Happy Turkey Day 2019

I have received an early Christmas present in terms of being able to be in Louisville breaking bread for the first time in a decade with my chosen family and friends. 

And no, this time we're not having a turducken as we did one Thanksgiving, but then again I wouldn't be surprised it Dawn pulled one out of the oven for this dinner we're going to happily scarf down in few hours.

While I'm getting to spend the day (and this week) with my chosen family, and know I'll be spending Christmas with my blood family, I realize on this day I am blessed to do so.   Most trans people go into the holidays not able to have holiday dinners with their families.

If you find yourself in that situation today, find your chosen family and break bread with them.   If you're hosting a Thanksgiving dinner, hope that you take the opportunity to reach out to trans folks who are home for the holidays with no place to go.

In a few hours, I'll be engaging in another |cherished holiday tradition of hating on my favorite NFL turkeys, the Dallas Cowboys while I eat dinner and hoping they get carved up by the opposition.

Happy Turkey Day y'all

20 Years Of TDOR's

Today will mark the 20th anniversary of Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) events here in the United States and around the world.

They got their start in the wake of the November 28, 1998 murder of Rita Hester in Boston, who was grossly disrespected by the gay and straight media in that city, and in the wake of her being the fourth trans person in five years murdered in the city.

The person who killed Rita Hester still hasn't been brought to justice to this day.

The TDORs started in 1999 as protest events in Boston and San Francisco organized by journalist Gwen Smith.  They were also organized to help us remember the folks we'd already lost to anti-trans violence in the early 90's.

The TDOR in less than a decade spread around the world and became events in which trans communities across the planet and our allies memorialized the trans people senselessly lost to anti-trans violence.   

As the TDOR grew in importance to our trans community, events such as Trans Awareness Week were added in some communities in order to educate the cis population inside and outside the SGL community about our lives.   it also allowed us to hold events that expanded the ways we talked about the trans community and the issues that affect us beyond just the needed and necessary memorial services.

Trans Awareness Week in San Francisco has grown to an entire month of activities that lead up to the November 20 TDOR memorial day.

We have now been holding TDOR events for 20 years.   The murders are now focused exclusively on trans women of color, and disproportionately on Black trans women in the US.

In Latin America and Brazil, the murder rate is also unacceptably high, and the same is the case in Asia and Eastern Europe. 

Trans people are undeniably a part of the diverse mosaic of human life.   You can find us on six inhabited continents on Planet Earth and we aren't going away or back into the closet.

It's past time that people accept the fact we exist, and leave us alone so that we can survive, thrive, and be the best people that we can be.

We would love for these TDOR events to become obsolete so we don't have to gather every November 20 to observe them.   But as long as transphobic hate exists and is being stirred up by right wing politicians, conservative organizations, TERF's and fundamentalist religions, it looks like for the next few years we'll be gathering at venues around to world to remember the people we have lost.

Moni's Thoughts About The EQTX Gala

I'm back in Casa de Monica after traveling a grand total of 3315 miles by air and bus from IAH to San Francisco, the SFO to Austin nonstop 'Nerd Bird' and back home to Houston from the ATX on the 'Bougie Bus.

Y'all might have heard I was blessed to receive another award, this time courtesy of Equality Texas, the Transgender Activist Award.

Hopefully EQTX will name that award for some pioneering trans Texan in the future.

Yes it was quite special to receive it on the same night as the Texas LGBT legislative caucus founders were honored along with my feisty Emmy Award winning niece Kai Shappley and her mom Kimberly Shappley     Kai and Kimberly received the Glen Maxey Activism Award

Reps Mary Gonzalez (D-El Paso), Jessica Gonzalez (D-Dallas), Julie Johnson (D-Carrollton), Celia Israel (D-Austin) and Erin Zweiner (D-Driftwood) were honored with EQTX's LGBTQ Leadership Award

Rep Sarah Davis (R-Houston) was given the EQTX Profile In Courage Award  while the Legacy Awards went to retiring state senator Jose Rodriguez (D-El Paso) and Rep Senfronia Thompson (D-Houston) 

Got a little pissed when they mentioned  Rep Thompson and the state James Byrd Hate Crimes Bill that I have been pushing since 1999 to include trans Texas people . 

My first state lobby day trip to Austin twenty years ago was for trans inclusion in the state's James Byrd Hate Crimes Bill, and I'm still pissed about how we got cut out of it twice. 

It was a fact I made clear to the assembled audience during my acceptance speech, and after the awards ceremony was over, one of the EQTX board members came to me afterward and apologized for that decision he helped to make back then that cut Texas trans folks out of that much needed bill.

That moment aside, I did enjoy meeting the new EQTX CEO Ricardo Rodriguez, seeing the EQTX team again, my ATX fam,  Dallas Councilman Omar Narvaez and all the wonderful conversations I had that night.

I must do another trip to Austin before the 2021 session jumps off.

.

Leaving On A Jet Plane To: SFO

If my flight left on time, I should be as you're reading this airborne and headed toward San Francisco and a TDOR event taking place on Thursday thanks to United.

This time I had to go to the big airport as we refer to IAH down here because the org sponsoring the trip had United vouchers for me to travel on, and United has a hub at IAH.

And yes, I love it any time I get to see my former coworkers that are still working at IAH and counting the days to retirement in some cases.

But traveling on United also means it's necessary for me to get there an hour to two hours earlier than I normally would for a flight because I still know half the airport.  I'm stopping every five to ten minutes running into Houston based flight attendants, coworkers, and even the shoe shine guys on my way to my departure gates in either Terminal C or Terminal E.

It's also a deja vu experience because I transitioned in that building.  While the south side of Terminal C is basically the same as when I was working there, the renovations they have done since I left in 2001 have also made it look vastly different from the Terminal C I used to know.

The bars and shops in there now remind me of a shopping mall.   Even the food courts and what they offer are light years different from when I was working there.    When I was working there, we had more locally based chains contracted to be in our airport terminals.

The new Terminal C north side gates are close enough now to Terminal B that you can walk to them from the north side C gates.

That's especially true when I have a flight out of the north side of Terminal C, which is not even close to the one I used to work in.  The massive Terminal E, which connects to the south side of Terminal C and Terminal D (AKA the International Arrivals Building) on its north side, didn't even exist when I was there,

But back to discussing my trip.   Destination this time is San Francisco, and this will be the first time I've been back since 2016, when I attended the GLAAD Gala San Francisco, picked up an award and made a little speech at it.

Thus time I along with Toni Newman will be speaking at a Commonwealth Club of California, Gilead Sciences and SFPride sponsored TDOR event taking place on November 14.

looking forward to spending some time in the Bay Area, and hope i get to see some of my trans fam living here while I'm in San Francisco.

20th Anniversary of TDOR Approaching

When November 20 hits, as many of you longtime readers are aware of, it will be the Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR).   It is the day San Francisco based trans advocate Gwen Smith created in 1999 to memorialize the people we have lost to anti trans violence and remember the murder of Rita Hester, who had been killed in the Boston area just a year prior to the event.

The first TDOR events were held in Boston and San Francisco in 1999, and quickly became an international event observed by trans people around the globe.

As my national visibility as an advocate heightened, I started getting requests to speak at TDOR event outside of Louisville, where i lived from 2001-2010, and Houston. 

My first was being the keynote speaker for the inaugural TDOR event at the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary (LPTS) in Louisville. KY in 2002, and the very next year ended up at the LPTS delivering the 2003 TDOR keynote address. 

On the 10th anniversary of TDOR in 2009, I spoke at a TDOR event in Long Island, New York, and for the 20th, will probably be here in Houston speaking at another after being in Milwaukee for theirs last year and Tucson's in 2016.

We are now approaching the 20th anniversary of that original TDOR event, and it's sad to say that Rita Hester's killer still hasn't been brought to justice.   We are also looking at TDOR memorial lists that are overwhelmingly made up of trans women of color, and in the US, overwhelmingly Black trans women under age 30.

Internationally, they are disproportionately made up of trans women from Latin America and Brazil.

TDOR itself has in some places morphed to become part of a Trans Awareness Week that includes panels and other events before the TDOR itself.   In San Francisco, it is now part of Trans Awareness Month, and San Francisco City Hall was lit up in the trans pride flag color in recognition of it.

So who will we be honoring on November 20?   This is the list of names of people we have lost in 2019 so far, and I pray it doesn't get any longer between now and December 31.

It's also been a particularly rough year in Texas, where we've lost four people, two in Dallas, and two Houston, to anti-trans murders

***

Dana Martin, 31, Montgomery, AL
Ashanti Carmon, 27, Fairmount Heights, MD
Jazzaline Ware,  34, Memphis, TN
Muhlaysia Booker, 22, Dallas, TX
Michelle Washington, 40, Philadelphia, PA
Claire Legato, 21, Cleveland, OH
Paris Cameron, 20, Detroit, MI
Chynal Lindsey, 26, Dallas, TX
Chanel Scurlock, 23, Lumberton, NC
Zoe Spears, 23, Fairmount Heights, MD
Brooklyn Lindsey, 32, Kansas City, MO
Denali Berries Stuckey,  29, North Charleston, SC
Marquis Kiki Fantroy, 21, Miami, FL
Pebbles LaDime Doe, 24, Allendale, SC
Jordan Cofer, 22, Dayton, OH
Tracy Single Williams, 22, Houston TX
Bailey Reeves, 17, Baltimore, MD
Bee Love Slater,  23, Clewiston, FL
Ja'Leyah Jamar Berryman,  30, Kansas City, MO
Elisha Stanley, 46, Pittsburgh, PA
Itali Marlowe, 29, Houston, TX
Brianna BB Hill,  30, Kansas City, MO 

Stats Breakdown  

Female- 21  

Male-  1

Age 

0-19 -   1  

20-29 - 14 

30-39 - 5 

40-49 - 2 

50-59 - 0

Race-Ethnicity

White- 1 

Black- 21 

Latinx-0

Asian-Pacific Islander-0 

Rest in power to all the people we lost in 2019.   While some o the people who took you lives are in jail awaiting trial, there are others to which, like in Rita Hester's case, a person of interest or suspect hasn't been apprehended yet. 

We won't rest in this community until this happens, and those wastes of DNA are punished and rotting for their rest of their miserable lives in jail cells. 

Another thing we won't rest until we accomplish this task is to create a world that is safe enough for trans people to inhabit.  We would like as a community for the TDOR become unnecessary to plan or for us to have to gather every November 20 to observe this memorial event in which we must mourn and remember our dead.

But sadly, we as a society aren't there yet.

Today Starts Blade Runner Month

  If you are a fan of the 1982 sci-fi movie Blade Runner, you know that the opening scene of the movie sets it in Los Angeles in November 2019.

As of today, that movie is no longer one that in the future since we have now hit November 1, 2019.

It is interesting to seethe hits and misses on a lot of this they projected in the movie.   Pan Am Airlines is long gone, we don't have any off world colonies yet or flying cars.

Neither do we have Nexus 6 replicants walking around, but robotics scientists around the globe are trying to get there.. 

I own the DVD of that movie and the sequel, so at some point this weekend I'll probably five up the DVD player and some popcorn and watch i.t

Love You, Renee Martin

It's Canada Day, but this particular one is filling me with sadness.

As many of you longtime TransGriot readers know, one of the people I have much love for north of the border is my homegirl Renee Martin, the founding editor of the blog Womanist Musings.

She's also a talented writer and eloquent speaker who has had many articles published by The Guardian and at Global Comment.     

She is also a co-founder of the Niagara Region Anti-Racism Association    This was her speech at the local Women's March a few months ago.



This was her speaking to the St Catharines City Council on February 11



Renee and I have been friends for over a decade.   In addition to our long phone conversations, we have had fun tweaking each other over the US-Canada women's hockey rivalry.

When those Canada-USA clashes happened during the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, Sochi, and Pyeongchang, the level of our good natured trash talking intensified. 

Renee and I have had long conversations on everything from US and Canadian politics to Blackness  to fashion.  I used to chuckle when she would refer to Alberta as 'that wretched province', Stephen Harper as 'The Sweater Vest', or my beloved Texas as 'Baja Alberta'.

Renee would also have me laughing as she'd tell me stories about her life as the only estrogen based human lifeform in a home with her husband, two sons and her beloved dog Sookie.

I hadn't had the opportunity to talk to her on the phone as much as I used to because as y'all are well aware of, my life has gotten much busier, and the last time I had a long meaningful phone call with her was back in March.

I also noticed that she hadn't been posting as much on Facebook lately, and on June 27 she let me and all who love her know why.

Renee let us know in a Facebook post that she'd been ill the last few months, and was recently diagnosed with an inoperable liver cancer.    She has been given by her doctors a short time to live, and is currently in hospice care. 

Tried to call her today, but she was having a rough day, and I'll attempt again sometime this week. 

I have had people in my life who I have lost to cancer.  There are also people I know in my life who have kicked cancer's azz.   But this time its one of my sister girls who is fighting it, and unfortunately cancer is winning.

While Renee asked us in that post to not feel bad for her, I just can't help it some days when I think about her situation.  I cried when I heard the news, and just writing this post has me wiping away tears right now.   

She has been a blessing in my life, and I'm going to miss her when she joins the ancestors.   I'm also going to be sad about the fact I never got to meet her in person.  

Love you Renee, and thanks for the decade of friendship, thought provoking conversation and laughs.

See you on the other side. 

TransGriot Update: Renee passed away July 8, just short of her 45th birthday on July 11

Happy 25th Transiversary To Moi!

April 4 to me is not just the day that Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis.   It is also the day in 1994 that I nervously walked into Terminal C at IAH to clock in for my shift for the first time as my true self.

I was going to wait until my May 4 birthday to do that, but got impatient and just went ahead and put my new femme uniforms on, grabbed my new ID and plunged into my new reality.

A lot of things have changed since that 1994 day.   My hair is a lot shorter now than when I walked into Terminal C, and I've gained 50 pounds.  There's even a brand new Terminal E next door and connected to Terminal C at Bush IAH. 

 I even have a shelf of awards I keep adding to from multiple organizations across the country for my 20 plus years of activism on behalf of the community.

But it would have never gotten to that point if I hadn't found the courage to take the first steps toward becoming Moni.

She downplays her role in it, but one person I have to credit for burning my trans closet door down and challenging me to handle my transition business was a fellow flight attendant coworker in Maxine Farrington.   

Max and I had gotten to know one another because I worked the gates, but she perceptively picked up on the fact I wasn't happy, and felt I was hiding something.

One day I was talking about how her statuesque self should become a model, and she told me that she not only was, but had some major ad campaigns back in the 80's

So I told Max what was going on and what I was up to.    She went on vacation after I confided in her, and by the time Max got back I was now working the gates.   I was also dealing with 30,000 people a day gawking at me as they rushed to their flights or boarded the ones I worked. 

As for the peeps gawking at me during my awkward transition stage, I dealt with it the only way I could, by putting my head down and throwing myself into doing my job to the best of my ability.   Major difference was I was way happier with the way my life was going.

Max was walking off one of her first post vacation trips when she walked off the plane that had parked at my gate and she spotted me.

"Congratulations," she said after spotting me.  "But we need to talk."

We had that conversation at the airport a few days later.  She was concerned that a mere seven weeks after our conversation in which I confided to her I was transitioning that I was jumping in too fast. 

 Max had four girlfriends who were trans from her modeling days, and I assured her that I was not only serious about what I was doing, I had been thinking about it for more than a decade.

I had her and a lot of cis feminine role models around that airport and elsewhere to look up to in those early days.  It was an interesting, emotional and challenging first month, but I survived it and the next seven years on the job.

Were there some potholes along the way?  Sure was.  But nothing in life is easy., especially a gender transition.

I ended up in Louisville for eight and a half years starting in late September 2001 before returning to Houston four days after my birthday in  May 2010.

I still talk to Max and many of my coworkers from that time  She and my coworkers tell me how proud they are of me and the person I've become.

I discovered in these 25 years that your family expands, not contracts during a gender transition.   I've been blessed to meet a lot of amazing people along the journey here and during my time in Louisville.   Some are still my friends today.

And yeah, I have a lot of trans nieces and nephews these days in addition to my two biological nieces.

Y'all know the rest of the still evolving story.   25 years later I am this unapologetic Black trans person who strives to be better every day for myself and my community.  I have an amazing life, have gotten to blaze a few trails and make history along the way.

And yeah, I look fly doing it. 

Happy 25th transiversary to me.

This Presidency Has Happened Before..

Where?  During the second and third season of Battlestar Galactica.

I was re-watching my DVD collection of Battlestar Galactica a few nights ago and it struck me the similarities between Dr. Gaius Baltar's disastrous turn as President of the Twelve Colonies and Orange Foolius.

Baltar, unlike Orange Foolius, was a media savvy prize winning scientist prior to the surprise Cylon nuclear attack on the Twelve Colonies that nearly wiped out humanity in their star system.  He had become the science adviser to Roslin, and eventually rose to become Caprica's representative on the Quorum of the Twelve and later vice president of the colonies.

But what he did have in common with Orange Fooluis is chasing women to the annoyance of Caprica Six, getting wasted, and being incurious about governance.

What was also in common with today's current political situation despite the fact that the BSG re-imagining was deliberately taking cues from the political situation of the 2000's is his colonial presidential race with the incumbent colonial president Laura Roslin

Roslin was expected to cruise to reelection, but Baltar seized on the recent discovery of New Caprica to push an issue that gained him even more popularity and support despite being woefully inept. 

Roslin was also suffering a drop in popularity because she was forced for the good of the surviving humans and to keep support amongst the highly fundamentalist Gemonese and Sagittarons issue an executive order banning abortion in the Colonial fleet.

That made what was supposed to be an election blowout for Roslin that much closer.  Admiral Adama and the military leadership were so alarmed at the prospect of a President Baltar that they attempted to rig the election in Roslin's favor.

Shut up Berners, the Democratic primary wasn't 'rigged' as you repeatedly claim.  Your boy got his azz whipped by Clinton.

Back to the story.

It was an attempt that failed because Lt Gaeta noted that the number of ballots from a certain ship in the fleet seemed to be off.   Roslin was trailing in the presidential election balloting by 500 votes with three ships left to count.  The ballots arriving from the Zephyr swung the tide in her favor.

The rigging was exposed, Baltar wins the election, and orders the immediate settlement of New Caprica as he promised during the campaign if he won.

The Baltar presidency is a disaster.   A year late the civilians are living in rough conditions exacerbated by shortages of antibiotics, and strikes.   He ignores the Quorum of the Twelve. and spends more time getting laid and doing drugs than focusing on the day to day governance.

Lt Gaeta, now his presidential aide, tries to get Baltar to focus of his duties with no success because Baltar ignores him just like he does the Quorum.

The Cylons suddenly appear in force over New Caprica.   They were over a light year away from the Colonial Fleet when they were drawn to the area by the light and radiation signature from the nuclear blast that Gina set off from the nuke Baltar gave her that destroyed the Cloud Nine liner and several other ships on his Inauguration day

The Galactica, Pegasus and the other military ships in orbit over New Caprica are forced to withdraw as the Cylon occupy the planet and make Baltar their Vichy style puppet ruler after he unconditionally surrenders.   He is forced at gunpoint by Aaron Doral (think Vladimir Putin) to sign a termination order for hundreds of humans..

Baltar tried to convince the Cylons their mission to rule over humans was doomed to fail, and they should leave New Caprica.    Not long after that the Galactica and Pegasus return in force to rescue their people trapped on the planet and resume the journey to Earth.

So yes, it seems the Orange Foolius presidency has happened before in the person of BSG's Gaius Baltar.  And like Baltar's coming to an end, his will too.  It's just a matter of whether it is by, his resignation, his impeachment and removal from office, or the American people do it themselves in 2020.

Proud Of You, Angela!

"What an honor a pride to be part of the history of @missuniverse.  This is for you, for those who have no visibility, no voice, because we all deserve a world of respect, inclusion and freedom.  And today I am here, proudly representing my nation, all women and human rights."
-Angela Ponce 

While she wrote those words on her Instagram page in Spanish, they were clearly understood all over the world.
.

The eyes on much of the world were turned to Bangkok and the 2018 Miss Universe Pageant to see if Angela Ponce could become the first ever trans feminine Miss Universe.

And yeah, admit it. Some of you were tearing up like I was when she made that solo walk on the Miss Universe stage last night to a standing ovation. .

Heavy favorite Catriona Gray of the Philippines was one of the last two women standing onstage at Miss World two years ago and didn't win.    The 24 year old had a much happier result this time, becoming the fourth Filipina to capture the crown 

While Ponce didn't make it to the Top 20 semifinalists, can't say enough how proud I am, trans feminine kids, and trans women around the world are that a girl like us was repping her country and us in the world's premiere beauty pageant.

Yes, elements of you hate on trans feminine women for irrational reasons.   Elements of you also hate on beauty pageants for a lot of reasons. 

For the trans feminine people who compete in them, pageants are a way to have who we are and have always known ourselves to be affirmed to the entire world.

Many trans feminine pageant contestants have been standing a lot taller this week knowing that a girl like us achieved a dream many of them had to one day compete in a premiere pageant like Miss Universe.

Trans women around the world were also standing a little taller as well.

Angela Ponce shook off the haters and represented us with class and dignity from the moment she won Miss Spain in June to competing in Miss Universe.   And while we didn't get to see trans history made on that Bangkok stage last night. it's just a matter of time before some trans girl walks away from a future Miss Universe pageant with the crown.

And note to the willfully ignorant haters out there, trans women are women. 

Ponce said in the runup to the pageant, "I don't need to win, I just need to be here."

But by just being in this year's Miss Universe competition and being on stage, you won in so many ways not only for yourself, but an entire community.   It also by you being on stage expands the horizons for what trans feminine kids can dare to dream about and accomplish. 

Ms. Ponce blazed a trail and set a standard that a future trans Miss Universe winner must acknowledge when she does win that title   

TDOR At 20

Today is the official date of the Transgender Day of Remembrance.  It's been 20 years since Gwen Smith created the TDOR to remember the people that we have lost due to anti-trans violence.

And it's also been 20 years since Rita Hester was murdered, and her killer not being brought to justice.

We have another 22 people who were murdered in 2018, and as per usual in the States, they are disproportionately African American trans people.   Internationally Brazil depressingly leads the pack in being the most dangerous nation to be trans.

Say their names.   Their trans lives mattered.

Christa Lee Steele-Knudslien, 47, North Adams, MA
Vickky Gutierrez, 38, Los Angeles, CA
Zakaria Fry, 28,  Albuquerque, NM
Celine Walker, 38,  Jacksonville, FL
Tonya Harvey, 35, Buffalo, NY

Phylicia Mitchell, 45, Cleveland, OH
Amia Tyrae Berryman, 28, Baton Rouge, LA
Sasha Wall, 29, Chesterfield County, SC  
Carla Patricia Flores-Pavon, 26, Dallas, TX
Nino Fortson, 36, Atlanta, GA
Gigi Pierce, 28,  Portland, OR
Antasha English, 38, Jacksonville, FL
Diamond Stephens, 39, Meridian, MS

Catalina Christina James, 24, Jacksonville, FL
Keisha James, 58, Cleveland, OH
Sasha Garden, 27, Orlando, FL
Vontashia Bell, 18, Shreveport, LA
Dejanay Stanton, 24, Chicago, IL
Shantee Tucker, 30, Philadelphia, PA
Londonn Moore Kinard, 20, North Port, FL
Nikki Janelle Enriquez, 28, Laredo, TX
Ciara Minaj Carter Frazier, 31, Chicago, IL

2018 Trans Murders Stats Breakdown
Female 21-Male/GNC 1)

By Race
White-3   (3 female-0 male)
Latina-3   (3 female-0 male)
Black -16  (15 female-1 male/GNC)
Asian- 0
Native American- 0

By Age
50+  1
40-49  2

30-39  8
20-29  10
10-19- 1

That's 22 people from ages 18-58 that are no longer here with us, simply because they are trans.  When will it stop?   When will we finally be able to as a community to phase out this event? 

And a question that I ask for my Black trans siblings, when will the cis Black community and our legacy organizations care enough to say our Black Trans Lives Matter?

We're still waiting to hear those words from an NAACP president, the Congressional Black Caucus, and Black faith leaders.

And sadly, we're still waiting to hear them.