Trans Peeps, We Gotta Put In The Work To Get Elected

While I am happy to see this explosion of trans candidates running for office, and the TransGriot 2018 endorsement post is coming soon, bear in mind that just because you're trans doesn't mean I'm automatically going to endorse you. 

I not only look at your platform, I'm also looking at the viability of your campaign.   What's your fundraising look like?   Have you been doing the nuts and bolts stuff like talking to the various constituency group in your area?   Have you been participating in the local debates?  Who is (or isn't)  endorsing you?  Will you be able to translate the platform you campaigned on into concrete policy if you are elected?   

Deciding on whether to run for office is a challenging proposition that requires hard solid thinking before you enter the race and an ironclad commitment to doing the hard work necessary to run a credible campaign.   There's also the possibility that no matter how hard you work on a high quality campaign, the voters may choose someone else on Election Day.

And as trans people who are stepping up to run for office, we need to take those decisions seriously.  It's an undeniable fact we need trans folks sitting at the governing tables at every level of government. 

We're in a time period in which being trans is considered a positive in the political world, and there are so few trans folks in office on a national level that when a trans person runs, it's not only newsworthy, there is a potential if they are elected of making history and becoming a possibility model for our trans kids watching their race.

Make no mistake about it,  running for office means that you are applying for a job in which your bosses are your constituents.   But running for office means that we have some things we have to do on our end. 

We have to raise funds to pay for the campaign.  We have to seek out endorsements and interview with multiple screening committees for them.  We have to interview with newspaper editorial boards.  We have to talk to our potential constituents to find out what their issues are in order to serve them better if elected. 

And like it or not, because we have more scrutiny on us as trans candidates, we must run our campaigns foe whatever office we run for with the utmost integrity and once we're elected, serve in a way which will make our community and our supporters proud of us 

Before the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the number of Black elected officials nationwide at all levels of government was miniscule.   By 1970, the first year those numbers began to get tracked, there were 1,463 of them up to the congressional level.  That had ballooned by 2011 to 10,763 Black elected officials that included President Barack Obama (D) and Massachusetts Gov Deval Patrick (D) 

Rep. Shirley Chisholm ran for the Democratic nomination for president in 1972, and was fought by the political boys club at the time every step of the way.  Nothing was handed to her on a silver platter

Just because we're trans and have a demonstrated need for representation at all levels of government as an oppressed class of people,  and we have a leg up on the trust issue because of the unapologetic way we live our lives,  doesn't mean that people should just hand us an endorsement when we show up.  We have to earn it. 

We also have to earn people's votes,  Bur in order to be sworn in to serve  in whatever office we run for in January, we gotta put in the work from February to November to get elected.

British Trans DJ Is The Face Of New L'Oreal Campaign

As the right wing continues to fan the flames of anti-trans hatred, we just keep blazing trails and handling our business.

Meet British model DJ and activist Munroe Bergdorf.   The 30 year old girl like us  is breaking ground as the first out trans woman to appear in a L'Oreal Paris campaign in the UK.

The beauty brand is adding five new faces to their #allworthit campaign for their True Match Foundation, that matches 98% of the UK's skin tones.

And Bergdorf is excited about the opportunity to do so.

"If I can't relate to anybody that's in the media that's transgender, then hopefully someone can relate to me," she explains in the commercial. "I definitely set out to empower girls like me. I think that our history definitely wasn't being told. Not that many people know that it was trans women of color that fought for gay rights that started the Stonewall riots, which eventually led to the gay rights movement."

You can check out the commercial here.




TransGriot Update: I woke up a few hours later to find out that due to fragile white tears grousing from right wingers stoked by the Daily Mail tabloid L'Oreal Paris yanked her contract.

Very interesting to note that a gay white male can make a blatantly racist comment but still keep his contract, but a Black trans woman telling the truth about racism is grounds to yank hers and prove the point she made about racism in the first place.  .


 

White Coke Cans And Tops To Raise Polar Bear Awareness

The Coca-Cola polar bears have been an iconic part of the Christmas holidays and the company's holiday advertising since 1922.

They were even the inspiration for a nickname I bestowed on one of my dear friends back in Da Ville during the 2002 Christmas holidays because of his by the 2 liter sized bottle love of Diet Coke.

The nickname I bestowed upon him stuck and he embraced to the point that he had a polar bear themed wedding cake a few years later.  

But polar bears are an endangered species because of the effects of human encroachment and global warming induced changes to their Arctic habitat.   The summer sea ice they and other Arctic ice dependent species is disappearing at a faster rate due to global warming and may be gone within a generation 

To address this challenge, WWF seeks to work with local indigenous people and governments to create the most appropriate management plan for an area in Canada and Greenland that is home to a natural “safety net” of ice which scientists believe may persist longer than the ice anywhere else.  They are referring to this approximately 500,000 square mile area that is double the size of Texas as the “Last Ice Area.”

Coca-Coca partnered with the World Wildlife Fund to raise awareness about what's happening with polar bears and is giving $2 million of seed money over the next five years in the 'Arctic Home' campaign to help preserve their habitat   

As part of that awareness raising effort 1.4 billion white Coke cans were produced for the first time in company history along with white bottle caps for other Coke products such as Diet Coke and Sprite.  They began to be distributed for the holiday season on November 1 and should probably be on your local store shelves as I write this through February..

If you text the product code on those white cans and bottle caps with a donation to the WWF, Coca-Cola will match up to $1 million of those donations through March 15, 2012