Happy Birthday Miss Major!

I had the pleasure of meeting her in conjunction with the Transsistahs-Transbrothas conference in 2005 and our paths crossed again in 2008 in Northampton, MA when she was the Grand Marshal for the inaugural trans pride event held there.

Today, I'm taking a moment to respectfully bow in the direction of the Bay Area (or wherever her travels are taking her at the moment) and wish Miss Major a very happy birthday. 

She is one of the few African descended Stonewall Rebellion veterans still walking in this plane of existence and is a living legend for us.  She's had an interesting life as someone who transitioned in the 1950's, was a member of the Mattachine Society, and has been a tireless advocate for the rights and humane treatment of trans prisoners.  In 2008 she testified to the United Nations about the mistreatment of trans people of color in the United States and continues to be an eloquent spokesperson and one of my role models as an advocate for our issues.

Happy birthday Miss Major!  Enjoy your day and may you have many more to continue telling your story to all of us within the sound of your voice.

Happy Birthday Dawn!

For the first time in 8 years, I won't be in Da Ville to say it to my saber wielding homegirl in person on her special day, so I'll have to do it through the electronic pages of TransGriot.

I do miss hanging out with her on a regular basis, but I was blessed to do that for much of the 2k's.  I also realized that one of the consequences of me coming back home was going to be less contact with my chosen family, friends and many of the people I met and got to know in Louisville.   

Today is Dawn's birthday, and I hope she took some time out of her busy schedule to relax, enjoy it, and administer some beatings on the LFC fencing strips.

Heh heh, one of the benefits of being 1000 miles from her is that she can't whack me anymore for cracking Dawn Vader jokes.... 

*Cough*, *Cough*, *Wheeze*

 Happy birthday, Lord Vader!   May you have many more.

Happy 25th Birthday Isis!

Y'all knew I wasn't going to let today slide without saying something on my Little Sis' milestone birthday.

Today is Isis King's 25th birthday, and I wrote this in my open letter to her two years ago.

As time goes on, transition will get easier for you. Your confidence will grow as you learn who Isis is, get comfortable with your body and figure out what type of woman you want to project to the world. As you work through that ongoing process, you will eventually get to the point in which you feel as strong, sexy, beautiful and confident as the Egyptian queen you chose to name yourself after. This America's Next Top Model experience will only help speed that inevitable day along.

And two years later, Isis has survived and thrived .

She's also happily evolving into becoming the woman I predicted she would be and is constantly evolving and growing to become.

I couldn't be happier for her.   


Happy 25th birthday sis! Enjoy your milestone birthday and may you have many more.

Someday I hope to be able to give you that big hug you deserve from me in person.

Happy Birthday To Her Excellency!

Today is the birthday of Her Excellency The Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, the current and 27th Governor General of Canada. She was born on this date in Port-au-Prince, Haiti in 1957 and emigrated to Canada with her family when she was 11 to escape the Papa Doc Duvalier regime in 1968.

You know I have much love and admiration for her and I'm saddened to hear that her term as Governor General will be coming to an end on October 1. While her term as Canada's head of state is ending, it probably won't be the last time you see this talented lady on the world's stage.

Jean was appointed in June as UNESCO's special envoy in Haiti, with the job of supporting efforts to rebuild Haiti’s heritage infrastructure and national education system.

But I wasn't going to let her birthday slide by without recognizing the together and fly African descended sister who resides in Rideau Hall until September 27.

Happy Birthday Your Excellency. May you have many more and much success in your new position.

Happy 174th Birthday H-Town!

Today is the 174th anniversary of the founding of the largest city in Texas, the fourth (and soon to be third largest pending the results of the 2010 Census) largest in the United States, and my hometown of Houston.

Since last year's birthday we have seen the election of our second female mayor in Annise D. Parker and interestingly enough, the first to graduate from Rice University.

Ahem, our first female mayor, Kathy Whitmire, was a UH alum. Eat 'em up!

But back to the post.

As you can tell by reading this blog throughout the years, I'm very proud of my hometown. It's a diverse, international city that really doesn't get the credit for being one. It has a world class fine arts culture, the Texas Medical Center, The Johnson Space Center, a rapidly expanding light rail system as part of its transit system and a sizable GLBT community.

It has come a long way since the Allen Brothers founded it on the banks of Buffalo Bayou. Hometown is a city with a colorful past and a bright future.

I'll have to celebrate it properly with some Frenchy's chicken and Blue Bell ice cream.

Happy Birthday H-town!

Happy Birthday, MJ

Today would have been the 'King of Pop's' 52nd birthday. Still hard to believe that the only way we'll see him perform ever again is on video and not in a concert.

One thing is certain. Michael Jackson's music will live on for generations to come.

Happy 49th Birthday President Obama!

Today is the 49th birthday of the 44th President of the United States, Barack H. Obama.

He's had an up and down year, and how good the rest of it is will be determined on November 2.

But today I kick back, bow in the direction of Washington DC and Honolulu, Hawaii and give thanks to God that President Obama is sitting in the Oval Office instead of Sen. John McCain.

I also give thanks to God that Sarah Louise Heath Palin is still living in Wasilla, Alaska and not the vice presidential mansion.

As a birthday gift to Orly Taitz, the birthers and all her conservamininons, I..

Never mind, this is so delicious I must serve this up to you on a platter along with that delicious presidential birthday cake.

Presenting Amendment 14, Section 1 of the United States Constitution:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Would you like some Hawaiian punch to go with that?

Or would you prefer a nice steaming cup of STFU, Hawaiian blend?

Oh yeah, this section is also pertinent to you right wing peeps in Arizona who insisted on passing those 'Hate On Latinos' laws that will soon be going down in federal court flames.

But back to the birthday boy. Next year is the Big 5-0. Happy birthday Mr. President.

May the rest of this one and the next year go a little more smoothly than this one has. Somehow, with all the sniping on the left and the white hooded hatred on the right, I doubt it will.

But, go ahead and blow out the candles on that birthday cake. I have a pretty good guess what you wished for ;)

Renee-Happy Birthday, Eh!

Y'all know I had to show some love to my favorite Canuck and wish her a happy birthday. She's all that and three large bags of ketchup flavored potato chips.

You also got a year older today.

I'm definitely blessed to have her in my life and I'm looking forward to the day when I can finally knock on her front door, give her a big hug and spend some quality time in beautiful Southern Ontario with her and her family.

As you know she's a wonderful writer and the creative genius behind Womanist Musings.

Many times over the last year and a half we've gotten to become sistahfriends we've had some thought provoking on both sides deeply philosophical conversations that cut across a wide spectrum of issues.

Those conversations at times have had us chattering away deep into the wee hours of the morning.

Here's hoping the unhusband bought you that Coach wallet for the Coach purse you own.

You so richly deserve it for putting up with the ongoing drama of being the only estrogen based lifeform in a house full of testosterone based beings, including the undog.

If he doesn't, let him eat cake. Preferably this one shaped like a Coach purse.

Happy birthday, sis. May it be stress free, filled with abundant blessing for you, and may you have many more.

Happy Birthday Pam!

Couldn't let this day go by without giving a shout out to one of my blogging role models, Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend.

She is definitely one of our leading award winning bloggers who isn't afraid to speak truth to power. She held down the number one spot in the Villager's BBR rankings for over a year and has blogged at and about the 2008 DNC convention and other events inside and outside the LGBT community.

The Blend is one of the blogs I read on a regular basis and even comment on at times.

Her influence has grown to the point that a North Carolina Democratic nominee for US Senate credited her support for his recent primary win.

I'm looking forward to one day meeting her and thanking her for the traffic boost she gave TransGriot when it was a fledgling blog in 2006 by linking to it.

Happy Birthday, Pam. May this be a blessed and low stress day for you and may you have many more.

Happy Birthday Pam 'Foxy' Grier

Today is Pamela Suzette Grier's birthday, and I have much love for her as one of my beauty icons.

I'll also be celebrating Pam's birthday by picking up a copy of her autobiography 'Foxy' assuming it's available in my friendly neighborhood bookstore.

Pam is still doing her thing acting and hopefully will do a book tour so I can get her autograph.

I Pity The Fool Who Ain't Singing Happy Birthday To Mr. T

Time for y'all to cut out the jibber jabber and start singing happy birthday to our Shut Up Fool! Awards mascot, who was born in Chicago on this date in 1952.

Happy Birthday Malcolm X

Happy birthday to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, or as he's better known to the rest of the world, Malcolm X. He was born on this date in Omaha, NE in 1925.

Our 'Shining Black Prince' as the late Ossie Davis said about him in his eulogy after his assassination, is misunderstood by people and is called 'racist' by many whites.

But then again, any Black person who has immense pride in our people and is blunt about the subject of race and race relations in the United States gets tarred and feathered with that assertion.

Renee at Womanist Musings has an interesting post up about him.

It's Moni's Birthday Today!

Today is Cuatro de Mayo, my favorite day on the calendar. All of you who I'm blessed to have in my life as my friends should love it, too.

Today is the day back during the Kennedy administration that this phenomenal Tauron took her first breaths of air on this planet and claimed my status as a proud Houstonian and Texan.

As you can tell I'm beyond ready for Season 1.5 of Caprica to get started.

Of course, as you loyal TransGriot readers are aware of it took me a few more decades to become the fabulous sistah I would eventually evolve into.

But better late for Moni than never.

This birthday is a little different. Besides getting a year older, I'm in the midst of some changes in my life. After eight years in Louisville, I'm headed back home.

It's been an emotional last few days, and it has surprised me. I'm leaving one set of friends, a church family at Edenside and created family to go back to where my blood family and other created family members are.

But as I close this chapter in my life, leave my homegirl Dawn and roll south with Polar who's taking some vacation time to help me move, I'm looking forward to starting another one.

I also have some unfinished business to deal with as well.

In hindsight, I needed the time away from the Lone Star State and the Gulf Coast. I needed to experience living in a different section of the country.

While I haven't been happy about some aspects of my life as a Texan in exile, when I look at the sum total of everything I experienced here good, bad and indifferent, there were a lot of positive things that happened while I was up here.

I've grown a little in my time away from the Lone Star State. I'm still continuing forward on an evolutionary path that leaves me today somewhat happy about where I am on my feminine journey, but always striving for improvement.

And yes, I'm approaching another milestone birthday in 2012.

But I'm at the point in my life in which EVERY birthday I'm standing 189 centimeters above ground for is a good one.

That's six feet two inches for the metrically challenged.

Happy birthday to Moni. I hope I'll be blessed enough by God to celebrate a few more decades worth of them before I;m done.

Still Miss You 'Lufer'

Today would have been the 59th birthday of one of my fave singers back in the day, Luther Ronzoni Vandross. He was born on this date in New York City in 1951.

Wow. Has it been five years since he heft us on July 1, 2005? Doesn't seem like it's been that long, but yep, it has.

The man left behind a musical legacy that will be hard to match. There are also probably a lot of people born in the 80's and 90's who probably owe their existence to being conceived while their parents were getting busy while listening to his music.

Anyway, happy birthday 'Lufer'. You are still missed by your fans, and no one as of yet has stepped up to fill your considerable shoes.

Happy Birthday Jill Scott!

Happy birthday to the sister from Philadelphia who seemed to just blow up on our radios in 2000, Jill Scott. The singer, poet, songwriter and actress in 1972 was born on this date in the city of Brotherly Love.

In addition to owning every Jill Scott CD produced, I'm so happy to hear according to a recent TJMS interview they are finally getting around to doing a second season of the No 1 Ladies Detective Agency on HBO.

ooking forward to seeing Jill playing Precious Ramotswe again.

Happy birthday, Jill

Happy Birthday Rachel!

Today is the birthday of one of my fave political pundits and the bane of conservafools everywhere, Rachel Maddow. She was born in Castro Valley, CA on this date in 1973.

Happy birthday Rachel. May you continue to speak truth to power, and here's hoping that you do one day run for public office. The country could definitely use your PhD level intellect in passing common sense legislation that benefits all of us.

But it's also a lot of fun watching you take apart right wingers. too