Bill King's Shady Mayoral Campaign Mailers

Back in 2015 Bill King narrowly lost in a December runoff to current mayor Sylvester Turner in large part because ethnically diverse Houston, and especially the Black and Latinx parts of it ain't feeling Republicans right now. 

Our city hasn't elected a Republican to sit in our mayor's chair in over 40 years, so in this run, looks like King is deploying deception and racism in his attempt to knock Turner out the mayors chair at The Horseshoe.

He has already been called out for his dog whistle racist signs that are still up in many parts of town that say 'Clean Up City Hall', as if to imply there is rampant corruption going on with the Black mayor in charge.

Since our Houston municipal elections are theoretically nonpartisan, to imply that his Republican behind has bipartisan support, a mailer has appeared targeting the predominately suburban white Kingwood area in Northeast Houston  that lists some Democratic precinct chairs and makes the claim they support him.

Only problem is that many of those Democratic precinct chairs listed in the mailers DON'T support King, and were majorly pissed to find out their names appeared in his campaign literature without their knowledge.   Those Democratic precinct chairs want their names removed from King's campaign literature ASAP.

King apologized on August 7,  then three days later sent out another mailer targeting the predominately white Clear Lake area in suburban southeast Houston replicating the same tactic.

This statement appeared on the Harris County Democratic Party's website expressing support for their party precinct chairs outraged at the unauthorized use of their names or that they implicitly supported the King campaign.   

The Harris County Democratic Party has been made aware that Bill King, Candidate for Houston Mayor, recently mailed a political advertisement that identified as supporters, among others, Democratic Precinct Chairs. 

Our Precinct Chairs have unequivocally stated that at no time did they express support for Mr. King’s campaign or otherwise give their consent to be listed as supporters of his campaign. 

“We take the concerns of our Precinct Chairs very seriously, we always have their backs,” said Lillie Schechter, HCDP Party Chair 

We stand behind these chairs in asking that all candidates conduct their campaigns with the utmost integrity and obtain consent before listing any HCDP Precinct Chair as a supporter. 

Why am I not surprised that King would do what Republicans always do when they run for office?   Lie and do whatever shady crap they have to do to win.

Welcome To Texas, Liberals!

“You’re welcome in Texas as long as you never forget why you fled a liberal state,” he declared on Twitter. “Texans expect less government, lower taxes & more freedom. Newcomers must keep it that way.”-Gov Greg Abbott, Twitter

Seems like Gov Abbott and his conservafools are a little upset that Texas after 20 plus years of Republican misrule, the Lone Star State  is starting to turn  purple on its way to becoming blue.

Gov Abbott also has it wrong (as usual).   Texas has always been a progressive state, not a conservative one, and GOP control of it is only a recent phenomenon aided by gerrymandering and voter suppression laws.

It's a political flip that has been long predicted to happen since 2009, when the population of non-white Texans began to outnumber white Texans.

The blue tsunami and the movement of mass quantities of liberals to Texas also has them scared they are about to lose control of the state because it is critical to their efforts to elect a GOP POTUS and be relevant in national politics.

Ted Cruz narrowly won reelection over Beto O' Rourke in the closest US Senate race in the Lone Star State since 1978.   Texas Republicans also lost 12 Texas House seats to put the Texas Democrats within nine seats of flipping the chamber for the first time since 2002.

And in a development that really has them 'scurred', Tarrant County (Ft Worth), went blue for the first time since the 1970's.

The leftward political shift has also been sped up by the racist Trump misadministration and its 'hate on everybody but conservative white males' policies.  Texas Republicans have also contributed to the blue tsunami buildup with their anti-immigration policies,  incessant attacks on abortion, their racist rhetoric and failure to expand Medicare.    The Texas GOP has also pissed voters off by pushing socially conservative bills that don't have the support of the vast majority of the growing Texas population or our Texas business community.

The conservafools are also distressed about the fact that over 1000 people a day move to the Lone Star State, which solidifies our hold on the number two spot of most populous US states.   The Texas population is also not only majority-minority, it is also getting more ethnically diverse, especially in the suburbs.

By 2022, Latinx people will pass whites to become the largest ethnic group in the state, and the increasing anti-Latinx rhetoric is convincing many of them to vote Democratic

Houston, the largest city in Texas, is projected to move up to become the number three most populous city in the nation behind New York and Los Angeles once the 2020 Census is completed.

Houston and Harris County also account for in any statewide race 25% of the vote total, and Harris County flipped blue in the 2018 midterms.  San Antonio, the second largest city in Texas, is currently the seventh largest in the nation, and Dallas, the third largest in Texas with the ATX nipping at its heels, is number nine in population.   Austin and Fort Worth are 11th and 13th on that national population size list with El Paso at number 21

While some of that growth has been from conservatives leaving deep blue California, it has been offset by many liberal Californians and other people from across the country moving to Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio because of jobs in our growing tech sector, corporate headquarters moves to the Lone Star State and a lower cost of living.

That growth in the big four Texas population cities of Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin and their suburbs has seen those cities get bluer.   That blue wave is also starting to extend to the formerly Republican suburban bastion counties like Fort Bend near Houston, Williamson near Austin (and where Dell Computers has its headquarters) and Collin near Dallas, where the city of Plano landed Toyota's North American headquarters.

It's just a matter of time before the number of people in Texas cities outnumbers the entire combined population in Texas' rural areas that remain Republican for now.

So Greg Abbott and his fellow Republicans can whine all they want, but the flip of Texas to Democratic control is underway.   That bullet train has already left the station. 

BTW, speaking of bullet trains, we're about to start building a bullet train line between Houston and Dallas.

The Texas Republicans may not want you here, but as a fourth generation native Texan, I not only welcome you liberals to the Lone Star State, but I am along with other Texas native and Texas liberal progressive residents eagerly looking forward to working with you to make Texas better by turning it back to its progressive roots.

You Mad Because I Didn't Meet With You, Nick Hellyar? Stay Mad

The municipal political season is starting to heat up here in H-town with our November 5 election day rapidly approaching.

That also means that because many people in the Houston area respect my time in the movement and my political opinions as a social media influencer, candidates who are running for office believe that it is important to contact me and seek my endorsement. 

My political star has also been rising in the wake of the HCDP's JRR luncheon and the well received acceptance speech for the Barbara Jordan Breaking Barriers Award back in May.

The candidates that I endorse for local office will be announced in a TransGriot post I'll write before early voting in our municipal election starts on October 21.

We had a contentious GLBT Caucus endorsement meeting this past weekend in which I discovered during the debate for the Caucus' At Large 4 endorsement that candidate Nick Hellyar was talking shyt about me behind my back.   

In his words, Ana Andrea Molina, myself and Ashton Woods are in his words 'poor leaders' because we didn't take time out of  our busy schedules to meet with his vanillacentric privileged azz to discuss an endorsement.

And I have receipts in terms of how busy I have been.   This is just a snippet of some of the things I have done since April.  What was more important than spending my time with Nick Hellyar to discuss an endorsement? 

Let's see:

*Traveled to Minneapolis to participate in the Andrea Jenkins Lecture Series on the U of Minnesota campus

*Attending a rally for Muhlaysia Booker in Dallas    

*The 8th annual BTAC Conference April 23-28

*A Lambda Voices radio interview on KNON-FM in Dallas  

*A 9 AM press conference on April 29 in Austin urging passage of HB 1513 

*The HB 1513 hearing in Austin at 9 PM on April 29 
*Supporting Frankie Gonzales Wolfe's potentially historic council run in San Antonio on my May 4 birthday.  

*Being given the Barbara Jordan Breaking Barriers Award at the HCDP JRR Luncheon  

*Attending Muhlaysia Booker's wake and funeral  

*Interviews with CNN and other media outlets concerning anti-trans violence aimed at Black trans women  

*Lobbying the Texas Lege a total of six times this session  

*Marching in the Dallas Pride Parade with the BTAC and Dallas Black trans people contingent 

*Participating in the March For Black Trans Lives in Dallas 

*Being a Houston Pride honorary Grand Marshal  

*Being honored by Sara Ramirez on the Barclays Center stage with Ana Andrea Molina and Ashton P. Woods at NYC WorldPride opening ceremony  

*Taught during the 2019 TXTNS a seminar on Contemporary Texas Trans History 101 

*MCing A Black Trans Lives Matter rally in Austin 

          *Netroots Nation 2019 panel discussion in Philadelphia 

*BTAC board meeting and Leadership Institute in Dallas  

*Taping an ABC Nightline interview with Dee Dee Watters and Diamond Stylz 

*Writing my columns for OutSmart and my TransGriot blog posts

The At large 4 seats started drawing candidates from other crowded races because At Large 4 incumbent CM Amanda Edwards decided to run for the US Senate., 
The Caucus decided not to endorse anyone in the At large 4 race   Dr. Leticia Plummer also screened for it after switching from At Large 5, and I wish she could have gotten that endorsement. 

Christel Bastida, the candidate originally in the At Large 4 race (and a problematic one at that) didn't even bother to screen for it.   Hellyar only switched to At Large 4 after it became clear he wasn't getting any traction in this district.   It has two strong front runners in Shelley Kennedy and Abbie Kaman who are likely to be in a runoff.
Speaking of problematic candidates, the more I looked into Hellyar and talked to people about him, the more problematic stuff came out, including his controversial turn as GLBT caucus president.  

Questions about whether he actually lived in District C, which was the position he was running for before filing for At Large 4 came up, in addition to his condescending answers at a Pride Forum focused on council candidates 

It also came to my attention that trans folks are not part of his vision for HERO 2.0 either. 

So be mad and stay mad that I haven't met with you.   And news flash, when I endorse in At Large 4, chances are very high you won't be getting the TransGriot thumbs up.

 

The 'How I Feel About Trump' FB Post Debunked

The suburban white peeps who voted for Trump are now thrying to look for ways to justify voting for him again in 2020 and not look racist while doing so,

That ship sailed a long time ago Chad and Becky. 

This is why the Democrats need to laser focused from now until next November 3 on getting our base to the polls and increasing turnout amongst them instead of chasing the mythical suburban white swing voter that always keeps kicking them to the curb and voting GOP.

I ran across this problematic racist 'How I Feel About Trump' post on a former co-workers page.  She revealed she was one of the 53% of white women who voted for the Grand Wizard In Chief.

After I called out Trump, she tried to claim 'he's not racist' .  Y'all know I called that crap out with the quickness, then blocked her.   

This is the mentality of white suburban Trump voters and why it may be a fool's errand for Democrats to try to flip them in 2020 when they are cosigning crap like this in order to justify their 2016 vote and try to rationalize casting another vanilla scented privileged vote for him again. 

I'm going to take this original Facebook post and debunk it in sections:  My rebuttal comments will be in bold print.

***

HOW I FEEL ABOUT TRUMP

Lets say you've been on vacation for two weeks, you come home, and your basement is infested with raccoons.. Hundreds of rabid, messy, mean raccoons have overtaken your basement.. You want them gone immediately!.. You call the city and 4 different exterminators, but nobody can handle the job.. But there is this one guy, and he guarantees to get rid of them, so you hire him.. You don't care if the guy smells, you don't care if the guy swears, you don't care if he's an alcoholic, you don't care how many times he's been married, you don't care if he has a plumber's crack, you simply want those raccoons gone!.. You want your problem fixed!.. He's the guy.. He's the best!

MR:   Nice try at the dog whistle racism all over this first paragraph.  Trying to cover up the slur word for Black peeps with 'raccoon'


Here's why we want Trump: Yes, he's a bit of a jerk; Yes, he's an egomaniac; but we don't care!.. The country is a mess because politicians suck, the Republicans and Democrats can be two-faced and gutless, and illegals are everywhere.. We want it all fixed!..

MR  Correction: The country is a mess because Republican politicians like Mitch McConnell are more concerned with pushing a right wing agenda than doing the people business 
FYI, No human being is 'illegal'.  I want the immigration system fixed, too.  but throwing asylum seekers in Trump concentration camps and their kids in Trump baby jails isn't the way to go about ti. 


We don't care that Trump is crude, we don't care that he insults people, we don't care that he has changed positions, we don't care that he's been married 3 times, we don't care that he fights with Megyn Kelly and Rosie O'Donnell, we don't care that he doesn't know the name of some Muslim terrorist..

MR I and the 65 million people who voted for Clinton do care that he's all of the above including a racist, women's crotch grabbing azzhole with zero clue about how to run a business, much less the USA. .

This country became weak and bankrupt, our enemies were making fun of us, we are being invaded by illegals, we are becoming a nation of victims where every Tom, Ricardo, and Hasid is a special group with special rights to a point where we don't even recognize the country we were born and raised in; "AND WE JUST WANT IT FIXED”.. And Trump is the only guy who seems to understand what the people want..

MR  Our enemies are making fun of us on the world stage BECASE Trump is occupying the WH.  And there's that dog whistle racism again in the false claim that our country is being 'invaded by illegals'.

Demanding equal rights coverage promised to every American by the Constitution is not 'special rights'.   The diversity of America's population is our strength, don't something to be denigrated or feared.   

And Trump has no clue what the people want. 
  
We're sick of politicians, sick of the Democratic Party, sick of the Republican Party, and sick of illegals!.. We just want this thing fixed..

MR  The rest of reality based America is sick of racist MAGA azzholes who think that immigration is a detriment to this country.   And exactly what IS the thing you want fixed?  

Trump may not be a Saint, but we didn’t vote for a Pope.. We voted for a man who doesn't have lobbyist money holding him back, a man who doesn't have political correctness restraining him..

MR You also voted for a man who is racist jerk

We all know that he has been very successful, he’s a good negotiator, he has built a lot of things, and he's also NOT a politician, NOT a cowardly politician.!..

MR:  If it weren't for Daddy Fred's money, he'd be swilling beers with the rest of you MAGAts.  As for a successful negotiator, Trump has proven to be anything but that.  
And yes, he is a cowardly politician.  A thin skinned coward that can't handle criticism or the truth being told to him that he ain't all that, especially by Black women. 

And he says he'll fix it.. And we believe him because he is too much of an egotist to be proven wrong, or looked at and called a liar.. Also, we don't care if the guy has bad hair.. We just want those raccoons gone, out of our house, NOW!!!

MR  Sad that you believe the FOX Noise hype about him being a 'great POTUS".   Yeah, right.  He's the worst ever in addition to being a baldfaced liar 
And once again, who are these raccoon you're babbling about that you want out of 'your house'?  Black people?  Latinx folks?  Muslims?  Asians?  TBLGQ people?

And if our house is a thinly disguised metaphor for America, this house belonged to native Americans long before you Europeans came here   

You are welcome to copy/paste/share this.. Thousands of people who haven't voted in 25 years seem to be getting involved.. And the more people get this message, the more that will understand why Trump was elected..The raccoons have got to go!!!

MR Thar racist piece of orange excrement occupying the White House has to go for the sake of our country and the planet.

Warning H-town Progressives, Bill King and Tony Buzbee Are Republicans

Houston municipal elections are officially via the city charter nonpartisan, but a little digging into voter records,  Texas Ethics Commission (TEC) and Federal Election Commission (FEC) campaign donations records will reveal despite any spin attempts whether you're really a Republican or Democrat.

Because of the blue tsunami last year that flipped Harris County to Democratic control and the desperation of the Harris County Republicans to capture a Houston mayor's chair they haven't held in over 30 years, they are trying to peddle the fiction, especially in Houston's Black community, that mayoral candidates Tony Buzbee and Bill King are Democrats.

Um naw players, not on my H-town watch.  Buzbee and King are undeniably Republicans.  Don't want any Republicans in my mayor's chair.

Thanks to Melody Tan and Erik Manning, I have the receipts.

Let's start with Buzbee.   That's him on the right in this pic at the top of the post with Rick Perry and Lugenprasident at Buzbee's River Oaks mansion.

Um no.  He not only held a fundraiser for Trump, he has according to this FEC filing, made multiple donations to the Republican National Committee and Trump,

Buzbee has also given money to the state Republican parties of AR, CT, LA, MS,NJ, NY, TN, VA, WV and WY.

Nope, #NeverBuzbee   You were canceled when you donated money to Trump.

Now for Bill King,  the former mayor of the suburban community of Kemah who narrowly lost to Sylvester Turner in 2015.   He still wants to take his act to the Horseshoe. 

Um. no boo boo.   Not on my watch  Democrat my azz. Peddle that lie to someone that isn't paying attention.   #NeverKing

Note King's donation record.    Rep. Jarvis Johnson, the person who succeeded Mayor Sylvester Turner in HD 136 is the only Democrat on this donation list.   The rest of his cash is going to Republican leaning groups like the Houston Realty Business Coalition,  the Kingwood Republican Women's Club, The Spring Branch Republicans, state Sen. Paul Bettencourt's (R) problematic behind, and the Coalition For a Greater Houston.

And yes, King since 2006 has been voting (when he has cast a ballot ) in the Republican primary.

So naw Harris County Republican Party and all you Houston activists mad at Mayor Turner to the point you're considering spitefully voting for these two.   The Houston mayor's chair is not something to be played with because of its immense power in our strong mayor form of governance.

We know the Harris County GOP is big mad about being swept out of power, so they are trying to push that 'Buzbee and King are Democrats' lie to siphon enough votes from Turner to force a runoff.

Frankly, I don't see a compelling reason why Mayor Turner should be kicked out of office after only one term.  Neither am I inclined to fire only the second African-American and first Black Houstonian to have the job without an exceptional candidate to replace him.

I'm also not happy about the dog whistle racism that King has deployed in his second campaign implying there is  'corruption' at City Hall, or the dog whistle racism being aimed at him by some of his detractors.

As Trump has overwhelmingly proved, being a businessman doesn't mean you have the ability to handle the demands of being mayor of the soon to be third largest city in the US.  If these two are trying to cover up the fact they are proud Republicans, what else are they covering up?

Because of the charter change, the mayor no longer serves just a two year term.  If we don't handle our electoral business, we're stuck with that person in our mayor's chair for four years. 

So we must choose wisely on November 5. 

But at least you're going into the voting booth when early voting starts on October 21 armed with the knowledge that Buzbee and King are not Democrats, but undeniable Republicans. 

TransGriot Note:  Lugenprasident = lying president in German 

Sarah McBride's Running For A Delaware Senate Seat!

I first met Sarah McBride back during the 2012 NBJC Out on the Hill event when she was a White House intern and I was visiting the Obama White House for an all day policy briefing.

After being pleasantly surprised pleased to see a girl like us Obama White House intern,  I made a mental note to keep up with her because I felt at the time she was destined to do some great things for our community and our country.

My intuition about her turned out to be right on target.  Sarah went on after completing that White House internship to do some amazing things.

She was hired by HRC to become its national press secretary.   In 2013 she helped pass her home state of Delaware's statewide trans non discrimination law, and received the Delaware Order of the First State for her efforts to do so from former Gov. Jack Markell. 

She became the first out trans person to make a political convention stage speech when she did so during the 2016 DNC convention in Philadelphia.



And now Sarah McBride is attempting to become a Delaware state senator in 2020.

She recently announced her candidacy for a recently vacated state senate seat, and if she's successful, she will become the first out trans person to ever be elected as a state senator. 

But her run will focus on the issues facing her potential constituents, not her trans identity.

"At the end of the day, I'm not running to be a transgender state senator, I'm running to be a senator who serves her community, I'm running to be a senator who fights for affordable health care, I'm running to be a senator who works to expand access to paid leave and reform our broken criminal justice system," McBride told local radio station WDEL. "Those will be my priorities." 

She's running for the Delaware 1st District seat formerly held by Harris McDowell (D-Wilmington North) He was Delaware's longest serving state senator, having been first elected to the chamber in 1976. 

McDowell announced his retirement on June 30, the last day of the 2019 legislative session, and capping a 44 year career.





I'm already enthusiastically giving her a 2020 TransGriot endorsement for this position. I'm also  hoping this happens for her, her potential constituents and our community. 

And yeah, it goes without saying that it would be nice for y'all to drop some cash toward her election campaign.    
 
Good luck Sarah, and hope you make more history in that 2020 election cycle.

Why Y'all Want To Change Texas Judicial Elections Now, TXGOP?

Over the last 25 years the Texas Republican party has gleefully celebrated as they took over the state judiciary in large part because of partisan judicial elections.

In 2018, that script flipped in a major way.   In addition to being eviscerated from 59 judicial benches in Harris County (Houston), the TXGOP lost 22 benches in Bexar County (San Antonio), seven in suburban Fort Bend County and saw four Texas Court of Appeals districts serving Austin, Houston (which has two districts serving it) and Dallas flip to Democratic control.    The Texas Democrats also gained majorities on half of the state's 14 appeals court districts 

Can you say TXGOP panic?   Thought you could. 

Because the state of Texas is finally starting to show signs of turning purple because it has been since 2009 majority non-white in population, now all of a sudden the Texas Republican Party wants to change the way judges are elected in the Lone Star State,

The Republicans still have control of all nine seats on the Texas Supreme Court but SCOTX Chief Justice Nathan Hecht is calling for changes in the way that elects its judges.

Waah, cry me a river.   After using the GOP run Texas judiciary to roll back or stymie progressive policies and laws passed in Texas cities, now y'all mad that the political pendulum is swinging back in the direction of Texas Democrats. 

It's also the diversity of the judges bothering the TXGOP more than the fact they are now on the losing end of these judicial elections.  You're also big mad that with those Texas Democratic judicial wins also comes more diversity to the bench.   

In Harris County for example, we not only saw 17 African American women elected to the bench, we also saw our first ever Pakistani American female judge get elected in Rabeea Collier.

And naw TXGOP, it wasn't all straight ticket voting that was responsible for your disastrous election night.   That the fake news you told yourselves and your followers, but the reality is that your party is viewed by nonwhite Texans as racist and hostile to us.

In 2018 we decided to do something about that by bumrushing the polls is massive numbers across the state to throw you TXGOP bums out of power.   Didn't hurt that Beto O'Rourke was running for the US Senate against Rafael Cruz either.

The Texas electorate is changing to reflect the diversity of the state, and we want our judicial benches to reflect that diversity. 

So Texas GOP judges, it's either respond to the inevitable demographic changes that have been taking place in the Lone Star State since 2009, or continue to suffer the electoral consequences in 2020 and beyond.

Houston GLBT Caucus Hosts 2nd Annual Advocacy Day

If you are in the Houston area, and looking for an opportunity to chat with your state legislators, your opportunity to do so will take place on (no joke) April 1.

The Houston GLBT Caucus along with their partner organizations United We Dream, Transform Houston, Your Houston PAC, the New Leaders Council and Indivisible Houston will head to Austin on April 1 for their second annual Houston's Advocacy Day at The Capitol

If you're wishing to register for the lobby day and be in the ATX for it, here's the link to register.

Bus will leave the Montrose Center at 6 AM on Monday from the Montrose Center at 401 Branard St to head to the Pink Dome, and return to H-town at 8 PM

So if you wish to lobby your state reps, register now, because the Caucus and all these amazing orgs would love to have you there in Austin with them and your fellow citizen lobbyists,

Thailand Elects Its First Gender Queer MP!

While Pauline Ngarmpring failed in her bid to become Thailand's prime minister, it was still a historic election night in the Land of Smiles.

Filmmaker Tanwarin Sukkhapisit on March 24 became the first genderqueer person elected as an MP in the Thai House of Representatives. LGBT Thai's make up 13% of the electorate in the country.

Sukkhapisit was initially announced in many media outlets as trans,  but in a subsequent interview made it clear they identified as genderqueer and used they-them pronouns

They ran as a candidate with the Future Forward Party, which is projected to become the third largest party in the Thai government after all the ballot are counted.

If their name sounds familiar, it's because they just fought a successful five year legal battle to get their film  Insects In The Backyard on the Thai silver screens after it was censored and accused of moral indecency.  Once an agreement to cut a three second nude scene of struck, the film was allowed to be shown.

After that negative experience fighting film censorship, Sukkahpisit decided to run for office with the Future First Party, and said that the desire to fight for TBLGQ rights in their nation drove them to run for public office.

Tanwarin has been discussing political themes in their movies for over 20 years, and now feels it's time to establish new laws that address the changing mores in Thai society, starting with changes to Section 1448 of the Civil and Commercial Code to allow marriage equality

We'll see what happens as Sukkhapist begins their new role as an MP.  It will also be interesting to see is a Thai trans person finally breaks through and gets elected to the Thai House of Representatives .

If it's Monday It's Austin, Tuesday It's San Antonio

One of the things about odd numbered years is that going into them, I know I'll be doing a lot of travel inside and outside of the state of Texas.

An odd numbered year on the calendar means that the Texas Legislature is in session, and I'll be doing a lot of scheduled and unscheduled trips to Austin to lobby or testify for and against bills.

Monday afternoon was one of those unscheduled trips, as TENT's ED Emmett Schelling invited me to come to the ATX to do battle against SB 17.

It is the unjust bill sponsored by Sen.Charles Perry (R-Lubbock) that would allow anyone with a professional license to discriminate against people based on their 'sincerely held religious beliefs' and not face repercussions for doing so.

Translation, it's the 'religious freedom' BS once again.   Perry is also the conservafool who stated that 'being Christian in America is like being Jewish in Nazi Germany.'

Yep, that was the level of conservaidiocy we were taking on Monday.

That meant for the fourth time this session I would make the 175 mile trip from Houston to Austin to handle some political business under the Pink Dome.  This was the first time this session I would get to testify for or against a bill.

In case you're wondering, my personal record for Austin trips during a session is eight, set during the 2017 session.  I 'missed a ninth trip because I was handling San Diego Comic Con business during the special session, and Senate State Affairs called for a hearing on SB 6 while I was on the Left Coast.

The joke running around in the Texas activist community about me not being there for that ninth time is that the TXGOP heard I was leaving the state for a few days and decided to call that SB 6 hearing while I was in Cali because they didn't want to see or deal with me calling their conservaazzes out

Emmett, his family, Brad Pritchett, Lou Weaver and I piled into a minivan and rolled from Houston late Sunday afternoon for the hearing that was scheduled to take place at 9 AM the next day in the Senate State Affairs Committee.

But interestingly enough, this hearing took place on the floor of the Texas Senate chamber since as you probably guessed, committee hearing rooms are hard to get this time of year.

You can watch here as I said my piece along with other Texans opposed to it about that unjust bill.   It was also nice to spend some quality time talking to peeps in the community like Ashley Smith, Claire Bow, Finn Jones, Ash Hall, Fran Watson and my high school classmate Lawrence Allen, Jr

He was with his Omega Psi Phi frat brothers for their advocacy day, and also sits on the State Board of Education.  It was also nice bumping into Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo, Rep. Ron Reynolds, Rep Shawn Thierry, and spending some quality time with my own state senator Borris Miles.

In case you're wondering, he's opposed to SB 17

The next day instead of going back to Houston, since I was riding with Emmett and had nothing important scheduled back home, I made the short drive down I-35 south with them to San Antonio.

It was actually the first time I'd done the drive to San Antonio from that direction, and noted all the home and other construction going on along I-35.

While I was in Bexar County, Emmett, Andrea and I stopped by the northwest San Antonio campaign office of Frankie Gonzales Wolfe, who is running for the District 8 seat on the San Antonio City Council against an unpopular incumbent.

Frankie, should she be successful in doing so on May 4, would become the first out trans person elected to public office in the Lone Star State.  She'd also become if it happens the first trans Latina elected to public office anywhere in the United States. 

Was happy to hear that her campaign is starting to pick up positive momentum in the Alamo City, but our trans sister could still use some donation dollars from y'all who pride yourselves on helping to build trans political power.

So after allowing for some time for Andrea to hang out with her mom Elsa, and grabbing a bite to eat to allow for San Antonio rush hour traffic to die down, we hit I-10 east for the journey back to Houston and to get a few days of rest before it was time for me next Monday to head back to Austin for another lobby day.

And nope, I didn't get to destroy any Slurpees in either Austin or San Antonio despite the plethora of 7 Eleven locations in both cities.

Well, maybe next time.