2011 Black Weblog Awards Nominations Closing May 7

Just wanted to remind you loyal TransGriot readers that the 2011 edition of the Black Weblog Awards nomination process closes on May 7.

So if you haven't nominated your fave Black blogs such as Womanist Musings, TransGriot, Jack And Jill Politics, What Tami Said (just to name a few) better bust a move before May 7.   

We can't be in the process to win these awards if we aren't nominated first, and I'm shooting for a repeat of my 2010 win in the Best LGBT Blog category.

Here's the link to do so, and thanks for your support.

  

2011 Black Weblog Awards Nominations Open

It's nomination time for the 2011 Black Weblog Awards!   The process is getting started a little earlier than last year for these awards because they are going to have a live awards ceremony at this year's Blogging While Brown Conference taking place July 8-10 in Los Angeles, CA.

As you know TransGriot won the Judge's Category for Best LGBT Award over some stiff competition, and I want to see if I can make it back-to-back wins this year.

The nominations period opens today and runs through May 7.    The voting will commence on May 17 and run through June 17 with the winners being announced in the live ceremony for the first time in BWA history on July 9.

As to why the BWA's exist?   It started in 2005 because Black blogs often get overlooked and ignored in other online Internet award events.   To date, the Black Weblog Awards has recognized nearly 180 blogs in over 30 categories. The Awards have been featured in several mainstream and online media outlets, including NPR, CNN, and others. Winners of the Black Weblog Awards have also gone on to appear in other media outlets such as MSNBC, the Huffington Post, BET, and many others. 


On that note, time to get the nominations in for a few blogs that I know are worthy of BWA consideration, and like last year, it TransGriot is named one of the finalists, i will keep you loyal readers posted.

Esperanza Spalding Wins Grammy-Justin Bieber Fans Lose Minds

There were a lot of upsets in last night's 53rd annual Grammy Award ceremony, but one of the surprise winners was 26 year old jazz instrumentalist and singer Esperanza Spalding in the Best New Artist category.

The Portland, OR born musician graduated from Berklee College of Music in 2005.  She was immediately hired by the institution as an instructor, becoming at age 20 one of the youngest instructors in the institution's history.

I became aware of her last year when she performed at the BET Honors show done for His Royal Badness when she sang his hit 'If I Was Your Girlfriend.' .

She also performed at the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony and concert.   She was chosen by President Obama himself as part of the tradition of having one artist chosen by the Nobel laureate to perform in the Oslo concert. 

So with this pedigree, was very pleased to see a musician get rewarded with a Grammy, and was more than a little pissed to hear how the Justin Bieber fans threw a temper tantrum after she deservedly won that category.


Spalding's Wikipedia page was defaced after her Grammy win.   Misstatements and taunts were added to the site and then quickly removed. After a sentence noting her victory, for example, a user added the statement, "Justin Bieber deserved it go die in a hole. Who the heck are you anyway?"

In other places, the singer's middle name was changed to both "Justin" and "Quesadilla" and her Grammy win was written up with the addendum, "Even though no one has ever heard of her! Yay!" At the end of her biography, one user wrote, "Biber 4 Lyfe."

Grow up you bigoted juvenile delinquents.   When Justin Bieber can say he toured with Patti Austin, performed on PBS' Austin City Limits, graduated from Berklee College of Music, and is 1/100th of the musician that Spalding is, then I might begin to care about his career.

Until then, stop hatin' and listen to some real music for a change.

Congratulations Sandy

I've posted a video from Baltimore's Sandy Rawls back in November with her vocalizing her thoughts about building a better trans community.  I've had the pleasure and the opportunity to IM chat with her and trade e-mail with her since then and hope to have her doing one of my Ten Questions interviews in the near future.

I'm looking forward to finally meeting her one of these days as well the next time my travels take me to her East Coast neck of the woods.

I wanted to take a moment to congratulate Sandy on picking up a James Baldwin Award earlier this month for her work on behalf of the rainbow community in the Baltimore area.

Congratulations Sandy!   Thank you for everything you do and being another one of the leaders our trans people can look up to and draw strength from.

Congratulations Kylar!

Congratulations to one of the people I look up to in this community, Kylar Broadus.

He recently received at the just concluded Creating Change Conference in Minneapolis the Susan J Hyde Activism Award for Longevity in the Movement at their closing plenary session.

Way to go Kylar!    He has been working hard to make things happen positively for our community for years, and it's nice to see good people get recognized for what they do for us.

Womanist Musings A Finalist In The 2010 Canadian Weblog Awards

Had to give my north of the border homegirl a shout out over Womanist Musings being named one of the five  finalists in the 2010 Canadian Weblog Awards in the Feminist category.


What can I say?    My homegirl has serious writing skills and a dynamite blog that deserved to be nominated in more than one category, but I'm biased.

I think she's all that and three bags of ketchup flavored potato chips.   It makes me happy and proud to see her talents being recognized by her peers, especially in her home country.

It's still an honor for my sis and we'll find out January 1 if she won in her category.  

Good luck, Renee!

Not Feeling The TransGuys Community Awards

It was about time that an award was created that recognizes the talents and hard work that our transmen have done in helping us build community and advance our civil rights goals.

Joshua from TransGuys.com created them,  the nominations period for it started on October 31 and will run until November 19 for the first annual TransGuys Community Awards.

The premise for the sounds good at first glance. 


The TransGuys Community Awards are the only International web awards that honor excellence and achievement by transgender men on the Internet. Established in 2010, the Awards are presented by TransGuys.com, and acknowledge the tremendous growth of the Internet as an important tool for FTM transition, community building, and raising awareness about issues that affect the lives of transgender men.

The inaugural awards will be presented in ten categories and so far so good until I read one of the nomination categories that gave me a WTF moment.

*Sex Performer of the Year

You're kidding, right?

When you are a marginalized group, you try your damndest to get positive coverage and highlight the best your people have to offer.   No disrespect to those of you involved in sex work to pay the bills, but transpeople get whacked by that connotation far too often, especially transpeople of color.

Until that category popped up, there were more than a few African descended and Latino transguys I was going to nominate for some of the categories, but I can't in good conscience do so.


Do you see the AA community in its NAACP Image Awards giving out one for the 'Best AA Sex Performer?,  The Latino/a community ones? The Asian community ones?

You don't see that category in any ethnic awards shows because all of these groups have negatively had attacks aimed at their ethnic groups by white supremacists who used sex and sexuality as a weapon to denigrate them.   

And since transmen get far less media coverage, do you really want to set up an award for them that has a 'Sex Performer of the Year' category, especially in light of the fact our political enemies are using 'bathroom predator' lies in  an attempt to derail badly needed trans positive civil rights legislation?

Serious fail on that.   

I'd be more inclined to enthusiastically support the idea of an award for transmen if that category were dropped, but until then, not feeling these awards.

Last Day To Vote In The 2010 Black Weblog Awards

Today at 12 midnight EDT is the last day you can get your vote on for TransGriot and my homegirl at Womanist Musings in the 2010 edition of the Black Weblog Awards.

Of course you knew I was going to help y'all loyal readers out by providing the link to the ballot. ;)

I'm nominated in the 'Best LGBT Blog' category while Renee is nominated in the 'Best International Blog'. We'll find out the winners tomorrow September 1.

if you've done so already, I thank you for your support, and thanks once again for supporting and reading TransGriot.

Deadline Coming For 2010 Black Weblog Awards

The August 31 midnight deadline for voting in the 2010 Black Weblog Awards is fast approaching, and as you know I'm a finalist in the 'Best LGBT Blog' category.

This is a Republican election, so you can vote once per day until Tuesday. According to the latest newsletter I've received from the esteemed webmaster, several categories are very close voting total wise.

Renee's Womanist Musings was nominated for 'Best International Blog', so show her some ballot love as well

If you've voted for me already, I thank you. If not, I humbly ask that you take just a few moments to do so.

We'll know the winners next month, and I hope I'll have good news to report.

IFGE Virginia Prince Award Winners

Since I discussed the IFGE Trinity Award in a previous post, might as well talk about IFGE's Virgina Prince Award For Lifetime Achievement

The Virginia Prince's criteria were that the person be a living member of the transgender community, be a leader or pioneer who has been instrumental in the development of the community and has actively served the transgender community
for a minimum of ten years.

IFGE started giving out these awards in 1987.

1987 Virginia Prince
1988 Merissa Sherrill Lynn
1989 Ariadne Kane
1990 Sister Mary Elizabeth
1991 Betty Ann Lind
1992 Naomi Owen
1993 Carol Beecroft
1994 Ellen Summers
1995 Yvonne Cook-Riley
1996 Sheila Kirk, M.D.
1997 Eve Burchert
1998 Jamison Green
1999 Phyllis Frye
2000 Jane Ellen & Mary Frances Fairfax
2001 Jane Fee
2002 Holly Boswell
2003 Alison & Dorothy Laing
2004 Marsha C Botzer
2005 Nancy Nangeroni
2006 Dr. Stephen Whittle
2007 Dallas Denny

You'll note that 2007 is the last year listed for a Virginia Prince awardee. IFGE decided to focus their attention on building the Trinity Awards into a signature community event and stop giving out the Virginia Prince.

That decision is a bittersweet one because while I support IFGE doing what's necessary to increase the spotlight on the Trinity, I hate the fact the Virgina Prince was a casualty of that decision before a trans POC had an opportunity to join that distinguished list of honorees.

Voting For 2010 Black Weblog Awards

Just a gentle reminder people that I'm a finalist in the 'Best LGBT Blog' category for the 2010 Black Weblog Awards. There's also a certain Timmy's Icecap drinking Canadian bacon loving blogger who is a finalist in the 'Best International Blog' category as well.

The voting is going on there until August 31, and winners will be announced in September.

While it's an honor to be a finalist, I would like to be the bride for once and not the bridesmaid.

So if you haven't done so already, surf on over there and cast those electronic ballots.

IFGE Trinity Award Winners List

I've talked about the IFGE Trinity Awards in numerous TransGriot posts and winning my own on more than a few occasions.

Some of you may be asking yourselves, 'What's a Trinity Award?'

Since 1991 the Trinity Award has been sponsored by the US based International Foundation For Gender Education (IFGE). The Trinity Award acknowledges heroes and heroines of the transgender community and is given to the recipients at an awards luncheon during the annual IFGE convention.

The eligibility rules for this award are inclusive. Transpeople and our allies are eligible to receive it and can be any living individual or couple.

The goal of IFGE is to look for or highlight little known or unacknowledged people who have done something extraordinary. It is also one of the highest awards the US trans community gives for service to it along with the Virginia Prince Award.

The Trinity recipients are in the words of the criteria statement for the award, people who have preformed extraordinary acts of love and courage for our community.

And some of those Trinity recipients are still making major contributions to the trans community and have gone on to win Virginia Princes.

Now that you have a little background into what the Trinity Award is, here's a current list of the people who have won it.

1991- Mariette Pathy Allen, Stanley Biber, M.D., The Boulton & Park Society*, Yvonne Cook, Sheila Kirk M.D., Ellen Summers

1992- The Be All You Want To Be Convention*, Eve Burchert, Richard F. Docter Ph.D., Wendi Danielle Pierce, Jennifer Richards, Janice Van Cleve

1993- Holly Cross, Jane Ellen Fairfax, Phyllis Randolph Frye, Rev. Canon, Clinton R. Jones, Peggy Rudd, Christina Young

1994- Marsha Botzer, Marilyn Irving, Ginny Knuth, Alison Laing, JoAnn Roberts, Wendy Parker

1995- Laura Caldwell, Dallas Denny, Leslie Feinberg, James Green, Linda Peacock, Sharon Ann Stuart

1996- Sandra Cole, Jane Fee, Joan Sheldon

1997- Linda Buten, Nancy R. Nangeroni, Vern Bullough, RN, Ph.D.

1998- Holly Boswell, Judy Osborne, Sharon & Abby Saypen

1999- JoAnne Law, Maxwell Anderson, Kate Bornstein

2000- Anthony Barreto-Neto, Dawn Wilson, Mary Boenke

2001- Holly Ryan, Julie Ann Johnson, Penni Ashe Matz, Joan Goodnight

2002- Winnie Brant, Marisa Richmond Ph.D., Courtney Sharp, Jason Cromwell

2003- Dorothy Laing, Dr. Barbara Warren, Monica Helms

2004- Julie Johnson, Angela Brightfeather, Brenda Thomas

2005- Vanessa Edwards Foster, Mara Keisling, Kenneth Dollarhide,

2006- Monica Roberts, Miranda Stevens-Miller, Gordene MacKenzie

2007- Donna Rose, Miqqi Gilbert, Alyson Meisleman

2008- Shannon Minter, Denise LeClair, Cheryl Costa

2009- Lisa Mottet, Gunnar Scott, Spencer Bergstedt

2010- Earline Budd, Jennifer Barge, Laura Calvo


Looking forward to finding out who will be in the Trinity Awards Class of 2011.

I'm A 2010 Black Weblog Awards Finalist!

The nominations have been reduced to the five finalists in each category for the 2010 Black Weblog Awards, and I have good news!

In the 'Best LGBT Blog' Award category TransGriot is a finalist!

My competition in that category is pretty stiff. It's 2007 winner Pam's House Blend, 2006 winner Rod 2.0 beta, B. Scott, and The Skorpion Show

Renee's Womanist Musings made it for best International Blog

While I didn't start blogging for awards, it sure is nice when the hard work you put into it is recognized by a finalist nomination.

So time to get busy and start voting. Hopefully I'll have some good news in September when they announce the winners.

2010 Canadian Weblog Awards

This is one I'm not eligible for since I'm on the south side of the 49th parallel, but a certain Canadian homegirl of mine and a few other Canadian blogging pals are.

But the best part about it is that you don't have to be a Canadian citizen to nominate good Canuck blogs you read or stumble across that are the bomb.

They even have a category for expat Canadians as well.

It's the 2010 Canadian Weblog Awards, and the nomination period started on January 1 and runs until October 31.

Why so long a nomination period? Well, the goal of the Regina, Saskatchewan based CWA's is to promote the Canadian blogosphere and Canadian bloggers.

It's also a juried competition rather than one based on popular vote like many of our blog awards are in the States.

After whittling down all the nominees, the Top Ten finalists will be announced in December 1, with the three winners in each category being announced on January 1, 2011.

Once again, you'll have until October 31 to nominate your favorite Canadian bloggers like I'm already busy doing.

Good luck, eh!

2010 Black Weblog Awards Nomination Deadline Is Tomorrow

The 2010 Black Weblog Awards nomination period closes tomorrow July 25, so there's still time to nominate TransGriot for Best LGBT Blog (hint, hint)

You can also show our Canadian homegirl Renee of Womanist Musings some love for the Best International Blog category along with other Blackosphere bloggers who do a wonderful job tellin' it like it T-I-S is.

Yeah, I'm proud of the fact I was the first trans blogger period to become a finalist in the Best LGBT category of the Weblog Awards. But bloggers of color rarely get nominated, much less win these overall blog awards, which was why it was a big fracking deal when I got nominated in 2008.

But for the most part, if we want to show some love and recognition to our best bloggers, we have to do it our damned selves because sadly, nobody else will.



I didn't start TransGriot with the idea of garnering piles of awards. I did so because I was tired of the accomplishments and the voices of African descended transpeople being ignored and whitewashed out of trans and GLBT history.

TransGriot exists because I have a lot to say about many issues besides just trans ones, and I have a voice that needs to be heard.

So if you haven't done so already, surf on over the the 2010 Black Weblog Awards website and take a moment to nominate your favorite chocolate flavored bloggers in the categories you think they deserve to win.

The finalists will be announced on August 1, so once you nominate them, come back to the site and vote for the blogs you nominated as well.

2010 Black Weblog Awards

While I don't do what I do here at TransGriot for awards, it sure is nice when I get recognized for the hard work and the hours I put in to make TransGriot entertaining and informative.

The Black Blog Awards have been around since 2005, and are now in their 2010 nomination phase until July 25.

I would like to have the opportunity to compete in and hopefully win the Best LGBT Blog and Best Writing in a Blog categories this year.

But in order to be in a position to win it, I first have to get in it.

So here's where you come in loyal TransGriot readers.

I'll need your votes to get me to the point where I'm in contention for those categories. While you're at it, show Renee, my Womanist Musings homegirl some love for the 'Best International Blog' category because frankly, she's got it like that.

Here's the link to the Black Weblog Awards Nomination Page to get you started.

Thank you and here's hoping I'll have some good news to report about the 2010 BWA's in a few months.

And Then There Were Four

Ten years ago in Alexandria, VA Dawn Wilson became the first African-American transperson to win the IFGE Trinity Award.

Today in that same hotel and locale, longtime Washington, DC activist Earline Budd along with Laura Calvo and Jennifer Barge received their 2010 IFGE Trinity Awards at the IFGE 2010 Capital Conference awards luncheon.

In picking up her award, Earline Budd made a little history. She became the fourth African-American transperson and the first since 2006 to win the US transgender community's second highest service award.

Dr. Marisa Richmond won it in 2002, and yours truly in 2006.

Congratulations 'Number Four'. You definitely deserved it after all the years of work you have put in on behalf of the trans community in Washington DC.

Know that your sisters and brothers outside the beltway deeply appreciate it.

Here's hoping that we see more deserving trans people of color picking up a Trinity and that we get to see a trans brother win one as well.

Shut Up Fool! Of The Year

One of the more popular features on this blog has been the weekly 'Shut Up Fool! Award in which I shine a bright spotlight on the fools that are within our midst.

There are certain people that should get it every week, but that's another post.

So without further ado, I'm going to reveal the winner of the Shut up Fool! of the Year Award for 2009.

As always, there were a plethora of worthy candidates, some who are in the running for the Shut up Fool! Lifetime Achievement Award like a certain Oxycontin popping right wing talk show host.

But one person particularly stood out in terms of being a straight up fool with nauseating consistency.

The envelope please.

Our winner of the 2009 Shut Up Fool! Of The Year Award is:

Michael Steele.

Whether it was calling Rush Limbaugh out and then retracting the statement, giving 'slum love' to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, trying to entice African Americans to join the Republican Party with 'hip-hop outreach' or claiming the GOP was 'scared of him', GOP Chairman Michael Steele never ceased to come up with some stupid jibber jabber as our mascot would call it.

He also consistently embarrassed himself and his party. Glad he's on your team.

Congratulations, and Shut Up Fool!

The 2009 Weblog Awards

How in Hades this got past me I don't know, especially since I've been waiting for the e-mail notification that it was about to take place and looking for the website since late October.

The 2009 Weblog Awards competition is about to begin and I'm a little pissed about it.

Unfortunately I'm finding out too late to nominate some blogs for various categories since nominations closed on November 22.

In scanning the list of nominees for Best LGBT blog, while Pam's House Blend, The Bilerico Project and Towleroad got nominated, TransGriot didn't.

There were a few blogs authored by Afrosphere bloggers whose work I felt deserved to be recognized in various categories but probably won't get that chance now.

Here's the master category list for 2009.

Even though I'm disappointed I probably won't get a repeat nomination for Best GLBT Blog, I'm still putting a link up to it anyway so you can vote for the finalists.

I'm also making damned sure when the 2010 Weblog competition rolls around that I and other Afrospear members are there on the first day nominating some deserving blogs.


TransGriot Note: The 2009 Weblog Awards were canceled due to technical issues. Ready to pounce the minute that the nomination period opens for the 2010 edition.