and keep me intellectually stimulated.  You taught me the valuable lesson that not all cis women are a trans woman's mortal enemies and gave me the tools to know the difference.   

When I was a kid I spent some time pondering what my life would be like at this stage twelve years into the 21st century and boy was I way off the mark.   I knew that I needed to transition at some point, but I didn't in my wildest dreams imagine that I'd be considered a major thought leader in this community and have the respect I do here and internationally.   It's also humbling that people consider me a role model as well 

Transition has been an exhilarating emotional roller coaster ride at times but one I haven't regretted getting the party started on.  I'm enjoying the ride and my post transition life with the only regret I have about it being I didn't start it sooner.   But before I start going down that road, I also have to consider that being a trans teen in the 70's and one in the 2K10's are light years different in terms of societal understanding and acceptance of trans issues.

So yeah, only nine more days to go.

Gee, Tell Me Something I Didn't Know Already

I chuckled when I saw this post at Addictinginfo.com that stated people who are adamantly opposed to TBLG rights have same sex attractions they are repressing.

Gee, tell me something I didn't know already.

I've seen a long list of right-wing pink elephants over the years getting yanked out of the closet after being pulled over for DUI's outside or close to gay bars, being caught in bathrooms with 'wide stances', or in male prostitution stings in public parks or motels close to known strolls like a former anti-gay minister was in Oklahoma City..

You get the picture. 

The same dynamic applies to the many peeps who oppose trans human rights.  They are themselves either attracted to transpeople sexually or want to transition.  They are hiding behind conservatism, fundamentalist religious or radfem hatred of transwomen to avoid dealing with the issue that will not go away.

So gee, tell me something I didn't know already in terms of in many cases, the people rabidly hating us either want to emulate us or date us.

Our African Descended Cis Community Must Treat Our Trans People Better

One interesting conversation I had during the recent gender conference at HCC was discussing the observations of one of the sponsors as to how white transwomen were treated by their cis compatriots and noting the negativity aimed at them by gay and straight white cis people alike..

In a conversation I had later with Professor Baggett, she remarked that Black cis people must learn from that history and treat Black transwomen better than what we have observed has happened with the white cis community and their problematic interactions with white trans people .

Well, I'm trying to do my part along with other Black transwomen and transmen around the country to lay the educational foundation down. We're also diligently working to facilitate the dialogues that need to happen to ensure we African descended transpeople are integrated into the kente cloth fabric of African-American life.

We don't need to be repeating in the African American  community the anti-trans hate we have observed being aimed at white transwomen for decades in terms of the rabid transphobic hate from rad fems, fundies, gay and lesbian people and the scientifically illiterate transphobic cis masses. We also don't need to have our academics espousing ignorant psychobabble like autogynephilia. 

What we do need as African descended transpeople is more of our clergy and legacy civil rights organizations getting on board with helping us not only stopping anti-trans violence aimed at our community, but helping us push trans human rights laws through.

Our African descended cis community must be an example to others in how to treat their trans populations with dignity and respect.  We need that to happen so that we can do our part to uplift the entire African American community.    

Damn Skippy We Have The Right To Dream

I read Laverne Cox's recent HuffPo article which talked about the Jenna Talackova Miss Canada Universe controversy and a transwoman's right to dream.

But like Laverne, I'm troubled by the arrogant presumption of cis people that they have the right to interfere with our human rights by any mean necessary.

We struggle to achieve the first dream in terms of making our minds and bodies match and being able to live our lives in the gender role we present to the world.   That task is difficult enough without having a vast array of haters eagerly working to place barriers in our way so that we can't achieve our dreams we had for our post transition lives.

We transwomen must push back just as hard against the people determined to kill our dreams and aspirations and fight to make them a reality.

I want to see more transpeople in a position where they can fearlessly go after what they want to achieve in their lives, no matter what they are.   The fears I had about transition in the context of the information I had available to me in the late 70's and 80's caused me to defer some of mine, which in hindsight I shouldn't have done. 

I don't want transkids in the 2K10's and beyond to make that mistake.   I want you to realize that you not only have the right to dream big dreams as Laverne stated in her article, we have to do everything possible to put ourselves in the best position to make them a reality.

That means we have to get our educations. We have to develop a sense of pride in ourselves as transwomen that is so solid no one can make us feel ashamed and guilty about who we are as people.  We have to develop unshakeable faith that we can not only do anything our minds can conceive, we can get it done if we're willing to put in the work to make it happen. 

We've already demonstrated that ability around the world with the people who are trans politicians, actors, models, flight attendants, teachers, college professors, business persons, activists, singers, ministers, athletes and parents raising children.   I want to see that expanded to where I see trans people breaking new ground that people considered impossible for us or weren't even thinking about when Christine Jorgenson stepped off the plane over 50 years ago.

We transpeople are part of the diverse mosaic of human life.   We deserve every opportunity to live happy, healthy and productive lives.  We deserve to be able to safely walk the streets in our various nations without the fear that someone is going to aim transphobic violence at us.

And your damned skippy we not only  have the right to dream, but we have the right to expect that our human rights will be respected, protected and codified into the laws of our various nations so that we can defy the anti-trans dreamkillers out there and focus on making our dreams come true.

Thanks Again To All My Sistah Girls

When I first began my transition back in 1994 I was concerned whether I'd be able to be the type of girlfriend I wanted to be and needed to be to the women cis and trans who eventually became part of my sistah circle.

Don't know why I was concerned about that at the time, but after almost twenty years on this side of the gender fence, as many of you have told me during our conversations I shouldn't have been. 

You've all let me know at one time or another during the conversations I've had with you on one level or another that in your eyes I'm part of the team and one of the girls, and that means a lot to me.

Enough that I feel moved to write this post saying thank you.  .We all know that transwomen have cis women who hate them for whatever irrational reason, so when we do find cis women who wrap their arms in love, friendship and sisterhood around us, it's greatly appreciated because there are times those cis women take a lot of crap from other cis women for standing up for us.

It's also appreciated when you have transwomen who do the same for other transwomen and lift each other up in sisterhood instead of gleefully tearing each other down.   The world does enough of that for us, we don't need to be exacerbating it or replicating that nekulturny behavior in the trans community ranks.

Thanks for the advice, the honest conversations, sharing your make up tips, your joys and concerns with me, teaching me a few things about femininity along the way>

And yes, giving me a swift motivational kick in the butt when I needed it or telling me to chill when I started questioning whether I as a Black transwoman was living up to the legacy that Black women have set for all of us.  

Thank you for the timely help you have given me at various points during my transition that helped me (and is still helping me) become the quality Black woman I set out to be when I started and I'm still evolving toward being.

Whether you've been in my life forever, post my 1994 transition or just at certain points in my transition journey, know you're loved and deeply appreciated by me.