25th Anniversary Of Tyra Hunter's Death

Tyra Hunter should be with us right now eagerly anticipating the celebration of her 50th birthday.
But instead, her life tragically ended way too soon because of two transphobes. 

One of the transphobes was a  Washington DC fire department EMT.   The other was the emergency room doctor at the hospital where she died.

On the morning of August 7, 1995  the 24 year old Hunter was a passenger in a car headed to the salon in which she worked as a hairdresser.   Her mother Margie Hunter was a nurse, and Tyra had transitioned at age 17.   She was popular in the SE Washington DC neighborhood where their family lived.

The car she was a passenger in was involved in an accident at the corner of 50th and C Streets SE.  She and the driver Tedessa Rankin were pulled from the smoking ruins of the Hyundai Excel car Rankin was driving to await treatment by the DC Fire Department EMTs headed their way..   

As the gathering neighborhood onlookers watched an EMT later identified as Adrian Williams began treating a semi conscious Hunter for her injuries.  He stopped and backed away after he cut open her pants legs to reveal her genitalia, saying "This b***h ain't no girl.  It's a n****r, he got a dick..

Williams then began joking with other DCFD personnel on the scene as the neighborhood onlookers witnessing his  and his coworkers transphobic behavior pleaded with him to resume working on Hunter to save her life.

Hunter's treatment was stopped for 5-7 critical minutes as the DCFD personnel on the scene kept cracking transphobic jokes.  An EMS supervisor eventually arrived on the scene and resumed treating Hunter for her injuries. 

She was eventually rushed to the now closed DC General Hospital where .she arrived at 4:10 PM EDT only to receive the same transphobic treatment from the DC General Hospital emergency room staff.

One doctor refused to treat her,    Another assumed because she was a Black trans woman she had HIV and was more concerned about that instead of treating her for the blunt force trauma injuries she sustained in the traffic accident.    Hunter died in the DC General Hospital emergency room at 5:23 PM EDT.

The case sent shockwaves through and angered the DC and national trans community.   Over 2000 people attended her August 12 funeral.    Her mother Margie Gunter later won a $2.9 million judgment in a subsequent wrongful death lawsuit.

It is a case that still resonates with me and every Black trans person around at that mid 90's time as a concrete example of the medical transphobia that can be deadly for us.

25 years later we have a federal government that is trying to return us back to those days when EMT's like Adrian Williams and doctors could refuse to treat us.


Rest in power Tyra.   Your Black trans life mattered to me and ever trans person of your generation.  We will fight to ensure that no one suffers like you did on that August 7 day 25 years ago.

20th Anniversary of Love and Basketball

One of my fave romantic movies was released 20 years ago today in the Gina Prince Bythewood directed film Love and Basketball that starred Omar Epps and Sanaa Lathan.

I was at my local movieplex the weekend it debuted to watch the story of Quincy McCall and Monica Wright begin when her family moved from the ATL to Los Angeles in 1981 to become the next door neighbors of the McCall family. 

After a contentious early start, it was clear that Quincy and Monica had a love of basketball as the basis of their friendship.   Over time, they developed a relationship as the movie follows them from that first day they met on Quincy's backyard basketball court through high school, college and young adulthood as masculine and feminine basketball prodigies. 

It also highlighted the differences in how they were treated by society, and the lack of respect women basketball players got then (and still don't get).   



Monica not only had to fight to get her opportunities on the court, she also had to fight off challengers who stepped up to try to wrest Quincy away from her in high school, college and later young adulthood.

I'll let y'all see how it ended for those of you who may have never seen Love and Basketball, but it's one of my fave movies that I rewatch from time to time.

And Gina, if you're reading this, I'd love to see a sequel to it. 

400 Years of Africans In America

Today is the 400th anniversary of the arrival of captive Africans at Old Point Comfort in what would later become Fort Monroe in Hampton, VA.

They were part of an original group of 60 Africans captured in in the kingdom of Ndongo in present day Angola.   With the Transatlantic Slave Trade well underway in the Caribbean and Latin America, the captured Africans were placed on a Spanish ship named the San Juan Bautista to transport them on an unwanted boat ride to Mexico.

The San Juan Bautista was attacked by two pirate ships, the White Lion and the Treasurer, who forced the Spanish ship to surrender its cargo of captive Africans.   Those ships got split up during a storm, and the White Lion ended up at Old Point Comfort.

I also need to emphatically point out these early Africans weren't slaves.   Slavery was not legal in Virginia at that time and wouldn't become so until 1661, so those 20 plus Africans from Angola were traded for food and supplies and treated as indentured servants. 

At the time of the Africans arrival, the colony at Old Point Comfort was failing.   The colonists were resorting to cannibalism to survive, and now you had these Africans who arrived just in time with farming and artisan skills that were spread out amongst the nearby Virginia area homes and plantations

Those African farmers also had the skills to cultivate rice, sugar and cotton, crops that were perfect for this climate, but didn't have the seven year contracts like the white indentured servants from England.  That meant the Africans were at the mercy of their plantation owners

Many of those Africans worked 15-20 years before they were granted their freedom.   Once that freedom occurred, the freed Africans started their own homesteads, married other white and Native Americans, purchased the freedom of other family members, owned land, and enjoyed their freedom during that 40 year period before slavery stained what would later become the United States for the next 200 plus years



One of the other things that happened with those first African arrivals was the first African descended child born in North America.   Isabella and Antony were part of that group of 20 Africans that ended up living at Capt William Tucker's home, the commander of Point Comfort

His home was in present day Hampton. and Antony and Isabella eventually got married and had a son named William Tucker. The Tucker family was documented in the 1625 Virginia census, and William was baptized on January 4, 1624.  William is considered to be the first documented African descended child born in English North America.

The occasion of the arrival of Africans in America will be marked by a series of events in Hampton during the August 23-25 weekend. 

In light of the fact we have ignorant MAGAts shouting 'go back to Africa' to us, this 400th anniversary celebration of the arrival of Africans in America is a timely one.

It drives home the point that we have not only been here in North America for 400 years and predate the founding of the United States, but despite all the ongoing challenges of being Black in this country, we have managed to persevere, and thrive.

30th Anniversary of the Crushing of the Tiananmen Square Demonstrations

'It's a reminder to those of us who live in democracies that as much as we gripe about the imperfect nature of the governments we live under, these freedoms are hard won and require eternal vigilance to keep.' 
-TransGriot  June 4, 2009 

Back in May 1989 the world watched as student led demonstrations calling for greater democracy and an end to government corruption occupied Beijing's Tiananmen Square as the world watched.

Then late in the evening on June 3 and into the early morning hours of June 4 the plug was pulled on the international television network's live feeds. moments later PLA troops rolled into the square with trucks and tanks firing their weapons to brutally end the protests .

Estimates of the dead ranged from 200 to 1000 people as China was universally condemned for what happened.  It also produced this iconic photo of a lone Chinese man stepping in front of a tank column before being taken away by police to a still unknown fate.

It's now been 30 years since that fateful evening that impacted modern Chinese history.  Despite their Chinese government's diligent efforts to scrub it or suppress any knowledge that it happened inside the country , those of us outside of China ensure that the memory of what happened in 1989 never dies.

And we must keep the memory of what happened alive for future generations so that those persons who died in Tiananmen Square didn't do so in vain.

     

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.

Happy TDOV 2019, Everyone!

Today is not on the Transgender Day of Visibility, it is the tenth anniversary celebration of this day

It is a day that Rachel Crandall-Crocker created in 2009 to celebrate our trans successes and those of us visibly living and unapologetically being our awesome trans selves.  It has grown from a Michigan centric event to one that now spans the country and increasingly the world.

In four days I will mark the 25th anniversary of my nervously walking into IAH's Terminal C clocking in for work that day as me for the first time.

My life began on that April 4 day. It has been an amazing 25 years full of ups and downs, but it hasn't been boring. I get to do some amazing things, and I have gained an international family of trans people and supporters as a result.

I am also blessed to have a cadre of amazing cis women that have my back and were instrumental in helping me understand the journey I was about to embark upon.

I'm blessed that in these 25 years since I transitioned, I've been able to blaze trails and make history as I navigate my amazing life while evolving to become a better version of myself.

I don't have any kids, but I gained a whole lot of trans nieces and nephews along the way in addition to my two biological nieces.

I'm also pleased and proud to be considered a role model and mentor to the generations of trans people coming behind me. 

By stepping into Terminal C 25 years ago, I began to own my power and become the unapologetic Black trans woman you see standing before you today .

We can't forget on this TDOV day the trans and gender non conforming people who are non-disclosed for safety or other reasons.  You also play an important role in helping all of us gain our human rights and defending our humanity against all who would attack it for their own nefarious political gain.

When you are ready to take that visibility step,, your community will be waiting with open arms.  In the meantime, those of us who are visible will continue to fight to make the world a better place so that you can feel comfortable in taking those steps into unapologetic trans visibility.

Trans right are human rights.   And on this tenth TDOV, we are once again shouting that message as loud as we can until people get it.

Let's change the world together, starting today.

Happy TDOV everyone.

Tenth Anniversary of Transgender Day of Visibility This Sunday

On March 31, 2009,  Rachel Crandall created the International Transgender Day of Visibility as a counter to the Transgender Day of Remembrance, that takes place in November and focuses on the people we've lost to anti-trans violence.

"The day of remembrance is exactly what it is. It remembers people who died," said Crandall. "This focuses on the living."

TDOV went from being a Michigan centered event to like TDOR, one that is rapidly becoming celebrated here in the United States and and increasingly around the world.   With a federal administration in place that is openly hostile to trans people, TDOV is also a day that is rapidly gaining in community importance as it approaches its tenth anniversary this Sunday. |

Trans pride flags in the runup to International Trans Day of Visibility are appearing outside the Capitol Hill offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi( D-CA), Rep Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX), Rep Yvette Clarke (D-NY) Rep.Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY),  Rep Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and countless other members of Congress.

Rep Jennifer Wexton (D-VA) and Rep Deb Haaland (D-NM) have been flying those trans pride flags long before TDOV made it cool to do so. 

There are also Trans Awareness Week events taking place on college campuses and venues around the country as a way to show solidarity with transgender people.   These events are also taking place to allow trans folks to celebrate our successes and unapologetically celebrate our trans lives.

Happy 111th Anniversary AKA!

Couldn't let today pass without showing some love to all the women in my life who are the pretty girls that wear 20 pearls and proudly wear the salmon pink and apple green color of Alpha kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. 

Those women include my mother and sister.  There were more than a few times I had to drive her to her sorority meetings and read her Ivy Leaf magazines when she was done with them.

As the first sorority created by and for African American women back on the Howard University campus on January 15, 1908, they have grown from that campus to become a worldwide organization of over 200,000 college educated women.

AKA women have and continue to blaze trails in a variety of professional fields from business, medicine, science, education, sports, the media and politics as they role model their 'Service to All Mankind' sorority motto.

Happy Founders' Day Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.!     

Apollo 8 50th Anniversary

Fifty years ago today the Apollo 8 mission was launched just four days before Christmas.

1968 had been a rough, tumultuous year.  We'd lost the Rev Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy to assassins bullets.  Riots had broken out in several US cities.  Czechoslovakia got invaded by the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact to put an end to the Prague Spring.
The Vietnam War was raging, and the protests against it were ramping up.  Nixon was now the president-elect after LBJ declined to run for another term.

Despite all the national and international drama, NASA was still working to make President Kennedy's challenge to the country to land a man on the moon and return him safely to Earth before the end of the decade happen.

And this mission was critical to making the other goal happen with the clock inexorably ticking toward the end of the 1960's.

After launching on December 20 with astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and William Anders onboard   was one packed with historical firsts.   The first to leave Earth and set out for another celestial body.  Most importantly in that Cold War space race period, the first manned mission to orbit the moon. 

It arrived at the moon to start its ten orbits of the moon on Christmas Eve.   And then the got the sight and the photo of a lifetime, the famous shot of Earth rising above the moon.

They also sent a message from lunar orbit to the people back on Earth breathlessly watching the mission.



Seven months later, the mission that President Kennedy had set the nation on course to complete would be accomplished with Apollo 11 landing on the moon that July.

30th Anniversary Of Ann Richards DNC Keynote Speech

Thirty years ago today Ann Richards, who was our state treasurer at the time, gave  the keynote address to the Democratic National Convention delegates gathered in Atlanta.

Two years later, she would become the second female governor of Texas.

She is still dearly missed by all of us who loved having her in the Governor's Mansion and in Texas Democratic Party circles. 

It would be interesting to see what Governor Ann would say about the current occupant of the White House if she were still with us.

But enjoy this respite from the Trump madness and check out this video of her 1988 keynote speech.

50th Anniversary Of The 'I've Been To The Mountaintop' Speech

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's  'I've Been To The Mountaintop' Speech. 

It was delivered at the Mason Temple (Church Of God In Christ Headquarters) in Memphis, TN on the evening of April 3, 1968.    Unfortunately it would turn out to be Dr. King's last speech and the last night he would live in our plane of existence.   The next day he was assassinated aa he left Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel .

Dr. King had been in Memphis to lend his support to striking sanitation workers.

Here's the entire 'I've Been To The Mountaintop' speech for your listening and viewing pleasure.

50th Anniversary of the 'Game Of The Century'

Would have been nice if on this January 20 date the University of Houston and UCLA would have played at NRG Stadium on the 50th anniversary of  'The Game of the Century'. 

 But alas, just like ten years ago, we couldn't get UCLA to agree to play that game,

We ended up on this historic day playing and beating #7 ranked Wichita State for our first win over a Top 10 ranked team since 1996. 

 Probably why UCLA was 'scurred' to play us

During halftime of the UH-Wichita State, several members of that 1968 Cougar squad were honored with framed photos to commemorate the 50th anniversary of that seminal game. 

It was a game that set the stage for how we view college basketball today and fueled March Madness. The 1968 game at the Astrodome was not only the first time a collegiate game was played in a domed stadium, it was also nationally televised in prime time.

It also drew the then largest crowd of 52, 693 people to watch the unbeaten number one ranked Kareem Abdul- Jabbar led Bruins take on the also unbeaten and number two ranked Cougars led by Elvin Hayes.

The Coogs upset the Bruins that night 71-69 to end their 47 game winning streak and avenge their 1967 NCAA championship semifinal drubbing at the hands of UCLA.

45th Anniversary of School House Rock

Back in 1973 as my brother and I, and later my sisters watched Saturday morning cartoons on ABC, some of the advertising breaks were taken up by the Emmy Award winning educational cartoons that later became known as Schoolhouse Rock.

It ran on ABC from 1973-1985, and then was revived for a second run from 1993-1999. 

Those musical education cartoons that dropped knowledge on math, science, grammar and history have become so beloved that I and a lot of peeps own them on DVD.

I bought the 30th Anniversary DVD in 2009 when I lived in Louisville, and when I purchased it, Dawn Wilson and I spent several hours watching them and singing along to our fave ones like 'Conjunction Junction', 'Interplanet Janet',' Suffering Until Suffrage', 'Three Is A Magic Number' , 'Interjections! ' , A Noun Is A Person Place or Thing  and 'Hey Little Twelvetoes'  as the rest of our roommates and friends watched us with bemused looks on their faces .

Of course, as you probably guessed, the political junkie in me loves 'I'm Just A Bill'  which explains the legislative process an has been parodied by Saturday Night Live to lampoon 45.. 

But I was also in love with the 'Verb; That's What's Happening' one as well because it was one of the few in the original series of School House Rock videos in which the main protagonist looked like me.



So happy 45th Anniversary School House Rock!.   Those videos helped a lot of kids get to math, science, grammar and history tests. 

Gwen Araujo Murder 15th Anniversary

Today is sadly the 15th anniversary of the day that trans teen Gwen Araujo was murdered in Newark, California by four men, Jason Cazares, Jose Merel, Michael Magidson and Jaron Nabors in the wake of them discovering after she was trans feminine at a party.

The perpetrators then drove four hours to an area in the Sierra Nevada foothills from the East Bay to bury the body, .and said nothing about the crime committed at the party. 

Nabors, after becoming distraught about his role in Araujo's death, confessed to authorities in exchange for his guilty plea to voluntary manslaughter, his testimony against the other three defendants and leading Alameda County Sheriff's Department investigators to the burial site.

It took two trials to convict Merel, Magidson and Cazares, and in the second trial the odious trans panic defense was invoked by Magidson's attorney.

Magidson and Merel were both convicted of second degree murder without the hate crime enhancements and sentenced to 15 year to life in prison.   Two juries deadlocked on Jason Cazares fate, and mistrials were declared.   In a plea deal with the DA, Cazares pleaded no contest to manslaughter and was sentenced to six years in prison.

In the wake of the trial, the Gwen Araujo Justice For Victims Act was passed and signed into law on September 28, 2006 by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that limited the use of the trans and gay panic defense.

On September 27, 2014, Gov Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 2501 into law that banned the trans and gay panic defense outright.

Gwen's story was made into the 2006 Lifetime movie A Girl Like Me :The Gwen Araujo Story, talked about in a 2007 documentary entitled Trained In The Ways Of Men which aimed to debunk the trans panic defense, and on a May 2012 Investigation Discovery episode in the second season entitled 'Murder Among Friends'.

Her mother Sylvia Guerrero posthumously asked a judge legally change Gwen's deadname to Gwen Amber Rose Araujo on June 23, 2004.

Rest in Power and peace Gwen.   Your death wasn't in vain.   Changes were made in california law because it it, and you are still loved and remembered by the local community and all who adored you.

We continue to fight so than no one should die for simply daring to exist.

Happy 25th Anniversary To The Obamas!

Today is the day back in 1993 that the skinny kid from Hawaii with the funny name got married to a brilliant statuesque sister from the South Side of Chicago.

25 years ago on October 3, 1992 Barack Obama and Michelle LaVaughn Robinson got married at Trinity Church of Christ in front of 200 guests.   They had two lovely and amazing daughters in now 19 year old Malia and 16 year old Sasha, and as y'all know, in 2008 he became the 44th president of the United States and she became our first African American First Lady.

I wish they were STILL living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. but that's a ranting post for another day.

Happy 25th Anniversary Mr. President and Madame First Lady! 

Over the eight years you were living in that nice house in Washington DC our ancestors built with their unpaid labor, you became the shining examples of enduring Black love and our relationship role models.

And damn, y'all still look good together.

50th Anniversary of Thurgood Marshall Becoming First Black SCOTUS Justice

With all the horrible news coming out of Las Vegas concerning our latest domestic terrorist attack,  almost slipped my mind that today was the 50th anniversary of Thurgood Marshall being sworn in as the nation's first African-American Supreme Court justice.

Marshall  had been nominated by President Lyndon Baines Johnson on June 13, 1967 following the retirement of Justice Tom C. Clark.   He bad already made history by becoming the first African American to be appointed as the United States Solicitor General in 1965,

Marshal was confirmed by a US Senate vote of 69-11 on August 30, 1967, and was the 96th person to become a US Supreme Court justice. 

He served from August 30, 1967 until he retired due to poor health on October 1, 1991