Welcome To TransGriot

For you peeps who met me in DC while I was attending Out on the Hill, the CBCF Annual Legislative Conference or while I was speaking at the town hall on Wednesday, welcome to TransGriot, my cyberhome.


This post explains how I came up with the name for this blog, and it has been in existence since January 1, 2006.  You can thank musician Jordana LeSesne for challenging me to take my writing to the blogging level.

We had a November 2005 phone conversation in which I was talking about our erasure due to the lack of Black trans blogs and she bluntly asked me when I was going to start one.

On January 1, 2006 at 12:01 AM EST  TransGriot started with this post.   The mission statement came later as the blog evolved and grew to become what it is today.  

The TransGriot blog's mission is to become the griot of our community.  I will introduce you to and talk about your African descended transbrothers and transsisters across the Diaspora, reclaim and document our chocolate flavored trans history, speak truth to power, comment on the things that impact our trans community from an Afrocentric perspective and enlighten you about the general things that go on around me and in the communities that I am a member of.

And from what many of you told me as I interacted with you at Out On the Hill and the ALC this week, I have been succeeding in fulfilling that mission statement and you are deeply appreciative of the work and writing that I do here. 

The awards I've either won or been nominated for attest to the quality of my work, but there is always room for improvement and continued evolution in making TransGriot better.   

And yes, if you feel inclined to drop a little change in the TransGriot Tip Jar in the left hand margin, that's all good too and greatly appreciated.

So to my new readers and longtime ones, welcome to TransGriot.

Snark Or Disrespect Won't Make Your Comments Appear Any Faster On This Blog

Let's get something straight right now in terms of my comment section on TransGriot    Because this is basically a social justice blog that talks about the issues of trans people from a chocolate perspective, I do have my share of ignorant fools that try to leave hit and run transphobic and racist comments    That's why it's set in the first place to where I moderate all comments.   You also must have a certain Intense Debate commenting score before they will appear.

This is what's posted in the left hand panel of this blog concerning my blog commenting policy  

Feel free to leave comments on the posts. But bear in mind that you are guests in my cyberhome. As soon as I get to them, your comments are posted at my pleasure.

They will post as soon as I approve them, so no need to repeat sending them.

I strive to make it a safe zone for people to respectfully express themselves, but I have zero tolerance for hate speech or ad spam.

I reserve the right to edit your comments for clarity.

Since this is my blog, my rules.  Your First Amendment rights end at my nose and my eyeballs. 

I am not always sitting in front of this computer twiddling my thumbs checking on the comment moderation queue anxiously waiting to see if anyone has responded to this latest TransGriot post.   There are days when multiple events are breaking out, I'm trying to keep track of them and don't have the time   In many cases I'm doing things related to the compilation of thought provoking content such as doing research, reading, interviewing people, gathering information, or brainstorming ideas for the next TransGriot post you'll be talking about.

Then there are those occasions I'm taking me time.  I have people I need to see and hang out with.  I have blood and chosen family members I'm spending time with, cultural things I like to do, et cetera.

You know, having a life.

So unless you are on my TransGriot VIP Commenter List that gets automatically approved, the rest of y'all have to wait until I get around to it.   Snark, bullying, badgering, disrespectful or racist commentary towards me not only won't get it posted any faster, but will grease the skids toward it not appearing at all in my comment section or getting you immolated in a troll nuking..  

You don't like that, you are always free to surf somewhere else or start your own blog.   The bottom line is that out of the hundreds of blogs that deal with trans issues,  this is the award winning one that since 2006 has consistently written on trans issues from an African American perspective, focuses on looking at trans issues across the African Diaspora as well and will continue to do so from my chocolate scented viewpoint..

It is also one of the few trans blogs written by an IFGE Trinity Award winning unapologetically African descended activist who has been active in the community since 1998 and ain't 'scurred' to tell it like it T-I-S is on a wide variety of subjects.    

That means I don't candy coat stuff to make it palatable for people to deal with or dumb it down.   I am not going to apologize for its Afrocentric slant on the issues of the day either.   Sometimes what I say will line up neatly with your thought processes or views on issues, other times I'll be diametrically opposed to it.  

I write with the presumption my readers can reason and think and have a 101 level of knowledge about the issues I discuss here.   I write in  broad terms here, and presume you are intelligent enough to discern for yourselves that what I write about does not apply to members of the group I'm aiming the post at, and neither is it necessary for me to write a paragraph in every post stating that.

Renee's Rule applies here as well.


I don't have a problem with people respectfully disagreeing with what I post here but RESPECT is the key word on that.   I'm the judge, jury and executioner when it comes to determining whether or not someone has crossed the line on that.

We now return you back to your regular TransGriot blog surfing.