Happy 50th Birthday Jevon Martin!

He doesn't look a day over 25, but Jevon Martin is celebrating his 50th birthday today.

I first met Jevon at the 2013 BTAC, when he and his trans brothers were spoiling me rotten to the point that he sent my butt away from the Doubletree Campbell Center host hotel to get a mani-pedi before the Awards Gala on the night in which I received the BTAC Advocacy award that is now named for me.

A year later he brought his wife Christina to meet the BTAC fam, and she and I have become great friends.   Christina and I usually do the Sisterhood discussion at BTAC in addition to both of them organizing to trains running on time perfection the BTAC Black Diamond Ball.

Speaking of running thangs, Jevon is  the founding CEO of Princess Janae Place

Princess Janae Place is New York State's only trans led organization that since 2015 has helped trans and gender non conforming people transition from homelessness to housing.

Y'all might wish to drop a donation or two as a birthday gift to support the important and life changing work they do there. .

But I can talk about PJP anytime.   You only turn 50 once.

So happy milestone birthday Jevon!   It has been (and still is) a blessing to have you and Christina in my life.   You are also a blessing to all of us as a leader in our community.

And yes, have much love, admiration, and respect for you.

Happy birthday Jevon!  Hope this 50th birthday is an amazing and blessings filled one for you, and you get to celebrate many more of them .


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Happy 50th Birthday Ruby Corado!

 

Today marks the 50th birthday of one of my DC homegirls in Ruby Corado, the founding ED of Casa Ruby.

I first became aware of her after the 2003 murder of trans Latina Bella Evangelista, and met her during one of my DC lobbying trips.  Our friendship grew to the point that whenever I flew into or out of Washington DC to handle my activist business, she made sure she got her quality time in by either snatching my butt up at the airport when I arrived or picking me up from my hotels as I prepared to head to the airport to return home to Houston.

I remember when she started Casa Ruby in 2012, and I've been proud to see it grow to the level it has;
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Most of my quality time trips with her involved me spending some time with the Casa Ruby clients and peeps there for its programming.

And yeah, there have been some interesting moments we've had at other TBLGQ themed conferences.

It's been a long challenging at times journey for her from leaving El Salvador at age 16 to becoming one of our country's highly respected advocates and founding ED of Casa Ruby. 

She is a role model to Latina trans advocates like Ana Andrea Molina here in Houston and elsewhere, and has much respect in the Washington DC area and the immigrant trans Latina community. .

Happy 50th birthday Ruby!   May you celebrate many more to come.!

Happy 100th Birthday Nelson Mandela!

"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others' 
-Nelson Mandela 

Today would have been the 100th birthday of former South African president and human rights warrior Nelson Mandela, who died December 5, 2013 at age 95. 

You TransGriot readers are probably aware of his remarkable life story.   His fight against an unjust and racist apartheid system that led to him being imprisoned for 27 years of his life before being released in 1990.   He became the first Black president of South Africa in 1994 and served until 1999. 

And he was admired and respected around the world.  While he would humbly say "I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances ", the rest of the world saw him as a global icon and a leader in the same territory as the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and Mahatma Gandhi.

We sill have his words to peruse, do some hard solid thinking about, and most importantly live by, especially on this day.  .        

Happy Milestone Birthday, Dainna

One of the first people I met when I was beginning my journey toward getting involved at a national level in trans advocacy work was a Colorado resident by the name of Dainna Cicotello.

I met this veteran and trans elder during the 1999 Southern Comfort Conference I attended, and got reacquainted with her during the 2000 SCC event and the 2000 IFGE Conference, but her work in the community in the late 1980's early 1990's predates my encounters with her.   

I also met her amazing daughter Laurie during that 2000 IFGE Conference in Washington DC, and we still are friends to this day.   During the 2015 Creating Change event that was held in Denver, one of the Denver area peeps I got the opportunity to have dinner with were the Ciccotellos.   They were also present at Fantasia Fair when I received the Virginia Prince from that organization . 

Dainna attended the Houston based ICTLEP conferences, taught seminars on various subjects, and was part of the working group that sought as a goal to create a precise definition under the transgender umbrella that would satisfy the constituent groups at the time.

Dainna has taught Trans 101 for many organizations and colleges in the Denver area, and was one of my trans advocacy mentors.

She's had a rough couple of years in terms of losing her longtime spouse after 47 years together, and as I write this is currently hospitalized.    She's proven to be a tough cookie with remarkable bounceback powers in addition to being a wonderful human being.

Today is Dainna's milestone 70th birthday, and I wanted to take a moment to wish her a very happy birthday and express the hope that she celebrates many more of them in the near future..

Happy Milestone Birthday, Lauren!

"i'm not a fetish.  I'm not a sideshow. I'm not a trend. I'm none of those things.  I feel like I have a target on my head now   But I don't reside in my trans-ness; I don't live there.  I'm just another woman:
-Lauren Foster

Today is the milestone birthday of South African born and Miami resident, advocate, model and just another girl Lauren Foster who I have mad love and respect for.   We talk and chat from time to time and I'm looking forward to the day that we can FINALLY meet in person.

When she's not being her fabulous self, her day job is being the Director Concierge and LGBTQ Coordinator at the University of Miami Hospital where she helps folks navigate the gender confirmation surgery process with Dr. Chris Salgado.

And yeah, she is one amazing person that I hope to finally get to spend some quality time with in 2018.

Happy milestone birthday Lauren!   May you celebrate many more of them

Happy Milestone Birthday, Hillary Clinton

Had one of my posts from last year pop up to remind me once again how badly this country was screwed when the Orange Moron got elected

Today is Hillary Clinton's birthday, and she was born on this date 70 years ago in Chicago.   Would've been wonderful for our nation if she was celebrating this 70th birthday from the White House.as POTUS

And yeah, I'm not going to let you far left wing Hillary haters forget how you shortsighted animus for this accomplished woman and you letting your hurt fee fees over her beating St Bernard of Sanders led to this nightmare of a presidency were going to have to spend years cleaning up the mess from.

Happy milestone birthday Madame President Secretary!   Thank you for the years you have served our country as our First lady, a senator and the previous Secretary of State.when we had a coherent goals oriented foreign policy.

.We could've had another intelligent, well prepared person in the Oval Office, but now we have a petulant man baby(emphasis on baby) with his tiny hands on the nuke launch codes.

Happy 40th Birthday Fran Watson!

Couldn't let today pass without wishing Fran Watson a very happy 40th birthday.

Y'all know I have much love for my trailblazing sis, who has weathered much adversity in her life and overcome it to blaze trails, get happily married to her spouse Kim and make history.

She is a much loved figure in our Houston advocate community, and someone who I admire and look up to as a role model.

Fran is not only a kick butt attorney, but was elected as the first African-American female president of the Houston GLBT Caucus.   She became only the second African American female Houston Pride Parade Grand Marshal last year, and spends some of her precious free time sitting on the boards of several organizations in our Houston area community.

Now she is taking on another challenge by running for the Texas Senate and taking on Republican incumbent senator Joan Huffman.

If she wins next November, she would become only the second ever Black woman in Texas history elected to the Texas Senate and the first since the legendary Barbara Jordan successfully did so in 1967.

So looking forward to seeing if that history gets made with the help of the SD 17 voters .  But in the meantime, happy milestone birthday Fran!

Can't wait to see what else you accomplish in your amazing life!

Happy 25th Birthday Raquel!

Last year I got to meet this amazing twentysomething trans advocate during an anti-violence conference in Chicago..

When I first met her, I originally thought she was a cis feminine ally until she spoke during one of the discussion sessions and let us all know she was a girl like us.  

I had a chance during the Chicago event to have a long one on one conversation with her, and participate in some discussion groups with her during the conference.  I could tell right away that she was going to do amazing things for our community.  The fact that she was a writer made me even more of a fan of hers, and we exchanged contact information that day.  

That twentysomething I met who so impressed me was Atlanta-based advocate Raquel Willis, and as I figured out after meeting her, my initial impression of her was on target.

 She has been getting well deserved attention for her thoughtful and incisive writing and her efforts as one of the group of trans leaders we are blessed to have in Atlanta doing the education not only on trans issues, but an eloquent voice speaking about a wide range of social justice issues.

Raquel is the bomb as one of our emerging young leaders, and I'm glad people inside and outside our trans   community ranks are recognizing it.

I'm also exceedingly proud of her. .Yeah, she's heard me say this to her in our check in phone conversations, but I wanted to put it in writing so she knows beyond a shadow of a doubt how much I love and admire her.
And what better day than her birthday to do so?

 I also couldn't let her 25th birthday pass without giving her the TransGriot shout out this auspicious occasion deserves.

Happy birthday Raquel!  Thanks for everything you do for our community, and I hope your special day is one filled with love, fun, and maximum fabulousness.    Hope it is also a blessings filled one for you, and you receive the ultimate blessing of being around to celebrate many more of them.

Happy Milestone Birthday Dee Dee!

Today is the day 30 years ago that Dee Dee Watters showed up on this planet!  I've had the pleasure of calling her a friend and collaborating with her on several human rights projects in the Houston area for the last several years.

And yeah, she's a lot of fun to be around when we are not handing a trans oppressor their behind or telling them where to go and what bus line to take to get there.

But anyway, that's a story for another time.   I'm happy to see that Dee Dee is finally bginning to get the well deserved recognition for her work to make Houston, Texas and the world  a better place for all of us.

Happy milestone birthday Dee Dee!    May you be blessed to celebrate many more of them

Happy Milestone Birthday Cecilia!

Today is the milestone 50th birthday of San Francisco based trans advocate and pioneer Cecilia Chung!

Before I had the pleasure of spending some quality time with this smart and beautiful lady from Hong Kong with a wicked sense of humor and getting to know her, I'd been a long time admirer of her and her trailblazing advocacy work on behalf of our community.

In addition to being a senior strategist at the Transgender Law Center, serving on the President's Council on HIV and AIDS, and being the first openly trans person and person living with HIV on the San Francisco Human Rights Commission of which she served as its chair.   She was one of the founders of San Francisco's Trans March and works tirelessly n the local, national and international levels to improve access to medical treatment for transgender people and people living with HIV, and to erase stigma and discrimination through education, policy, advocacy, and visibility

Happy milestone birthday Cecilia!  looking forward to the next time that we get to spend some quality time together and hope your birthday is as fabulous as you are!.

Happy 80th Birthday Diahann Carroll!

Today is the 80th birthday of trailblazing singer and iconic Broadway and television actress Diahann Carroll, who was born on this date in New York City in 1935.

She appeared in Carmen Jones (1954) and Porgy and Bess (1959) two of the first major studio films to feature predominately African-American casts. 


As the star of Julia, in 1968 she became the first Black woman to star in a network television series in a non-stereotypical role.  She played Dominique Deveraux on Dynasty and Marion Gilbert on A Different World.

She has been nominated for numerous awards in her career that has spanned six decades including a groundbreaking Tony Award win in 1962 , a 1968 Golden Globe win for Julia and a 1974 Best Actress Academy Award nomination for Claudine. 

In 2011 she was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame.

I have much love for Ms. Carroll as one of my style role models, a timeless beauty and a trailblazing actress.

Happy milestone birthday!

Lordy, Lordy, Nikki's 40!

Time for another TransGriot birthday shoutout. 

I didn't meet her until the summer of 2010, but our multiple conversations since then have revealed our paths crossed in the 90's at a long gone TBLG club called Studio 13.

She's been fighting a pitched legal battle since 2010 to restore her marriage rights, and is the reason the odious Littleton v Prange is dead.  

And yeah, she and her best friend Meagan are pretty cool women to hang around that never fail to put a smile on my face when I need it.

She's also married to a wonderful guy and talented artist who loves her to death.

I'm talking about the fabulous Nikki Araguz Loyd, who is celebrating her milestone 40th birthday today.   She's had an interesting novel worthy life up to this point, and while she had a few bumps, bruises and challenging moments along the way, never doubt her ability to turn a lemon situation into lemonade and look fabulous while doing so..

Happy milestone birthday Nikki!   Hope you have a birthday that is a fabulous as you are, and you are blessed to celebrate many more of them.

Lawdy Lawdy, Kimora's 40!

I share my May 4 birthday with more than a few famous people, and one of them is the fabulous Kimora Lee Simmons.

I love my Blasian sister for a lot of reasons as a former fashion model, actress, entrepreneur and mother of four children.

But the major ones are she is 1.83 m (six feet) tall, she's a Taurus, and she was born on this date in St. Louis in 1975.

So happy 40th birthday Kimora!   You make 40 look fabulous, not that it was ever hard for you to do so.

May you have a wonderful milestone birthday, and receive the ultimate blessing of celebrating many more of them in the years to come.

Happy 80th Birthday April Ashley!

Across The Pond today is the milestone birthday of one of our trans community icons.  Today April Ashley, MBE was born on this date 80 years ago in Liverpool, England.  

No wonder I love her.   She's a fellow Taurus!

She had a challenging childhood and grew up to become one of the first people in Great Britain to undergo SRS with Dr. Georges Bourou in Casablanca, Morocco in 1960.

She was a Vogue fashion model, worked at the famed LeCarrousel trans club in Paris in which she rubbed elbows with Ernest Hemingway, Jean Paul Sartre and Bob Hope, was an actress, and enjoyed the romantic attention of actor Peter O'Toole and famed painters Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso.

She has also worked tirelessly to advance the human rights of trans people in Great Britain and awarded her MBE in 2012.

In September 2013 the year long April Ashley: Portrait of A Lady exhibit opened at the Museum of Liverpool focused on her amazing life.

Ashley received a Lifetime Achievement honor during the 2014 European Diversity Awards.

Happy 80th birthday, April!   To me. April Ashley's life is a testament to living well being your best revenge as a trans person.  

And living long enough to celebrate eight decades on this planet definitely qualifies as living well.

Happy Birthday, Islan

Today would have been the 23rd birthday of my fallen New York transsister Islan Nettles.

But because she ran into some transphobes on a Harlem street corner who thought for whatever jacked up reason they could physically assault her, she is no longer here to celebrate any more birthdays.

The best present we can get for you right now on this day is justice and heightened awareness of your case..  

The wastes of DNA who attacked you need to be sitting in a  jail cell somewhere in New York state.  If the local prosecutors won't put theses idiots away for their deserved jail time, maybe it's time for federal prosecutors to get.involved and start investigating this case.

And those local prosecutors failing to act need to be replace in the next election cycle by people who will seek justice..

It pisses me off every time I see her face and wonder what kind of contributions she would have made to our community and the world. 
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She was just beginning to live her life and these transphobes ended it it because of their person prejudices and transphobia.

Happy birthday, Islan.  You were taken away from us way too soon.   The city of New York, all the people who loved you and the world are poorer for it.

Happy Milestone Birthday, Caroline!

Today is the milestone 60th birthday of model, trans advocate and Bond Girl Caroline Cossey who was born on this date in the UK in 1954.

She was one of the more well known trans women of the 80's and 90's and has a variant of the intersex condition Klinefelter's Syndrome in which instead of the XXY pattern that many people with the condition usually have, she was born XXXY.

Cossey broke ground as a fashion model under her stage name Tula, authored two autobiographical books published in 1982 and 1991, was a Bond Girl in the 1981 film For Your Eyes Only, and a September 1991 Playboy magazine centerfold.  

She also fought for trans marriage rights in Great Britain.   She won her European Court of Human Rights.case in 1989 and lost it on British government appeal in September 1990.

Since 1992 she has been married and living in the ATL metro area with her husband David Finch.

Happy milestone birthday to one of our transfeminine pioneers who helped push the knowledge envelope abut us during the 80's and 90's.   May you have many more.  

Lawdy Lawdy, Renee is 40!

I have been waiting for this day for two years now and it has finally arrived.   It's Renee's milestone birthday, and one in which I pay my Timmy's IceCapp drinking Coach purse loving homegirl back for this birthday post she unleashed on me in 2012. 


So, let's see, first off, who are some of the people who share Renee's birthday?    There's Lil Kim, Kellita Smith, Leon Spinks, Nadya Suleman, Lisa Rinna, Caroline Wozniacki, Giorgio Armani, the late actor Yul Brynner and Houston Texan WR Andre Johnson just to name a few. 

As for some of the things that are older than Renee on this day?    

The Toronto Maple Leafs last NHL championship banner in the Hangar.
Timmy's
The Skylon Tower
Terra Firma
Niagara Falls

I may have started this post by poking fun at my sis, but I  have to say that my life has been immensely enriched by having her as a major part of it for nearly a decade.  Renee and I have had some thought provoking conversations about many issues ever since I met her that I enjoy. 

The other thing I most appreciate about you besides your intellect, fashion sense, and your stories about being the only estrogen based lifeform in a house full of guys is that you not only talk the talk when it comes to sisterhood and being a standup trans ally, you role model it.         

And best of all, I'm proud to call you my friend.   Now if I can make that north of the border visit happen sometime this decade. 

Happy milestone birthday, Renee!    May you celebrate many more of them!

Happy 50th Birthday Octavia St Laurent!

Today would have been the milestone birthday of one of our ballroom legends in Octavia St. Laurent.had she not gone to be with the ancestors on May 17, 2009.

Many people were introduced to her through the documentary films Paris Is Burning and How Do I Look, and if you peruse YouTube you can still see her lovely visage in some of the uploaded video from ballroom competitions of the 90's and 2k's

I also liked this salon talk one from 2005 in which she discussed the changes in her life as she was getting her hair done for the Legends Ball.

I also love this quote of hers from the June 2000 funeral of the slain Amanda Milan in which she stated during her fiery eulogy for Amanda, "Gays have rights, lesbians have rights, men have rights, women have rights, even animals have rights. "How many of us have to die before the community recognizes that we are not expendable?"



Happy milestone birthday sis!.  It's hard to believe that we are rapidly approaching five years since you exited this plane of existence.  You are still loved and missed by all the people inside and outside the ballroom community who had the pleasure of knowing you and for whom you graced with your presence. 

Continue to rest in power.

Happy Milestone Birthday, Madame First Lady

Today is the Big 5-0 birthday of First Lady Michelle Obama, who was born on this date in Chicago in 1964. 

Yeah, the folks that hate on her husband are also not happy that she, the POTUS and their beautiful daughters will be living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue until January 20, 2017.

Hate on haters.  The 65,899,660 Americans who did vote for the POTUS in 2012 are very happy he and the FLOTUS are there.   .

It has been a joy to see her make history in her own right as the first African-American First Lady and basically do it her way.

It has also been inspiring to see an intelligent, beautiful sistah gracefully handle that role and represent us and our nation on the national and international stage. 

So happy birthday Madame First Lady!  May you have many more of them to come.
 

Happy Milestone Birthday Bree!

My birthday is tomorrow not excited but grateful to see another year....My Lord is awesome......
--Bree Wallace, December 1, 2013

If the waste of DNA Michael McBride had gotten his way in the early morning hours of June 21, then 29 year old Bree Wallace's name would have been one of the 238 names we read at the 2013 Transgender Day of Remembrance memorials back on November 20. 

But instead the 23 year old McBride is in custody for attempting to stab her multiple times and is facing assault with intent to kill charges. 

After being hospitalized for and recovering from her over 30 stab wounds, Bree is celebrating her milestone 30th birthday today.

It is a birthday she is obviously grateful to have reached.   All her friends and family and the people who love and care about her in the Washington DC area and beyond feel the same way about it as she does.

Bree, Happy Milestone Birthday!   So happy you have reached the Big 3-0 one and I pray this is a birthday that will be filled with smiles as wide as Texas, lots of hugs, lots of love, and a launching pad for better birthdays to come. 

I hope that somebody at least hooks you up with a birthday mani and pedicure, dinner or whatever you wish to have happen on your special day. 

May you also be blessed to know what it's like to be as old as I am . 

One thing I hope Bree receives as a late birthday present is McBride being convicted and spending much time in jail for trying to take her life.  But that's me being angry, frustrated and sick and tired of being sick and tired of my transsisters being targeted and killed for just living their lives.    

Again, happy milestone birthday Bree!   May you not only have many more birthdays to come, but God bless you to reach more of your milestone birthdays as well.