Back In NOLA For The NLGJA Convention

It was touch and go in terms of whether or not I'd actually get here, but thanks to a major assist from BTAC, I'm here for #NLGJA18!

After missing out on the NABJ one in Miami, I was determined to at least make this one since it was this close (385 miles) to my Houston stomping grounds. 

My Megabus trip from Houston started out on a less than promising note, with us having to swap the bus out before we could start our eastward trek down I-10.  But better to have them handle that problem in Houston than having us break down along the route. 

I-10 in Louisiana includes major stretches of it going through swamp in the Atchafalaya Basin west of Baton Rouge and in St Charles, St John and St Martin Parishes as you approach New Orleans..

Still ended up getting to New Orleans an hour late, but in one piece with my luggage.

It's ironic to me that after not having visited New Orleans since the 1990 Mardi Gras, since then I have been to a 2018 BTAC Leadership Institute here, the 2018 Netroots Nation, and now this NLGJA conference.in the span of 14 months.   

I have a Saturday panel I'm on, so looking forward to not only handling my business on it, but also getting my learn on.  And yes, looking forward to seeing a few friends and some of the NLGJA leadership team while I;m wandering the convention hotel.

I also want to catch up with my NOLA trans fam before I have to hit I-10 west on Sunday

I still have to get registered before that happens, but will deal with it in a few hours.

I'll also be tweeting and posting to my Facebook while I'm here, and you can also check out the #NLGJA19 hashtag for the latest news.

Moni's Thoughts On The Friess Op-Ed

Looks like some rainbow vanillacentric privileged nerves got plucked in the aftermath of the incident during the closing NLGJA reception in which Marshall McPeek was called out for a problematic 'things and its' comment while emceeing the event. 

Mary Emily O'Hara wrote an article about the incident, I followed it up with my thoughts about it, and now Steve Friess has written a shady op-ed in the Bay Area Reporter in which he asserted that 'everybody was wrong' , but focused much of his commentary on attacking the trans community and what he derisively called 'Pitchfork-wielding Trans Twitter'.

Gee, how mighty white gay male of him. 

Here was my response I posted in the comment thread to his op-ed.

Steve Friess, 

Referring to human beings as 'things and its' is not a joke to the trans community, and especially the African American one who are taking the brunt of the anti-trans violence aimed at us. 

It is never wrong to immediately call crap out. And FYI, you don't get to tell trans people what we should and shouldn't be offended by or how offended we should be about anti-trans insults.  

I can forgive mistakes. But as a representative of the group taking the brunt of that anti-trans hate violence that starts with comments like that, I am also compelled to immediately call that comment out, because far too often, gay men like yourself have been slinging those anti-trans insults inside community circles and LGBTQ organizations with zero accountability.  

If you have a problem with this NLGJA member calling that problematic comment out at a reception sponsored by a so called 'news' organization that makes their money demonizing Black and trans people on a regular basis, too bad. 

One of the jobs of the media and LGBTQ journalists is to speak truth to power, even within our own circles and organizations, not sweep crap under the rug.

I repeat, it is never wrong to instantly call out problematic commentary.  And as TBLGQ journalists, it is not our job to be stenographers for our community organizations.  When they do something that is worthy of praise we will give them their kudos, and when they frakk up, we will call them on it.

As an African American TBLGQ journalist, I am part of that century plus long tradition Black journalists have of not only speaking truth to power, but activist journalism that moves the ball forward in our ongoing human rights struggle.

The fact that am transgender, I do so as an NLGJA member from a GLAAD award winning decade plus old blog, a monthly column in a regional LGBTQ magazine and have 15K followers on Twitter doesn't diminish the power of my written words or the importance of them, it enhances them.

And you would be wise to listen to what the hell I have to say as an unapologetic Black trans someone who also has 20 years of award winning activist experience.

As journalist Ida B. Wells once said, "The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them." 

That is what has been taking place here.   When we point out stuff that is wrong in our community, in our organizations, or discuss problematic commentary, we are doing so in the spirit of constructive criticism so that the mistake can be corrected.    We are doing so to make organizations better. 

The bottom line is that comment should have never been uttered in an organization dedicated to respectful coverage of the TBLGQ community.   And if people who are part of our community's media organization think it's okay to call trans people 'things and its', what hope do we trans folks have of getting respectful coverage from mainstream media, much less have NLGJA stand up for us when the inevitable misgendering or facts free anti-trans reporting happens?   

We trans journalists are representing our community and our readership, and they demand of us that when necessary, we hold you accountable.

We also need you as organizations representing the TBLGQ community to role model the change we wish to see in this currently screwed up Trump run country. 

Sharif Durhams Elected NLGJA President

Lost in all the drama that took place on  Saturday night is the historic and groundbreaking news that NLGJA has elected its first Black president. 

He is Sharif Durhams, who is the senior editor for news and alerting at CNN Digital.  His two year term at the helm of NLGJA started September 9.   Durhams has been a lifetime member of NLGJA since 2000, has co-chaired a previous NLGJA convention, and has served for several years on the organization's board of directors.

The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ), of which Durhams is also a lifetime member, hailed his election. 

"NABJ is proud of members Sharif Durhams and Cheryl W. Thompson for their recent elections as presidents of NLGJA and IRE respectively," NABJ President Sarah Glover said. "As the country's demographics continue to become increasingly more diverse, it's noteworthy that NABJ members are stepping forward to take on organizational leadership roles that shape media discourse and the future of journalism."
"My goal is to improve the diversity of this organization as well as it's outreach," said Durhams, who also has a lifetime memberships in the NABJ. "I definitely want both organizations to work more together. In some ways, our issues mirror each other, such as making sure there is support in our newsrooms for diversity and getting people from diverse backgrounds into leadership positions. 

"There are ways we can back each other up to make sure all of our voices are heard." 

One of Durham's goals is to not only build on the efforts of outgoing president Jen Christensen build diversity within NLGJA, he also seeks to grow the 28 year old organization's membership ranks and its financial coffers to ensure stability and its long term staying power. 

Durhams also wants NLGJA to become a more vocal thought leader in the journalism world in addition to train newsrooms in how to better cover transgender people and LGBTQ communities of color. 

And I'm looking forward to working with him over the next two years to make that happen. 

Congratulations on your new position in the NLGJA ranks, Sharif!   Congratulations on also making history!    .

 

Moni's Thoughts About The 2018 NLGJA Convention Closing Reception

As you TransGriot readers are aware of, I've spent the last several days at the just recently concluded 2018 NLGJA Convention in Palm Springs as part of the LGBT Media Journalists Convening that was embedded in it. 

This was also my first time at the NLGJA Convention.  While I always enjoy my down time with my LGBT Media Journalists fam, getting to know them on a more personal and professional level, and the mutually beneficial networking that happens while there, the reality is that the LGBT Media Convening space I've been interacting with over the last six years has been far more diverse than the NLGJA convention itself.

That's not just an NLGJA problem, it's a problem consistent across many LGBTQ community convention spaces because of the fiscal barriers that lock many POC and trans people out. 

As someone who was a panelist during the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) convention in Boston in 2014 and attended the Unity NABJ-NAHJ one in DC in 2016 as part of their efforts to reach out to trans people and learn how to respectfully cover us, the contrast between those media conferences and the NLGJA overwhelmingly white cis gay male one is jarring. 

The microaggressive and macroaggressive reminders it wasn't going to be like those NABJ-NAHJ events started when I opened the convention program book in my Hotel Zosa third floor room to encounter my first Maya Wilkes moment.   Several pages into it was a full page ad from FOX News along with a FOX News branded item in the swag bag.

FOX Noise since its founding has been anti-Black, racist and hostile to people who look like me.  It has been ramping up since 2014 the on-air hostility to trans, nonbinary and GNC people. 

What person or persons within NLGJA thought this was a wonderful idea to have them as a corporate sponsor?  Did they not consider the optics of that sponsorship, much less how the Black trans, bi and SGL journalists you're trying to attract to this conference would see this?

FOX Noise doesn't like Black people, the feeling is mutual, and when I'm looking for credible news sources, they definitely aren't it 

So imagine my shock and awe level surprise when I hear and have visual evidence of a network hostile to my existence on multiple levels being a 'proud sponsor' of this NLGJA convention. 

That was deeply troubling, but I was already here in Palm Springs and needed to focus on what I needed to do to be ready for the plenary I was participating in on Friday. 

Guess I did alright, since I kept hearing congratulatory commentary about it from other attendees from 3 PM PDT until I left yesterday morning for the Palm Springs airport. 

But Friday inexorably moves to Saturday and the conference's closing reception which was also sponsored by FOX News.  I almost skipped it to hang out with a trans sister who lives there, but decided I needed to be in that room.

So while I'm helping myself to some of the food at this reception the program starts and one of the emcees, later identified as Marshall McPeek  makes the 'things and its' comment that has been reported in Mary Emily O'Hara's story that I immediately called out and will repeat again.

While I am happy McPeek came back later and apologized and NLGJA an organization I've been a member of for several years has released a statement about it, the damage was still done.

No Mr. McPeek and by extension, NLGJA and FOX News, there were no 'things and its' in that Hotel Zoso room that September 8 night.   There were trans, gender non-conforming (GNC) and non-binary (NB) people in there    There were your trans, GNC and NB media colleagues in that room. 

Most importantly, there were your trans, NB and GNC identified journalism students in that audience who are aspiring to and working diligently towards getting to the level when you are. 

How do you think that 'things and its' comment, which has been derisively and sometimes violently spat at the trans community by all transphobic comers over the last few years made us feel? 

How do you think it made me personally feel as the lone representative at NLGJA 2018 of the demographic group who is taking the brunt of the anti-trans violence in this country?

And to underscore that last point, I was made aware of the latest trans feminine murder victim of 2018 as I was in transit to attend the NLGJA conference and waiting for my connecting flight from Phoenix to Palm Springs

Far too often, that derogatory 'things and its' comment has been hurled at us by gay men and our detractors.   It definitely shouldn't have happened during a journalism organization convention dedicated to ensuring accurate and respectful coverage of the TBLGQ community, and problematically hosted by a 'news' organization that routinely demonizes trans, NB and GNC people.

Trans, NB and GNC peeps are not 'things or its', and that is an unacceptable thing to say at any time, even inside the TBLGQ+ community..  It is also unacceptable to say during a time when the trans, NB, and GNC community is under legislative assault and their humanity is under attack by the Republican Party, trans eexterminationalist radical 'feminists' and the conservative movement .


The lack of diversity in media is not just an NLGJA problem.   It's a problem that needs to be fixed across the American media landscape, not just in LGBTQ media circles. 

The lack of trans journalists in the overwhelmingly white male dominated newsrooms of the country also needs to be addressed

LGBTQ media can lead the way in demonstrating what a diverse and inclusive newsroom looks like and pointing out that diversity is good for your news outlet's bottom line.

Trans folks are 1-3% of the US population, and we read and watch the news, too.

As demonstrated by my 2016 Netroots Nation Pundit Cup title and later getting the opportunity to do political punditry on my hometown ABC13 station during Election Night 2016, and others doing so on various national shows here and around the world, trans journalists can discuss more than just trans issues. 

One of us even got elected to the Virginia House of Delegates last year.
.
But we need to get more opportunities to demonstrate that ability, and more importantly, get paid a regular check for doing so.

NLGJA has been handed a moment in which it can be a leader in addressing and helping to solve the dearth of trans journalists problem. 

The question is will they seize that opportunity?  Will we see progress in increasing the abysmal numbers of trans, NB and GNC journalists before we gather again a year from now in New Orleans?

That remains to be seen. 

Countdown To The 2016 LGBT Media Journalists Conveming

One month from now, I'll be up in Baltimore attending the 7th annual LGBT Media Journalists Convening with many of the top LGBT journalists in the country.

It's sponsored by the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr Fund and the NLGJA, and the purpose of it is to build and diversify LGBT media capacity, help us get better versed in writing and talking about the issues germane to our LGBT community and foster improved working relationships between those of us involved in LGBT media.

This will be my fourth one. The first LGBT media event for me was the 2013 Philadelphia one after inexplicably missing the one that was in my Houston backyard in 2012.  I was in the house for the Washington DC edition in 2014 and last year's return to Philly.

This 2016 edition of the convening will take place March 18-20.  Once again I'll be in the house hanging out with my fellow journalists, getting my learn on during our all day panel sessions on Saturday, and enjoying the opening reception with our yet to be revealed #LGBTMedia16 keynote speaker.

Last year we had the honor of hearing and I had the honor of getting reacquainted with the Rev Dr. William Barber.  I'd met him in Louisville at our Unity Dinner back in 2005, which he remembered when I got to chat with him after his speech was concluded.

I also got to ask him a question during the post keynote Q&A about where the national NAACP stands when it comes to standing up for the human rights of trans people.

It's one in the wake of the unjust anti-trans legislation being passed in South Dakota that cries out to be asked again.

I also enjoyed that moment in which the trans feminine contingent of the LGBT Journalists Convening took that group photo in front of what was once known as Dewey's Lunch Counter a few weeks before the 50th anniversary of the April-May 1965 trans human rights sit in and protest that took place there. .

I also enjoyed the first ever LGBT women's journalists meeting we had Saturday night coordinated by Trish Bendix and cutting up with birthday girl Faith Cheltenham, Berlin Sylvestre in the hotel lobby after I'd polished off a cheesesteak that wasn't from Pat's or Geno's.

Hope we have another one of those LGBT Women's Journalist meetings planned for the Baltimore event because I learned so much in that multi-generational conversation last year.

Looking forward to seeing who our keynote will be for this year's event, who is coming for this year's edition of the LGBT Media Journalists Convening, and tearing into some crab cakes..

And hopefully we'll have some nice weather for it as well.