Dallas Observer Amends Problematic LGBT Movers And Shakers List

The Dallas Observer as you probably read here published a problematic Dallas LGBT movers and shakers list of seven people earlier this month that had no ethnic diversity or people on it from the trans, bi or lesbian wing of the community. 

After the TransGriot and a few other people inside and outside the DFW metro area pointed out the original list was melanin and estrogen free in addition to omitting people from the trans, bi and lesbian ends of the  community, three days ago the article was amended

There was this comment from author Alicia Auping in the opening paragraph about it.

Update, July 18: After this post went up a couple weeks back, several people pointed that it was a little -- OK, a lot -- one-dimensional, omitting various demographics of Dallas' vast LGBT rainbow of a community.

So we've added to it. Not every mover or shaker or mover-shaker is included, and you're welcome to suggest the names of people who move and who shake in the comments. But we think it's a better reflection of the community's diversity, which should have been present the first time around.

Indeed.  The persons added from the trans end were Dr. Oliver Blumer and Rev. Carmarion Anderson.  BTMI/BTWI's Carter Brown should have been in this article, too.   On the L end of it Joretta Marshall, Feleshia Porter and Cece Cox were added.  

Still could stand to improve on the ethnic diversity of this rainbow community list, but at least you were listening. Dallas Observer and Ms. Auping.

Dallas Observer LBGT Movers And Shakers List Has No Trans, Bi Or Lesbian People On It

Received a link from one of my DFW area TransGriot readers to an interesting Dallas Observer article by Alicia Auping that discusses seven LGBT movers and shakers in the Dallas area.

When you peruse the list of seven people named, can you guess what the common thread is?

Yep, the people featured in it were all white gay males.  

The list the Observer put together is not only devoid of ethnic diversity, it is also devoid of people from the trans, bi and lesbian community of Dallas as well.  

Just on the trans end of it you have inaugural Trans 100 honoree and Black Transmen Incorporated (BTMI) founder Carter Brown living in the Dallas city limits.  So does Dr. Oliver Blumer, the board Chair of the Transgender Education Network of Texas (TENT) and Rev. Carmarion Anderson, the South regional minister for the national group TransSaints of The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries.

Brown, Dr. Blumer and Rev. Anderson are three highly respected Dallas area trans residents making a difference not only locally but in the Lone Star State and on the national level.  

There's Judge Tonya Parker, the first elected openly gay judge in Dallas County and the first openly gay African-American elected official in the state of Texas that you could have included on this list but didn't. 

There's Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez who was just featured in an HBO documentary.   Dallas based GetEqual activist CD Kirven.  Lambda Legal community educator Omar Narvaez.  Resource Center Dallas CEO Cece Cox.  Patti Fink, the president of the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance, and current co-host of the longest-running LGBT-exclusive radio program in America and Lividia Violette, who is a national board member of Bi Net.  

They are just some of the Dallas area BTL people who are movers and shakers too and should have garnered recognition for their efforts to make Dallas, Texas and the nation a better place.  

But instead, what the Observer did in this article is fall into that troubling pattern of ignoring or erasing the accomplishments of people in the TBLG community who are not white gay males.

If you claim that the LGBT community is a diverse one, it's vitally important that you showcase that diversity especially since not all the members of the rainbow community are white gay males. 

That visibility is also vitally important in a red state like Texas.  When GLBT people of color come out who are trailblazing leaders in the community, that needs to be highlighted.  

It's also important to consider when you put together these LGBT lists that you have not only ethnic diversity, but also representation from the bi, trans and lesbian part of the community in addition to the gay male one.

Trans People Got Erased By Rachel Maddow

I've repeatedly made the point in this blog how important it is for us to know our trans history.  We need to have a working knowledge of it not only just for our own sakes, but to empower our trans kids, keep us from being erased in the media and frankly, so we are armed with the knowledge to rebut any lies coming from our detractors.

Former Minnesota resident Katrina Rose points out that while watching a Rachel Maddow Show story last night discussing the Minnesota gay marriage fight, while talking about the 1993 landmark gay rights bill she neglected to mention exactly why it was a landmark bill in the early 90's. 

It was a landmark bill because it was trans inclusive in an era when we trans folks were gleefully getting thrown under the legislative bus so often by the GL community we could tell by the tire tracks the brand name of the tires that ran over us.

I’m not demanding a dissertation from Rachel.  I’m not even saying there was a need to go into his opposition to trans-inclusion in 1975 or his being on board with inclusion when a bill finally passed in 1993. 

But if you are contextualizing Minnesota in the wake of it becoming the twelfth state with same-sex marriage rights, you do have to do the bare minimum of pointing out that it was the first with trans-inclusive civil rights.

Yes, Rachel.  You do indeed have to.

So, Rachel…

I’m saddened that I have to ask this: Why didn’t you?

You did mention the 1993 law.

Yeah, I'd like to know the answer to that question myself.  Here's Kat's ENDAblog 2.0 post. 

And let's see if the fact the 1993 bill was trans inclusive makes it to a future Maddow show Department of Corrections segment

The 'I Don't Know Any Black Trans People' Excuse Doesn't Fly

I've done a lot of posts about the subject of erasure of trans people of color.   In the process of combating the media invisibility I've taken to task media outlets in our chocolate media world that put these LGBT's list together that either had no trans persons on it or conflated drag queen with trans persons. 

One of the excuses I heard attempting to defend the indefensible was someone who claimed that 'they didn't know of any Black transpeople, much less Black trans activists.; 

Well, as of 10:00 AM EDT on April 9, that excuse doesn't fly anymore, not that it ever had the credibility in the first place    I've been writing about the trans community with an Afrocentric slant since 2006.

We have other African-American transpeople stepping up to leadership roles and providing positive visibility for our community.   We have growing organizations such as BTMI, BTWI, TPOCC and the National Black Justice Coalition advocating for us, helping us own our power and being the change we want to see in the world. 

We have conferences such as the BTMI event and Trans Faith In Color in which we can gather, talk about issues, honor our people doing the work and build community amongst ourselves and with the groups we intersect and interact with.  As Kwame Ture once said, 'In order to participate in the greater society, you must first close ranks.'

A stronger and more cohesive Black trans community means a stronger one which can be a better, more potent ally to the groups we intersect, interact and have mutual interests with.   

Black legacy orgs such as the NAACP are realizing not only that Black trans community issues are Black community issues, we Black trans peeps are part of the kente cloth fabric of the community and deserve our seat at the family table.  

So no, the publication of this initial Trans 100 List eliminates that excuse that you don't know any Black transpeople along with our increasing visibility across all media platforms.   We have people in various professions who are Black, trans and are attorneys, doctors, college professors, writers, homemakers, models, fashion designers, entrepreneurs...well, you get the drift 

And we didn't just pop up in the second decade of the 21st century either.  We've helped shape and mold not only trans history, but made some Black history of our own in addition to doing our part to uplift ourselves and our people.  

If you don't know any Black trans folks, you either aren't trying to get to know us, or have some of my trans brothers or trans sisters right under your nose living their everyday lives without you realizing it. 

But the days of people dismissively saying that they don't know any Black trans people are over.  . 
 

Black Transmen Are Part Of This Community, Too

One of the things I've long been aware of in my 15 years as an activist is visibility matters. 

One of the long conversations I had with Kortney, Carter, Sean, Lawrence, Diwa and many of the brothers during my trek to Dallas last month for the Black Transmen Conference dealt with the subject concerning their frustration about the lack of Black transmasculine visibility in the trans community. 

Just as we've had to deal with in the Black trans feminine community about the trans narrative being dominated by white trans women for the last 60 years, the transmasculine narrative has also been dominated by its focus on white transmen as well. 

We don't get to see them represented or talked about in the overall transmasculine narrative, much less have regular discussions about what their issues are.  That needs to change.

One of the things I was extremely happy about was seeing that my transbrothers are working diligently to address that visibility problem.  Kortney's award winning 2008 movie :Still Black: A Portrait of Black Transmen  was a major step in that direction (and is still available for purchase) . 

And yeah, you have to check out Kortney's blog Blac(k)ademic for thoughtful posts on trans and other issues from a Black transmasculine perspective.

As the founding executive director of TPOCC Kylar Broadus has been an increasingly visible role model for the Black transmasculine community along with Rev  Louis Mitchell and Carter Brown of BTMI. 

BTMI is cultivating a group of leaders that you will be hearing from in the near future on many levels around the country as they do their parts to become the change they want to see in the world.

They are introducing the world to a group of intelligent, thoughtful (and handsome) Black transmen who are defining what it is to be a man on their own terms and in addition letting people inside and outside this community know they exist.

And as their sister I couldn't be happier to see my brothers stand tall and own their power..       

When Will POC Transpeople Be Invited To MHP?

Bottom line is I along with POC transpeople are beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of being erased from another cable media discussion on trans issues once again. 

TransGriot, April 17, 2012   'Tired Of Me Complaining About Trans POC Erasure?  Sop Enabling It'.  

As much as I love watching MSNBC's Melissa Harris Perry show every weekend, I am getting a little frustrated with their lack of diversity in one demographic of its show viewers.

The trans community. 

When I tune in to MHP I can regularly see a diverse palette of people sitting behind the #nerdland desks chatting about the issues of the day.  That diverse palette of people also includes members of the GL community who are well represented and not there to simply talk about SGL and trans community issues. But it seems as though the only time transpeople get a call to appear on MHP is to discuss trans or GLBT related issues, and only white trans people get the opportunity to do so

FYI Nerdland staff, Mara Keisling or Kate Bornstein are not the only trans persons inside the borders of the United States that can talk about trans issues.  There are transpeople who are happen to be persons of color who are quite capable of discussing trans issues and other topics du jour as well. .  

For starters, there's Kylar Broadus, the ED of the Trans Persons of Color Coalition.. Cecilia Chung of the Transgender Law Center.  Andy Marra of GLSEN.  Diego Sanchez worked on Capitol Hill for former Rep Barney Frank.  Washington DC Human Rights commissioner Earline Budd.   Former Hawaii state board of education member Kim Coco Iwamoto.

There are our trans elders such as Gloria Allen in Chicago, Miss Major, Tracie Jada O'Brien, Sharyn Grayson, and Cheryl Courtney-Evans.  There's Janet Mock whose has made appearances on Thomas Roberts' show.  Tiq Milan, Dr. Kortney Ryan Ziegler, Kokumo Kinetic, Isis King, Leiomy Maldonado, Danielle King, Valerie Spencer, Laverne Cox, Antonia D'Orsay, Rev. Carmarion Anderson, Minster Louis Mitchell and oh yeah, some GLAAD media trained Houston based transwoman who has an award winning blog and been an activist since the late 90's. 

And that's just the short list   I'm sure there are more than a few others around the country who are more than capable of broadening the conversations on this GLAAD Media Award nominated show on a wide variety of issues.  

For 60 years, the narrative about trans issues has overwhelmingly been all about white transpeople and drivedn by them and their worldview.  It's past time that other trans stories get told.  If we can't get Nerdland to invite us on to do that, who will? 

We also need to see transpeople of color on these shows to blow up the myth in our community and elsewhere that successful trans persons or the only transpeople capable of speaking for this community and about other subjects of the day are white ones.

Melissa once made an eloquent speech on the show about the importance of diversity and how important it is that marginalized groups not be shut out of discussions and conversations. 
 
That's exactly what is happening right now to trans people of color, and after watching Oprah ignore us when she finally started doing trans themed shows, it's frustrating as hell for us to watch this pattern repeat itself once again..  

So when will trans persons of color be invited to participate in a Melissa Harris Perry show discussion?  Will that happen sometime before this decade is over? 

NABJ Comments On The Lack Of Debate Moderator Diversity

I had my say about the problematic lack of diversity when the presidential and vice presidential debate moderator selections were announced.  So did the NAACP and Univision's president on behalf of the Latino/a community. 

It was appalling that in an election year which will feature the most diverse electorate ever in American history and has an African-American president running for re-election, those October debates with have no African-American, Latino/a or Asian journalists posting questions to the 2012 presidential and vice presidential candidates. . 

In case you're wondering, the last African-American male journalist to serve as a presidential debate moderator was CNN's Bernard Shaw in 1988.

Former ABC News anchor Carole Simpson was the last African-American female to moderate a presidential debate, doing so in 1992. 

Gwen Ifill of PBS has moderated two vice presidential debates in 2004 and 2008.  

The National Association of Black Journalists are definitely not happy about the vanillacentric debate moderator selections whitewashed by the Commission on Presidential debates either, and here's what they had to say about it on August 17:

NABJ is disappointed that the journalists chosen to participate in the presidential debates don't reflect what has become the most diverse electorate in U.S. history. 

While we commend the selection of the first woman moderator in 20 years, we find it unacceptable that no journalists of color will be involved. The Commission on Presidential Debates, which announced the selections this week, blamed the omission on "debate arithmetic." Frankly, the math doesn't add up.

There is no absence of qualified journalists of color, or those with experience as debate moderators, such as NABJ Hall of Fame member Gwen Ifill, of PBS.

By excluding journalists of color, the commission failed to satisfy an important public interest given that racial and ethnic minorities will contribute roughly one quarter of the votes cast on Election Day. Any credible analysis has shown that their turnout, or lack thereof, will be a decisive factor in the presidential contest. This year, both presidential campaigns and their parties are devoting more resources than ever to reaching non-white voters.

Yet the commission has minimized the significance of our nation's changing identity, as well as the role of minority journalists in informing an increasingly diverse public. We believe the commission wasted an opportunity to use its unique platform in a manner that encourages more citizens to participate in the democratic process.

"The commission had a chance to embrace the racial kaleidoscope that the American electorate is fast becoming, and chose instead to remain blind to it," Sonya Ross, chair of NABJ’s Political Journalism Task Force, said. "It is time to end this cyclical charade of treating equally deserving, equally capable journalists of color as if they are invisible, unqualified, or both. I would like to invite the commission, along with leading entities in political media, to join the task force in making a concerted effort to ensure a truly diverse set of presidential debate moderators for 2016."

So why is this lack of debate moderator diversity a big fracking deal to POC's?   In addition to the fact there has never been an Asian or Latino presidential debate moderator of either gender, non-white voters will be the decisive voting blocs in several swing states.

We need to hear the presidential and vice presidential candidates answer debate questions that are geared toward our policy concerns and issues as people of color. 

As NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous stated, “The lack of diversity among this year’s debate moderators is representative of the overall lack of diversity in news media. Whether it’s as primetime news anchors, debate moderators, or commentators on the influential Sunday morning political talk shows, people of color — and African Americans specifically — are strikingly underrepresented.”

That is what we POC Americas are complaining about, the lack of representation.

A debate setting is one of those times Republican candidates, who avoid non-white media outlets on a routine basis because they don't want to answer those tough questions from POC journalists, have to do precisely that, especially if the moderator is a person of color. 

Some of those issues and policy concerns (let's be real here) white journalists aren't culturally fluent in or it wouldn't immediately occur to them to ask those types of questions from our non-white points of view because we do live in two vastly different American realities.      

If you are going to run for president of the United States, then you have to be president for ALL Americans, not just a vanillacentric 63% slice of th population.   If you are setting up debates to ask the people running for the highest political offices in the land questions, the journalists asking those questions also need to reflect the diversity of our nation.

 

The Root's Trans Free Black LGBT List

Since June is Pride Month, in honor of the occasion The Root put together a list of 20 notable Black LGBT people    I was curious to see if things had progressed in the African-American blogosphere since I had to call the Grio out about a trans free LGBT leaders list in 2010. .

On the one The Root compiled many of the folks on this list I have had the pleasure of meeting and I admire such as Aisha Moodie-Mills, Phill Wilson, and Donna Payne are on it.   The others they included are familiar ones like poet Staceyann Chin, Jonathan Capehert, Don Lemon, Sapphire, Keith Boykin, Jasmyne Cannick and Wanda Sykes.

What I didn't see in this Black LGBT list was you guessed it, Black trans people.

No Janet Mock (who made the Grio's 100 list BTW).  No Laverne Cox.  No Kylar Broadus, Isis King, Valerie Spencer, Rev. Louis Mitchell, Miss Major, or even some award winning blogger who was part of the first ever trans panel at Netroots Nation 2012..

Just the same old crap, different day in terms of Blackosphere media outlets putting together these Black LGB(t) lists and not including any trans people in them.

Bottom line, if you're going to take the time to put together a list that purports to be representative of the LGBT community leadership, then I, the trans community and our allies expect that trans people be included in said list if you claim it is a TBLG one.

Far too fracking often these trans free lists are overwhelmingly LG dominated, B peeps as an afterthought with no T ones.

Black folks, y'all need to get with that include the trans community program as well because we Black trans peeps are beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of being erased from these Black TBLG leaders lists y'all put together.  

We aren't ashamed of being Black and trans but the constant erasure and the frequency with which it happens make us wonder if you're ashamed of us.  

That erasure of African descended trans persons leads to situations in which Black transpeople haven't even been invited to discuss trans issues that impact us like the CeCe McDonald case on the Melissa Harris Perry show or NAACP convention LBG(t) town hall meetings with no trans people on those panels

Will be eagerly watching the upcoming NAACP convention next month in my hometown to see if Julian Bond keeps the promise he made in LA last year to ensure the next NAACP convention town hall has trans representation on that panel. 

And the 'we can't find any trans activists' excuse doesn't wash now any more than it did two years ago.

Sadly what I said in the post calling out the erasure and non- inclusion of Black transpeople on Black LGB(t) lists is applicable in this one as well.

My point is that if our own people don't or won't show us some love when you compile these leadership lists, and you write for one of our leading blogosphere sites directed at the African-American community gay and straight, how in the hell can we Black trans leaders who are doing the work expect the predominately white TBLG community to respect us as well?

It's bad enough that Black transpeople get shut out of the predominately vanillacentric upper middle class narrative and get very little to no media attention except when we get killed in a hate crime.   It's disappointing and hurts even more when we get ignored by our own media outlets.

I Repeat-Diversity Is Sorely Needed In Our Houston Trans Community

I'm a native Houstonian proud of our Lone Star traditions, our trans community, its history and being one of the people who helped make some of that history.   I'm also exceedingly proud of the award winning leaders that we have produced locally that have in some cases achieved a statewide, national and international footprint and following.


I wrote a post last year discussing the hard, solid thinking I was engaged in about the state of the national Black trans community.  I pointed out more diversity was needed in our Houston and Texas trans community ranks and what I said back in March 2011 bears repeating once again.  

As I mentioned, I was blessed to get the opportunity of attending the 20th annual Houston Transgender Unity Banquet for the first time in over a decade last weekend. While I enjoyed seeing everyone who was at the Sheraton Brookhollow and meeting some new rainbow community folks and allies in the process, I was still concerned about the lack of diversity in the room. 

This is the Houston trans community's signature event and the Unity Banquet reminded me once again how monochromatic and vanillacentric in outlook my hometown trans community leadership ranks have become in terms of the folks who are out there representing its public face.  I also believe the 'pay to play' activism model has had the deleterious result of creating a fiscal participation barrier and shutting out low income GLBT people from shaping the Houston GLBT community and the policies it advocates.   

In non-white communities there is already the ossifying impression that the GLBT community is an overwhelmingly white one, and that perception plays into some of the pushback and resistance the entire  rainbow community gets in its human rights fights.  That perception problem is one our right wing opponents are increasingly trying to exploit and use as a wedge issue as they oppose our human rights push. 

In a multicultural city of over 2 million people such as Houston, when we are contemplating fighting for a rainbow community human rights city charter referendum that will require the votes of a multicultural coalition of progressive Houston voters in order to pass it, that's a problem that needs to be fixed now before that ballot initiative gets rolled out and taken to the voters if we wish to win that fight.   Failure to seriously address this problem will result in another electoral loss for this community and I don't want to see that happen to legislation we desperately need.   .

Frustration is brewing among Houston's non-white transpeople.   It's fueled by not only the ongoing killing of our transsisters and the feeling that no one cares about it, it's also the lack of visibility and seeing trans role models who look like them.  Visibility matters and is necessary, especially to the people who don't see themselves represented in the organizations that are purported to represent them and speak for them.

If you think this status quo situation is okay, or you think that identity politics shouldn't be part of this rainbow community rights movement, you're naive or being obtuse about the fact that race matters, even in our little trans subset of society.   We get microaggressive behavior aimed at us every day by the parent society and our rainbow community subset of it, and just because we transitioned doesn't mean it stopped. 


But back to what I was discussing.   Diversity is sorely needed in our Houston trans ranks and it's sad I have to repeatedly state what is so no-brainer obvious.  

It's on you peeps that make up the leadership of these groups to ensure there is representation in them that reflects the ethnic diversity of Houston, the state of Texas and its TBLG community and but your behinds working to make that a reality.   

And yeah, y'all ain't the only people I'm going to call out on this state of affairs.  I'm going to put the non-white Houston trans community on blast too in a separate post. 

Here's the first suggestion as to how to create that diverse community.  Ask us.   But you'd better do it fast because the clock is rapidly ticking on your opportunity to do so with a fed up non-white trans community.    
What I can tell you is that if the diversity problem isn't dealt with, you will find yourself staring at a situation in which non-white transpeople will say frack it and form their own trans organizations designed to represent their interests and won't look back.

Tired Of Me Complaining About Trans POC Erasure? Stop Enabling It

If you non-persons of color transpeople get tired of me calling out the erasure of non-white trans voices in media appearances about trans issues every time it happens, then stop enabling it

I know some of y'all were muttering 'there she goes again' when I wrote the Sunday post blasting that vanillacentric Transgender In America panel on the Melissa Harris-Perry show and frankly I don't care.

I'm just as tired of pointing out the obvious to your clueless behinds. If you're going to claim that the trans community is a diverse one, then it needs to be reflected not only in the leadership of it, but its thought leaders and who speaks for it.

And I'm not the only Black transperson who feels this way as much as you peeps who wish to dismiss this commentary or fling the sour grapes accusation would like to think.   Far too often, we have media erasure incidents like what happened on the Melissa Harris-Perry show Sunday in which the trans talking heads are overwhelmingly white.  We all know there are more than a few non-white trans folks who are eminently capable of speaking on behalf of this community but are repeatedly erased, ignored and frozen out of media opportunities to speak for this community.

And if you think I'm going to be silent about it, y'all don't know me very well do you?

Bottom line is I along with POC transpeople are beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of being erased from another cable media discussion on trans issues once again. 

If you want the support of cis minority communities and more trans people of color to join the trans rights cause, it is imperative that we non-white transpeople and our cis POC community members see the entire trans ethnic rainbow represented.  

As someone said on my Facebook page in the rant I posted that jumpstarted this post:: 

It's the unwritten rule.  Act like you don't see them or hear them and they will go away.  If no one says anything then we are irrelevant.

We are anything but irrelevant to the trans community and aren't going away.  We are makers and molders of trans history and we must be heard, especially in light of the fact we're taking the brunt of the anti-trans violence and discrimination.

You can decry that as 'identity politics' all you want, but you're doing the same damned thing when only white transpeople are deemed 'acceptable' spokespeople to go on the media talking head shows.

This erasure was even more infuriating because Melissa Harris-Perry is a Black woman as well.  It was a painful reminder to the Black trans community of how we got erased when Oprah finally got around to having transpeople on her show and never put one of her own people on her stage to talk about trans issues .

The bottom line of me going off about this Melissa Harris-Perry show erasure is not only am I tired of it,  I don't want to have to see the trans younglings who are transitioning now at ages 10 or less having to fight the same damn battles we're having to fight when they get to adulthood.

It's also about our POC transkids who not only need to see us and have role models they can look up to as they transition.   They need to also see us front and center fighting those civil rights battles with our trans oppressors and talking intelligently about those issues in the media.  

They not only need to see themselves represented, but know beyond a shadow of a doubt we trans elders are doing everything we can with every fiber of our beings to make life easier for those transkids when they get to adulthood.

Yep, this is about our POC transkids and I haven't forgotten how I felt growing up when I wondered if Black people even transitioned.  White transkids have had the benefit of an over half century old trans narrative that has an overwhelming vanillacentric scent. 

They have numerous examples of trans role models to point to and leadership ranks overwhelmingly dominated by transpeople who look like them while the people taking the brunt of the anti-trans violence and discrimination disproportionately look like us.

The trans human rights movement is making the same critical mistake the GL movement has in terms of the erasure and visibility of its non-white members. If you want support from cis minority communities for our cause, you have to show them that there are people in those non-white communities who are trans as well.  Those non white trans people need to be the ones primarily articulating the message that we exist and transpeople deserve human rights.

I'm talking about balance here.  I'm tired of us being stuck with the 'tragic transsexual' and 'unwoman' memes in this community.  Seeing transpeople of color eloquently speaking about our issues, especially on national media shows is an important part of the trans human rights effort and you white transpeople in a position to keep the erasure from happening need to redouble you efforts to stop enabling it.

If you don't, you can guarantee the next time it happens (and sadly I can count on like taxes and another transperson of color being killed somewhere) will probably be writing about another instance of media erasure.   And when it does, I damned sure will be calling it out.