It's Trayvon Martin's 18th Birthday

If it weren't for a February 26 encounter with an armed bigot named George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin would be spending today enveloped in the love of his family, girlfriend, and closest friends celebrating his 18th birthday.

But instead he's six feet underground and the idiot responsible for it is trying to hide behind Florida's ALEC and NRA sponsored Kill A Black Kid With Impunity Stand Your Ground law.

I didn't appreciate seeing this racist tweet from South Carolina Republican (who else?) Todd Kincannon conflating Trayvon and his opinion of Sunday's Super Bowl.   Thanks Wonkette for your commentary on it and thanks TransGriot reader Jason Byrd for bringing it to my attention.

A Southern conservative saying he needed to be put down like a rabid dog?  And you wonder why your party and conservatism in general has only 6% support amongst African-American voters if that much.   .

Racism has spread and metastasized inside the GOP body politic and the festering infected boils on the body surface of it need to be lanced in the 2014 election cycle.

Political rant over.  Time to get back to talking about Trayvon.

Yeah, you conservafools can continue to try to deny it until the end of time, but this Martin case has been about race ever since Trayvon had the misfortune of running into Zmmerman as he returned from his fatal late night run to the store to get Skittles and iced tea.

People may wish to say a few words of prayer for Trayvon's parents Sybrina and Tracy, his family, his girlfriend and everyone else who loved him.  Their family will definitely be feeling his loss and need every ounce of strength they can muster to get through this day.

Transphobic British Feminist Troika Crying White Women's Tears

I've had several people blow up my e-mailbox and my Facebook page asking my opinion about the vile transphobic scribblings of the unholy trinity of British feminists Suzanne Moore, Julie Burchill and Julie Bindel.

Y'all sure about that?   Because you know I'm not going to hold my tongue about it.

This kind of passive-aggressive crap that white radical feminists have been aiming at transwomen and engaged in for over 40 years now with not a peep of complaint from major white feminist blogs is a prime reason why I can't stand and reject feminism. 

And while I'm on that subject, do not ever refer to me as a feminist.   I am a proud womanist, thank you very much.  I consider it an insult to be called a feminist since it is painfully obvious feminism is of, by and for white cis women only.

If you think I'm overreacting or off target with my assessment, peep what Renee of Womanist Musings wrote back in October 2009, 

It comes down to the fact that many self labelled White feminists aren't really interested in equality for all, they are interested in equality with White men.  It's never about tearing down the system, but assuring that they have the power to oppress others.

And when it comes to oppressing transwomen, you have shown that you will gleefully engage in that nekulturny behavior.  When you get called on it, you climb back onto the pedestal of white womanhood, shed those tears, try to play the harmless victim who wouldn't hurt a fly role and assert these people you disrespected and oppressed are being mean to you when you know in your soulless hearts you threw the first sucker punch.

That crap is getting old.  You need to pull up the big girl panties, practice what you screech at others and take responsibility for your reprehensible words and actions.  But then again, you're white women reeking of vanillacentric privilege and will never apologize for the stank shyt you do, so why am I wasting mine and the international trans community's time demanding an apology that will never come?.      

But back to riffing on these across the Pond jerkettes.   This troika of transphobia has some nerve to think that just because they were born white, British and with a vagina they could just write their transphobic screeds and think British transpeople and their allies here in the States and around the world weren't going to justifiably call them out on it.  

But then again, they're white women reeking of vanillacentric privilege, so that level of arrogance shouldn't surprise me.    


News flash for your flat arses, we transwomen could, should, can, and will push back just as hard rhetorically and not give a rat's anus whether your feelings were hurt or we plucked your delicate, precious nerves, because you and your like minded ilk haven't cared about our feelings or our humanity since the 70's. 


We'd be justified in playing the dozens on your behinds being that as usual, you started it.  We're fed up with you radical or whatever kind of feminists you call yourselves disrespecting us and then crying white women's tears when we trans women call your arses out about the stank stuff you do .

But as tempting and temporarily ego satisfying as that would be, then we'd be stooping to your sophomoric WWE level of discourse and I don't feel like going there today. 

The bottom line in case you haven't noticed is this is January 2013, the second decade of the 21st century, not the 1970's.  You can no longer say or write whatever in the hell insulting comments you wish about girls like us as y'all could during the disco era and not think we aren't going to respond to it.   Your vanillacentric privilege will not shield you from the consequences of your transphobic hate speech that you proudly unveiled to the world..


As an African-American transwoman, I'm beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of your racist and transphobic hate speech that is stoking the white hot flames of anti-trans bigotry and discrimination.  It is not only getting transwomen of all ethnic backgrounds killed, but disproportionately ones that share my ethnic heritage.

Note that despite all your jacked up rhetoric, the world is moving rapidly towards acceptance and integration of transwomen in nations all over the world including Great Britain. 

April Ashley was recently awarded an MBE for her human rights work.  Other transwomen do everything from compete in beauty pageants, walk fashion runways and raise kids to being doctors, lawyers and serving in their nation's parliaments. 

Despite your rhetoric, to paraphrase Maya Angelou's words, and still we trans women rise.

Almost 60 years to the February 13, 1953 day that Christine Jorgensen stepped off her flight from Denmark in New York to the glare of camera flashbulbs and massive publicity, the cold reality is that despite your rhetoric, we're winning the trans human rights battle in Great Britain and around the world.

The wonderful part about that is there's nothing that you three can do or say to stop the inevitability of the arc of the moral universe from bending toward justice and human rights coverage for transpeople. 


TransGriot Update: Surprise, surprise.  Suzanne Moore has apologized for her transphobic remarks and the Observer's editor has taken down the transphobic Julie Burchill piece that she still has not apologized for.  Our British trans cousins were putting together a protest march planned to end at the Guardian and Observer's shared HQ building, which may still happen because of the perception of increased levels of transphobia in the British media 

Stay tuned, the fun is just getting started across The Pond.


TransGriot Note: photos in order from top to bottom are Suzanne Moore, Julie Burchill,  Julie Bindel and April Ashley MBE

Two Fracking USA Mass Shootings

We always like to brag in the United States when we're number one in the world about something vis a vis other nations, but being number one in the number of people who die due to gun violence is not something to be proud of.

We've had two mass shooting in the States this week.   One was Tuesday at a mall in Clackamas, OR that killed three people and yesterday it was a mass shooting at an elementary school campus in Newtown, CT. that killed 27 people.  20 of the victims were children between the ages of 5-10 along with seven adults.

As someone who is part of a community that continues to experience a gun violence plague, I'm beyond sick and tired of seeing people die because some people have a fetishistic attachment to guns.  

I'm also beyond sick and tired of vanillacentric privileged card carrying NRA gun nuts pointing to the Second Amendment and immediately deploying their 'guns don't kill people' and 'if people were armed, it would have stopped the attack before it happened' spin lines.

Yeah right,.the shooters in the last three incidents were wearing masks and body armor.   There were armed people in the vicinity when former congressmember Gabby Giffords was nearly assassinated in Tucson by Jared Loughner and when James Holmes attacked the Aurora, CO movie theater. 

Someone was even mindnumbingly stupid enough to say that if the kids at the school had been armed it wouldn't have happened.  Don't even insult mine or anyone elses intelligence by trying to peddle that line. 

We always hear about protecting the rights of you gun owners.   How about protecting the rights of us Americans who don't want to own guns, but our safety and security are increasingly threatened by the out of control gun culture.  This is not the Wild Wild West anymore and the United States has a highly competent, well equipped professional army unlike in 1787 when the Constitution was adopted.  Our gun laws need to reflect that.   It's time to deal with the reality this fetishistic gun culture is killing innocent people and making our country less safe.  

And it's not just us liberals complaining about the flood of guns in the US making our streets less safe.   The guns are now spilling over across the Mexican and Canadian borders and negatively impacting their citizens and their nations, too.

It's past time for sensible gun control legislation that balances the 2nd Amendment rights of gun owners with the needs of people who don't want to come near a gun, but have just as much right to have the ability to go about their daily lives without the fear of themselves or their loved ones being shot or killed.

To paraphrase Spock from Star Trek, the needs of many Americans outweigh the needs of a few militant gun owners.

I asked this question when I wrote my post in the wake of the Aurora, CO shooting and it bears repeating once again.

How many more people have to die, be wounded or crippled in the United States, Canada and Mexico before y'all stop tripping and allow some common sense gun laws in this country that ban assault weapons, extended magazine clips and people with mental health issues getting their hands on weapons that kill mass quantities of human beings?

Can somebody in the National Rifle Association answer that question for me?  And this time, I think people in Clackamas, OR and Newtown, CT would be very interested in hearing the answer to that question. 

Putting A Conservafool On Blast

Yeah, had one feeling his oats yesterday and believing the conservahype that Mitt Romney will win tomorrow and stepped to me on my FB page.  So yeah, he went where he shouldn't have and I went into Maya Wilkes mode on his azz.

Name of conservafool in question has been removed to protect the guilty, but Moni damned sure does approve of this message.

***

Dude, you're blind and willfully ignorant, so don't even try to step to me with that typical white conservative male bullshit line of 'the libruls do it too'.

You also suffer under the vanillacentric privileged delusion that you are 'colorblind'   You conservatives like to claim that race doesn't matter, while your actions say the complete opposite.  It is you white conservatives who are far more fixated on race, and you have the unmitigated gall to get huffy when people of color call you on your bullshit and hold the mirror of truth to your asses where you have to confront yourselves and your nekulturny behavior in the mirror.

It is a delusion that people of color in America cannot afford to indulge you on for our own survival in a world hostile to us.   If you as a person of color try to act as if you are white when you cannot ever pass for white, it leads to internalized racism, self-doubt and confusion. The only healthy course of action for our own sanity as people of color is to own it, be proud of it and acknowledge that it is a part of us and our culture. 

Being Black, Latino, Asian, et cetera is not something to “not see” as if it were a matter of shame and it is a calculation we must factor into our political stances as well since y'all have whiteness and the maintenance of white supremacy factored into yours.

Enough of the Sociology 101 you missed in college and back to schooling your ass about conservatism and how it is the political arm of whiteness and white supremacy. 

Your claim that you are 'colorblind' does not insulate or inoculate you from the fact that the party and movement you support is an overwhelmingly white male one.  It engages in actions that are hostile and oppressive to my people's human rights and you and other conservative leaning white males have this nauseatingly repetitive pattern of not only trying to project your behavior on your opponents, you and other whites attempt to ignore and justify what conservatism is doing with the 'libruls do it too' false equivalency line

FYI, liberals do not engage in passing voter suppression laws designed to keep my people from either voting or standing in seven hour lines to do so.   Liberals have not disrespected or insulted an African-American president and his family by using racist rhetoric or ignorantly othering him.  That's all on you conservafools, so own every racist graphic, joke or birther conspiracy theory you've hatched over the last 4 years.   

When you vote for Republicans, you tell me and other African-Americans that you not only agree with that premise that my civil rights don't matter, all you care about is your vanillacentric privilege and your fracking wallet.  

Your votes for conservatives indicate not only your values, it says you support what the party platform stands for as a Republican.   Your vote supports people and a party that thinks it is okay to racially profile people, to force women to have a child conceived in a rape or incest situation to give birth to that child, keep non-whites from voting by any means necessary, eviscerate public education, and others anyone who doesn't look like you, the almighty white male. 

Thar's truth for your ass, and if you turn off Fox Noise and really open your eyes to what's going on you could see that. But sadly, you won't. 

Still Pissed About Roseanne Barr's Transphobic Tweets

The passage of this weekend not only didn't lessen my anger about Roseanne Barr's jacked up transphobic tweets I put her and Kola Boof on blast for Friday, it poured gasoline on the smoldering anger I felt about it when I discovered this wasn't an isolated incident of transphobic bigotry coming from her. 

From 'Roseannearchy: Dispatches from the Nut Farm'

“Then the Transgendered versus the Butch Dyke wars started—to see two of those folks fighting about being female was quite an eye-opener for me. You haven’t lived until you have seen a huge guy with boobs talking about female hormones and deciding to keep his penis, and how that was a feminist issue.” – Roseanne Barr

Umm hmm...guess you'll be telling jokes from The Land next year.  

I find it laughable that you and your whyte radfem womyn gone wyld allies are bloviating about angry tweets aimed at you from righteously angry trans women reacting to the negativity your vanillacentric privileged behind put out there. 

Keep crying those White Women's Tears.  It ain't working because you privileged white feminists started this War on Transwomen beck in the 1970's and we're beyond tired of it.

Thanks to the Net trans women and our cis feminine allies now have the ability to return your transphobic rhetorical fire just as quickly as y'all put it out there.  Some of my trans sisters don't really care at this point if it hurts your feelings and tweaks your delicate precious nerves.  You damned sure didn't care about our feelings when you let fly with those comments and we see you and your feminist buddies as worse than our right wing conservafool oppressors. 

News flash, Roseanne.  The bathroom predators you rail about are cisgender people attacking trans people.  Bottom line is that your pimping of that demonstrably false bathroom predator meme has deleterious and real word effects on trans people's lives.   It not only fuels anti-trans hatred, but in some cases results in anti-trans violence aimed at transwomen and the people who give a damn about us.

Roseanne's clueless pushing of the bathroom predator meme is not only pathetically sad, it's par for the white feminist course. 

As long as it's transwomen, and especially non-white transwomen who are getting assaulted and killed, you don't give a rats anus that it's happening, nor are you concerned about doing anything to eradicate it.

Well, I am concerned about it and I do care what's happening to my sisters because there but for the grace of God go I in that situation. 

Your ill considered tweeted words needlessly poured gasoline on this testy situation and will lead to hatred and potential assaults not only aimed at us, but cis women who don't fit the Femininity Police standards on what and how a woman should look like and present herself in public. .

The trans women and the masculine appearing cis women who will experience those assaults will have you Roseanne and your radical feminist buddies to thank for it.

 

Political Revenge Is Best Served At The Voting Booth

In just a few hours early voting will commence in the Lone Star State and I'll be doing so with a chip on my shoulder because I've been impatiently waiting for this day.
 
Am I angry about the Republican dominated Texas legislature passing a voter suppression law during the 2011 session designed to keep me and other non-white Texans from voting?   You damned skippy I am.   

Am I going to take it out on them at the voting booth?   What do you think conservafools?  . 

I like firing people with (R) behind their names in the voting booth that try to oppress me. Y'all gave me plenty of incentive to do so in the 2012 election cycle when the Lone Star State early voting polls open at 7 AM CDT. 

Thanks to the US Department of Justice and Attorney General Eric Holder that law has been spiked due to Section V of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.   All I'll have to do is show my yellow voter registration card, sign next to my name on the voter roll and handle my electoral business.

And I will be highly motivated to serve up some political revenge in the voting booth.

I was going to do my part to ensure that President Obama got reelected to a second term anyway and help more Democrats get elected to public office in Texas.  Your naked, racist attempts to suppress my vote ensured I had this October date on the calendar circled.

So people, if you're upset like I am about what the GOP has done in the runup to this November 6 election day, do what I'm doing.  Get mad, then take out your righteous anger out on the conservafools at the ballot box.

Political revenge is best served at the voting booth, and I'm going to enjoy watching it play out all the way to November 6.

Moni's Aurora Shooting Rant

While I was preparing to get my learn on at the 2012 TTNS, some fool decided he'd use the lax gun laws to buy some weapons, multiple rounds of ammo and shoot up a movie theater in the early morning hours of July 20..

12 people are dead, including a six year old girl, 58 wounded because the NRA has stifled any rational discussion of gun control laws in the United States because of their racism, paranoid conservafool political stances and their overzealous interpretation of the Second Amendment.

Granted, the waste of DNA James Holmes is in jail now awaiting justice, but that's of little comfort to the families of the people he killed, the lives of others he disrupted, and the peace and tranquility of the lives of the citizens of Aurora, CO he shattered with this senseless act.

Society will also be denied the talents and potential contributions these persons could have made if their lives hadn't been violently cut short.

I can't stand the National Rifle Association because of their racism, vanillacentric privileged conservative political stances, and the rabid foaming at the mouth opposition to even the most minor common sense gun laws.   Wonder how they would feel if the gun violence was tearing apart their communities and affecting their loved ones?

But the NRA doesn't care about the entire country or any community that's affected by the gun violence, that's been obvious for decades.  They only care about a certain vanillacentric conservaslice of the electorate.  The NRA doesn't care about people who live in the urban communities who have had to deal with the consequences of the flood of guns their lax laws help enable in the name of 'protecting Second Amendment rights', especially if those folks don't look like them.

All that comes out of the mouth of NRA apologists is that tired bull feces spin line that 'if everyone in that theater (or fill in the blank area) had been armed, it would have stopped this shooting.'  

Yeah, right.  There were armed people at the Tuscon shooting and that didn't stop Jared Loughner.  Armed people wouldn't have stopped this fool either since he was wearing a bulletproof vest.  .

Every time one of these mass shootings happens (Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson) we hope this will finally be the tipping point event that starts a serious discussion about enacting serious gun control laws here only to fade away until the next mass shooting happens and we have the next one in which people are burying loved ones. 

How many more people have to die, be wounded or crippled in the United States, Canada and Mexico before y'all stop tripping and allow some common sense gun laws in this country that ban assault weapons, extended magazine clips and people with mental health issues getting their hands on weapons that kill mass quantities of human beings?

I'm not holding my breath that the needed discussion will happen, especially with less than 120 days to go until an election day.

Time To Pay Us Black Trans Speakers, Too

One of the things that irritates me and other African-American trans community people who have gotten the opportunity to do speaking engagements is running into a meme, mindset or mistaken belief by organizers and planners of these events.

It's a mistaken belief that because we African-American trans speakers don't get as many of these speaking opportunities vis a vis our white counterparts, we are so starved for the attention that we'll do these for free or severely reduced rates.

We African-American trans peeps have bills to pay and need to replenish our bank accounts like just like our white trans community counterparts do.  To be honest, it's our stories that urgently need to be heard by society in addition to us getting the visibility that white trans people have had since 1953.

Our chocolate trans people not only need to be heard because they bring fresh perspectives and innovative thinking to the ongoing rainbow community human rights discussion, frankly y'all need the 'ejumacation' about what our lives are like and what we think about the hot topic issues inside and outside our rainbow community. 

And Black trans speakers also need to be standing up at podiums inside the Black community as well doing the 'ejumacation' and sharing our knowledge as Kylar just did at the recently concluded NAACP convention in Houston..

Black transpeople need to be showcased far more frequently than they are nowadays because it will blow up the erroneous perception in communities of color and society that thoughtful, visionary trans people like us don't exist.   It also is concrete evidence we have out and proud unapologetically Black trans people who are involved in the rainbow human rights struggle and we Black trans people have some ideas about where the movement needs to go..

And yes, those fresh perspectives are worth paying for to hear them.if you have the ability to do so.

Two years ago Dan Choi was getting flack because either he or his agent was allegedly asking for $10,000 before he'll even step to the microphone to speak.  It was something a then Texas Tech student complained about and I rebutted in my Activists Need To Get Paid, Too post.

My fee is not even close to that.  

A few years ago in the wake of my keynote speech at the 2008 gender conference I was part of at the University of Colorado, I had an inquiry come in about my availability to speak at a large west coast city's pride march.   They were willing to go as far as fly me roundtrip out from Louisville and put me up in a hotel, but when I asked for a mere $500 on top of that there was cricket chirping silence.

Considering my profile in the trans activist community and status, they were getting off extremely cheap.  I also believe that had I been a melanin free trans human being I would have been standing at the podium that day and had more money than that mere $500 in my purse on the way back to Da Ville.   

I'm also hearing the same complaints from other African-American activists who have had a few colleges or groups balk at paying speaking fees when we are quite aware they had no problem shelling out far more money for white activists who don't have one-tenth of the activist resumes many of us have put together.

But yes, if you want to help speed up that day when trans African-Americans can do our parts to help uplift our community and be financially stable enough to be able to donate to your causes, y'all have make that investment in our talents as well.

Time to pay the Black transman and Black transwoman for their stories and valuable time that they are willing to spend to enliven you event when you summon the courage to ask them to do so.

Leave Isis Out Of Your War With GLAAD, Ashley

TransGriot Note: In the interest of full disclosure, GLAAD was a major help to me when my A Look At African American Trans Trailblazers article was published by EBONY.com back in March.

Now let's get busy.

I was shaking my head as a certain loud and wrong TS separatist  launched attacks on the groundbreaking American Apparel ad Isis King appears in on behalf of that company and GLAAD

Ashley Love claims that Isis wearing the 'Legalize Gay' shirt misgenders her as a trans woman.

 “GLAAD fights the good fight for us many times, yet this time they’ve irresponsibly made a decision that appeared to not consider the confusing messaging that the ad could send to the public. They inadvertently went against their mission statement by validating the transphobic misconception that Isis and other women like her are “gay” males, instead of who they really are - women, period. The constant misgendering of women of transsexual experience by GLAAD and other ‘LGBT’ groups derails accurate education on transsexualism and must stop.”

However, Love in her zeal to stick it to GLAAD, an organization she's had personal issues with over the media guide, has missed a few important points here.

It may be news to Ms. Love and her colonized 'true transsexual' zealots, but there are transwomen who do identify as lesbian, so the 'Legalize Gay' and 'Gay OK' shirts that Isis is wearing in the ads would be apropos for them.

Isis is also known around the planet as a proud African descended transwoman and she is a hetero one at that.  No chance of anyone confusing her as a 'gay man' unless it is someone deliberately being disrespectful of her femininity or who has an agenda. 

It is also apropos for Isis as a trans human rights warrior and an ally to the rainbow community to wear the shirts depicted in the ads.  

I've also had numerous opportunities to talk to Isis, hear her thoughts concerning the American Apparel ads you seem to have a problem with, have done a Ten Questions interview with her and know she sees the big community building picture much clearer than you and the people you pal around with. 

Oh yeah, an African-American trans model being in this American Apparel campaign that is raising money for the organization is a Big Fracking Deal.  

Isis also said this in a tweet yesterday concerning the faux controversy:


F.Y.I. I did the American Apparel Campaign as a model and as a ally to the gay community. I by no means misrepresented being a Transwoman.

No, you didn't Isis.  You haven't in any of the media opportunities you've done for the trans and rainbow communities from print and television interviews to ANTM.  But since when did facts matter to TS separatists?.


Ashley, since you want to call out misgendering issues for women, why don't you get busy calling out the Black gossip blogosphere and blogs such as Bossip and Sandra Rose who have a long negative history of misgendering cis women by using transphobic slurs to do so?  .  

Umm hmm, that's what I thought.

Sheena Monnin's Faith Based Sour Grapes

Been following the twists and turns of former Miss Pennsylvania USA Sheena Monnin flapping her gums in the wake of her June 4 resignation over so far unsubstantiated allegations that the 2012 Miss USA pageant was 'fixed'.  She also claimed her resignation was based on her right wing 'moral fiber' belief that trans contestants should not be permitted to compete in the pageant.

Yeah, right  Miss Thang.   . 

The Donald is suing her for defamation on that pageant fixing claim and Miss USA officials released the text of the resignation e-mail they received from her.the day after the pageant was held in Las Vegas on June 3.

Can you say transphobia?   Thought you could.

“I refuse to be part of a pageant system that has so far and so completely removed itself from its foundational principles as to allow and support natural born males to compete in it. This goes against ever (sic) moral fiber of my being.”

Yo, Sheena, what the hell is a 'natural born male'?  Never heard of that.

However, bigotry and discrimination goes against my moral fiber. It disgusts me even more when I see people like you who sanctimoniously express transphobic bigotry try to hide behind the Bible while doing so. 

I wonder if your 27 year old hypocritical azz would have resigned if you'd won the Miss USA title instead of Olivia Culpo.  With the revelations coming out about you I thank God you didn't. 

I don't know why you're complaining about transwomen being allowed to compete in the Miss Universe pageant system when there were none competing in this year's USA pageant because the long needed rule change happened far too late for any transwoman to enter it.

Sheena, let's continue to tell it like it T-I-S is shall we? Seems to me you're drinking hateraid from 55 gallon drums when it comes to #girlslikeus. 

Hmm.  You were one of two of the oldest women in this year's event at age 27 and couldn't even crack the top 16 in a 51 woman pageant field consisting of all 'natural born women' while South Carolina's Erika Powell, the other 27 year old contestant did.  

And you threw catty shade at Miss South Carolina for doing so. 

Hating on Jenna Talackova because she's 24, made the Top 16 in Canada's national pageant and shared the Miss Congeniality award with three other women?  Jenna Talackova has more class in her pinky finger than you have in your entire nekulturny body

Makes me wonder what your reaction would have been if the Miss USA 2012 pageant had a open transwoman entered much less made it to the top 16.   

Oops, never mind.  Based on your previous transphobic comment I can reasonably deduce that and the transphobic crap you would have tweeted from backstage.  I submit it wouldn't have been as compassionate as you claim you are on the Miss Pennsylvania website, have exhibited on this issue or toward fellow Miss USA 2012 contestants.
.       

I'd daresay than when the Miss USA-Universe pageant system finally does have a trans contestant competing in it, I'm confident that the trans contestant in question will probably go much farther and with a lot more character, class and moral fiber than you exhibited in this 2012 edition.

Shannon, here's some career advice for you.  Why don't you apply at Fox Noise since they need fresh fembots with 'moral fiber' and jacked up conservative attitudes to stick in front of their cameras?

Victoria Carmen White Didn't Deserve To Die

There's a pair of disturbing memes I hear in these trans murder cases like the recently concluded Alrashim Chambers one far too often that deserve to be called out and eviscerated.

They are the ones cispeople frequently peddle that the transwoman in question 'deserved to die' because the transwoman 'deceived' them into spending romantic time with them and the cisman was justified in killing them.

Please.  You cisboys (and cisgirls in some cases) are stepping to us, not the other way around..  Judging by the photos I've posted here of Ms. White, she didn't have to 'deceive' anyone into spending romantic time with her.

But back to the post.  Victoria Carmen White didn't deserve to die because she wanted some romantic attention, Alrashim Chambers' eggshell fragile ego couldn't handle the fact he spent some romantic time with a transwoman and didn't want people to know that.

Well Alrashim, if you thought nobody would find out you boned a transwoman, too late in that regard, playa playa.  The whole planet knows your business now. 


Alrashim Chambers shouldn't have been acquitted, his azz should have been found guilty.  The waste of DNA should be doing time in a New Jersey iron bar motel and looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life wondering if he's going to be getting unwanted romantic attention from some of his fellow prisoners.

Well, have to trust in the moral arc of the universe to work in this case now.   But damn it, I'm beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of seeing far too many of our young Black transsisters die year after depressing year for just trying to living their lives to the best of their ability and nobody giving a shyt about it.


The jurors in this case get just as much blame for this as Chambers does for committing the original September 12, 2010 crime that landed him in the Essex County Courthouse in the first place. 

I don't doubt that some of that transphobic 'she deserved what she got ' stench permeated the jury and was fed by the ongoing Black 'unwoman' meme that is also violently deployed against African descended transwomen. And yes, I've served on three juries in my lifetime so I know what it's like to have someone's life and freedom on the line based on the decisions you make in a jury deliberation room. 

If you are doing your job properly, you think about that part of your juror's responsibility as you are weighing the evidence presented to you in addition to thinking about the person who is not there to speak for herself in this case in Victoria Carmen White.

The jury failed on both counts.  Justice wasn't served and Chambers got away with murder.  Instead he's walking the streets of Newark as a free man for killing Ms. White. 

Bear in mind Eseex County jurors who served on this case that the man you freed will be trying to pick up your daughters at a New York-New Jersey metro area club near you. 

You also just sent a message to every transperson living in Essex County that it's open season on transwomen and if they are killed, no biggie, player.  They ain't real people, they don't matter, and we'll give you a societal 'get out of jail free' card for doing so 

Victoria Carmen White didn't deserve to die, she deserved justice.   Unfortunately that didn't happen in that Essex County courtroom last week for her and her family.    

Victoria Carmen White mattered to her family, friends, and the people who loved her.  She mattered to her extended national and international trans sisterhood.  She mattered to transwomen of African descent who have depressingly seen and heard this bull feces story far too often inside our community. 

She mattered because her unnecessary death painfully reminds transpeople that no matter what their location on Planet Earth is, no matter if we are trying to positively live our lives, one armed transphobic bigot can end it with little or no legal repercussions.

There but for the grace of God go I.  And every time we transwomen ponder that possibility, it pisses us the hell off.

Tired Of Me Complaining About Trans POC Erasure? Stop Enabling It

If you non-persons of color transpeople get tired of me calling out the erasure of non-white trans voices in media appearances about trans issues every time it happens, then stop enabling it

I know some of y'all were muttering 'there she goes again' when I wrote the Sunday post blasting that vanillacentric Transgender In America panel on the Melissa Harris-Perry show and frankly I don't care.

I'm just as tired of pointing out the obvious to your clueless behinds. If you're going to claim that the trans community is a diverse one, then it needs to be reflected not only in the leadership of it, but its thought leaders and who speaks for it.

And I'm not the only Black transperson who feels this way as much as you peeps who wish to dismiss this commentary or fling the sour grapes accusation would like to think.   Far too often, we have media erasure incidents like what happened on the Melissa Harris-Perry show Sunday in which the trans talking heads are overwhelmingly white.  We all know there are more than a few non-white trans folks who are eminently capable of speaking on behalf of this community but are repeatedly erased, ignored and frozen out of media opportunities to speak for this community.

And if you think I'm going to be silent about it, y'all don't know me very well do you?

Bottom line is I along with POC transpeople are beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of being erased from another cable media discussion on trans issues once again. 

If you want the support of cis minority communities and more trans people of color to join the trans rights cause, it is imperative that we non-white transpeople and our cis POC community members see the entire trans ethnic rainbow represented.  

As someone said on my Facebook page in the rant I posted that jumpstarted this post:: 

It's the unwritten rule.  Act like you don't see them or hear them and they will go away.  If no one says anything then we are irrelevant.

We are anything but irrelevant to the trans community and aren't going away.  We are makers and molders of trans history and we must be heard, especially in light of the fact we're taking the brunt of the anti-trans violence and discrimination.

You can decry that as 'identity politics' all you want, but you're doing the same damned thing when only white transpeople are deemed 'acceptable' spokespeople to go on the media talking head shows.

This erasure was even more infuriating because Melissa Harris-Perry is a Black woman as well.  It was a painful reminder to the Black trans community of how we got erased when Oprah finally got around to having transpeople on her show and never put one of her own people on her stage to talk about trans issues .

The bottom line of me going off about this Melissa Harris-Perry show erasure is not only am I tired of it,  I don't want to have to see the trans younglings who are transitioning now at ages 10 or less having to fight the same damn battles we're having to fight when they get to adulthood.

It's also about our POC transkids who not only need to see us and have role models they can look up to as they transition.   They need to also see us front and center fighting those civil rights battles with our trans oppressors and talking intelligently about those issues in the media.  

They not only need to see themselves represented, but know beyond a shadow of a doubt we trans elders are doing everything we can with every fiber of our beings to make life easier for those transkids when they get to adulthood.

Yep, this is about our POC transkids and I haven't forgotten how I felt growing up when I wondered if Black people even transitioned.  White transkids have had the benefit of an over half century old trans narrative that has an overwhelming vanillacentric scent. 

They have numerous examples of trans role models to point to and leadership ranks overwhelmingly dominated by transpeople who look like them while the people taking the brunt of the anti-trans violence and discrimination disproportionately look like us.

The trans human rights movement is making the same critical mistake the GL movement has in terms of the erasure and visibility of its non-white members. If you want support from cis minority communities for our cause, you have to show them that there are people in those non-white communities who are trans as well.  Those non white trans people need to be the ones primarily articulating the message that we exist and transpeople deserve human rights.

I'm talking about balance here.  I'm tired of us being stuck with the 'tragic transsexual' and 'unwoman' memes in this community.  Seeing transpeople of color eloquently speaking about our issues, especially on national media shows is an important part of the trans human rights effort and you white transpeople in a position to keep the erasure from happening need to redouble you efforts to stop enabling it.

If you don't, you can guarantee the next time it happens (and sadly I can count on like taxes and another transperson of color being killed somewhere) will probably be writing about another instance of media erasure.   And when it does, I damned sure will be calling it out.