You're Mad At Mayor Turner - But Who Are You Going To Replace Him With?

Sylvester Turner succeeded Annise Parker as mayor of Houston after narrowly defeating Bill King in a December 2015 runoff.   His first term has been a contentious and rocky one because of budgetary issues and the hard revenue cap that has forced him to make unpopular cuts.

There's also the contentious fight over Prop B.   Despite his repeated warnings that the city didn't have the money to pay for it, people passed it anyway, and now that has devolved into our own local Brexit style mess pitting him in a messy public battle against the firefighters.

Homeless advocates don't like the initiatives coming from the mayor's office they contend are anti- homeless.   I'd need another post to discuss the other groups who are big mad at Mayor Turner right now and want to fire Mayor Turner in November, and some of it is personal animus with him.

The Harris County Republicans are also big mad because the Blue Tsunami swept them out of power.  They went 0-59 in the Harris County judicial races, lost control of Harris County Commissioner's Court thanks to the wins of County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Commissioner Adrian Garcia, and haven't held the Houston mayor's chair since the early 70's. 

They would love to get some political payback for their massive Harris County losses by taking the Houston mayor's chair away from him.

There are several candidates who have stepped up to run against him, but they are far from the top tier candidate that is necessary to beat an incumbent mayor.

Turner has my vote for now because none of the declared candidates are demonstrably better than him, which is my standard to fire an incumbent ,mayor.   These declared candidates are all flawed in major ways, and are actually WORSE than the guy currently in the mayor's chair.



Tony Buzbee? 

Doing fundraisers for Trump at your River Oaks mansion and donating $500K to Orange Fooluis automatically calls his judgment into question.   And he's a Republican. 
Hell naw

Kendall Baker?

Please, that faux faith based HERO hater and transphobe who got fired from his city 311 director job for sexual harassment while falsely demonizing the Houston trans community at the behest of Dave Welch during the HERO passage and repeal fight? 

Naw player, I haven't forgotten about that, and neither has the Houston trans community, and FYI dawg, we vote.

Definite Hell Naw.

Booker T?

Really People?   Did y'all not learn anything from 2016?

Not a viable candidate, and too many questions about who is pushing him to run and why.  Not gonna let 'em have the mayor's chair.

Nope, not today.

Demetria Smith?

NOT an option either. She not only hated on HERO, she told me to my face she voted against it because I quote ' she didn't want 'men in women's restrooms' and was clueless to the fact it covered 15 categories.   Also wasn't smart to say that to a nationally known trans advocate who fought like hell to pass HERO.

I was in the room when she had the meltdown at the January 2018 GLBT Caucus meeting in large part because she got mad she couldn't get more than 1 minute to speak, and then tried to spin it as 'The GLBT's wouldn't let me speak and tried to bully me'

Naw Miss Thang, you thought we forgot that you hated on HERO?   You had nerve to even step your behind in that room to ask for our endorsement after demonizing our community. 

She's a perennial candidate not ready for mayoral prime time or ANY elected office, and an . .
Unequivocal HELL NAW

Bill King?

Another GOP HERO hater who lost to Turner in 2015, couldn't run Kemah without drama, but y'all think he's Houston mayoral material?    Did I mention he's a Republican?

Hard pass

What some of you peeps big mad at Mayor Turner are failing to realize is that the Houston mayor's office is now a four year term with a term limit of eight years.   The mayor's office combines the ceremonial functions  of a mayor's office with the administrative duties of a city manager, and the mayor gets a vote in our strong mayor form of civic government on council .   

It is a powerful office, with the mayor having lots of power to dictate how stuff gets done around The Horseshoe and at City Hall.   The mayor selects the committee chairs.  He dictates the legislative agenda and how, if or when issues come up.

It's no longer a two year term.   If we pick the wrong person this November, we can't correct it until 2023. 

As part of a community taking the brunt of the anti-trans animus stirred up by the contentious passage of HERO five years ago and the 2015 HERO repeal, I'm majorly concerned that three HERO opponents are running. and we don't know Buzbee's or Booker T's public stances about it.

Based on who Buzbee has been palling around with, HERO 2.0 is probably a NO with him as well. .

You may not like Mayor Turner right now, but as far as I'm concerned, unless someone majorly qualified steps up to run by July who is demonstrably better than Turner, I'd rather have him in office for his second and final four year term running this city than these currently declared candidates. 

Upcoming One Day Local Elections 101 Campaign School

On February 16 I will be joining an amazing lineup of local party officials, former candidates, elected officials and campaign professionals as part of the One Day Campaign School Local Elections 101 event.

I'll probably be taking notes when I'm not on stage.

It's a discussion about how to run for public office for candidates and staff sponsored by Texas Victory Consulting that will break it down to the nuts and bolts of how to build your campaign.

It's taking place from 8:30 AM-3:30 PM, and continental breakfast and lunch will be provided.   You have to register for it, and it's $50 for early bird registration.  The at the door cost will be $65 and you can do so at this link.

Location for this event will be the Buffalo Soldier Museum at 3816 Caroline Street.

Hope to see you there



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Swearing In Of Harris County Officials Today!

Happy Blue Year!

In a few hours, I'll be at NRG Center to watch the swearing in ceremony for all our newly elected Harris County officials. 

For those of you who aren't aware of what happened here on Election Night, Harris County (translation the county that Houston is in) went dark blue on November 6. 

A blue tsunami swept through the most populous county in Texas and swept out every incumbent Republican judge.  Harris County voters replaced them with a diverse, experienced group of Democratic judges that included 19 Black women.

The blue tsunami also put Lizzie Fletcher in George HW Bush's old TX-7 congressional seat that had been in Republican hands for 50 years.   It also gave us an opportunity to send former TX state Senator Sylvia Garcia to Washington DC along with Fletcher as part of the new Democratic House majority taking office in 48 hours.

Garcia, along with Veronica Escobar, who won the race to succeed Beto O'Rourke in Congress, become the first Latinas Texas has ever sent to the US Congress.

Democrats also got control of the Harris County Commissioners Court with the election of Latinx peeps Lina Hidalgo as our new county judge and Adrian Garcia as Precinct 2 commissioner.

In addition to making our Harris County judicial ranks finally look like the diverse county we are, we also fired Stan Stanart, our much loathed county clerk, and replaced him with Diane Trautman.

The county clerk is the person who administers voting procedures, and Stanart was a partisan GOP hack hellbent on suppressing votes.   That ends today 

Marilyn Burgess will take office today as our Harris County District Clerk.  We also sent Orlando Sanchez packing and replaced him with a new county treasurer in Dylan Osborne

What a wonderful way to kick off 2019 in terms of watching dozens of Democrats get sworn into office as the Republicans they replaced suck their teeth and whine that 'straight ticket voting cost us our offices'

Naw GOP boo boos.  It wasn't straight ticket voting that did you in.  It was the fact your party is seen by a majority of voters as intolerant and hostile to people of color.   The Republican Party has become toxic to a majority of Harris County voters, and you refuse to deal with the reality of that.

You Harris County GOP fans let that truth sink into those hard heads while I get dressed to watch my friends and every Democrat I gleefully voted for get sworn into office.

Trans America Has a Great 2018 Election Night

The political junkie in me was up late watching returns and election coverage until I finally called it a night at 3 AM.   While I was focused on Texas, local and some key national races, I also had a nervous eye cast in the direction of Massachusetts to see what was happening with Question 3.

After a trans non discrimination law was passed in 2016 with public accommodations language, the Axis of Anti-trans Evil in the Bay State gathered signatures to put it on the ballot.

It was the first time we'd had a trans rights law put on the ballot for potential repeal, and the stakes were high surrounding Question 3.  A loss using the same bathroom predator attacks in a blue state means that us red state folks would probably spend 2019 fighting a red tide of anti-trans referenda.  A win means our Massachusetts trans and GNC fam keep that hard fought for law.

The national trans community justifiably saw this as a must win referendum.  Laverne Cox, VA Del Danica Roem, Trans United Fund and other people went to the state to help the YES on 3 team get what turned out to be a huge win for American transkind as the Trump misadministration is preparing to ramp up anti-trans oppression.

Question 3 was a resounding win for the trans community  1.5 million Massachusetts voters, or 67.7 percent, voted YES to preserve the current anti-discrimination law and support transgender rights. About 700,000 people or 32.3 percent, voted NO.

While the Massachusetts Question 3 referendum was the big news for Trans Election Night 2018, we also had in New Hampshire two more trans women get elected to state legislatures.

Gerri Cannon and Lisa Bunker were elected to the New Hampshire House.  Cannon finished second in the Stafford County District 18 race.  Bunker will represent Rockingham County after she won in District 18, that includes the city of Exeter.

Brianna Titone's race in Colorado is too close to call at this moment.  She's trailing by 400 votes in the race for the open Arvada area HD-27 seat    In another open seat race in Montana's HD 52, Amelia Marquez is trailing Republican Rodney Garcia by just 205 votes

As for the other trans candidates in this cycle, Christine Hallquist's bid to become the first ever trans governor fell short in Vermont, but she got an impressive 40% of the vote. 

Martin Rawlings- Fein and Mia Satya fell short in their San Francisco school board races,

In my home state of Texas, Finnigan Jones got 44% of the vote, but lost to incumbent Republican Tony Tinderholt.    The Austin City Council races also didn't break Danielle Skidmore's or Jessica Cohen's way in their respective council district races.

So we trans Texans are still waiting for our first elected trans officeholder.

So while we had a great night, it definitely could have been a lot better.   These close races will eventually break our way and result in more trans people getting elected and #TransformingPolitics when we do so. 

But we did take more steps toward making that political day happening

Why I Hate The 'Vote The Person, Not The Party' Line

One of the things I have been sick of hearing in the 2018 cycle is Republicans, knowing they are about to take a serious butt whipping at the polls on November 6, trotting out that 'vote the person not the party' line in a desperate attempt to save themselves from the Blue Tsunami that is about to engulf them.

What has me doing some hard solid thinking about this issue is a couple of local races.   There was an AKA candidate forum held here about two weeks ago in which one of the Black Republican judges, Melanie Flowers, got huffy because the Democratic ones kept saying vote a straight Democratic ticket during all their presentations. 

Flowers got appointed to the 257th District Court seat by Gov Greg Abbott, and is now being challenged by the Democratic nominee Sandra Peake for it.   

Because we have partisan election of judges here in Texas, we are subject to having these wild swings in which during the GOP waves of 2010 and 2014, we lost all the Democratic judges who had the misfortune of running that year, and in 2008, 2012 and  2016 the reverse happened to the Republicans. 

Black Republican judges also have to deal with the fact they get primary challenged by their bigot wing.  Flowers was bounced from a previous judicial bench in a GOP primary.   It's one of the major  reasons why besides the fact that Flowers is in the wrong party, why I'd rather have Peake serving on that judicial bench.

I've also been pissed by far too many white liberal progressives in my circles stating they are going to vote for the ten year incumbent Ed Emmett's problematic behind for Harris County judge instead of the eminently qualified Democratic nominee in Lina Hidalgo.   They usually say that BS line in a weak attempt to justify it, or harp on the nebulous 'experience' excuse.

Really?  Hidalgo is a Stanford grad pursuing a joint degree in law and public policy.

The vote the person, not the party' argument is highly problematic in a time in which one party has basically become unrepentantly fascist.   If you are a still a member of the Republican Party, by being a member of it you are signaling to me as a Black American you aren't a good person.

It's even more problematic to me if you are a person of color who is a Republican

You signal to me as a trans person of color by being a Republican that you are okay with the gleefully executed persecution of all non-white people, the TBLGQ community and immigrants.

You signal to me that you are okay with white supremacy as long as it doesn't personally impact you, your wallet, or that you can stay blissfully not woke about how it affects non white Americans.

You signal to me that you are okay with Trump's mispresidency, the anti-Black, anti-POC and anti-civil rights policies pushed by the Republican Party, and you're down with its platform.

Well, these Trumpian times call for you 'good Republicans' to make a choice.  If you don't want to get thrown out of office, and consider yourself a 'good person', the time has come for you to take a principled stand and switch parties.

Or you can stay and not only get swamped by the Blue tsunami that's coming, but lose your soul as well.   The choice is yours

Republicans don't vote the person.   They without question fall in line and vote for their party.  If they were really all about 'voting the person and not the party', Hillary Clinton would be living with Bill in the White House family quarters right now, Alabama Republicans wouldn't have voted in massive numbers for that pedophile Roy Moore to be their US senator, and Texas Republicans wouldn't have voted for a three time indicted felon in Ken Paxton to be our state's attorney general.

So no, why should we Democrats not do the same thing in terms of unrelentingly supporting our candidates?  Because the last few years should have taught us by now that you can't get liberal progressive policies from conservative politicians.

You also can't get justice from Republican judges who are making rulings in many cases based on concerns with fending off primary challenges from their bigot wing or getting GOP donors to back them for their next race.

If we want a liberal progressive policy agenda to be legislated into law, we must get control of our government back.   The only way that is going to happen is if we elect Democratic candidates in every election cycle in sufficient numbers.

Republicans have made it clear they don't care about the person, they vote their party.  It's past time that Democrats unapologetically do the same.
  

TransGriot 2018 Endorsements- Local and Texas State Races

With early voting about to start in the Lone Star State on Monday, and knowing that many of you Texas TransGriot readers have been asking for it, it's time for me to post my endorsements for various Texas state and local races. 

They are a combo from the Houston GLBT Caucus, Dallas Stonewall Democrats, Houston Chronicle  and my own thoughts and observations.

If you're registered to vote, fantastic.  Take yourself, your yellow voter registration card and photo ID to your fave early voting spot and handle your political business.   Early voting runs from October 22-November 2.   Election Day is on November 6 

US Senator
Beto O'Rourke 

US Representative
TX 1- Shirley McKellar 
TX 2- Todd LittonTX 5- Dan Wood 
TX 6- Jana Lynne Sanchez 
TX 7- Lizzie Pannill Fletcher
TX 8- Mike David 
TX 9-  Al Green 
TX 10- Mike Siegel
TX 12- Vanessa AdiaTX 14- Adrienne Bell
TX 15- Vicente Gonzalez 
TX 16-Veronica Escobar 
TX 18- Sheila Jackson Lee 
TX 20- Joaquin Castro 
TX 22- Sri Preston KulkarniTX 23- Gina Ortiz Jones
TX 24- Jan McDowell
TX 26- Linsey Fagan
TX 27- Eric Holguin
TX 29- Sylvia GarciaTX 30-  Eddie Bernice Johnson
TX 32- Colin Allred 
TX 33- Marc VeaseyTX 34- Filemon Vela
TX 35- Lloyd Doggett
TX 36- Dayna Steele

Governor
Lupe Valdez

Lt Governor 
Mike Collier

Attorney General
Justin Nelson

Comptroller of Public Accounts
Joi Chevalier 

Commissioner of Agriculture
Kim Olson 

Texas Railroad Commissioner
Roman McAllen

Texas State Board of EducationDistrict 2- Ruben Cortez, Jr 
District 4- Lawrence Allen 
District 7- Elizabeth 'Eliz'  Markowitz 
District 11- Carla Morton 
District 12- Suzanne Smith 
District 13-Aicha Davis

Texas State SenatorDistrict 2- Kendall Scudder 
District 7- David Romero
District 8- Mark Phariss
District 9- Gwenn Burud 
District 10- Beverly Powell 
District 15- John Whitmire 
District 16 -Nathan JohnsonDistrict 17- Rita Lucido
District 23- Royce West 
District 25- Steven Kling 

Texas House of RepresentativesDistrict 15- Lorena Perez McGill
District 26- L. Sarah DeMerchant 
District 27- Ron Reynolds 
District 28- Meghan Scoggins
District 48- Donna Howard
District 50- Celia Israel 
District 62 -Valerie Hefner District 75 - Mary Gonzalez
District 85- Jennifer Cantu 
District 92- Steve Riddell
District 94- Finnigan Jones 
District 95- Nicole Collier 
District 100- Eric Johnson
District 102- Ana-Maria Ramos 
District 103- Rafael Anchia
 District 104-  Jessica Gonzalez
District 105- Terry Meza
District 107- Victoria Neave 
District 112- Brandy Chambers District 113- Rhetta Andrews Bowers 
District 115 - Julie JohnsonDistrict 123- Diego Bernal 
District 124- Ina Minjarez 
District 126-Natali Hurtado 
District 130- Fred Infortunio
District 131 -Alma Allen District 132- Gina Calanni
District 134- Allison SawyerDistrict 135- Jon Rosenthal
District 137- Gene Wu 
District 138-Adam MilasincicDistrict 140- Armando Walle
District 141- Senfronia ThompsonDistrict 144- Mary Ann Perez 
District 145- Carol Alvarado
District 146- Shawn Thierry
District 147- Garnet Coleman  
District 148 -Jessica Farrar 
District 149- Hubert Vo
District 150- Michael Shawn Kelly

Texas Supreme Court
Place 2- Steven Kirkland
Place 4- R.K. Sandhill
Place 6- Kathy Cheng

Texas Court of Criminal Appeals 
Place 1- Maria T. Jackson 
Place 7- Ramona Franklin 

Texas Court of Appeals
Justice, 1st Court of Appeals- Place 6- Sarah Beth Landau 
Justice, 1st Court of Appeals- Place 7- Julie CountissJustice, 1st Court of Appeals- Place 8- Richard HightowerJustice, 1st Court of Appeals- Place 9- Peter Kelly
Justice 14th Court of Appeals- Place 3- Jerry Zimmerer
Justice 14th Court of Appeals- Place 4- Charles Spain 
Justice 14th Court of Appeals- Place 5- Frances Bourloit
Justice 14th Court of Appeals- Place 6- Meagan Hassan 
Justice 14th Court of Appeals- Place 8- Margaret 'Meg' Poissant

District Judge
55th Judicial District- Latosha Lewis Payne
113th Judicial District- Rabeea Collier 
116th Judicial District- Tonya Parker
157th Judicial District- Tanya Garrison
180th Judicial District- DaSean Jones
182nd Judicial District- Danilo 'Danny' Lacayo
184th Judicial District- Abigail Anastacio 
189th Judicial District- Scott 'Dolli' Dollinger
190th Judicial District- Beau Miller
208th Judicial District- Greg Glass
209th Judicial District- Brian Warren 
230th Judicial District- Chris Morton 
232nd Judicial District-Joshua Seth Hill  
234th Judicial District- Lauren Reeder 
246th Judicial District- Angela Graves Harrington
263rd Judicial District- Amy Martin 
269th Judicial District- Cory Sepolio
270th Judicial District- Dedra Davis
281th Judicial District- Christine Weems
295th Judicial District- Donna Roth

Family District Judge 
245th Judicial District- Tristan Longino
247th Judicial District- Janice Berg
248th Judicial District- Hilary Unger
257th Judicial District- Sandra Peake
280th Judicial District- Barbara J. Stalder
308th Judicial District- Gloria Lopez 
309th Judicial District- Linda Marie Dunson
310th Judicial District- Sonya Heath 
311th Judicial District- Germaine Tanner
312th Judicial District- Clinton 'Chip' Wells
313th Judicial District- Natalia Oakes
314th Judicial District- Michelle Moore 
315th Judicial District- Leah Shapiro

County Criminal Court At LawNo 1- Alex Salgado
No 3- Erica Hughes
No 4- Shannon Baldwin
No 5- David M. FletcherNo 6- Kelley Andrews 
No 7- Andrew A. Wright
No 8- Franklin Bynum 
No 9- Tonia J. Finch 
No 11- Sedrick T. Walker, Jr
No 13- Raul Rodriguez
No 15-  Tonya Jones

County Probate Court At Law
No 1- Jerry Simoneaux
No 2- Michael Newman 
No 3- Jason Cox 
No 4- James Horwitz

County Civil Court At Law
No 1- George Barnstone 
No 2-Jim F. Kovach
No 3- LaShawn A. Williams 
No 4- William 'Bill' McLeod 

Austin City Council
District 3- Jessica Cohen  
District 9- Danielle Skidmore 

Harris County District Clerk 
Marilyn Burgess 

Harris County Clerk
Diane Trautman 

Harris County Treasurer
Dylan Osborne 

Harris County Judge 
Lina Hidalgo 

Harris County Commissioner
Precinct 2-Adrian Garcia
Precinct 4- Penny Shaw 

Harris County School Trustee
Position 3 At Large- Richard Cantu
Position 4, Pct 3- Andrea Duhon 
Position 6, Pct 1- Danyahel Norris

Harris County Justice of the Peace
Precinct 3, Place 2- Lucia Bates 

Afro Brazilian Trans Woman Gets Elected In Brazil!

There were over 50 trans candidates running in Brazil for various seats at all levels of the Brazilian government when their election took place on October 7. So far only one has broken through to make Brazilian electoral history.

She is Erica Malunguinho, an Afro-Brazilian community leader and activist who just became the first trans person to win elective office in a state congress in Sao Paulo.

She is the founder of Aparela Luzio, a space since its 2016 opening that has become important to Brazil's Black population.   Now this groundbreaking win.

Malunguinho was motivated to run after the March 13 assassination of queer Afro Brazilian politician Marielle Franco.    Franco was murdered a few days after she spoke out against police brutality   

Malunguinho was also part of the 'Seeds of Marielle' collective of 231 Black female candidates running for office in the country in memory of the slain advocate, and was deeply affected by Franco's murder.

“I cried a lot when I heard about Marielle’s murder,” she told Afropunk. “Her political project was just wiped out. It was a message to us that we should not be there fighting over our bodies and resisting genocide and racism. I had so much hate in me. At the same time, I knew I needed to take this hate and do something positive with it.”

That you did.   This is a groundbreaking win for Brazilian transkind and the Afro Brazilian community.   May you represent those communities well and to the best of your ability.        

TX US House District 29 Debate

TX Senator Sylvia Garcia is taking on the transphobic Phillip Aronoff in their US House 29 district race.  Sen, Garcia and Aronoff recently confronted each other during a September 25 debate at the University of Houston Downtown campus.

TX House District 29 is a predominately Latinx district in Houston that was created in 1990 specifically to produce a Latinx congressmember.  While it has been safely in Democratic hands since its creation, it has never had a Latinx person represent it. 

The TX-29 district has been since 1992 represented by Gene Green, and Rep Green announced that he is retiring.   That opened up a mad scramble for this seat on the Democratic side that grew to seven candidates. 

Sen. Sylvia Garcia handily won the Democratic nomination for the seat, taking 63% of the vote while doing so.  She narrowly missed in 1992 making it to the Democratic Party primary runoff for the seat when it was created,

But back to the debate, moderated by ABC13 anchor Mayra Moreno.    Many of the questions asked of the candidates were from UHD students.

 

Houston Working On Shutting Down A Robot Sex Brothel

I loved the 2013-14 FOX TV science fiction cop show Almost Human, which starred Michael Ealy, Karl Urban and Minka Kelly as near future human and android police officers fighting high tech crimes

One of the interesting episodes of that short lived TV show set in the year 2049 was one entitled 'Skin'.   It involved android sex workers, a murder of a businessman, and a missing person's case.

Women were being kidnapped off the streets and held captive for engineers to harvest skin grafts from them to create more lifelike skin for the unregistered underworld android sex bots that would make the bots far more valuable and desirable for customers to buy or use.

The reason android sex bots were legal in the Almost Human show universe is because when they were introduced, human trafficking crimes went down 40%.

I'm bringing up the TV show because life in Houston is somewhat imitating sci-fi art. 

While my hometown is always eager to encourage high tech businesses to set up shop here, in this case they are not wanting us to be the first city in the US to call a robot brothel home.

The Canadian company Kinky S Dolls has a robot brothel in Toronto, and owner Yuval Gavriel wanted to set up its first US location here in Houston.    He plans to have 10 of them in the US by 2020.

It not only sells the 'love dolls', that are able to touch users while providing vocal responses for $2500-$5000, but would also rent them to be used in private rooms by the hour or half hour at the Kinky S Dolls location, a former Galleria area beauty salon on Richmond Ave and Chimney Rock Rd that was being renovated for that purpose.

But Kinky S Dolls ran into a few snags.   Elijah Rising, a faith based anti- sex trafficking organization, got wind of the project and alerted the city and Mayor Sylvester Turner about it.  They also cranked up an online petition that gathered 12,000 signatures.

The owner of the building also wasn't happy to find out he'd been lied to about what Kinky S Dolls actually wanted to do in their leased building.

Because the dolls aren't human beings, Kinky S Dolls cannot be considered a sexually oriented business. 

While Mayor Turner has said publicly he isn't interested in becoming the 'morality police', he is having the city attorney review the sexually oriented business (SOB) ordinance to see if changes can be made to it by Wednesday's upcoming city council meeting to prevent its opening.

Kinky S Dolls also got busted by Houston building inspectors doing construction renovations to their rented space they didn't get permits to do.  They 'red tagged' the building, which means that not only is construction halted, the owners will get hauled into municipal court if they try to do any construction without the necessary permits.

I also won't be surprised if those permits for Kinky S Dolls get slow walked until they can pass the necessary changes in the SOB ordinance.

Stay tuned.   This is going to get interesting

TransGriot Update:  Houston City Council on Wednesday passed an update to the arcade ordinance that classifies the sexbots in that category.   While you can still buy them, it's now illegal for you to get your freak on with them at the Kinky S Dolls facility.  

Brazilian Trans People Running For Office

It was nearly 20 years ago when Georgina Beyer made international news by being elected to the New Zealand Parliament on November 27, 1999.    She served until 2007, and her win inspired trans people in other nations around the world to take that next step in our trans rights movement evolution and run for public office.

Beyer's win led to Vladimir Luxuria in Italy, Michelle Suárez in Uruguay, Tamara Adrian in Venezuela, Anna Grodzka of Poland and Geraldine Roman of the Philippines getting elected to their national legislatures.     

While we have yet in the United States to have a trans person successfully run for the US House or Senate, we do have trans people serving on school boards, city councils in Palm Springs, CA and Minneapolis and one state legislator in Virginia Del Danica Roem.  If the election breaks our way in Vermont in four weeks, we could have our first trans governor in Christine Hallquist.

Our Brazilian trans siblings over the last few years have witnessed trans people get elected to their national legislatures in Venezuela and neighboring Uruguay.  They have also watched with interest as trans people in Colombia, Bolivia and Chile have attempted to do so.

And with no national level human rights protections combined with an off the charts epidemic of anti-trans violence aimed at Brazilian trans people, it was just a matter of time before Brazil's trans community had people step up in numbers to run for office in their homeland.

According to ANTRA, the National Association of Transvestites and Transexuals,  there are 53 trans candidates running for office in the upcoming Brazilian national elections on October 7, a tenfold increase over the five trans people who ran for office in 2014.

Of the Brazilian trans candidates in this cycle, 17 are running for national congressional seats, 33 for state congress sears, two for district Congress and one for the Senate. 

One of those people running for a national seat is Brazil's first trans volleyball player, Tiffany Abreu.  She the first out trans person ever to play in Brazil's Superliga, the premier league in the nation for women's volleyball.   Despite vehement transphobic criticism from other players since she joined in December, is vying for a spot on Brazil's 2020 Olympic team.

She's gotten criticism from other Brazilian trans people as well for running as a candidate for a center-right party, but in Abreu's words, "I don't give any importance to parties, but to people,"

Duda Salabert is the person running for the Brazilian senate.   Salabert said she doesn't want debates around her senatorial campaign to represent the state of Minas Gerais to revolve solely around the issue of trans women.

"The main agenda of my candidacy is education as I've been a teacher for 18 years. I defend public education, public universities, research and I also propose debt forgiveness for unemployed students. Investments in education are investments in the fight against LGBT-phobia."

As the largest country in South America, it's past time that it happened in Brazil   Good luck to all of these trans candidates running for office and hope they make electoral history in their nation and for the international trans community.

Arizona Family Calls Out Their Racist Congressional Brother

Many of us in POC America have been saying for years now that progressive white people need to call their racist relatives and family members out instead of ignoring them in silence.

That call for our white allies to call out their racist kin has taken an even more urgent tone as the bigots have come out to play in the wake of Dolt 45's election. 

We have an interesting example of how to call out your racist relatives coming from Arizona.

Paul Gosar (R) is a far right wing nut congressman who has repped Arizona's 4th Congressional District since 2013.    Gosar has claimed that the infamous Nazi rally in Charlottesville, VA was planned and executed by 'The Left', defended British far-right activist Tommy Robinson, attacked "disgusting and depraved" Muslim immigrants at a speech in London in July, and in a Vice News interview, called billionaire George Soros a Nazi sympathizer.

His six siblings, horrified and disgusted by his long list of far right peccadilloes, all signed a letter printed in the Kingman Daily Miner stating: "It is extremely upsetting to have to call you out on this, Paul, but you've forced our hand with your deceit and anti-Semitic dog whistle."

The Gosar siblings haven't stopped there.  They are now taking the step of endorsing his Democratic opponent, Dr. David Brill  in the upcoming November election because they don't want him repping the 4th Congressional District any longer. 

To make that happen, Tim, David, Jennifer, Grace, Gaston, and Joan Gosar also cut a brutal ad that called their racist brother out.




Brill 's campaign s considered a longshot to unseat Gosar, but when your own family is willing to go on camera to say that you shouldn't be in Congress, that's gotta hurt you big time politically.

We'll find out how effective the ad was on November 6.   

The First Beto-Cruz Debate

As a TransGriot public service for all folks inside and outside of Texas who may not have gotten the chance to see the debate between incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz (R) and Rep. Beto O' Rourke (D), here's the video of their first encounter from the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas and hosted bu SMU, the Dallas Morning News and KXAS 5 TV.

The debate was held in front of a raucous crowd of supporters for both candidates .

This is the first of three debates.  The next two will take place on September 30 at the University of Houston and October 16 in San Antonio.

The debate, like the one scheduled for UH, will be focused on domestic policy.  The San Antonio one will be a mix of domestic and foreign policy   

Who won?   You can see for yourself.