Rest In Power, Eli

Was saddened to learn about losing another longtime friend and fellow blogger to cancer. 

I first got yo know Eli as part of the intrepid group of loyal Democrats who in the wake of that 2004 reelection of GW Bush, did battle on the Kicking Ass blog with the conservafools coming to gloat about his win and their premature declarations that liberalism and the Democratic Party were dead.

When I finally joined Facebook, was happy to discover all my KA friends were on this platform and happily reconnected with him.

You may recall TransGriot readers that Eli was one of the peeps who competed with me and Michael Watts for a couple of seasons in our ongoing NFL prognostication contest.

My condolences to his family, friends and all who loved him.


***

Eli Whitney Blake III passed away peacefully on July 10, 2020 in Phoenix, AZ after a heroic battle with neuroendocrine cancer. He was 57. Eli was born August 7, 1962 in Albuquerque, NM to Dr. Henry W. Blake and Fay F. Blake, both who preceded him in death. He was a curious boy who won school spelling bees and enjoyed board games and baseball, and was a voracious reader of encyclopedias and atlases. He attended Temple Albert in Albuquerque, where he was Bar Mitzvaed in 1975. He attended Sandia High School, where he was a member of the Chess Club and the ROTC among his many activities. He graduated in 1980. He attended New Mexico Tech in Socorro, NM, where he studied Math and Chemistry, graduating in 1985 with a double major. He was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints the same year. While at Tech, he played Rugby, and he also began developing his life-long interest in politics and social justice and worked for local democratic candidates. He continued his education and political activism at the University of Montana in Missoula where he graduated with a MS in Statistics. He considered continuing for a PhD, but decided to return to the southwest to become an educator, a passion to which he dedicated the rest of his life. His first teaching job was in Phoenix but he soon returned to Albuquerque and began teaching at TVI – a technical community college – in 1991. At TVI, he was active on the Faculty Senate, and was instrumental in starting the employee union, something he was very proud of accomplishing – he believed strongly in unions and “never crossed a picket line.” While at TVI, he married Tressa Dennis, whom he had reconnected with in Socorro during a visit in 1986. They married in 1992 in Cedar City, UT, and began their life together with their daughter Valorie in Las Lunas, NM. Shortly thereafter, the young family settled in Moriarty, NM, and welcomed the twins – Leah and Maranda – in 1996. He left TVI in 1997 and, after a short detour in Corpus Christi TX at Del Mar Community College, they settled in Joseph City, AZ where he began his career with the Northern Pioneer Community College (NPC) system, which primarily serves the Navajo Nation in Northern Arizona. For the rest of his life, he was dedicated to the Navajo community, serving both as an outstanding educator and a community advocate for the people of the reservation. He was also a very dedicated father, and enjoyed supporting them in every way – from helping develop their academic, social, and spiritual interests to uplifting their entire community through his generosity and engagement. In Joseph City, he was active in the LDS Allen’s Camp Ward, and was engaged in a range of social and political work in the community. He was the Democratic Precinct Committee (PC) person and worked on numerous local, state, and national campaigns, including campaigns for Paul Babbitt and Ann Kirkpatrick; he served as the Navajo County Democratic Party Chair in 2012 when Kirkpatrick was elected. He was always out canvassing, registering people to vote, attending political events, and eagerly engaging in political debate on a wide range of issues. He was a prolific blogger, starting his blog “Deep Thought” in the early 2000s, and was recognized by the AZ State Press Association in 2006 in the lead-up to the Obama election. All of it led back to his beloved family and community. From purchasing geometry textbooks for his daughters’ entire 9th grade class to serving on the Joseph City Fire Board to going door-to-door on the reservation for the US Census to his 20 year commitment to the Arizona Republic through his paper route, he was a ubiquitous presence in the lives of all he touched and will be greatly missed. He is survived by his daughters, Leah Blake and Maranda Blake of Gilbert, AZ, Valorie Brooks and her husband Hunter Brooks and their daughters, April, Andrea, Brooklyn, and Baylee of Joseph City, and by Tressa Blake of Joseph City, his sister, Miriam Blake and her wife Sue Hine of High Point, NC, and best friend, Misti Lee of Show Low, AZ.

A Celebration of Life for Eli will be held in a future month when COVID has receded and it is safe for all those who want to attend to be together and celebrate his memory.

The family requests that donations be made in his name to either the Midwest Food Bank Arizona Division - please note the donation should be directed to Helping Hands for the Navajo Nation in his name

https://www.midwestfoodbank.org/locations/gilbert-az/donate-arizona

or the Neuroendocrine Tumor Research Foundation (https://netrf.org/get-involved/give-now/)

We will be holding a memorial after Covid-19 has calmed down a little bit. We will post more information about his memorial at a later date. ***

Rest in power El.

Trans Community, We Need To Be Better Friends To Each Other

One of the things that jumped out at me while reading my Facebook feed was one transsister not wanting to go out on New Year's Eve, but expressing her wish of just wanting to quietly usher in 2015 at her place with a friend and watch the New York ball drop on TV because she really wasn't feeling being in a club that night.

I feel her on that.  She was also aware that because it was New Year's Eve, her mission to find someone who wouldn't be out clubbing or at somebody's house party would be tough.

She managed to get in contact with another trans sister at home that night, but Person B as I'll call her declined. 

To be fair to Person B, she could have had a rough day that played into her decision to decline the invite and had no intention of hurting the person in question's feeling.

But Person B declining that invite led the person to question whether she actually had any trans sisters as friends in the community in which she lives that cared about her.

I know the person in question, and she is a warm, funny, and sweet person who is as beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside..  I would have loved to have spent a few hours on New Year's Eve (or any time) in her company since the last time I was in her presence I enjoyed it so much.

And on New Year's Eve I was at home alone myself and looking to spend some quality time with somebody that evening, so that story she recounted on her Facebook page resonated with me.

The reason I'm mentioning this is because I have a bigger point to make as it relates to transkind and the current spike in suicides we are experiencing. 

One of the reasons I believe we have the suicide problem in trans circles is because for the most part, we tend to be loners to begin with. 

I have had to fight that loner tendency myself.   You combine that with rejection from family and friends because of the trans issues, add a dash of isolation and depression, and you have the perfect storm of conditions to grease the skids for a suicide attempt.

To me, one way to combat that is simple human contact with people who love and care about you and your well being..  Facebook chats and phone calls are fine, but nothing beats sitting with your homegirls at their home or yours chatting about whatever issues pop up in your mind.  Or if that's not your speed, going to lunch or dinner with a friend.   Going shopping.   Going to a movie.  Going to a museum.  (insert fave activity here)

Human beings are social animals, and we need regular contact with other humans on a frequent basis. So transpeeps, go do something you like in which you have regular contact with another human being.cis or trans.

And one thing we trans folks need to do a better job of is hanging out with other trans people.   I love my cis sisters and have learned much in my own feminine evolution because of the conversations and  quality time I've spent with them over the years and will continue to do so because every trans woman needs sistahfriends in her life.

But there are times when you have to have conversations with other trans people who have gone through the drama of living life while trans.

And some of those trans people you can learn things from are trans guys.

It's not like this is a new idea I'm suggesting in terms of being better friends with each other..  I've talked about the importance of sisterhood for years and it being a necessary component of building a strong community.    With this outbreak of recent suicides, the message about reaching out to other transpeople and forming lasting lifelong friendships needs to be repeated once again.

So in the spirit of fixing society as Leelah urged in her final words, let's do this.   This is one of the easy things we can do as a community that doesn't require legislation and we can expeditiously implement it.

It's also necessary for us to do so because our only sane response to a world hostile to transpeople is to close ranks, hold each other tight, and love each other and the allies who love us.

And yep, I have a few people in mind I'd love to do that with in 2015.  

Every Transwoman Needs Sistafriends In Her Life

One of the things I've discovered in this ongoing feminine journey is that every transwoman needs a group of sistahfriends in her life.

Roberta Angela Dee, one of my trans mentors once said, "I'm a woman in mind, heart and spirit. That's all that matters. They can cut things off, paste things on, or reconfigure my body parts. If you're a woman, you're a woman. Period."

But the problem becomes getting to that point in your life in which you get to that level of confidence that Roberta expressed in that quote.

And that's where your sistahfriends enter the equation.

Your cis and trans sistahfriends can not only help you learn, grow and deal with some of the issues currently affecting your life, they can give you a comforting hug when you need it or that swift motivational kick in the butt to get you going when you feel down.

They are your mutual support system. They help you celebrate your triumphs and are there to console you when life hands you momentary defeats. They help you confidently get through this journey we call life.

Your trans sistahfriends not only help kick knowledge to you about dealing with some of the issues we have to grapple with inside and outside the community as transwomen, but help us avoid situations that could get us severely beat down or killed if we're not cognizant about it at all times.

If you are fortunate enough as a transwoman to have a group of ciswomen as your friends, they are invaluable in helping you to understand what it's like to grow up female with a developing female body in a male dominated society.

They can explain or clue you in on the drama you missed growing up, share some of the good and bad times of their early feminine journeys, and help you make sense of various issues that crop up in your own life in terms of dealing with sexism, misogyny, and sexual harassment issues.

It's also crucial to get you to the point of understanding that the feminine journey is a lifelong and constantly evolving one.

A transwoman that has a network of sistahfriends around her made up of cis and trans women not only gets untold benefits from it, she emerges from that stronger in spirit and better equipped to take on a hostile world arrayed against her.

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.

Truly Great Trans Friends

“Truly great friends are hard to find, difficult to leave, and impossible to forget.”

One of the things about transition that is essential to your building of healthy self-esteem is having a network of truly great friends around you.

But one important component of that network of truly great friends is having truly great trans friends as part of it.

Transition sometimes can feel like it's a lonely, grind it out process. For African-descended transwomen who don't have the support networks in place like our white transisters do, that sense of loneliness is magnified.

So it helps tremendously to have people in your corner who have your back and have an intimate understanding of what it's like to deal with issues that crop up during a gender transition.

While the ideal situation is to have that trans friend in the same locale with you, don't reject someone who could potentially be a truly great trans friend if there's a few hundred or a few thousand miles between you.

Hey, that's what IM and long distance calling is for.

I'm Shocked

I was talking to Dawn about a recent fencing tournament in Indianapolis she competed in that I couldn't attend. When she gave me the 411 about what happened at it, she also surprised me by telling me a few of her fellow fencers were looking for me.

Now for the most part I'm there at those tournaments to support her in addition to being fun to watch. Since that's her world, I try to stay in the background and let her be the center of attention in it. I've had some wonderful conversations with many of the peeps in the Great Lakes fencing region, the Veterans 40 and veterans 50 fencers, and various officials.

I've done stuff like babysat toddlers so their mom could compete on the fencing strip, been in the cheering section for other KY division/Vet fencers, and even volunteered to help at an LFC Pirates of the Caribbean themed Halloween party. I guess in the process I built up some goodwill among the fencing community.

Sometimes I find it incredible when I discover just how much of a footprint I leave in the various worlds I interact with. I was mildly shocked to find out from a Cleveland based flight attendant who remembered me from my CSR and ASA supervisor days in Houston while flying on a Continental trip back home. It was my first trip on the airline since we parted ways and I was flying back to Da Ville from speaking at last year's Trans Pride March.

Even though it had been seven years since I'd worn a CAL uniform at the IAH gates, she told me just how much I was missed by the Inflight crews across the system. The same thing has been reported to me by former IAH co-workers as well, who ask my homegirl Quinn how I'm doing and send messages through her as to how much they miss me.

Some of you may be amazed I feel this way, but I'm shocked sometimes at just how much love I get from peeps just for simply being me.

All I'm trying to do is simply treat people with the respect and dignity that they want to be treated with, listen to them when they have something to get off their chests, and be a loyal and supportive friend to all I'm blessed to have in my life.

Thanks For Being A Friend And Standing With Us

One of the things that my transsisters and transbrothers around the world are cognizant of is that we are involved in a worldwide struggle for respect and recognition of our human rights. It has been great getting to know some of my overseas transfamily and I'm looking forward to the day when we finally meet face to face.

One important facet of this human rights struggle is having biosisters in our corner. Some of my biosisters have taken it a step further and made it their mission in life to embrace what we're fighting for as well. Sometimes they speak just as loudly and eloquently about our issues than some of my own transsisters who accept the indignities and cower in their closets.

Some have taken it a step further, surround us with love and extend the hands of friendship as well.

I have been blessed throughout my transition to have biowomen at various stages of it who have and still are unflinchingly proud to call me their friend.

I have been taught at those various stages of my transition important life lessons by the various biowomen in my life in those periods. I continue to learn, grow and benefit from those friendships even as I worry that my biosisters who do that will catch flack or be stigmatized as 'weird' by their fellow biosisters or whatever other epithet is thrown at them just for daring to include me in their circle of sistahfriends.

At the same time, I hope that I've been able to show them and help them understand what I and other transwomen go through just to live our lives.

I also consider it an honor that they have made me part of their lives as well, knowing some of the bullshit sometimes that they go though just to do that.

Ladies, if you haven't heard this from your transsisters, I'm gonna say it now and keep repeating it as frequently as I can. Thank you for being a friend, standing with us and sharing with us the things we need to know in order to live quality lives as the women we were born to be in spirit but not quite body.

Know that you are loved and deeply appreciated by me and my transsisters as well for making us a part of your lives.

Are Black Transwomen Fighting A Lost Cause?

I just think that it is sad, to see a people who were fighting for their rights as second class citizens, just to get those rights, and now turn their noses up at their own brothers and sisters who are in the trans movement.

Monica Roberts, sometimes I wonder if we are fighting a lost cause? I never thought that I would ever envy a white T-Girl, but I do right now. I do, because they have more acceptance into their community, than we do ours.

Eboni T-Girl made this statement as part of a comment in my 'Speaking of Ignorance' post. It got me thinking about the subject she addressed in her comment of whether we should even bother trying to 'ejumacate' our African-American community about transgender issues even though that education is sorely needed.

Yes, we do need to continue trying to educate our people on these issues. One of the projects I was working on before I moved from Houston in 2001 was expanding the Transgender 101 educational efforts that we in TATS (Texas Association for Transsexual Support) were already doing at local universities and the Baylor College of Medicine to HBCU's Texas Southern and Prairie View.

Contrary to the spin that's out there, our people aren't the most transphobic ones when it comes to transgender issues. I've noted that outside of the Hi Impact Leadership Coalition, which is a subsidiary of white fundie Lou Sheldon's Traditional Values Coalition, the majority of those organizations fighting transgender inclusion and the ringleaders of those organizations tend to be non African-American in terms of their ethnic heritage.

But I agree our people need to step up to the plate and pay attention to science and logic on this issue moreso than loudmouth Christopimp preachers cooning for white fundamentalists brandishing faith-based bucks.

I know it's discouraging because we transsistahs love our people, honor our history, use it as a guide to chart our own destiny. We only want them to love us as much as we love them, not be disrespected, denigrated, and dismissed by people who share our ethnicity.

Yeah, it hurts, but the first people we African-American transwomen owe love to are ourselves. If our people won't or refuse to give us the love and respect we deserve as fellow African-Americans, then we need to do it for our damned selves.

Be as transsistah Sharon Davis put it, and I'm borrowing the title from her 1987 book, a finer specimen of womanhood. Be better than our biofemale detractors. Conduct ourselves with class and dignity. Stand up for ourselves when people attempt to disrespect us. Be stylish and classily dressed when we're out and about. Carry yourself like the descendant of African royalty you are.

It's time for us to organize, gather together the clusters of African-American transwomen around the country who are doing positive things in their various communities and talk to each other. We need to befriend and bond with each other. We also need to immediately band together locally while thinking and acting nationally and globally with our transsisters around the world.

If our African-American family won't embrace us, then we make our own.

We do have allies within the African-American community who see the big picture. Embrace them. If you are fortunate enough like I am to have biofemales as friends, treasure those friends. They can teach you much about the joys and pains of being Black and female in our society. They can help you make sense of those days when you're feeling unpretty. If you have biofemale relatives kicking knowledge to you as well, listen to the wisdom that's being told to you as well. It will help your own transition in the long run.

As a transwoman you are also a resource to our biosisters for helping them understand not only what we deal with as African-American transwomen, but for those of us who spent some time on the other side of the gender fence, we can help them decipher the mysteries of the male mind that their fathers, grandfathers, uncles, and brothers won't tell them.

For those biowomen who figure out that transwomen are not 'The Enemy', embrace and honor us by adding us to their sistahfriends circle, they will soon discover that it's a win-win proposition for both parties.

Education is never a lost cause. It may take us a while to get there since we're starting later in the game than our white transsisters, but get there in terms of educating our people we will.

The grass isn't greener in terms of acceptance for white transwomen either. They've got their own Astroturf situation in terms of their decades-long battle dealing with the Hateraid heaped on transwomen from white radical feminists. That's despite the advantage of massive media coverage ever since Christine Jorgenson stepped off the plane in New York from Denmark in 1953.



I'm betting that the caring, compassionate and justice loving side of African-Americans, the desire of some of our people to educate and inform ourselves on issues, the realization that we don't have the luxury as a people of ignoring and throwing away the abilities and talents of African-American transpeople, and realizing that it's the morally correct thing to do will eventually carry the day.

And it will happen sooner rather than later.

New Computer!

Hey TransGriot readers!
Been offline for about 36 hours getting a new computer, and nope, it's not the Dell in the blog post picture.

Actually it's a 1.7 gig AMD one my roommate used to own that she used for gaming. It no longer suited her needs since she long ago bought a computer that dwarfs mine in capabilities and processing power to play WOW, but it definitely worked for me. It's far more powerful than the 500 speed Pentium III that I've been playing with since 2003 and best of all, it has Windows XP.

I talked about the problems that me and Polar had when we tried to upgrade that P-III and discovered that one of the legacies of a formerly corporate machine, especially when you buy one from a company that does tech support is a BIOS that doesn't allow you to change it without a password.

This one wasn't as painful because my roomie had a local computer shop build it, and was equipped with a kick butt user friendly BIOS that's easy for even a semi-computer literate user like me to understand and navigate. I also inherited from Polar's old computer that died the painful thunderstorm death the CD-DVD ROM player and the DVR-RW burner.


As for my old P-III, it's getting a makeover. Polar and I have a pile of computer parts to play with, and he thinks he's found a way around the BIOS lockout problem.
So if all goes well, the P-III will become a backup computer.

I'm still trying to get my sound calibrated, getting used to XP, test driving all the new features, downloading plug ins and finding and migrating all my old files since I now have two hard drives and 48 gigs of space to play with. I had only 8 GB of hard drive space on the old one, and 5 GB of that was taken up by my music and picture files.

I'm getting adjusted to it and like the stability so far. It's fun being able to play DVD's on my computer now and having the ability to burn things to a disk is cool as well.

Now if I could just get the new sound card figured out, things will definitely be copacetic.

My Friend ‘Angel’

Y'all know how much I despise seeing transgender people’s names in quotation marks because it's disrespectful. In this case I did it because the person I’m talking about in this post is what we call in the community a stealth transperson.

The stealth folks in our community don't have blogs, you don't see them at Lobby Days, they don't get interviewed on talk shows, do radio interviews and are infrequently written about, but they are an important part of our community as well and have interesting lives and stories.

But to tell those stories, you have to strike a careful balance between telling the story and not divulging too many cogent details of their lives in order to avoid inadvertantly outing them.

I recently got reacquainted with an old friend of mine. Angel’s not her real name, but one I chose to protect her privacy.

Angel is one of the many transsistahs I know who are quite gainfully employed. She makes high five figures at her job, has a nice home in the ‘burbs, goes to church faithfully and has a wonderful relationship with her mother.

She also transitioned in her early teens before Demon Testosterone started impacting her body, so she looks like any other average height African-American woman out there in the world down to the genitalia. That's exactly the way she wants to be seen by the rest of the planet, and I ain't mad at her for that.

But Angel is also savvy enough to realize that even though she has biosisters as friends, there are certain things about her life that she can only talk about and unburden herself with another transsistah.

So how did my out-and-proud power to the transpeople behind meet Angel? Our friendship started in 1999 as a result of my membership on the Afrocentric Black Voices Internet discussion list now owned by AOL. As y’all probably guessed, I was a prolific poster there, but ironically at the time I wasn’t out as a transperson online.

We traded phone numbers, started talking, and discovered over the next several weeks of phone converastions that we had a few things in common besides being smart, opinionated Black women. I discovered she lived just a few miles from my old SW Houston apartment off Beltway 8.

When I'm starting a potential friendship I believe that honesty is the best policy. I put it out there up front that I’m a transwoman. That way if the person has issues with it I just chalk it up as 'their loss' and I'm on my merry way.

To my surprise, Angel told me that she was transgender as well. We set up a meeting at a neutral site, clicked even more and spent time at each others homes. We talked on a regular basis until I lost my job with CAL and subsequently moved in September 2001.

The chaotic nature of my life during those six months prior to my sudden move left many of my old friends out of the information loop. Most of them didn’t know I’d left the area until the person received a call or e-mail from me a few months after I'd established residency and a somewhat stable routine in Da Ville.

Angel happened to be one of the peeps that got left out of the loop. It didn't help that her e-mail address changed during that period and I misplaced my personal phone book with my Houston numbers in it during the move, so I didn't have a way to contact her.

As I started concentrating on rebuilding my life over the next few years, Angel was pondering the 'what happened to Monica?' question. So one day she did what any tech savvy person in that situation would do and Googled my name.

She discovered my blog and e-mailed me last week after perusing a few posts on it. I e-mailed her my phone number, and Saturday night we talked on the phone for the first time in several years.

She told me before I hung up the phone to end our three hour conversation that she’s glad I’m back in her life again.

Angel, the feeling’s mutual.

Whatever Happened To My Old Friend....

When I had my monthly newspaper column in THE LETTER, I wrote one commentary that was published in April 2006 about my philosophy on friendships and how I treat them like marriages. As far as I'm concerned they are till death do you part, they are valuable, and they take just as much work, effort and open communication to sustain them and have them continue to flourish.

Most of the time I do a good job of staying in contact with old friends, but for others its been a challenge.

Mes Deux Cents has a recent post on her blog which talked about an old friend of hers from first grade that moved away and from time to time she thinks about her and wonders how her life turned out.

That got me thinking about some the peeps I was friends with BT (before transition) and AT (after transition) that were close at one point, and they either moved away, I did or we drifted apart.

While I was living in H-town I did find myself running into my classmates that stayed in Houston to either attend college or still lived there. Some, like my fifth grade classmate Clyde Drexler (yes, that Clyde Drexler) it was impossible not to know what they were up to and how their life turned out. Others it hasn't been as easy to get that information.

Some of the people I knew in earlier grades I got reunited with in high school or college. Others I would see in a news story, like my old junior high school classmate Vonda Higgins who became a HPD undercover officer and was shot and left paralyzed after a 1998 drug bust went horribly wrong for her and her partner. Other I heard about when they ran for public office, or were featured in news articles good and bad.

Mes Deux's post had me reminisicing about a girl named Stephanie King who was in my fifth grade class as well. I frequently found myself during my airline days being reunited with my classmates from grade school, junior high, high school and college. There was one time I was reunited with a girl I had a crush on in elementary school during my uncle's wedding in 1990. She was the wedding coordinator, and I discovered she worked at the airport for US Customs when I went to work a few days later. There were others I ran into at various clubs during the 80's and early 90's. My junior high classmate Kimberli I used to run into when I was accompanying my mother on one of her shoe shopping forays at Wholesale Shoe Warehouse. Some of those reunions became even more interesting after I transitioned.

When Stephanie's father's job transferred him to San Antonio, she ended up moving there just before our Christmas break. One day in 1989 between flights we'd been having one of those 'I wonder what my old classmate is doing' conversations in the breakroom and I excused myself to start working a San Antonio flight.

During a little down time in the flight I found myself wondering what happened to her when this beautiful tall, sister walked up to check in. She mentioned she was visiting relatives and old school friends in Houston. When I asked her what school, thinking she'd moved in high school, she mentioned she moved in fifth grade.

I remarked to her as I checked her in for the flight that I had a classmate who'd moved to San Antonio in fifth grade when I was at Frost Elementary. She raised an eyebrow for a moment, then called me by name. I glanced at the name of the passenger record on the computer screen in front of me. It was Stephanie. I didn't recognize her at first because she used to wear glasses in elementary school and the stylishly dressed sistah standing in front of me wasn't.

She and I exchanged phone numbers and we talked off and on for about two years before I lost track of her because I lost her phone number when I moved to my new apartment.

There are others I haven't seen since high school and in some cases junior high school. There are others I met during the early stages of my transition that I find myself thinking about as well. I find myself wondering how their lives turned out, and hope they are happy and healthy. I even find myself wondering about some of my old teachers as well at times. It's a major reason I don't miss a high school reunion and the big 30 year one for my class is coming up in 2010.

Well, if any of my old classmates, co-workers or friends happen to be surfing the Net and stumble across this post, hollar at me. As you can see by this blog and the number of posts I have on it, I have much to tell you.

Upgradin'

Yesterday I spent a pleasantly nerve-wracking day at AC's house while he helped me upgrade my late 20th century computer to the demands of the early 21st century Internet.

AC is one of the smartest and more multi-talented friends I have in my life. He's a major reason my car stays in tip top shape, he's a talented writer and has mad carpentry skills that he's put to good use. In addition to rebuilding the basement in his house into an entertainment center and doing roofing and other repairs on his house and ours, he rebuilt part of the walk-in basement of this house into a room with a fully functional bathroom. Like the TransGriot, he can intelligently talk about a wide variety of subjects while doing all that.

In addition, his music collection is heavy on 70's and 80's rock and roll and R&B. His collection in addition to having CD's is heavy on albums, something I have in my R&B and jazz collection back at my parents house. If I'm DJing a party that has a mixed race crowd, the first place I head for is his house.

We both have a cluster of computers from our ten plus years on the Net, so we decided to see what parts we had from upgrading those various machines that have long since outlived their Internet usefulness were still viable that we could harvest. We also were prepared to get new ones as needed to augment building my newly improved computer.

I got much needed RAM memory added to my machine, so it's loading much faster along with any YouTube and other video files. We needed to add some USB ports to my machine, so we checked out the CompUSA store on Hurstbourne Parkway near his place that's going out of business to see what they had available.

I also discovered during those parts forays yesterday just how much computer technology has advanced since I bought my first Hewlett-Packard one in 1997.

He also had a CD-RW burner he was no longer using that he added to mine. It came from a Compaq he owned that died a painful fried motherboard death when a sudden thunderstorm popped up while he was engrossed in working on it. I had a 48X Creative CD-ROM drive I had on my old HP minidesktop machine that's now installed on this one.

But the major goal of this impromptu upgrade, slaving the 8 GB hard drive from my HP minidesktop to the 8 GB one I have in this system is what caused us much of the drama. I bought this machine I currently have in a 2003 corporate technology sale.

Although corporate machines are more robust than the average general use ones, the drawback is that the BIOSes on corporate machines for obvious security reasons aren't designed to be easily changed as we discovered to our frustration.

So although it was a success on many levels, I'll probably be heading back to my friendly neighborhood computer store to get an 80 GB hard drive and a DVD-ROM drive or wait until the next computer technology show hits the Kentucky Convention Center or the Fairgrounds.

Shoot, gotta have room for my MP3 and picture files. ;)

Wanna Pass? Build A Sistah Circle

I believe that one of the ways to be the best sistah you can be is spending lots of quality interaction time with peeps who have lived that gender role since birth.

In order to successfully transition to womanhood, I think it's critical to build up a network of supportive friends who are not only biowomen, but transwomen as well called a sistah circle.

The first order of business in building that sistah circle is finding the biowomen members of it. They should be people who are so secure in their own femininity that they aren't tripping about your transwoman status. They need to be intellectually curious, spiritual and will 'keep it real' for you in terms of their experiences growing up. They will also check you when you start whining about how lucky they are to be born female.

Bear in mind that this is a two way relationship. You have to 'keep it real' for the biowomen as well in terms of sharing some of the painful parts of your background, the intimate details of your life and answering whatever questions the biowoman has about the medical aspects of transition that you feel comfortable discussing.

The transwoman aspect of your sistah circle is important as well. Sometimes there are just issues that no matter how understanding, smart and down your biowoman friend is, they require another transwoman to break it down for you so that you can understand it. But don't just automatically assume that your biowoman friend may not understand your transgender related problem. She may surprise you.

If you're blessed to find those types of friends, you're on your way.

As you continue your transition journey you'll want to add to your evolving sistah circle biowomen who are married, unmarried, single, divorced, younger, older, straight, gay, in or out of relationships, mothers or have a combination of these characteristics. You'll want the same kind of breakdown for the transwomen that are part of your sistah circle as well.

So why am I talking about sistah circles? Because women have similar networks of intimate interlocking friendships that not only help them sort out the mysteries of womanhood and life in general, but help them get through the challenges of being a woman in a man's world.

My sistahfriends have been invaluable to me in terms of my growth and understanding of the spiritual nature of femininity. They have not only helped me put together my femme presentation, they have checked me when I haven't been on point with it as I need to be. They also smack me back into reality when I start whining about the bull I have to deal with because I wasn't born female.

I bring to the table as a sistah circle member not only my analytical abilities about relationships, willingness to learn everything I can about being female and the desire to have the friendship last a lifetime, I'm also a powerful ally in helping them decipher the mysteries of male behavior.

By building sistah circle friendships, you also help the transgender community. You demystify us in their eyes and help 'ejumacate' them about our lives. Your biowomen friends can potentially be our best allies when disinformation about transpeeps comes up in their daily interactions with other non-transgender persons. They can enlighten peeps about what the real deal is when it comes to transgender peeps because they know one personally.

It also never hurts to have a loyal person in your corner, period.

So go ahead. introduce yourself to that biowoman or transwoman whose outfit you like, who carries herself like the Queen of Sheba or has a magnetic personality you admire.

You have nothing to lose and may gain a friend for life

Genetic Women and Transwomen: Can We Be Friends? Part 4

TransGriot Note: It's no longer a secret. Many biowomen and transwomen do form and are willing to do the work to not only have each other as friends, but willingly exert the effort to sustain them. As Jackie mentioned in Part 2, there's a lot we still need to discuss on both sides to keep the positive momentum going. We all benefit when we do our utmost to promote healthy friendships with one another.

photos-Paiige, Miriam Rivera

Joann
TS sometimes forget that Genetic Women interact with each other (as friends) a lot differently than how Genetic Men interact with each other.. In general (full grown) Genetic Women do not like being around a bunch of other women especially ones they do not know nor are they keen about making a whole lot of new female friends.

It takes most women a long while before they can get comfortable enough with another woman to even want to spend a whole lot time hangin out with her or even to see her as a friend.

Whereas Men can become best of buds while waiting in line at the carry out. It don't matter, they don't care. The more Buds the better. And if you put 10 men in a room...(that is any room other that a jail cell)...LOL

Most of the time they will start playing get some kind of dumb A** game until a fight starts or somebody gets hurt, which ever one comes first. After that everybody will grumble 'bout it for a while, then call it a day..end of story.

Now..Put 10 women in a room under those same conditions and you will get a fight right of the bat. Then they will separate into groups and start with the verbal assaults ...there will be some rolling of the eyes.....and a few "naw she didn't"...then Somebody’s weave will get called a dead muskrat.. and somebody's baby pictures will get call a baboon like ...the food will run out and the party will break up and all will go home .....Upon disbanding various pairs will link back up... via the phone and renew the nights verbal assaults..this will last for bout 8 hours mininum...non stop ...and it will go on every day for like..ever!!!!

...Sorry I digress......LOL

Angelica Ross
Here’s my 2 cents Monica, hope you can use it!

I think if some of us were honest, I believe on both the side of genetic women and the side of transsexual women there is an element of intimidation. Women who are around beautiful transsexuals compare themselves by thinking "I'm a real woman, and I don't look like that." or "I'm a real woman, you're just pretending to be one."
And as transsexuals we sometimes are intimidated believing that they are indeed "real" women and we are not. So sometimes we over compensate for the things we believe we lack in being a "real" woman. When we both transsexuals and genetic women find a comfort zone within our own womanhood, that cannot be defined or destroyed by anyone else, then we can begin to build a true sisterhood between all women.

Traci
What we possess in common is gender. Therefore, it's fine to discuss topics that share certain points of interests in common between us.

Topics related to childbirth, menstruation cycles, cramps, nursing infants, and the like, can be like chasms of the Grand Canyon if the GG discusses them in a condescending manner.

Regardless, as to how close my relationship may be with a GG. I am always some how reminded of the "genuineness" possessed by the girl. They will usually say or do something that reminds me of how distant I should consider myself from being real. While this reminder is usually served by one who wears velvet gloves carrying the message on a silver platter, the message is still sorely received. It cuts like a knife!

Well, so much for the barriers. On a more positive note, we should both bring to the table a willingness to understand each other and an honest desire to unite against male chauvinism. They should comprehend the fact that we can be very formidable allies when it comes to deciphering the male ego. They should also know how deeply we desire to bond with them as the true sisters that we all need to be.

We should all come to the table with the proper attitude and willingness to understand one another. All discussion should take place with a spirit of respect and compassion.

Lexi
Just a few thoughts that I had.

I have to say that I think the issue in relationships between transwomen and natal women is multi-dimensional. I think Angelica said it best when she wrote about the insecurities that both sets of women feel around the other. So, in my opinion, that is the first and probably biggest factor.

Another factor would be that women in general tend to be catty and jealous. I think as transwomen, we haven't dealt with this as long as natal women. When I see someone with nice hair or clothes, I compliment them. I have noticed that women at work never compliment me on anything I wear or my hair--only the guys. People at my office don't know and I imagine the cattiness and snide remarks are how they treat everyone--even their friends. Women generally don't like each other. Why should we be treated any differently?

Something else to consider is the negative image in the media that continues to dominate coverage about us. We have to take control of our image in the media in order to repair some of the damage that has been done.

Now I am going to put this out here...Some women probably loathe us because of a man in their lives that has "been" with a transwoman on the sly. The fear of the DL has a lot of Black women scared as hell. And, to them, we embody that at its very essence. Think of it through their eyes. Plus, there are those of us who will sneak around and sleep with guys that are married and/or involved. I've done it in the past--that's why I am saying it. Honestly, we need to respect ourselves enough to demand more out of a relationship than two o'clock in the morning dalliances in a poorly decorated motel room.

Genetic Women and Transwomen: Can We Be Friends? Part 3

TransGriot Note: I ended up running out of space in Part 2. Question 4's responses in their entirety are posted here.

4. TransGriot: What are the advantages/disadvantages to both parties in cultivating friendships with the other?

Audrea
I say that the more diversity one is exposed to, the better. I don't see any disadvantages developing when involved in an open, adult friendship. I appreciate my transwomen and men friends just as much as my genetic friends. When choosing friends what gender one is should make no difference. I'm happy to say, for me it's a non-issue.

Jazz
The advantage is in being more tolerant of people as a whole and their feelings. The disadvantages are missing out on knowing truly beautiful human beings. Being closed minded doesn't help anybody and hurts the whole human race.

Joann
Advantages... from a GG’s point of view...Trans women can be loyal to a fault once you have gotten gained trust.and will rarely let you down. Many have military or paramilitary backgrounds so they understand the value of a friend, what it means to be a friend and how important it is to be a supportive friend. It does not hurt to have a girl friend who is 6 foot tall and has been trained in hand to hand combat either..

Advantages....From a Trans woman point of view . .By having a GG as a friend means that you will probably share a lot of shared interest.. Therefore y’all will be able to connect on levels that you may have missed out on as a man.. She will be able to help you separate out a lot of myths about being a woman. Sometimes we be having things so messed up bout being a woman..... a GG friend will be able to tell you when it’s time to step away from the blue eye shadow.

Disadvantages .......from the Transwoman’s side....GGs talk a lot about nothing ...sometimes I think they just talk to hear they head rattle... this will drive you nuts but you have to listen because you are their friend and talking is so very important....it’s a bonding thing I guess. GGs go psycho once a month ...so you got to learn how figure out when they are on their period. .sometimes their head will rotate 360 degrees during this time of the month but not always so ya need to be paying attention ...If ya GG friend miss a period y’all done got too close. she knocked up and being a Transwoman not gonna get you out of child support....another down side.

Disadvantages .......from the GGs side...Her best girlfriend is 6 foot tall and has been trained in hand to hand combat....and has been taking hormones !!!.. There she will always have the last say over the remote control... In most cases you will not be able to borrow her clothes...but she will be able to stretch yours into some unrecognizable form. The GG will be mistaken for a TG on a regular basis. so she will have ready to deal with all the crap that comes along with that association.... For example, some men may not want to talk to her cause they may not be sure bout her true gender...

Tia
While I don’t see any obvious disadvantages, the advantages I see are learning how to interact with other women as a woman, gaining advice on how they feel and how they feel the world relates to them, learning that some women are born with a penis and have their own unique set of struggles and that we can learn a lot about ourselves by learning about others.

Jackie
Transwomen can have a lot to offer. Having been in the place of perhaps trying to fit in as boys/men and having the perspective of what is expected of men, transwomen can have a unique and interesting view to bring to a friendship. We are the stronger for having friends with differences.

Biowomen interacting and being friends with transwomen would promote understanding and progress in general and in areas such as the workplace and schools. I'd imagine a teacher who has a Transgender friend being more able to recognize, nurture and protect Transgender children. I just think we should have each others support.


The series continues with Part 4

Genetic Women and Transwomen: Can We Be Friends? Part 2

TransGriot Note: After the original May TransGriot column got sent to my editor I discovered a few e-mails from both sides of the debate that it was too late for me to add to the article after my deadline. The other problem I ran into was having to edit some very interesting and well thought out responses in order to fit it into my column's word limit. So in this post I'm going to continue the discussion.

photo-transwoman violinist and singer Tona Brown

All the panelists are African-American and ranged in age from 25-55. They are residents of East Coast and Midwestern US cities. The transwomen in terms of transition time range from a few months to 20 plus years.

In addition to transwomen Joann, Traci, Lexi and Angelica and biowomen Audrea and Jazz from the May TransGriot column, Part 2 will add the comments of blogger Jackie to the mix along with transwoman Tia.

I tried to keep as much of the flava of the original e-mail responses as possible but some editing was done for the sake of clarity.

The Questions

1. TransGriot: What do we transwomen need to bring to the table to make friendships between us and genetic women work successfully?

Jackie
First of all I am glad to see this being addressed. I will try not to be too wordy.

Although I know it's important for transwomen to have their own community, I absolutely feel they should be understood and included as women, period. I think we would both be stronger for it.

One of the problems is Transgender visibility. After transition many transwomen disappear into stealth mode. I certainly understand that. But it's damaging, when the only supposedly Transgender people visible are on the Maury Povich or Jerry Springer show. I hate that. So one thing transwomen can do is be out there in the world honestly. Interact with biowomen but do it honestly. Many non trans people don't know the difference between RuPaul doing her drag thing and a Transgender woman working in an office.

Remember that biowomen never think of gender, they don't have to. So the thing transwomen need to get across to biowomen is that the thing that makes you a woman is the same for both. It's not genitalia but how you are wired. If you are wired in your mind, spirit and psyche as a female there is nothing that will change that. Then find common ground we all have as women, our similar challenges and triumphs. Be open to friendships.

Joann
OK,OK ......seriously...... Assuming we’re talkin’ bout a friendly capacity and not romantic.

Trans women need to bring nothing...Just themselves...Most of the Trans women I have meet personally are pretty decent people... some are not quite sane ...But that’s ok neither am I

I think many Transwomen have a lot of emotional baggage which puts a lot of people off.. We can be overly critical and too quick to judge...and times this can be rough to deal with...even for me and I am well aware of all the reasons behind it.. Transwomen can be very guarded when it
comes to dealing with people outside of our community...some is justifiable some is not. In either case for a person, GG in particular who does not know a person is trans guarded behavior comes off to them as the TG acting flaky.. My thinking is that if many Transwomen could figure out how to not bring all that bad attitude to the table when we meeting genetic women for the first time things may work out a lot better..

Audrea
I feel that communication and honesty are important parts of any friendship; regardless of the friends' appearances or backgrounds. Personally, I feel that transwomen and genetic women are the same essentially, and they should all be treated, as such. Some women may feel threatened or resentment towards transwomen, but those feelings are based on fear and ignorance. These things have no place in a true friendship.

Tia
What has worked for me so far has been not being forceful about being included in whatever activities or conversations are going on. I usually wait until an offer to join is extended. I don’t try to take over anything that’s being discussed. I tend to start off by listening first and then finding areas where I can make a comment or two. I think that this has caused them to feel comfortable around me and include me in whatever’s going on. It’s resulted in being invited to lunch every day, shopping trips, parties, dinners, picture sharing and trips to Virginia Beach & Puerto Rico. It’s only taken a short time to feel included.

Jazz
I would think that you should just be you. Be open and honest about yourselves and who & what you are. But this does not mean that you have to bend over backwards. To fit just because you were not born a genetic women.

2. TransGriot: What do genetic women need to do to make it work?

Jazz
I think genetic women should just be open to getting to knowing transwomen.

Joann
I think many need to learn the truth about what we Transgendered Women are and are not. It’s time to let a lot those old misconceptions about us go. It seems that a lot of our Genetic counterparts are a still very far behind the times in this respect. Some Bio women look at Transwomen as being some kind of threat to their femininity and they get very resentful to any and all Transwomen, especially one who can put herself together better than she can. This bugs the hell out of some Biowomen because it makes them feel that they have some how been neglecting themselves and that’s when we called a whole bunch of "Fake Bitches" by you and stuff. This sort of stuff needs to stop because it's not right on so many levels when you have to make some one else feel bad in order to make yourself feel good.

Jackie
Understand that a transwoman is a woman. Not a man dressed as a woman. Not a man who chose to become a woman. Interact with transwomen as we would any woman but, appreciate the journey any transwoman must have had. Be open and don't stereotype.

Audrea
I feel that if genetic women educated themselves more thoroughly about transwomen and the trans lifestyle, they would be much less likely to enter friendships or relationships with transwomen with stigmas and fear in their hearts. Being a transwoman is not so different from being a genetic woman, as far as feelings are concerned. If more genetic women realized this, this would not be in question.

Tia
Patience and understanding that I haven’t been at this as long as you have and will make some mistakes. But, don’t assume I am a total novice or that I don’t understand “any” of what your saying or feeling. In fact, don’t assume anything. Just treat me as any other woman but know that I may ask a question that you’ve known since you were a teenager.

3. TransGriot: What in your opinion are the mistakes that both parties make that create barriers to forming healthy friendships and what can be done to avoid them?

Tia
The mistakes we as transwomen make are “demanding” to be included in women’s social groups without first being invited and then being disruptive and argumentative when we get there and also not learning to communicate and socialize as women.

The mistakes biowomen make would be seeing us as “men in women’s clothing” and not understanding what it really means to be “trans”.

Jackie
Transwomen be honest. People don't like to be fooled. Of course it is an individual choice to reveal (and when to reveal) one's background information but it is difficult to form healthy friendships not based on honesty.

For biowomen, be respectful. Do not ask stupid, invasive personal questions. Respect gender presentation. Regardless of where a transwoman may be in her transition, pre-op, post-op or no-op respect her, get to know her.

Audrea
Education, education, education. The more one knows, the less likely it is for us to make harsh comments, and see people for who they truly are. People. Everyone is different. So, if we all try to make less assumptions about a particular type of woman (trans or genetic), the more likely it is for us all to get along. I think a lot of mistakes are made when there's a bias or self-righteousness on either side; which can cause rifts on either side.

Jazz
The barriers might be for the genetic women not feeling that transwomen are real women because they were not born in a woman's body. As for the transwomen I would think it would be just trying to be accepted as a woman. Said to say but we do not know much about trans gender people as a whole. The more we know the better we can understand each other and get along.

Joann
We both do not give each other due respect. We TGs and GGs go in attack mode when in each others company...ready to rip into each other head off as soon as something get said that’s the slightest bit out of line. Nobody want a friends like that.

What can be done on our part? We need develop a thicker skin and not be so rough on GG's .. We need to learn that not every GG in the world is not out to dog us because we are not "real women" as the saying goes ...Some just don't know and others may be just stuck on stupid ...but that should not be held against all GGs...you have to deal with each on a individual basis...Some just need time to get used to the notion that you are a woman...others never will get it...It’s like i wrote earlier "Some Women don't Like other women period Trans or Bio

I also think there is not enough positive Transwomen of color who are open about being Trans....It is getting a lot better mind you but I think we as Black TGs still have a long way to go. A big part of being trans is wanting to fit in or to blend with other women and to go unnoticed... But on the down side all this covert stuff is that it’s counter productive and ends up hurting more that it helps...How can you ask people to understand who and what a Transgenderd woman is if no one really knows one personally? The only one most folks know bout is the Tranny Hooker on the corner...Therefore she is by default represents for all of us to that community.

Because in most cases she is the only Trans woman any body knows about...No one knows that the big ole tall lady across the street was born a male....Nah, she couldn’t be a TRANS she’s so sweet and everybody loves her. Unfortunately the big ole tall lady choose to be in Deep Stealth and allow the misconception about Transwomen to persist which ultimately pushed the next Transwoman into even Deeper Stealth yet.

At some point this cycle has to be broken. My thinking is that that only way we are going to break it is to give more folks outside the TG community a chance to get to know us by living and working around Transwomen of color who are positive, proud of being a Transwoman and are not afraid to stand up and be recognized as such.


The discussion continues with Part 3