Happy 20th Birthday Sage!

Today is Sage Smith's 20th birthday.    Unfortunately she's still missing..  We'd hoped that she'd be back home by now celebrating this day with her family and friends.

And she should be. 

Sage should be doing what any twentysomething would do on their Big 2-0 birthday.  She should be at home tearing into her gifts and preparing to blow out twenty candles on her birthday cake enveloped in the love of her family and friends. 

Instead she's been missing since November 20.  Christmas is approaching, the person who last talked to her in Erik McFadden has left the Charlottesville, VA area and several searches have revealed no clues to Sage's whereabouts.

One thing people have been pissed off about is the lack of media coverage, but it looks like that may be starting to change as well.  

Continue to pray not only for Sage but her family in this trying and painful time for them.  If you have any information concerning this case please call Crimestoppers at 434-977-4000.

TransGriot Update:  Found out there will be at Lee Park in Charlottesville, VA a rainbow balloon release in honor of Sage's birthday starting at 5:30 PM EST.  If you live in the area and can attend please consider going to the event and supporting the family and friends of Sage.

Happy Twentywhatever Birthday Isis!

It's October 1st and I wasn't going to let today slide by without a TransGriot Happy Birthday shout-out to my twentysomething little sis in the Big Apple.  Sorry we missed connecting while I was up there, but I know it'll happen sooner or later.

I remember I wrote in my open letter to you back in 2008:

"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."

It's four years later and you have fulfilled that prediction I made for you at that time and then some.  You represent #girlslikeus with class, dignity and a regal style and I'm so proud of you for that.  

And yep, I really enjoy those moments when we get the chance to talk.  Need to do more of it when both our busy schedules allow it.

Happy birthday Isis!   May your special day be a wonderful one filled with abundant blessings, and may you have many more!
 

Happy Birthday Kylar!

Couldn't let today pass without pointing out today is the birthday of one of my fave trailblazing transmen.

It's TPOCC founder and Executive Director Kylar Broadus' birthday, and I had to give him a TransGriot birthday shoutout.

It's been a busy, history making year for the brother from Missouri building the Trans Persons of Color Coalition into the national voice for transpeople of color it has become in addition to all the other trailblazing work he has done. 

I look forward to my next opportunity to spend some quality time with my fellow red stater at NBJC's Out On The Hill in just a few weeks.  

That's your cue people to make your plans to attend the third annual edition of this empowering Washington DC conference.

You get to meet outstanding national African-descended trans and SGL leaders like Kylar and we make the point once again to our inside I-495 politicians and organizational leaders that Black LGBT people are Black people, too.  

And yeah, when conservafools aren't attempting to suppress it, we vote. 

But back to the birthday shoutout.

Happy birthday Kylar!   Thanks to all you do to raise the leadership bar, the visibility of transpeople of color (especially those of us from red states) and help us own our power. 

May you have many more birthdays to come and they be happy ones! 

Happy 51st Birthday Mr. President!

Today as those of us in reality based world know is the 51st birthday of our president Barack Hussein Obama II.  The divorced from reality birthers may believe that he wasn't born in Honolulu, HI but the rest of us and his birth certificate says otherwise along with that 1961 birth announcement. .

In less than 100 days we have an extremely critical election coming up on November 6, and I can think of no better present to give to the POTUS than four more years in the White House .

Hey it's one of the few times in your life you can give a birthday gift to someone that will benefit you as well. 

Happy birthday President Obama!.  May you have many more of them as a resident of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave through 2016.

Happy Birthday, George!

The George I'm giving a TransGriot birthday shoutout to is probably looking for the Mothership to land instead of a birthday cake.   

Funkateers, raise those hands high and flash the P-funk sign in honor of George Clinton, who was born on this date back in 1941.

Couldn't let this day pass with giving a shout out to the man who kept me and my peers dancing through our  high school and college years. 

He also wrote some lyrics and songs that while sounding nonsensical to the peeps who were faking the funk, were dropping serious knowledge on those of us who knew how to spell psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop and were on the alert for any appearances of Sir Nose D'voidoffunk.

My high school class considers Parliament's Flash Light it's unofficial class song.

And I can't count how many step shows in the early 80's I attended that didn't have the local Omega Psi Phi chapter doing their step routine to the Que Dog National Anthem, AKA Atomic Dog.



Happy birthday, George.

Renee's Birthday Trivia

To help my Canadian homegirl celebrate her birthday properly,  I thought I would oblige her by helpfully pointing out some of the events and things that happened the day she was born.

This was the number one R&B and Hot 100 song on the US Billboard charts on your birthday.  It's George McRae's 'Rock Your Baby'



Richard Nixon was a few weeks from getting impeached and resigning the presidency .

Pierre Trudeau was running thangs as Canada's Prime Minister.

And a certain dyn-o-mite TV show with Ann Coulter's boyfriend debuted a few months before you were born.



Some of the people you share your birthday with are Lil Kim, actresses Kellita Smith, Lisa Rinna and Sela Ward, Nadya  Suleman, actor Yul Brynner, Giorgio Armani. boxer Leon Spinks, singers Bonnie Pointer and Suzanne Vega  and tennis player Caroline Wozniacki

It's Renee's Birthday!

Another July 11 has arrived and that means my Timmy's Ice Capp drinking Coach purse loving homegirl has made it through another 365 days (366 in a leap year) to celebrate the day she arrived on this planet north of the 49th parallel. 

It's Renee of Womanist Musings birthday, and I definitely will not let this auspicious occasion pass without reminding her (especially after that post she wrote on my recently passed milestone birthday) she is another year closer to a milestone birthday of her own (snicker, snicker).

But she also knows I have much love, admiration and respect for her, too.  I hope those testosterone based lifeforms in her house are treating her like the queen she is and taking Renee out for her favorite dinner.  

I also hope the unhusband, Mayhem and Destruction are giving her the peace and quiet and many gifts she deserves on her special day as well.

She has been a wonderful friend to me as well, has given me some sage advice as I continue my evolutionary feminine journey and when I needed them, some long distance motivational kicks in the behind.   

Renee is admired and loved by many of her fellow bloggers in the Afrosphere as well.  I look forward to the day I finally get the opportunity to visit her part of the world and give her the hug she so richly deserves.

It's your birthday sis.  Enjoy it, and may you have many more.  . 

Happy Birthday Pam!

Wasn't going to let today pass without wishing one of my fave people in the blogging world a happy birthday. No, it's not my Canadian homegirl's birthday yet.   That's later this week

Today is Pam Spaulding's birthday, the creative genius and founder of Pam's House Blend.  I finally got to meet her during Netroots Nation and give her the hug and thank you for being one of the first major blogs to link to my then fledgling blog six years ago and give it a traffic boost. .

She is one sweet lady with a wicked sense of humor, and I enjoyed hanging around and talking to her about a long list of subjects during that conference

But today is all about you.

Happy birthday Pam!  May it be full of blessings and you have many more of them.

Happy Birthday Cher!

Yep people, today is Cher's birthday.  She was born in El Centro, CA on this date in 1946 and is looking good for a lady who is 66 years young and an icon to many.

No wonder I love you so much.  You're an outspoken Taurus like the TransGriot.    Love what you had to say on Twitter about Mitt version 2012

"If ROMNEY gets elected I don't know if I can breathe same air as Him & his Right Wing Racist Homophobic Women Hating Tea Bagger Masters."

Word!   And predictably all the right wing haters have come out to attack her including Donald Trump Chump.

Happy birthday Cher!  Keep speaking your truth and may you have many more.

Happy Milestone Birthday, Moni!

Well TransGriot readers, today I was blessed to see another birthday, and it's a big one. 

Yeah, I know we women aren't supposed to tell our age, but it's a Big Fracking Deal and a blessing to hit this milestone birthday.

I'm a Kennedy baby who was born at 10:45 PM CDT in the Lone Star State and has been on the planet long enough to witness desegregation occur 'with all deliberate speed', the African-American Civil Rights movement, women's rights, gay rights and trans rights movements.  

The space race happened with the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs rapidly culminated to a July 20, 1969 moon landing and several more after that, the Skylab program, and the space shuttle and international Space Stations.  

I witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union, the Vietnam War, two Gulf Wars, the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy,  Sen. Robert Kennedy and the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Watergate, gas lines in the 70's, Motown, the Philly Sound, disco, rap, hip-hop Neo-Soul, 8-track tapes, the CD, the iPod, color TV, cable, the Internet and the election of an African-American president.

And yeah, my body did a little morphing over the years as well to where I not only became a Phenomenal Transwoman, but a respected trailblazing award winning thought leader in the trans human rights movement.

I was also just six months old when the Cuban Missile Crisis broke out and the all too real specter of nuclear war threatened to end my life and the lives of millions of people around the world  

During my lifetime so far my beloved hometown has grown from 700,000 people to a world class international city with over 2 million residents.  I have seen an African-American and two female mayors be elected to lead it.   Annise Parker is the current one who is doing a damned good job of handling our city's business and she happens to have cut her activist teeth in our LGBT community as well. 

And to my disgust, I have seen my beloved Lone Star State move from progressive Democratic control and leaders we could be proud of such as Sen.Ralph Yarborough, Sen Lloyd Bentsen, Rep. Sam Rayburn,  President Lyndon B. Johnson, Rep. Barbara Jordan, Gov. Ann Richards and Rep. Mickey Leland to Republifool control and national embarrassments like Rep Louie Gohmert, George W Bush and Gov Rick Perry.

So while I haven't gotten that AARP card in the mail yet, or had some of my past and present birthday wishes for the trans community become a reality, what I have received and continue to receive is the blessing of you peeps showering me with love and birthday wishes from both sides of the International Date Line 

Thanks y'all.   Happy birthday to me and may I be blessed to live to see many more..

It's Moni's Milestone Birthday*

It's May 4, 2012 on the western side of the International Date Line, that is.  

Five decades ago I was born on this date in an all Black hospital in Houston's Third Ward.   The city looks a lot different than when I arrived on the planet.  

Overt Jim Crow segregation is over and my hometown is an international city with three times as many people and the innovative skyscrapers to prove it.

And yep, I'm light years different from the body I arrived in on that day.


I thank you peeps on the western side of the International Date Line and you early birds on this side of it  for all the birthday love you've been showering me with so far and it's deeply appreciated.

I consider myself blessed to still be standing tall and six feet above ground to see this day, and I hope I'm blessed with many more.

Happy Birthday Leona!

It's not yet May 4th on my side of the International Date Line, but it's getting close for my TransGriot readers on the western side of it.

One of those people on the western side of it who is someone I have much respect for in the international trans activist community and I have the happy coincidence of sharing the month of May for our birthdays.  

Leona is someone I have long admired as a human right warrior and all around cool person.  To discover we share the same birthday month adds to that.

I don't get to celebrate mine until Friday, but I couldn't let today pass without giving her a TransGriot happy birthday shout out.

I hope and pray it's a wonderful and peaceful day full of blessings for you and may you have many more.

Happy Birthday, Janet!

March 10 happens to be Jasmine Guy's birthday, but found out that one of my favorite people in the trans community also was born on this date

Today is Janet Mock's birthday, and y'all know I have much love for my trailblazing sis who is the editor of People.com.   I wasn't letting today pass without giving her a TransGriot birthday shoutout.

Happy birthday, Janet!   May this one be full of blessings and you have many more!

Happy Birthday Kerry Washington!

I love actress Kerry Washington, and had fun watching her thoughtfully eviscerate conservafools in various debates in the runup to that historic 2008 election as a Obama supporter.

My respect level for her went up to stratospheric levels when in an interview she gave while promoting the movie Life Is Hot In Cracktown in which she played transwoman Marybeth she made this thought provoking point.

Because, really, what a trans woman is, is somebody who is a woman but whose biology has betrayed them in someway. For me, I take for granted my identity as a woman. I take for granted my anatomy and physiology. I don't really think about those things. What if actually I was born with my body betraying me in some way? I would think about it differently. I go to the gym four times a week to get rid of my ass but what if instead I was paying thousands of dollars on the black market in hormone therapy to have an ass? [Laughs] I might walk differently, stand differently, dress differently -- I might think about celebrating my identity as a woman in a different way.

I also discovered that in the process of filming that movie, to more authentically play Marybeth, she hired Valerie Spencer as an advisor.   Valerie and I talked about that experience she had with Kerry when I finally had the pleasure of meeting her during the 2011 Out on the Hill Conference.

Well, today is Kerry's birthday and I wasn't letting it pass without giving her a TransGriot shout out