Searching For My Transfeminine Cousin

We are on Christmas Day countdown in which we are out and about trying to get those last minute presents, prepare meals for Christmas dinners, or wondering what gifts are under the Christmas tree for us.

If there is one gift I'd love to have for the 2014 holiday season, it is to be reunited with my trans feminine cousin that I'll call Janet for the purposes of this post.

We lived in the newly developing (and segregated) Crestmont Plaza subdivision while my cousin Janet and her brother lived in a South Park whose demographics were rapidly changing due to rapid white flight from it.    Janet and her brother were also one of the few local Roberts cousins I was aware of and grew up with in early childhood.

Besides the trans issue, we are similar in a lot of ways.   In addition to her sharing my last name and us being roughly the same age, we are both the firstborn kids of our respective families.  My brother and I attended their birthday parties and got to see and play with them on a regular basis until we lost contact with them after their parents divorced in the early 70's.  

While from time to time I wondered what was going on in their lives, it began to pale in comparison with me try to navigate growing up transfeminine in 1970's Houston and she and her brother faded from my memory for a while.

That changed one day when I was in my high school health class during my junior year at JJ in 1978. A cisfeminine .sophomore student who had gone to Johnston Jr. High with my cousin asked me in front of the entire class if Janet (and used her old male name while doing so) was my cousin.   When I replied yes, she called her the f-word that rhymes with maggot, and I swiftly chewed her ass out for disrespecting my cousin and moi. 

I also sarcastically said to  the messy cis female when I finished calling her out it bothered her because she was probably attracted to my cuz.  We rolled our eyes at each other and moved on.

That was my first clue that something was going on with Janet.   I wouldn't get another one until I took a non-rev trip to California in 1992 and ended up visiting the home of Janet's father while accompanied by a then close cisfeminine cousin of mine who was living in Cali at the time. 

While we were visiting his expansive house, I noted the pics of his two sons on the wall of his study, but none of Janet.  Since I was seriously contemplating getting my own transition party started at the time, I silently sat there and wondered if that was going to be my fate with my own family. 

Two years later I was on the verge of beginning my own transition, and sat my parents down in the living room of our home to inform them of my intentions to do so.  In their attempt to dissuade me from transitioning, they mentioned the existence of Janet and alluded to how challenging her life was.  When I heard I had a trans cousin, all I felt at the time for my parents was anger for keeping that information from me and tuned them out.

It's now Christmas Eve 2014.  I've gotten over the anger I felt for having Janet's existence hidden from me   I often wondered if our paths crossed while I was running around Montrose in the 1980's and 1990's, and .she has never been too far from my thoughts since then even as I navigated my own bumpy at times transition road. 

The trans historian part of me  really wants to know how her life has turned out, especially since she had the guts to transition in the more challenging 1970s and 1980's.  

And yes, because she's my blood family and also trans, if Janet is still alive, I want to get reacquainted with her because we are both trans and have a lot of catching up to do.

So if you happen to be reading this Janet, get in touch with your cousin.  It's been way too long since we saw and talked to each other, and I'd love to have lunch with you as a starting point especially if you're still living in H-town..

And I hope and pray that Christmas wish is granted..

Mile High Chillin' With My Family

Moni's was in the middle of her just concluded family reunion in Colorado's state capitol over the weekend just relaxing.

The reason you TransGriot readers are just now seeing this post about it is because I decided before I left Houston to take the opportunity to unplug from the Net for a few days, recharge the creative batteries and treat this reunion like a vacation.  

I didn't want to think about anything activism or blog related because I was going to have plenty of time to deal with that when I returned to Houston starting July 2.    

In addition to seeing my blood family members from different parts of the country and meeting my Colorado based cousins I tried to carve out some time to hang out with the Denver based trans family before I headed back to Texas Sunday after arriving there a little after 5 PM MDT Thursday afternoon.

We bounced out of Houston at 10 PM CDT Wednesday night headed north on I-45 toward Dallas on the first leg of a 1100 mile trip that would take us up I-45, on I-30 west for a mile to connect with I-35E going north to Denton and its merger point with I-35W from Fort Worth, I-35 through Oklahoma City and Wichita, KS to I-135 north to Salina, KS and west on I-70 through the Sunflower State to Colorado.

Thursday was a gorgeous travel day with not a cloud in the sky and the best part about starting that late was we got through Dallas and OKC before the morning rush hour started and while most of the truckers were asleep. 

We did get to see a lot of interesting scenery during the drive and as I'm used to with Dawn and Polar thought provoking commentary on a lot of topics.

This time the commentary came from the smart people that are part of my family tree.

As we rolled north and west we spotted acres of farmland with soybeans and wheat growing on it.  Cattle grazing in Oklahoma, Kansas and Colorado.  Grain silos dotting the flat plains of Kansas to the horizons edge, clusters of wind turbines producing power west of Salina, KS and Limon, CO and farmers along I-135 and I-70 in Kansas busily harvesting their wheat in preparation to sending it to market.  

When I spotted that United plane on final approach to DIA, passed the hotel I stayed at on the corner of  I-70 and Quebec St. that was a Hilton back in 1988 during my Air Marshal days and the Havana Street exit that used to lead to Stapleton it reminded me for a moment about how much things had changed in Denver, my life and how much I missed the airline biz.

But I couldn't dwell on that thought long because we did get to Denver right at rush hour and I happened to be behind the wheel of our rented van. One thing that hasn't changed about the city is that traffic on I-25 and I-70 still sucks.

Before I'd left Houston I'd planned a Friday lunch outing with Eden Lane and hanging out with Kelley Winters as well on Saturday but you know what they say about best laid plans.  Complications killed both of those planned events (darn it) after I arrived here Thursday afternoon. 

It was unseasonably warm here in Denver the first two days with the temps clocking in at 95 and 97 degrees. (No Denver peeps, I didn't bring the heat from Texas with me)  But considering I ducked out of Houston as the temperature spiked up to 100 and 102 on Thursday and Friday for the first time this summer, this was heaven.  

Took a ride on the South Platte Trolley by the Aquarium on Friday with my uncle and aunt, my grandmother, mom and sister. 

When the female guide after asking how many of us riding the trolley were from out of town and we Texans and New Yorkers raised our hands, she began bragging about her beloved Broncos beating our local NFL squads at Sports Authority Field at Mile High Stadium as we passed it. 

I got a return shot in to my family's and the New Yorkers snickering that wasn't the 31-25 case last season when they played the Texans last September.

Once a smartass, always a smartass.

Enjoyed the dinner at the Cheesecake Factory downtown with my family Friday night despite us having to fight our way past Coors Field traffic to get to it and spend a few minutes looking for reasonable parking.  We did find a garage in Tabor Center that was $6 right next to the place, so it was all good. 

Speaking of good, there was next door to our hotel a Mexican restaurant called Maya's that had great food, reasonable prices, sizable portions and excellent service that we went to on Thursday evening and just before we departed Denver on Sunday afternoon. 

Our LaQuinta hotel in addition to being next to I-25 and close to downtown also had free breakfast.  After I helped myself to the juice and waffles I walked out of the front door of the hotel and hiked up the viaduct toward Coors Field to burn off those calories.

I also had a nice conversation with several people from the San Francisco bay area checked into the hotel during my stay there who were in town to watch their beloved Giants take on and get spanked by the Rockies

So I could get away from the hotel once my Saturday event with Kelley also turned out to be a disappointing no-go, I tagged along on a trip up I-25 to Dacono, CO where there is a motocross and go-cart track complex.  I watched my Uncle Leo and my cousin William do some laps around the track in carts that can run up to 60 MPH and required them to suit up and wear a helmet for the ride.

The storm clouds started gathering over the Rockies and looking like they were about to drop another monsoon like rain on us, but didn't.  It actually cooled things down before they headed into the mountains to hit a casino and I took the opportunity to have some quiet time without my grandmother in the room and get some sleep I would sorely need when we hit the road the next day.

I enjoy doing road trips, and this one was not only a chance to drive interstates I don't normally get to travel on in the Midwest and see the Denver area again, I needed the change of scenery. 

And looking forward to the next one I do.    

HT to Mike and Joyce's Travel Pages and AARoads.com for the Kansas and Colorado highway photos I used in this post.  

Thank You For Your Kind Words

As many of you are aware of, my family is going through a difficult time with the passing of  my father last week 

The funeral is set for tomorrow March 30, 2013 and for those of you in the Houston area, it will be held at the Christian Rescue Mission Community Church 3229-A Hadley St, Houston TX 77004  

(713) 659-7750 is the church phone number. 

Visitation will be from 9-11 AM CDT on Saturday with the service starting immediately afterwards from 11-12 noon

Thanks to those of you who have lifted me and my family up in prayer, expressed your condolences and continue to send warm thoughts our way.   I also thank those of you who have e-mailed me, called, sent me Facebook messages public and private, and sent cards.   It meant a lot to me to hear from you during this time, and I deeply appreciate it.  .

Claude 'Rick' Roberts, Jr 1941-2013

Was at the Houston hospice today when my father passed away at 12 noon CDT.

Didn't talk about it much on the blog, but my dad is a Black radio and Houston radio legend. 

He's also one of the reasons why I have the public speaking skills I do right now since everyone from my various schools to my home church had me standing at their podiums since I was age 6 MCing their programs.

Dad even had me doing a commercial promoting his morning drive time radio show when I was in second grade. 

Dad was a native Houstonian, and started his radio career at WBOK-AM in New Orleans.   He spent bulk of his radio career starting in 1967 in the Houston area at KYOK-AM as its program director and at KTSU-FM before he retired in 1993.

I had a ringside seat to much of the Houston Black radio world growing up.  KYOK had a ground breaking RV that served as a mobile broadcasting studio and I bounced around different areas of town to many of those remotes.  

There were also a few nights when he brought that vehicle to the house pre or post remote and I got to sleep in it.

I also got to see firsthand the major love and respect many people had for him inside and outside the community because he not only was a proud Black man who stood up for his beliefs and was willing to do more than just talk about them, he was a voice for the voiceless in H-town.  

And he was one heck of a play by play announcer  If ESPN had started a little earlier you probably would have heard him calling football and basketball games on that network.  As it was I did get to watch him call Texas Southern University and HISD football games from the Astrodome press box and see people like NFL Hall of Famers Walter Payton and Doug Williams play while happily sipping on my bottomless soda cup. .  

I was also constantly amazed by the people he knew on a first name basis inside and outside the Houston area in the radio, music and political arenas.  That's probably a major reason why I have the deep interest in politics and I do what I do as a human rights warrior. 

I'm comforted in the fact he didn't suffer when he passed away and his legacy in the industry will live long past the days when my family's tears have dried.

Many of his photos from his radio days are in the African American Archives of Music and Culture in their Black Radio collection housed at IU-Bloomington.  There have also been people writing tribute articles expressing how much he meant to them and their love for him..    

Speaking of love, thanks to all of you who have lifted my family and I up in prayer, kept us immersed in your positive thoughts, and have been there at various times when we needed it during this difficult period for us.  

My family still has heavy hearts and a difficult few days yet to navigate, but with your help we know we will. 

Well Dad, you're not suffering anymore.  Say hello to Grandmother Tama for me.


TransGriot Note:  First photo from the AAAMC archives is a 1974 one of Dad and Shaft's Richard Roundtree in KYOK's studio.  The second one is Dad, Michael Jackson (yep, the future King of Pop), Pluria Marshall, Jr and the teen TransGriot during a KYOK sponsored 'Meet The Jackson 5' event in August 1974.

       

Chilling With My H-Town Chicago Cousins

Yesterday was my cousin Karen's birthday (Happy birthday cuz!), and my uncle, grandmother and I made the crosstown trek to Alief to hang out with them and attend her surprise birthday party.

One of the cool things about my cousin in my not so humble opinion is that in addition to being one smart lady time has been very good to her.  

Many of her friends, her husband and a few more of my Chitown relatives also moved down here in the early 80's.  They either settled in the Alief area,.other parts of H-town or the nearby Fort Bend County exurbs.   

So when they have events like this party, it feels like the South Side made its way down to the Lone Star State.   Since I didn't have to play designated driver, I was going to not only socialize but take the opportunity to within reason get my grub and drink on.

It was wonderful finding out that my cousin Ivory flew down from Chicago to surprise her mom. I got to see her and spend some time chatting with her before she heads back to college later today. 

We also had a bunch of Tauruses in my aunt's house yesterday, too
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The other cool thing about having a bunch of Chicago folks in a room is once they sort out who is from the North Side, West Side or South Side and finish extolling the virtues of (or ragging on) that person's side of town and the party gets going, somebody is going to either pull out a deck of cards and the obligatory bid whist game will break out or some song will get played that triggers an outbreak of Chicago Stepping..

So as you probably guessed I had a wonderful time, got to spend some quality time with my cousins, and looking forward to the next time I can do so.

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Family Reunion

Well, so much for any plans to take in the sights and sounds of my first Houston Pride event since 2001.

Got more important business. My family reunion.

My mom's side of the family since 1998 has a now yearly reunion that rotates between the Florida, Mississippi, Ohio, NW Indiana-Chicago, and Dallas and Houston, Texas branches of the family.

Through a happy circumstance I got back here just in time for the Houston branch of our family to play hosts for the event and get the pleasure of attending one for the first time in a long time.

It's going to be an interesting situation for me as well. Some of my extended relative know about my transition, especially if they are on Facebook or have perused this blog, while others don't.

All I'm looking for is a nice and relatively quiet weekend with a minimum level of drama. But if static gets started, I will not hesitate to deal with it.

Live From Houston-It's Moni!

Hey TransGriot readers!
I'm sitting in the den of my childhood home at my sister's computer. Immediately to my left is the family Christmas tree and the sun is shining brightly.

The weather was sunny and a balmy 70 degrees when I got here, but the cold front is coming.

So yeah, it's all good right now.

Bus trip was interesting and calls out for its own blog post. The Shreveport-Houston leg was an hour late getting me here after doing the tour of East Texas. I did get to knock off one of the things on the Moni H-town To Do List, which was ride the METRORail. I did it in order to make it easier on Mom who picked me up at the Fannin South terminus of the line and it was surprisingly inexpensive at $1.25 (for now). Parking around the bus station was always problematic, and now that the Red Line runs down the middle of Main Street it's even worse.

Seems like I'm not the only person in the family that came back to Houston for the holiday. My cousin Trey is in the Navy and decided to do so with his family. My Aunt Gwen and cousin Zoya who is in the Army got here Monday. Cuz looks good after going through Uncle Sam's Health Club, AKA basic training.

They all hit the house last night along with my cousin Ebonie, who lives in Fort Bend County.

So I chilled at the house with my sis Latoya, Mom and my niece Chanty, who is going to be tall like her aunt Monica. She'll be 10 in a few weeks and is already standing a little over 4 feet. Will pop over to see my dad sometime during the Moni Returns To H-town Holiday Tour.

Of course, getting spoiled by Mom already and started the process of catching up with my H-town peeps and relatives.

On that note, Merry Christmas 'errbody'. Getting ready visit some peeps and I'm counting down until I can start tearing into my mom's legendary German Chocolate pound cake.

May 2006 TransGriot Column

I'll Always Love My Mama
Copyright 2006, THE LETTER


There’s a classic 1973 Intruders song that expresses how I feel about my mother back in H-Town. The chorus goes:

I’ll always love my mama
She’s my favorite girl.
I’ll always love my mama
She brought me in this world

Yep, Mable Roberts did a fantastic job of raising me and my brothers and sisters. She did it while juggling a teaching career, service to her church and to her sorority. I deeply appreciated the times she had to play mom and dad to us when my father was out of town. I was the one she used to roust out of bed on Saturday mornings to play chauffeur to various shopping malls.

Truth is, I enjoyed those trips as much as she and my grandmothers because of the quality time I got to spend with them.

One of the many things that I admire about my mother is her intelligence. She graduated cum laude with a degree in history while caring for a husband, a two year old toddler (the future TransGriot) and my newborn brother. When she started working on her masters she was pregnant with my sister. Mom is an even-tempered woman who instilled in my siblings and me our love of books, history, education and politics and is to this day a voracious reader with wide ranging tastes.

I marvel at Mom’s sense of style and how she did it on a budget. I jokingly call her ‘Imelda Marcos’ because of her sizable shoe collection. My sister Latoya gleefully gets to take advantage of it because they wear the same size. Speaking of sizes, she still cuts a shapely figure in a size 8 dress. (I’m jealous since I wear a size 16) She downplays her beauty, but I remember one Parent-Teacher conference day in fifth grade when she visited my classroom. My fifth grade teacher was a stunning looking sistah herself, but all the fellas said to me after she left “Your mama is finer than Ms. Ware.”

While mom and I are fairly close because I was her first born child, there are days when I wish I could’ve been her daughter from birth. I would’ve rather been in my sister’s position. While she was in college Latoya joined my mother’s sorority and Mom got the opportunity to pin her when she went over. I had to settle for the frustration while I was at UH of enviously watching the smartly dressed pledges walk around campus in skirted suits and heels in the sorority’s colors or being on the periphery when I DJed her sorority chapter’s Christmas party.

My Aunt Gwen along with a host of other relatives always told me that temperament wise I was more like her. That’s become more pronounced as I’ve gotten older. I inherited Mom’s sense of style and sense of humor. I can wield sarcasm with Ninja like precision just like her. In 1997 I ate Christmas dinner with the family for the first time since I transitioned. When I walked into the door of my grandmother’s house with my then roommate Vanity, mom quipped as she hugged me, “People always said when you were growing up that you looked like me. Now you REALLY look like me.” But don’t sleep on her. She’s tough as nails when she has to be. People that tried to take her kindness for weakness found out quickly that she wasn’t to be played with.

I have been living as a woman for over a decade now and I hope and pray that I am living up to the sterling example of African-American womanhood my mother embodies.

I love you Mom. Happy Mother’s Day.