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.

.

The Nikki Araguz Loyd Celebration of Life Service

I was on the Left Coast when this happened, so for those of you who missed it like i did and wanted to be there, here's the celebration of Life Service that took place on November 14 for Nikki Araguz Loyd

Chilling On Forty Acres

After a three and half hour nonstop flight on the United  'Nerd Bird' from San Francisco to Austin, I'm back in the Lone Star State to participate in tomorrow night's Equality Texas 30th Anniversary gala.

It's also nice to do an Austin trip that doesn't involve me going to our state capitol building or spending an entire day there.

Austin still needs to do something about their horrid traffic, like expand their light rail system (hint hint).  Took me nearly two hours to get from ABIA to my hotel on the UT campus.

Nope, that not a typo.   I'm staying at the AT&T Conference Hotel that is on the University of Texas campus near the iconic UT Texas Tower.   My room has a view of Lavaca Street, not that I'll be in it much.

And even better, I have a 7 Eleven two blocks away from me, so Slurpees will be demolished while I'm inside Travis County.

Hope i get to see some of my ATX fam while I'm here, and see y'all at the gala tomorrow night.

Headed To Austin Again!

Well, for once I'm doing an ATX trip that doesn't involve me spending most of my day at the Pink Dome.   But it's a little unique in how I'm getting there.

For the first time in 20 years, back in my Air Marshal days, I'm flying to Austin for an event.   It's also the first time I will fly into Austin Bergstrom Airport, which opened back in May 1999 and has been expanded since then to house 34 gates. 

It used to be Bergstrom Air Force Base until it closed in 1993.  Austin's tiny local airport on the north side of town was generating increasing citizen noise complaints, and the city asked to Air Force to consider making Bergstrom a joint civilian-military field.  Those requests were rejected until the base closed. 

Bergstrom was also where Air Force One repeatedly flew into from Washington DC when Lyndon B. Johnson was president and enjoying time on his nearby LBJ Ranch in Johnson City, TX.

The city of Austin eventually acquired it, demolished all the old base structures except the runway and the circular 12th Air Force HQ building that got converted into a hotel. 

The main terminal at the ABIA airport is named after trailblazing Texas legislator Barbara Jordan, and there's a statue of her in it. 

Most of the time when I go to Austin from Houston I'm rolling past the airport on TX 71 either as a bus or car passenger.   But since I was in a United hub city in San Francisco and I needed to be in the ATX, decided to save myself a trip and just fly nonstop to Austin instead of flying back home to IAH,  heading to downtown Houston, then taking a nearly 2 hour bus ride back to the ATX.

It was going to be a 'Bougie bus', AKA a Vonlane, but still, why do that to myself?

I will be taking the bus back home to Houston when I'm done up here

What is that business?   I'm here for the 30th anniversary gala for Equality Texas that's happening on Saturday night, and they're giving me an award.

And yes, I will have room on my trophy shelf for it.

That 30th anniversary gala will happen at the AT&T Conference Center in downtown Austin on Saturday night, and looking forward to seeing and spending some time with my ATX family 

Going To Miss You, Nikki Araguz Loyd

Ironic that  I find myself on the day that we're having the viewing of  Nikki's body back home, I am in San Francisco, 122 miles from where she was born in Carmel, CA.

The viewing of her body is happening today, with the service happening tomorrow at the Humble Civic Center.   And I'm a little bummed that due to a previous commitment I must miss it.

Our Houston community woke up a week ago to the shocking news that Nikki Araguz Loyd had passed away at age 44.   We still as of yet don't know the cause of death, but what I can tell you is that even a week later, it is still sending shockwaves through me and everyone else in the Houston activist community who knew her.

I got to meet her in July 2010, not long after I moved back to Houston and the media firestorm around her marriage case was blowing up.  We became friends after a road trip I took with her to the northern Houston 'burbs. a month later

As I watched her ultimately successful precedent setting marriage case unfold, our friendship grew.

She knew I tended to be a loner at times, so she would unexpectedly show up at my place to pull my behind away from my computer and out of the apartment to do road trips with her and her bestie Meagan Gillett.   She and Meagan took me out for my birthday one year, and I was also present for an epic Thanksgiving dinner in 2015 and several more of her epic parties.

When I had drama in my life,  she was there helping me navigate through it.  I was also in her attorney's office when she won her case, and we subsequently rolled over to the Harris County Civil Courthouse to watch the now fired Harris County Clerk Stan Stanart try a last ditch resistance of the Obergefell ruling.

She purchased the Lenovo laptop I currently use when I travel to events, and got me as a birthday present in 2015 my first smartphone.

She was also there to put her size 9 foot up my behind when I needed a motivational kick in the butt.

I got to meet many of the people in her circles like Meagan Gillett, Bryanna Cox, Denisse Acha, Cressandra Thibodeaux and countless others.   There were local trans advocates she also facilitated meetings with, supported and connected to each other.  She was connected to many national trans peeps as well like Jeanette and Jazz Jennings, Joanna Cifredo de Fellman, Angelica Ross and Geena Rocero just to name a few.

She was connected not only to our trans community,  but the HIV/AIDS one, and the Houston arts community.

Because Nikki transitioned in her teens, she was seen as a role model and shero to our trans kids, and she loved them back.

While she will always be remembered for the landmark 2015 trans marriage equality Araguz v Delgado case that took down the 2001 anti-trans Littleton v Prange precedent, she also helped us pass HERO in May 2014 by revealing a painful event in her own life. 

She helped people get their name and gender marker changes.  When we were spending all day at the Pink Dome waiting to testify against SB 6 in 2017, she and her hubby Will walked into the Texas Capitol building with 20 large pizzas to feed us.

Interestingly enough that while she was a kick butt advocate, she told me during a birthday dinner for me a few years ago that her initial goal after she transitioned was to simply be a wife and mother.

And she relished that role as well.   So well that she got elected as the PTA president at her daughter's middle school.

Nikki's life was short and way too brief for us, but it was one lived fabulously and well.  She always loved a good party, and is probably organizing a few of them with our transcestors now.

And yes diva, I'm going to miss you.

Harris County Commissioners Court Issues TDOR Resolution

Blue elections have positive consequences, and one of those happy consequences was after over a decade of GOP control, we finally flipped the Harris County Commissioners Court, our county's governing body to blue with the elections of Lina Hidalgo as our first Latina county judge and Adrian Garcia in the heavily Latinx Precinct 2.

Earlier at today's Commissioners Court meeting, Commissioner Adrian Garcia offered and got passed a resolution noting that this was the 20th anniversary year of the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

It was signed by the Democratic members of Commissioners Court in Commissioners Garcia and Rodney Ellis and County Judge Lina Hidalgo.  As you probably guessed, the signatures that were noticeably absent from the resolution were those of Republican commissioners R. Jack Cagle and Steve Radack. 

Radack is unfortunately my commissioner (for now), and has been on Commissioners Court since 1980.   He is thankfully up for reelection next year.   Cagle barely survived a challenge from Penny Morales Shaw for his seat in 2018.

Looking forward to firing Radack's disco era azz

Thanks to Judge Hidalgo, and Commissioners Garcia and Ellis for recognizing trans Harris County residents and the importance of TDOR to us.

No White Supremacists On My City Council

Our Houston municipal elections back on November 5 led to the mayoral race and several city council  races going into runoffs.

One of those races going into a runoff is the At Large 4 city council race in which Anthony Dolcefino,  son of former ABC 13 investigative reporter Wayne Dolecefino, is in against Dr Letitia Plummer.

This is the seat that CM Amanda Edwards held and was expected to win reelection to before she surprisingly decided to jump into the 2020 US Senate race.

I wasn't a fan of young Dolecefino in large part because of what his father pulled back in 1991.

Wayne Dolcefino aired that libelous hit piece on Sylvester Turner mere days before that 1991 mayoral runoff that cost him the chance to become Houston's first Black mayor and cost Dolecefino his ABC13 reporting gig. 

He's been hatin' on ABC 13 and Mayor Turner ever since, and is a frequent conservafool fixture on FOX 26.

It seems that young Anthony has a troubling history of palling around with White supremacists that goes back to his days at UT.   I also find it interesting that the Houston Firefighters endorsed Dolcefino.

We don't need someone like that on our Houston City Council, and I urge you to vote for Dr Letitia Plummer next month when early voting starts to make sure that happens.

Nikki Araguz Loyd Celebration Of Life Service Dates

For those of you who haven't heard the news yet, Nikki Araguz Loyd passed away on November 6 at he suburban Houston home.  William Loyd and the family have announced when the services will happen.

On Wednesday November 13, the public viewing for Nikki Araguz Loyd will be held at Rosewood Funeral Home in Atascocita, TX from 5- 8 PM CST. 

The funeral home is located at 17404 W Lake Houston Pkwy in Atascocita.
The Celebration of Life Ceremony will take place on Thursday November 14 at the Humble Civic Center from 1-4 PM CST.   The Humble Civic Center is located at 8233 Will Clayton Pkwy in Humble, TX, 77338
Since Nikki always loved a good party, after the services there will be a fabulous Nikki style BYOB🍾 PARTY🍾 at Nectar.   There will be an open mic available to speak and allow you to share your best Nikki memories.

Nectar is located at 7560 FM 1960, in Humble, TX 77346

If you are thinking about flying into Houston for the viewing and service, IAH is the closest airport to that side of town where the events will take place, and there are plenty of hotels in the Humble-IAH area .

If you can attend,  please do so and say goodbye to a revered and iconic member of our community.

Many H-Town Races Going To Runoffs

No thanks to a last minute jacked up ruling from the Republican Texas Secretary of State Ruth R Hughs, the election results in Harris County and our Houston municipal election were delayed until well after midnight.

Mayor Sylvester Turner was comfortably ahead for most of the night, but unfortunately will be in a runoff against Trumper Tony 'I Don't Need To Be Mayor' Buzbee.

Mayor Turner released a statement early this morning once the runoff was assured.

"To those who voted for me, thank you. To those who did not, I will work hard to earn your votes 

"The good news about this runoff is that Houstonians have a very simple and very clear choice for mayor: An experienced leader who has been delivering for Houston for more than 30 years? Or a Donald Trump imitator who has no experience, no ideas and will say anything, do anything or spend anything to get elected? 

"I trust Houstonians to make the right decision for our city.

Controller Chris Brown won reelection to a second term, beating Orlando Sanchez.

In the City Council races, incumbent councilmembers Dave Martin (District E), Greg Travis (District G), Robert Gallegos (District I) and Martha Castex Tatum (District K) .

Castex Tatum won election for a full four year term of her own after succeeding the late councilmember Larry Green in May 2018 and finishing the remaining time on his term..

In an interesting development, all five of the at large council seats are going to runoffs.

At Large 1 incumbent Mike Knox will face Raj Salhotra. 
At Large 2 incumbent David Robinson will face off against HERO hating pastor Willie Davis. 
At Large 3 incumbent Michael Kubosh, who voted against HERO, will be challenged by Janaeya Carmouche. 
At Large 4 Anthony Dolcefino will square off against Dr Letitia Plummer for the seat being vacated by CM Amanda Edwards, who is running for the US Senate. 
At Large 5, Sallie Alcorn will battle Eric Dick for the seat being vacated by Jack Christie .

These Houston City Council district races are going to runoffs.

District A, Amy Peck will take on George Zoes in the battle to replace term limited councilmember Brenda Stardig. 
District B will feature a runoff contest between Tarsha Jackson and Cynthia Bailey 
District C will feature the expected runoff between Abbie Kaman and Shelley Kennedy
District D in a shocker, will have Carolyn Evans-Shabazz taking on Brad 'Scarface' Jordan from the rap group the Geto Boys to determine who replaces Dwight Boykins, who decided to run for mayor..
District F, Tiffany Thomas will face Van Huynh to replace incumbent Steve Le, who decided not to run for reelection. 
District H  incumbent Karla Cisneros will face Isabel Longoria, 
District J Sandra Rodriguez will face Edward Pollard

In the HCCS races, in District I Monica Flores Richart fell just short of winning the seat outright, and will face longtime homophobe and transphobe Dave Wilson.

In HCCS District II- Rhonda Skillern Jones will face Kathy Lynch-Gunter 

In the HISD races, incumbents Sergio Lira (Position 3) and Board president Diana Davila (Position 8) were ousted by their challengers Dani Hernandez and Judith Cruz   

Position 2 will be decided in a runoff between Kathy Bluefield Daniels and John Curtis Gibbs.
Position 4 will be decided in a runoff between Patricia Allen and Matt Barnes.   Patrica is the daughter of TX state Rep Alma Allen and sister of SBOE member Lawrence Allen 

But will it be enough to preempt a threatened state takeover of HISD?

In HD 148, the battle to replace retiring state rep Jessica Farrar will be between Democrat Anna Eastman and Republican Luis La Rotta

Down in Fort Bend County, in a closely watched special election race in HD 28,  Eliz Markowitz and perennial candidate Gary Gates will face off to determine who will replace the retired John Zerwas.

It is one of the nine seats Texas Democrats must flip in order to seize control of the Texas house for the first time since 2002   Markowitz was the lone Democrat running against five republicans for this seat.  and led for much of the night .

We'll see if she can capture the seat in a Fort Bend County that is turning purple.

Dave Wilson Runs For HCC Board, But Can't Spell

You longtime TransGriot readers have read my rants about Dave Wilson, who is a longtime transphobe and homophobe who has been responsible for helping spike two attempts at Houston passing inclusive nondiscrimination ordinances in 1985 and 2015.

When he's not busy trying to get transphobic BS inserted into the Houston City Charter, Wilson has been keeping himself busy doing his hatemongering as a member of the Houston Community College board. 

Saying in that misspelled flyer that he has 'uncompromising integrity' is a crock, being that he passed himself off as Black to narrowly win the HCC District II seat by 24 votes and knock off a 24 year African American incumbent board trustee in the process. 

He has been censured and reprimanded by his fellow board members for his antics.  When Rhonda Skillern Jones stepped up to challenge him for his HCC District II seat, he resigned, then filed to run in the HCC District I seat race against attorney Monica Flores Richart.

Needless to say I want his azz (and so does everyone at HCC) gone, and it's a major reason why I not only endorsed Monica Flores Richart in this race, I hope she is successful in taking his reprehensible behind out.    I love watching trans oppressors like Wilson get beaten at the ballot box.

I also found it interesting that a candidate trying to get back on the board of a community college, pays so little attention to his campaign material that he let a spelling error slide by.

What is it about transphobes and their propensity for spelling errors? .

But here's hoping that we're calling Monica Flores Richart 'trustee-elect' at the end of the night

TransGriot Update:  Monica Flores Richart is in a runoff against that hatemonger
 .

2019 H-Town Election Day!

It has been four years since we last had a municipal election, and that 2015 Houston municipal one was a painful and conflicting emotion inducing one for many of us in the Houston TBLGQ community.

While we were pleased to see Sylvester Turner survive and advance to a December runoff against Bill King to determine who would succeed term limited Mayor Annise Parker, what we weren't happy about was our HERO nondiscrimination ordinance being recalled after a shady and transphobic GOP fueled campaign and human rights malpractice by the Houston Unites coalition defending the ordinance.

The proposition that did pass in 2015 was one that changed the terms for the mayor, city council and controller to ta maximum of two four year terms instead of the previous maximum of three two year terms.

We're finally here and it's Election Day in H-town!  We have many candidates running for City Council and several challenging Mayor Turner's reelection bid, and one blast from the GOP past in Orlando Sanchez.    He's back, and this time he's challenging Controller Chris Brown.

A Republican has not sat in the Houston mayor's chair at The Horseshoe in over 40 years and the Harris County GOP is big mad about it.  The blue tsunami last year that swept them out of power in the county courthouse, county government and Harris County Commissioners Court only added to their pissivity and desperation to get any kind of representation in the soon to be third largest city and third largest county in the nation.

Polls are open from 7 AM to 7 PM CST, and in a new twist, if you're a Harris County resident, you can vote at any of 750 polling locations inside the county.

Blue Elections have positive consequences.

If you're still wondering who to vote for, here are my 2019 TransGriot municipal endorsements to help you make up your mind. 

But if you didn't take the time to take advantage of early voting, please take the opportunity to do so today, because voting is 100% more effective than complaining on the Internet that these politicians aren't doing anything. .