Why Y'all Still Mad About The Black Panther Movie?

So hate on haters.   Come Black History Month 2018, I and other Black Panther fans will be going to and having a lot of fun at the local multiplex watching a superhero that looks like us.-TransGriot, 'Why Y'all Mad About The Black Panther  Movie?  June 16, 2017 

As the February 16 premiere date of this looks like a blockbuster movie gets closer, the white folks hating on this movie are not only still tripping, but are revealing their pointed hoods in the process.

Word has gotten out that a group of 2000 people who claim they are fans of the DC Comics universe have such off the charts frothing at the mouth hatred for Black Panther they are planning to go on the Rotten Tomatoes website once the movie opens to deliberately give it low marks on the site and plant nasty and disparaging reviews 

Haters gotta hate.   BTW, here's the link to Rotten Tomatoes.com for you to combat the caucasity and defend the movie.

But I have to ask the same question I did back in June.   Why are you white folks so bothered about a movie that features an intelligent African descended superhero from a technologically advanced African nation? 

Never mind, I answered my own question once again. 

Black Panther is shattering presale records.   It's on track for a possible $120 million opening weekend, and there's no doubt once it hits the multiplexes and dominates whatever movie competition dares to debut that weekend there probably will be a Black Panther sequel movie.

So y'all be mad and stay mad about that.


TransGriot Note:  The Wired and C-SPAN images created by Darian Robbins 

Kneegrow TERF's, You're Getting Called Out If You Step To Me

The TERF's have been colluding with Republican politicians and the conservafool movement to take their disco era hatred of trans women to another level.   We saw that in Texas during the SB 6 senate hearing in March when a white TERF was called as a 'expert' witness to testify in FAVOR of passing that unjust bill.  

One of the other tactics the TERF's overwhelmingly white ranks have borrowed is to get kneegrow sellouts to regurgitate the same TERF toro poo poo they have been spouting since 1972 in order to deflect from the fact the TERF ranks are overwhelmingly comprised of racist white women.

What is driving this post is that last night I was part of a discussion in which a Black female professor wanted to learn more about the trans community, and started a thread on her Facebook page to facilitate an informative conversation

.

As you probably guessed, right on cue, a TERF popped up in the middle of this thread.   She made the mistake of not checking Google before she stepped to me, and I went Wakandan on her azz.

But hear me on these salient points.  No trans feminine person, myself included is saying we are EXACTLY the same as a cis woman. We have no problem acknowledging there are some differences.

But we do have far more in common than we do differences, and that point needs to be acknowledged as well.   Trans women face sexism and misogyny. Trans women (and trans men) get sexually assaulted.  And as more trans feminine kids grow up as the girls and women they are, that commonality will become even more pronounced. 


Black trans women face the same anti-Blackness fueled attacks on our femininity as Black cis women do multiplied by anti-trans hatred.  We Black trans women have to fight tooth and nail to have healthy self esteem and pride in ourselves in a world that's hostile to just just like our cis counterparts.  

And oh yeah, have you noticed that every successful Black woman over 5'7" or who doesn't perform femininity in an approved way gets 'that's a man' gender policing shade thrown at them? 

Serena Williams ring a bell for you?  Former First Lady Michelle Obama?  

What we trans women have a serious problem with is cis women who repeatedly deny, despite all the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that trans women exist, we didn't just pop up in the second half of the 20th century, and trans women are women.

Our existence, our humanity and our human rights are not up for debate or discussion by anyone, especially TERF's.

What part of that statement do you not understand or are willfully ignoring?

We have a serious problem with TERF's who eagerly work in many cases to demonize and attack us, attack trans kids and their parents, and gleefully work with Republican legislators and conservative anti-LGBTQ groups to roll back our human rights..

And yes, Black trans women have a serious problem with the overt and covert racism in TERF ranks.   
Janice Raymond was responsible back in 1981 for getting Medicare and Medicaid to stop paying for SRS, with insurance companies following suit with their trans exclusionary procedures bans three years later. How many low income trans people did that hateful action affect?

TERF's have been hating on trans women to a disco beat since 1972. Are you TERF's mad because unlike the early 70's, you can no longer just spew your anti-trans garbage without instant and immediate pushback from trans people and our allies? 

Yeah, y'all mad.
   
News flash to you TERF ignorati.  We in TransWorld are beyond sick and tired of your anti-trans hatred.

I'm damned sure not going to tolerate the same five decade old anti-trans lies told by white TERF's coming out of the mouths of misguided Black cis women.  

That will be the case whether your name is Chimamanda Adichie, Stacy Patton or some random kneegroid TERF hiding behind a pseudonym making anti-trans comments on Facebook and elsewhere on social media while speciously claiming they are her 'opinion'.
You wannabe kneegrow TERF's have been warned. Your facts free faux faith-based 'opinions' and you will get called out with the quickness.  You step to me with TERF bull feces, I will gleefully call it and your Oreo cookie flavored behind out. 

So choose wisely this day which path you will follow and who you will align yourselves with..  

Will you go down the enlightened path of building sisterhood with Black trans women so that together we can tackle and solve the issues that ail all Black women and by extension Black America?  

Or will you allow your hatred, anger and unfounded fear of trans women lead you down the dark path of TERFism and pariah status with the Black community for colluding with the same GOP racists that oppress our people?

The Black trans community and your cis sisters who get it that trans women are women are awaiting your answer.

Don't Hate, Emulate

Last night I was in attendance at the 2016 F.A.C.E Awards because I was nominated in two categories that I didn't win.   Hey, it happens.  I don't get very award I'm nominated for and I'm good with spreading the awards recognition and love around.

 I still had a great time hanging out with my H-town crew and supporting the people who did win awards last night.

But there was a hater in the South Beach house last night who made a shady comment to Dee Dee that it  'must be nice to have friends in high places'.   It's a comment that I have had directed at me from time to time in my nearly two decades of activism..

Hater, party of one, your table is ready.

Dee Dee has been doing the work about as long as I have in this community, and was in the HERO trenches with me and the team of liberal progressive Houstonians who endured long hours of faux faith based abuse back in 2014 to get it passed.   She went to Austin to help kill those bad anti-TBLGQ bills in the 2015 Texas legislative session.  

Dee Dee has also been passing out toys during the Christmas holidays in 3rd and 5th Wards for over a decade

Where was her hater?    Personally, I'm happy to see Dee Dee get recognized for doing the work she does in our community, and didn't appreciate the shady comment aimed at her.

Haters come with the territory of being our activist selves.  While they can be a nuisance at times, they also motivate me and other activists to stay and slay our activism A games.  

Haters motivate me to be the best person I can be, because success at what you do is your best response to their madness.   Puts a smile on my face knowing my haters are sitting in the corner, pouting or ranting on the Net as I slay panels, getting awards or I'm being cheered and thanked by people as I enter various venues.

I'm also chatting with the H-town, Texas, national and international peeps inside and outside the trans community to do my part in building those connections I'll need to help solve trans community problems later.   I've been doing since 1998 the education to help advance understanding about our trans lives at college and universities here in the Houston area and across the nation

Translation:  I've been doing the work.

Being a good leader also means at times I'm also in a supporting role when needed.  I don't need to be in the spotlight every nanosecond or scoop up every award I'm nominated for.  That's not what I'm in the activist life for.  It's all about advancing the human rights of this community.  It's a nice bonus when you get that recognition, but doing the community's human rights work should always come first,

Yeah, it sure is nice to have 'friends in high places' as you put it.  You earn them by doing nearly 20 years of advocacy and human rights work for various communities while simultaneously treating the people you come in contact with while doing this work with dignity and respect.

It's also about making a better world for the trans kids who are coming behind us.

And I'm not going to apologize for having those so-called 'friends in high places' since I put in a lot of time and effort to cultivate those connections

So don't hate, emulate. .

FLOTUS Haters Pay For Their Racist Bigotry With Their Jobs

The election of Trump has sent a signal to bigoted and racist white people that they can be as offensive as they wanna be.  

But with that First Amendment freedom to be as reprehensibly racist as they wish to be, they are also finding out the hard way racist hate speech has a cost.

Pam Taylor, the former director of the non profit Clay County Development Corporation in Clay, WV found this lesson out the hard way along with Clay, WV mayor Beverly Whaling

Taylor wrote a racist message on her Facebook page cosigned by Whaling calling First Lady Michelle Obama an 'ape in heels', and then was shocked when the post went viral and the inevitable backlash hit her azz over the offensive comment that  cost Taylor her job.. 

Mayor Whaling, who cosigned Taylor racist post by writing, 'Just made my day, Pam' and subsequently deleting it when she also began to feel the heat, has resigned from the Clay. WV mayor's chair.

What Pam, you and former mayor Whiting mad because the FLOTUS not only hold two Ivy League degrees earned with cum laude grades, but has been the epitome of grace despite having to deal with nonstop ethnic slurs hurled at her, her daughters and her husband?

Miss me with those white women's tears.  You comment makes it clear you are.  You're only mad because you posted your ugly bigoted disdain for the FLOTUS on social media and got busted for it..

Bye, Pam.  Just an FYI for your ignorant behind, apes can also look like this:

Maybe you can find a job in the incoming Trump administration you love so much since it seems that being an overtly racist white person doesn't disqualify you for employment in it.

Yo One Million Moms, This Is What A Trans Feminine Fashion Model Looks Like

Was chuckling to myself when I saw the story in the UK based Pink News about the right wing hate group One Million Moms (actually 3500 men)  who are trying to start another failed boycott against a retailer they accuse of being too trans friendly.



H&M has a new 'She's a Lady' ad campaign featuring several diverse women of all ages and body types modeling different styles of clothing.

One of the women involved in this campaign is female Muay Thai boxing champion Fatima Pinto, who One Million Haters transphobically misgendered and attacked.

But while I'm chuckling about the loud and wrong One Million Haters reactions, this is in reality a serious issue that I, other trans people and our allies have been talking about for some time in terms of trans misogyny not just affecting trans women.

The One Milling Haters peeps were so busy focusing their faux faith based transphobic ire on Ms. Pinto that they completely missed model Hari Nef, who was also featured in the ad.

Far too often the unwoman meme is not only aimed at transgender women, bit it is aimed at cisgender women, and especially cisgender women of color like First Lady Michelle Obama, Serena Williams to demonize any woman who doesn't fit the stereotypical feminine societal mold

This also points to something else I've talked about on this blog and elsewhere in terms of not only the beauty of non-white women being demonized. it also plays into for trans women the far too often a stereotypical and media perpetuated 'that's a man' assumption of what a trans woman is or isn't supposed to look like.

Let's start with the Trans 101 basic tenet that trans women are women.  Once we start taking estrogen, doesn't take us long to look the part.  Some of us when we start hormone replacement therapy also got the genetic luck of the draw and morphed into very attractive and beautiful women.

That reality makes some of us who did get the genetic luck of the draw and are model height to get the call from the fashion world to strut the fashion runways of New York, London, Paris  Milan and Tokyo.

And FYI One Million Haters and everyone who shares their less than enlightened views about girls like us, trans women walking runways, gracing the covers of magazines or participating in multimillion dollar ad campaigns is not a new phenomenon.  

We've been doing so since the 1960's, and the long stylish line of trans models has continued into the 21st century.

FYI since y'all are woefully ignorant about the topic, here are just a few glamorous examples of what trans feminine models actually look like.

Meet the lovely and fabulous Geena Rocero.  And yes as someone who has met her, she's even more beautiful in real life.

And this is another trans model in Carmen Carrera

Another longtime trans model in Isis King

And just to rub it in some more, still another trans model in Andreja Pejic.

Noticing a pattern here?   Trans women's body types and shapes are as varied as our cis feminine counterparts, and all are beautiful in their own way.

That's why the long stylish line of trans models has been in existence since the 1960's, and will continue no matter how much unhinged ranting One Million Haters does.

Phelps Phamily Coming To Houston To Hate

We already have enough problems with our Lone Star domestic LGBTQ haters in Steve Hotze, Dave Welch, Dave Wilson, Jonathan Saenz, Max Miller, Ken Paxton  and Steve and Becky Riggle.

Now comes word that the Phelps Phamily slithering out of their Westboro Baptist Hate 'Church' hovels to bring their special brand of intolerance to H-town.

They claim they will be stopping by the Montrose Center and the Gender Infinity Conference being held on the University of Houston campus for unwanted visits on Friday, so let's give them a proper Texas welcome.  

By that, I'm advocating we replicate what Resource Center Dallas did back in 2010 and use their reprehensible appearance in town to fundraise for LGBTQ organizations.

 Let's turn this lemon visit into an opportunity to fundraise for Houston LGBTQ orgs. If you wish to show your disdain for the Phelps Phamily, pick an org to benefit from the funds generated by their appearance.

I'd suggest that the beneficiaries of a Houston fiscal based protest of the Phelps Phamily should be Gender Infinity Conference, the Montrose Center or even the Houston GLBT Political Caucus.

Basically, what you do to use your wallets to send a gigantic FU to the Phelpses is count the number of minutes the hatemongering Phelps Phamily are in town, and have peeps donate 50 cents, a dollar or whatever you feel comfortable giving until they bounce and move on to desecrate another locale.

People also have the option of giving a lump sum to the targeted organization instead of a per minute donation before the Phelps Phamily rolls into Houston.

The Phelps Phamily gets pissed when they find out their presence, far from stirring the anger their hatemongering business model requires and craves, is actually raising money for the LGBTQ organizations they are hating on, and it tends to have the beautiful effect of limiting their time in an area they are protesting..

It's a nonviolent way to protest them and creatively use their appearance in town to raise funds for a good LGBTQ cause.   Would also be nice to have the Angel Wings show up.

So Houston, lets show our disdain for the Phelps Phamily and piss them off by raising money for these targeted organizations at the same time.

Bye, Sally Kern!

I don't like term limits for a lot of reasons for legislative and city council seats because I believe they punish good legislators who deserve longer terms in our legislative bodies.   I also dislike them because it was an idea pushed by conservatives who when they proposed them were having a hard time getting elected to those then Democratically controlled legislatures and city councils

I've seen term limits in Houston rob us of Annise Parker, who if she'd been able to run in 2015 probably could have gotten another term as Houston's mayor.

Oklahoma instituted term limits for their state legislators after passage of a ballot question in 1990 that took effect in 1992.  It slapped a 12 year combined limit on anyone elected to the Oklahoma House or Senate unless they were elected during a special election to fill a vacancy.

So why am I writing about Oklahoma term limits?.  Keep reading, because it will make your day.

The 101 member Oklahoma House has 19 members terming out in 2016.   One of the notable names terming out for those of us who are political junkies paying attention to who our enemies are,  is none other than Rep. Sally Kern (R-Oklahoma City) the racist, transphobic, homophobic, sexist, (fill in the blank) Bible-thumping Talabaptist enemy of TBLGQ  people in her home state and across the country.

Kern was elected six times to her seat, and was challenged by trans feminine civil rights attorney Brittany Novotny in 2010.  She repeatedly sponsored tried to pass anti-LGBT legislation in Oklahoma, but thanks to the hard work of activists there, she failed including this session.

But hallelujah, praise the Lord and pass the voter registration cards!. The OKC Queen of Mean is going to have to give up her House seat.   And for that I'm doing the happy dance.

So are the peeps in Oklahoma.

“I can tell you all LGBTQ Oklahomans look forward to Rep. Sally Kern’s last day in public office,” said Toby Jenkins, the executive director of Oklahomans For Equality in a Tulsa Word interview. “She has given 12 years of constant attack against gay, lesbian and transgender Oklahomans.

But before she split, she got uninterrupted time on the Oklahoma House floor to say goodbye, and Kern used that time according to The Advocate to launch one last anti-LGBT rant on her way out of the chamber

"In 2008, I did say the homosexual agenda is worse than terrorism," Kern told her legislative colleagues on Wednesday. "I didn't apologize in 2008, and I don't apologize today.".

And we in TBLG World aren't apologizing for being happy your Talabaptist behind is leaving office.

Bye, Sally.  Hope you stay retired from politics.  But I have the sinking feeling you're going to try to take this homophobic act national..

Dave Wilson Up To His Political Dirty Tricks Again In TX 148 Race

Transphobic homohater Dave Wilson, fresh off a 2013 campaign in which he pulled a Rachael Dolezal and misrepresented himself as Black to narrowly get elected to a six year term on the Houston Community College board, is trying to lie his way into office again.

This time he's trying to move up the political food chain and get a state House seat, and the long time LGBT bigot is trying to run in the Democratic primary against longtime state Rep. Jessica Farrar in House District 148.

With early voting just starting for the March 1 primary and running until February 26, Wilson just unleashed a deceptive mailer in which he posted a picture of Farrar's home  and her car with the state official license plate affixed to it to claim that she doesn't live in her Houston district, but in Austin.

The reality is Farrar's home is in the middle of TX 148,

It's also laughable that Wilson would try to project his own situation on someone else because he was busted and sued for doing exactly what he is falsely accusing Rep. Farrar of.doing.

And he bragged about what he pulled off in the afterglow of his HCC race that he won by 26 votes.

Voters of HD 148, please don't fall for the okey doke.  make sure you rebuke this fool and send Rep Farrar to victory against this political charlatan..  

ATLAH Hate Church Going Up For Sale

In some news out of New York that will get your weekend off to a great start, the Harlem based ATLAH World Church of hate pastor James David Manning has been ordered by a New York state judge to go up for public auction because of unpaid debts totaling  $1.02 million.

According to DNAInfo, the public foreclosure auction will be taking place on February 24, for those of you in the New York area wanting to gleefully celebrate the occasion..

The frequent Shut Up Fool Award nominee has let loose with SUF award worthy commentary over the years by claiming that Starbucks laces its lattes with 'sodomite semen', and let fly the comment that Justin Bieber is a 'transgender man' among the other hate gems he has unleashed on his YouTube channel

Well, instead of making YouTube videos, he should have been working on paying the bills to keep his hate church open.   He has nine federal tax liens dating back to 2002 totaling $355,000, owes New York state $28,000 and creditors $30,000.

Couldn't happen to a nicer christobigot.   I would love to see the karmic justice of someone buying that hate church and turning it into an LGBT center.

But have February 24 circled on my calendar to see what happens.

Dave Wilson Fails Again To Get Trans Hatred Enshrined In The Houston City Charter

As many of you are aware of, last year after a bitter fight we got the trans inclusive Houston Equal Rights Ordinance passed after an 11-6 vote.  

The local professional gaybaiters and their kneegrow sellouts promptly went to work collecting petitions to force a HERO repeal referendum.

But they FUBARed the process so badly that the city rejected the petitions, and the spoiled vanillacentric privileged right-wing brats and their kneegrow auxiliaries tried to sue in state court and force the HERO referendum that way.  After losing in state court in April, HERO went into effect.

Meanwhile, longtime hater Dave "I Pretended I Was Black To Get Elected" Wilson was trying another tactic to bring down HERO.   Wilson went to work to collect enough petitions to force a vote to add language to the city charter that attacks the Houston trans community

But Dave forgot that you need 20,000 signatures for a charter amendment petition, and claimed he collected 19,700 signatures.   However, that was short of the 20K threshold, and his petition was denied.

Dave tried again, and took another batch of signatures to City Hall in an attempt to get his transphobic charter amendment on the November ballot, and was once again rebuffed by the city of Houston.  He's now trying to sue, and we'll stay tuned to see if this goes anywhere.

But the end result is that for now, the trans inclusive HERO ordinance is in effect, and transphobic bigots like Dave Wilson and friends provide ample evidence of why it is necessary.

They have yet to get the message that discrimination's time in Houston has expired.

And Houston peeps, can we look into the possibility of kicking Wilson's butt off the HCC board for violating its nondiscrimination policy?

Arkansas Anti-TBLG Rights Spokesperson Turns Out To Be Sexual Predator

One of the tactics in the opposition tool box is what is called projection.   You take an undesirable behavior of yours and project it onto your opponent whether they are guilty of it or not.

One of the things our right wing opponents have been beating like a drum in the opposition to LGBT inclusive human rights laws is the widely discredited trans bathroom predator meme, when the reality is the bathroom predators predominately are white males who aren't getting dressed in drag to enter bathrooms to prey upon women.    The conservafools doing the loudest squawking about it usually are the ones engaged in the predatory behavior they ascribe to others.

We have our latest example of right wing projection tactics blowing up in their face in Eureka Springs, Arkansas.     Eureka Springs on February 9 passed a non discrimination law covering BTLG people that a coalition of conservative businessmen and pastors are trying to overturn in a May 12 referendum , and they are employing heaping helpings of lies and faith based transphobia to do so.

Turns out that one of their spokeskneegrows, 60 year old pastor Acra Lee Turner, who has been loudly bearing false witness against the local LGBT community, is living in a glass house of his own.

Turner, who since April 15 has been pastor of Penn Memorial Baptist Church in Eureka Springs,  was revealed by the Arkansas Times to be a convicted sex offender. 

As a 22 year old, the was convicted in 1977 of sexual assault in Stephens County, Oklahoma and sentenced to three concurrent sentences of 30-60 for three counts of rape.   One of the people he sexually assaulted was an 80 year old woman who was beaten so badly she was almost unrecognizable.

He was paroled in August 2000 over the objections of the families who were victimized by Turner.  His crimes also predate the establishment of the Oklahoma State Sex Offender Registry.

Turner has also been pimping the lie the anti-HERO ministers tried to push here in Houston until I and other Black LGBT Houstonians gleefully had fun destroying it in several hearings, that  LGBT civil rights are not a human rights issue.

No LGBT person says Turner, "has been lynched, no one has to sit on the back of the bus. It's not a human rights issue, it's a human behavior issue."

Two words for you homes on the LGBT human rights issue:  Bayard Rustin.   Coretta Scott King also has stated numerous times along with countless others in our community including myself and the federal government that LGBT rights ARE an international human rights issue. 

And you're the last one that needs to be talking about human behavioral issues.

As for the tired lynching line, try telling that BS talking point to Matthew Shepard's family.  Or reciting it to Paul Broussard's family.  Or try uttering it to the families of the hundreds of transpeople who have been murdered because of the anti-trans hate you and your TERF allies have been spreading.  

While the haters haven't been hanging LGBT peeps from trees, far too many of us are getting murdered, and when it comes to trans people, they disproportionately look like us.. Bottom line is that you are hypocritically being played by white conservatives who don't give a rats anus about your Black convicted sexual predator behind to oppose a human rights law.

And you and your friends aren't Christians, you're the purveyors of the 'dry as dust' religion that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr warned us about.

Hate Preachers Hatin' On ABC Invite To Bishop Flunder

The predominately American Baptist College in Nashville, TN is affiliated with the National Baptist Convention, USA, the second largest African-American Christian denomination in the US behind the COGIC.

The ABC is affiliated with the National Baptist Convention, and has for the last 57 years held the Garnett-Nabrit Lecture Series in which over several days invites ministers from around the country and the world to talk to ABC students on their Nashville campus to discuss social justice issues.

This year, one of the people invited to this 58th annual edition of the Garnett-Nabrit lecture series that runs from March 14-18 in addition to the Rev Dr Allan Aubrey Boesak of South Africa and Pastor Delmon Coates is Bishop Yvette Flunder of the City of Refuge UCC in San Francisco

And as you probably guessed, the hate preachers started tripping about her March 18 invitation to speak

Two Texas based hate preachers, Pastor William. Dwight McKissic, Sr. of Cornerstone Church in Arlington, TX and Pastor Randy Vaughn of Mount Sinai Missionary Baptist Church in Port Arthur, TX  started the mess that resulted in a March 5 press release from the National Baptist Fellowship of Concerned Pastors that centers around the fact that Bishop Flunder is "legally married to a woman" and asserted that because they invited her, the American Baptist College and National Baptist Convention, USA by association are endorsing same-sex marriage.   

They demanded the American Baptist College rescind her invitation to speak, which the ABC refused to do

The Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists and faith leaders from across the Baptist faith traditions issued their own press release on March 9 in support of Dr. Harris, the Board of Trustees of American Baptist College,  Dr. Jerry Young and the Board members of the National Baptist Convention, USA which reads in part:

"We applaud the wisdom, prophetic courage, and commitment to intellectual honesty and academic integrity that Dr. Forrest Harris has demonstrated as President of American Baptist College by inviting Bishop Yvette Flunder of California to preach and lecture at American Baptist College later this month.  A few vocal opponents to equality for persons who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender are trying to force Dr. Harris to "dis-invite" Bishop Flunder because she is a lesbian who married her same-sex partner.  Those critics also are displeased that Dr. Harris invited Dr. Allan Aubrey Boesak of South Africa and Pastor Delmon Coates of the United States to preach and/or lecture at American Baptist College because Dr. Boesak and Pastor Coates are effective advocates for equality and are equally effective in exposing the injustice of homophobia."  

In addition, Rev Robin R. Lunn, the Executive Director of AWAB, stated in rebuttal to the misguided preachers:

"To say that Baptist schools do not invite legally married same gender loving faith leaders to speak is to deny the reality that currently exists.  Many Baptist affiliated schools from across the traditions have invited LGBTQ faith leaders to participate in various programs, to lecture and preach as professionals in their fields.  I applaud Dr. Harris and the American Baptist College Board of Trustees for fostering a rich educational and religious environment that allows for a broad range of beliefs and practices." 

The hate ministers aren't giving up, and they have threatened to come to Nashville to picket Bishop Flunder's appearance.   We'll see.

Anti-Trans Bathroom Bully Bill Filed In Kentucky

TransGriot Note:  In the interest of journalistic integrity, I served on the boards of the Fairness Campaign and its C-FAIR political PAC from 2008-2010

When I lived in Kentucky, while it was 1000 miles away from my birth state, when it came to the politics, I noticed some similarities in terms of it having some politicians in its legislature that would make Louie Gohmert look like a Mensa candidate.

What that meant is that every session, we'd have some WTF bills filed that fortunately, because of the split control of the legislature (GOP Senate, Democratic House) didn't become law because they died in committee.

I was reminded of that aspect of Kentucky politics when I heard about Kentucky State Senator CB Embry(R) filing SB 76, the 'Bathroom Bully' Bill.

It would if passed not only force trans teens to use locker rooms and bathrooms that don't correspond to the person they are now, but would allow students who encounter a person of the opposite biological sex in a restroom, locker room or shower room to recover $2,500 damages for psychological, emotional and physical harm suffered and reasonable attorney fees and costs from the school if school personnel gave permission for the student encountered to use the facility or failed to take reasonable steps to prohibit the person encountered from using the facility.

It was in response to what happened at Louisville's Atherton HS that the hatemongering Kentucky 'Family Foundation tried to stick its transphobic nose in and failed.   They are now trying to get legislatively what they failed to do at the local level in Da Ville

Chris Hartman, director of the Kentucky Fairness Campaign, said the SB 76 bill that Embry has filed is 'a solution in search of a problem' at a time when the General Assembly has many more pressing issues to address.

“It’s sort of a fruitless effort to give him an opportunity to soapbox on something,” Hartman said.  The focus, instead should be on protecting marginalized students through an anti-bullying bill with a strong suicide prevention element, he said.

“We don’t see any reason to further mandate micromanage decisions being quite capably handled by each school,” he said.

Amen Chris.  I'm tired of white male conservatives reflexively spreading bathroom panic fears aimed at marginalized groups for their own political gain and to demonize or 'other' them.

SB 76 needs to die quick, fast and in a hurry because the commonwealth of Kentucky has far more pressing items on its plate than oppressing  trans kids