Showing posts with label speech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label speech. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 26, 2018

Munroe Bergdorf's 'A Qween's Speech' Discusses TBLGQ Issues In The UK

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Every Christmas Queen Elizabeth II gives across The Pond what is called 'The Queen's Speech' on television that's similar to our State of the Union one that happens in January.

The more formal name for it is the Royal Christmas Message, and it started with King George V in 1932.   It is now broadcast on radio and television in Britain and across the Commonwealth.  In the US, you can see it on C-SPAN because they usually broadcast it or if you live in a US state along the Canadian border since the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) also televises it..

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In the nearly 66 years that Queen Elizabeth II has sat on the British throne, she has not said one word or syllable concerning TBLGQ rights issues in the UK.

Trans advocate Munroe Bergdorf, frustrated by another speech in which the Queen failed to mention her British TBLGQ subjects, took to social media to give her own alternative one called 'A Qween's Speech'

She also made it clear she wasn't trying to deliberately pick a fight with the Queen.

“I’m not trying to cause beef with the Queen, but it’s very frustrating to see institutions of high influence glaze over the issues and sprinkle sugar on things when things aren’t going very well. Bergdorf said."  
"To not even mention racism, sexually transmitted diseases, gender-based discrimination, or the rise in hate crimes since Brexit invalidates the experiences of so many people," she added.


Qween's Speech: Trans activist Munroe Bergdorf starred in the alternative Queen's Speech
Bergdorf started by talking about education.  “Let’s start with education, please think of the children. Take a moment to think about the young ones who still don’t see any representation or relatable role models in history, on television, or in classrooms."

She also talked about some of the progress being made, and laid out ways in which Britain can improve when it comes to TBLGQ rights issues.
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Here's the video of Bergdorf's speech.

 

Sunday, September 16, 2018

AG Holder's HRC 2018 National Dinner Speech

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Eric Holder was the attorney general during much of the Obama Administration from 2009-2015.  There are rumors that he is considering a run for POTUS in 2020.

I also have much love and respect for AG Holder, and hope he does decide to run. We'll find out if that happens withing the next few months. 

The 2018 HRC National Dinner took place Saturday night in Washington DC, and AG Holder was on the stage speaking to the folks attending the dinner.

He also gave a shoutout to Shea Diamond's performance during that event.

Here's his speech.

 

Wednesday, July 25, 2018

30th Anniversary Of Ann Richards DNC Keynote Speech

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Thirty years ago today Ann Richards, who was our state treasurer at the time, gave  the keynote address to the Democratic National Convention delegates gathered in Atlanta.

Two years later, she would become the second female governor of Texas.

She is still dearly missed by all of us who loved having her in the Governor's Mansion and in Texas Democratic Party circles. 

It would be interesting to see what Governor Ann would say about the current occupant of the White House if she were still with us.

But enjoy this respite from the Trump madness and check out this video of her 1988 keynote speech.

Saturday, March 03, 2018

Moni's March For Black Women Speech

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TransGriot Note: The text of my speech I'm delivering for the March For Black Women here in Houston.  


To my beautiful Black sisters cis and trans, Kandice Webber, Nisha Randle our allies and accomplices, supporters and friends,   I am pleased, proud and honored that my unapologetic Black trans feminine self was invited to be here and say a few words to you on this historic day.

I find it so apropos to be standing here today in solidarity with my sisters on the hallowed soil of Emancipation Park because this place has enormous historical significance for Black Houstonians.  The ten acres of land you are standing on was bought in 1872 by a group of our ancestors organized by the Rev. Jack Yates in the wake of our emancipation from bondage and to hold our Juneteenth celebrations. .For decades it was the only park Black Houstonians could go to because of Jim Crow segregation.    As a child I watched along with my late grandmother Tama Juneteenth parades come down Emancipation Avenue and terminate at this spot before it became a state holiday.

And in this 21st Century moment, I can't think of a better place for this inaugural March For Black Women to be taking place than on these grounds.   I also can't think of a more appropriate place to announce that on March 6 and in a few short months, we will begin the process of emancipating ourselves from the bondage of Republican tyranny in Texas and beyond.

That emancipation from Republican bondage is going to happen if those of you assembled here and within the sound of my voice do two simple things.  One of them is to vote on March 6 and November 6 as if your life and your democracy depends on it, because frankly, that's where we are right now as a country. 

The second, and most important thing to do is TRUST BLACK WOMEN to lead you to that electoral promised land and in all the fights to come.

Trusting Black women to lead also includes without exception trusting Black trans women.

As Lucy Hick Anderson said several decades ago, "I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman.  I have lived, dressed, acted just what I am, a woman.” And yes, Black trans women , despite all the anti-trans rhetoric being spouted by various faux faith based haters and the Republican Party, ARE Black women. 

Black trans women are ready, willing and able to do our parts to uplift ourselves and the Black community.   But were frustrated as hell because the community at large is ignoring our suffering.  We have Black legacy organizations that haven't uttered one syllable about the ongoing slaughter of Black trans women occuring at a near genocidal rate, and we are distress about our legacy organizations and Black church folk being silent in the face of white fundamentalists, the Trump misadministration and the Republican Party attacking our very humanity and human rights. 

You trans siblings are also angry over the fact that some of our skinfolk are gleefully colluding with white fundamentalists , trans exclusionary radical feminists  sellout pastors and the GOP to demonize us, and that reprehensible behavior needs to end today.

Let me say this loud and clear, and I want you to commit this to memory.   Black trans women are women.  Black trans men are men, and Black trans people are Black people.

Saying that is the first step for the Black cisgender community recognizing beyond as shadow of a doubt that Black transgender people are Black people who are part of the kente cloth fabric of the Black community.

Diana Ross once said in a 1989 ESSENCE magazine interview, "I never considered it a disadvantage to be a Black woman.  I never wanted to be anything else.  We have brains. We are beautiful.  We can do anything we set our minds to"

And what we Black women as a group need to set our minds to do is come to the realization that Black trans women are not your enemy, my Black cis sisters. 

Black trans women, it is also past time for you to stop giving your Black cis sisters the side eye and treating them as if they are our enemy.  They aren't..  It isn't Black women who have been gleefully colluding with the GOP to mess with your human rights. it was a far too long list of folks who didn't look like us in the persons of Janice Raymond, Germaine Greer and other TERF's. 

It wasn't a Black woman who wrote SB 6 or other anti-trans Texas legislation.  What I saw in my multiple trips to Austin last year were Black women legislators like Senfronia Thompson calling it out and helping to kill the unjust SB 6.

It was the Lone Star dynamic oppressor duo of Lois Kolkhorst and Joan Huffman,  Kolkhorst authored it, and Huffman shoved it through her senate committee.  Both of them need to be punished at the polls for it along with the man who egged them on in Potty Dan Patrick.

However, a note to Chimamanda Adichie, Stacey Patton and anyone else in the Black feminine ranks cosigning their transphobia, we will not tolerate and will swiftly call out anti-trans rhetoric coming from you or any Black cis woman.  We don't need that TERF crap in our ranks because we have more important societal fish to fry.

Black trans people, Black trans kids and Black trans women exist.   Being trans isn't 'just a white thang', and we aren't going away or going back in the closet as evidenced by those of us showing us and standing here in solidarity with you here today in Emancipation Park.

From this day forward, we want and need our cis sisters standing in solidarity with us, and we want to be standing in solidarity with you our cis sisters.

We know who our enemy is, and it isn't our cis Black sisters.  We are fighting the same demonization and denigration of Black womanhood you are.   We are dealing with the same anti-Blackness you fight against.  We are fighting the same issues of living in an America hostile to Black people and Black feminine bodies you are fighting in addition to having to deal with transphobic ignorance inside and outside our shared community/   We want to work with you in sisterhood to eradicate it. 

But the non negotiable price of us offering that help is unconditional acceptance of who we are as Black trans people.   It's past time for cis and trans Black women to have those tough ongoing conversations that will lead to us building sisterhood so we can focus on the larger, more important  tasks ahead.

And by doing that you may get an amazing friend in the process.

It's nation time people.  Houston, Texas, America and our people are depending on us to as usual, save this country and this state from itself, provide the visionary leadership necessary to liberate our people and to paraphrase Barbara Jordan bring about a Texas and America better than its promise. .

Let's get to work making it happen.

Thursday, February 01, 2018

Rep. Maxine Waters SOTU Response Speech

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For those of you wondering what happened to Rep,. Maxine Waters'  SOTU response speech, she decided to delay it until Wednesday night 

The speech was broadcast on BET, and it was worth waiting for because she put her foot in Trump's oversized rump as she called out his white supremacist mispresidency.

And yes, once again Rep. Waters called for his impeachment.

Here's the video of it.

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Rep. Joe Kennedy's Democratic SOTU Response

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Folks, it would be easy to dismiss this past year as chaos, partisanship, as politics, but it’s far, far bigger than that. This administration isn’t just targeting the laws that protect us. They’re targeting the very idea that we are all worthy of protection. For them, dignity isn’t something you’re born with, but something you measure by your net worth, your celebrity, your headlines, your crowd size-Rep Joe Kennedy
For the first time since 2008 the Democrats were in the position of having to deliver the response to a Republican State of the Union Speech. 

The person chosen to give that response was Rep. Joe Kennedy III of Massachusetts.

While some peeps were appreciative of the fact it was one of the younger Democrats making that reponse, others were tripping about his last name and familial ties to a Democratic political dynasty in the Kennedys.

And unlike 45, Rep. Kennedy gave a shout out to the transgender community

'As if the parent who lies awake terrified that their transgender son or daughter will be beaten and bullied at school is any more or less legitimate than a parent whose heart is shattered by a daughter in the grips of an opioid addiction. So here is the answer the Democrats offer tonight. We choose both.'

Here's the response speech in case you missed it.


Here's A Real SOTU Speech By A Real POTUS

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For those of you who are boycotting (like I am) Dear Orange Misleader's State of the Union speech and are wishing you could once again see a president we could all be proud of giving one of these addresses,
may I present to you President Obama's final State of the Union address in 2016.

What a galaxy of difference in terms of not only intellect and respect of our president, but actually having someone who can speak in complete sentences, unlike the white supremacist idiot we have now.

Enjoy



Monday, January 29, 2018

Rep Joe Kennedy Invites Trans Solider To State of the Union Address

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45 is giving his first State of the Union address after not doing it last year, and Rep. Joe Kennedy III, who is giving the Democratic response to it, has invited trans soldier Staff Sgt Patricia King as his guest at the event.

Staff Sgt King is not only the first person to have her gender confirmation surgery paid for by the military, she is also there as a representative of the over 15,000 trans people currently serving in the armed forces.

She's also  a reminder that Trump tried to ban people like her from openly serving in our military. simply because he was trying to appease the evangelical wing of his base.

King has served for nearly 20 years and transitioned after her last deployment in 2013, but whether she does more time in our armed forces depends on whether the permanent injunctions against the Trump military ban stay in place.

She also points out the fallacy in the conservafool talking point about trans military service that people will be breaking down the doors trying to get in to do so.

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"There are much easier ways to get surgery covered rather than enlisting in the military. (facing the possibility of deployment, and dealing with the stigma of being a transgender service member.," she said.  "Every one of us who raises our right hand is prepared to give everything in defense of our country."

Saturday, September 30, 2017

Air Force Academy Superintendent Calls Out Racism On AFA Campus

Lt Gen Jay Silveria
“There is absolutely no place in our Air Force for racism. It’s not who we are, nor will we tolerate it in any shape or fashion. The Air Force strives to create a climate of dignity and respect for all. Period."-Lt Gen Jay Silveria 
The US Air Force Academy is located in Colorado Springs, CO, the same city that is the headquarters of the nefarious right wing group Focus on the Family. 

A photo of U.S. Airforce Academy Cadets walking towards a college football field before a game.
Been hearing some disturbing stories over the last few years about faith based infiltration of the AFA  and the Air Force to the point that there's a derisive joke that states 'What Would Jesus Bomb? 

Like everywhere else in the country, the hatred has gone off the chain since Trump's election, and on Monday, hate messages with ''go home n*****s' were discovered scrawled on the whiteboards of five Black cadets at the AFA Preparatory School 

Lt. Gen Jay Silveria, the superintendent of the US Air Force Academy, addressed thousands of students about the attack, and this is the response 45 should have had in the aftermath of Charlottesville instead of coddling the Nazis.




Bravo, Lt. Gen. Silveria.  This is what leadership looks like.

Thursday, September 14, 2017

Laila Ireland's 2017 GLAAD Gals SF Speech

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Last year at this time I was in San Francisco to accept an award during the 2016 GLAAD Gala San Francisco.  

This year it was my sis Laila Ireland onstage being honored with an award during the 2017 edition of this event and getting to make a powerful speech on behalf of trans military people like herself and her amazing husband.

Here's the video of that speech

 

Saturday, April 01, 2017

My HRC Houston Gala John Walzel Equality Award Acceptance Speech

TransGriot Note: The text of the HRC Gala John Walzel Award acceptance speech I'm delivering at the Marriott Marquis for the 20th Annual Houston HRC Gala
To the HRC Houston Gala Tri Chairs, HRC Houston, Chad Griffin, Ian Barrett, our local, state and national political leaders, distinguished gala attendees, fellow award recipients, gala volunteers and my TBLGQ family in the house. 

Tonight, I stand at this podium to announce that I humbly accept the John Walzel Equality Award.

In three days I’ll celebrate the 24th anniversary of the April 4, 1994 day I nervously walked into Houston Intercontinental Airport’s Terminal C to clock in for my first shift as the person you see standing before you.   As those who know me are already aware of, I’m not only proud of being unapologetically Black and trans, I have no problem speaking truth to power and calling crap out.


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Next year will mark 20 years of activism for me.   I’m also part of a tradition of Houston trans women who have since 1972 in the late Toni Mayes, Phyllis Frye, Sarah DePalma, Nikki Araguz Loyd and Dee Dee Watters just to name a few, have fought tenaciously for our humanity and human rights as trans people and the human rights of others.

I started getting involved in trans human rights efforts in 1998 because I didn’t see people who looked like me in the leadership ranks of this community.  Black trans people exist, we are more than just ‘tragic transsexuals’ and we are definitely capable of leading in this ongoing human rights fight. 

Black trans people must be at the advocacy and policy tables because frankly, some of the legislators voting on our issues share my ethnic background.

Human rights are not a zero sum game.  I practice what I preach on TransGriot about coordinated intersectional actions and being there for other communities in their human rights struggles.  I believe that when you criticize someone or an organization for screwing up, you must praise them when they are doing things right.  I must admit that since the 2007 ENDA debacle, HRC as an organization is on a positive trend line.  

Can it be better?  Yes, and it’s going to have to be if HRC is ever going to win the trust of transgender community folks.  It is your deeds as an organization at the local, state and national levels those skeptics will be watching, and you have little room for error.

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I saw local HRC members like Melissa Vivanco and Lou Weaver in the trenches when we passed HERO in May 2014 and while defending the ordinance.  I saw Ian, Lou, Melissa, Meghan Stabler, Marty Rouse and other folks from HRC at multiple lobby days in Austin last month in partnership with other organizations walking the halls of our state capitol.

I see the HRC sponsorships to trans conventions like the Black Trans Advocacy one in Dallas and the new HRC Houston office.

The progressive community needs HRC to be on its A+ human rights game because of a hostile to LGBTQ human rights Trump administration.   Texas has a regressive GOP legislature trying to pass unjust laws like the Texas Transgender Oppression Act (SB 6) while fueling the hellfire flames of anti-trans hatred and attacking trans kids to do so.   That hostile rhetoric is killing my Black trans sisters.

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We have work to do to ensure there is no slippage or repeal of TBLGIQ positive human rights laws, court cases, programs and polices people and our allies have worked tirelessly for decades to achieve. 

We have the moral high ground in this fight, not our loud and wrong pseudo-faith based opposition.   And when we work together as a team, we can accomplish anything.

Wednesday, February 01, 2017

Raquel Willis DC Women's March Speech

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Janet Mock wasn't the only trans woman speaking at the recent DC Women's March.  Raquel Willis was also on that stage to speak on that historic January 21 day, and she finally found and posted to YouTube the video from her speech.

As someone said on the YouTube comment thread, "Ms Cheryl (Courtney-Evans) is looking down and smiling."

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I didn't like hearing that her mic was cut before she finished her remarks, but now I can share her Women's March speech video with you TransGriot readers

The full text of Raquel's speech entitled 'A Vision of Liberation' can be found at this link.





Sunday, January 22, 2017

Janet Mock's DC Women's March Speech

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Our approach to freedom need not be identical but it must be intersectional and inclusive
-Janet Mack, January 21, 2017

While I wasn't there at the DC Women's March and was 139 miles up I-95 away from it in Philadelphia, we did have some trans participation there at it.  

I know Nikki Araguz Loyd attended it along with 500,000 other peeps, and the reports are still coming in from people there and around the country in Trans World who were in attendance or participating in their local events.

Here;s the video and the text of Janet's speech.


So we are here. We are here not merely to gather but to move, right? And our movements, our movements require us to do more than just show up and say the right words. It requires us to break out of our comfort zones and be confrontational. It requires us to defend one another when it is difficult and dangerous. It requires us to truly see ourselves and one another.
 I stand here today as the daughter of a native Hawaiian woman and a black veteran from Texas. I stand here as the first person in my family to go to college. I stand here as someone who has written herself onto this stage to unapologetically proclaim that I am a trans woman-writer-activist-revolutionary of color. And I stand here today because of the work of my forebears, from Sojourner to Sylvia, from Ella to Audre, from Harriet to Marsha.
I stand here today most of all because I am my sister’s keeper. My sisters and siblings are being beaten and brutalized, neglected and invisibilizied, extinguished and exiled. My sisters and siblings have been pushed out of hostel homes and intolerant schools. My sisters and siblings have been forced into detention facilities and prisons and deeper into poverty. And I hold these harsh truths close. They enrage me and fuel me. But I cannot survive on righteous anger alone. Today, by being here, it is my commitment to getting us free that keeps me marching.
Our approach to freedom need not be identical but it must be intersectional and inclusive. It must extend beyond ourselves. I know with surpassing certainty that my liberation is directly linked to the liberation of the undocumented trans Latina yearning for refuge. The disabled student seeking unequivocal access. The sex worker fighting to make her living safely.
Collective liberation and solidarity is difficult work, it is work that will find us struggling together and struggling with one another. Just because we are oppressed does not mean that we do not ourselves fall victim to enacting the same unconscious policing, shaming, and erasing. We must return to one another with greater accountability and commitment to the work today.
By being here you are making a commitment to this work. Together we are creating a resounding statement, a statement that stakes a claim on our lives and our loves, our bodies and our babies, our identities and our ideals. But a movement – a movement is so much more than a march. A movement is that difficult space between our reality and our vision. Our liberation depends on all of us, all of us returning to our homes and using this experience and all the experiences that have shaped us to act, to organize, to resist. Thank you.

***

Thank you Janet for the speech and repping us well (as usual) from the speaker's podium of this historic event.

Wednesday, January 11, 2017

President Obama's Farewell Speech

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It was a moment that we knew would eventually come, but it still didn't make it any easier to watch.

President Barack Obama returned to Chicago last night and took the stage at McCormick Place to make his farewell address to the nation.

There were moments when I was in full ugly crying mode as I thought about the historic nature of this presidency and the fact that those of us in the trans community are losing a champion.

It's also irritating that our nation is going from Harvard Law to Hee Haw (or worse) in nine days/

Here's the video of it

Tuesday, January 10, 2017

President Obama's Farewell Address Later Tonight

Note I didn't say 'potentially'. I have the confidence to say that he WILL be a great president. If we were going to have a first Black president I like my African descended brothers and sisters wanted him or her to be the best and brightest member of our community. Hopefully at the end of his second term, the nation will be lamenting the fact that we couldn't elect him to a third term.
-TransGriot, February 28, 2009 Why Barack Obama Will Be An Outstanding 
President

Seems like ages ago and a different more optimistic time that I wrote that post about our newly inaugurated president.   The eight years he has been in office during this historic presidency have flown by and the country is much better than it was when he took it over.
His hair is a lot grayer than when he took the oath of office in 2009 as well.

Image result for president first familyBut now he's about to hand it over in ten days to a blithering Republican idiot and buffoon, but before he does so, he will be in Chicago later tonight to give his farewell address to the nation
The 7000 tickets in the venue where he will deliver that farewell address were distributed in less than fifteen minutes/

Like many people, especially in the African American community, I will probably be shedding a tear of two a
s the realization hits me that I not only won't see this man and his amazing family living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in ten days, I may not see another African American or other person of color elected president in my lifetime .

And after five trips to the White House during this presidency, I know after January 20 I won't be going there, much less seeing the inside of that building for the next four years.  I also won't feel , much less feel as proud of my president as I was of Barack Hussein Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama and their wonderful daughters..  


The speech will air at 8 PM CST, and I like many Americans will be glued to the television to watch it.

Sunday, January 08, 2017

Meryl Streep's 2017 Golden Globes Speech


“This instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kinda gives permission for other people to do the same thing.  Disrespect invites disrespect, violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose.”
-Meryl Streep


I took a nap earlier this afternoon, and guess I needed the rest because I only just woke up thirty minutes ago.   That meant I missed the Golden Globe Awards and the amazing speech Meryl Streep made while accepting the Cecil B. DeMille Award

Since the conservafools are complaining about it and her eviscerating Trump in it, that means she plucked some conservanerves. Good. because these times call for unapologetic truth tellers.

Here's the speech if you missed it.

Thursday, October 13, 2016

First Lady Michelle Obama Calls Out Trump's Treatment Of Women In NH Speech

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First Lady Michelle Obama was tellin' it like it T-I-S is about a certain Republican sexual predator running for the presidency.

“The measure of any society is how it treats their women and girls. I can’t believe that a candidate for president of the United States has bragged about sexually assaulting women. This kind of violence and abuse and disrespect to women… This is not something that we just sweep under the rug as another disturbing footnote in a sad election season. The shameful comments about our bodies, the disrespect to our intellects, the belief that you can do anything to a woman. It’s cruel. The truth is it hurts. We are drowning in it.

All of us are doing what women have always done. We’re trying to keep our heads above water, just trying to get through it, trying to pretend that this doesn’t really bother us. Maybe we think that admitting how much it hurts makes us as women look weak. Maybe we’re afraid of being that vulnerable. Maybe we’ve grown accustomed to swallowing these emotions and staying quiet because we’ve seen that people often won’t take our word over his. Or maybe we don’t want to believe that there are still people our there who think so little of us as women. So many are treating this as just another day, as if our outrage is overblown. This is not normal. This is not politics as usual. This is disgraceful; it is not tolerable.

It doesn’t matter what party you belong to. None of us deserve this kind of abuse. This isn’t about politics. It’s about basic human decency. We cannot expose our children to this any longer, not for another minute, and let alone for four years. Now is the time for all of us to say enough is enough. If all of this is painful to us as grown women, what do you think this is doing to our children? What lessons do you think this is teaching to girls about their worth?

To dismiss this as ‘locker room talk’ is an insult to decent men. The men in my life are concerned about what this election is doing to our boys and men who are looking for role models. Strong men, men who are truly role models don’t need to put down women to feel powerful.

We need someone who is a united force, someone who will heal the wounds that divide us. I believe with all my heart that Hillary Clinton will be that president. When things get tough, she doesn’t complain. She doesn’t abandon ship. Hillary Clinton has never quit on anything in her life. She is someone who has waited her turn and helped out while waiting! No one could be more qualified for this job than Hillary. We as Americans, we as decent human beings, can come together and declare that enough is enough. We need to recover from our shock and depression and we need to do what women do, we roll up our sleeves and get to work. We need to vote, we need to make calls. We cannot afford to be tired or turned off. On November 8, we have the opportunity to show our children that this country is big enough for us all, and that each of us is a precious part of this great American story and we are always stronger together. We reject hatred and fear. In difficult times we don't discard our highest ideals. That is who we are, and don't let anyone tell you differently!"

Here's a link to the video of the FLOTUS' Manchester, New Hampshire speech

Sunday, October 02, 2016

Prime Minister Trudeau's First UN Speech

Trudeau speaks at the U.N.
Libertarian Party presidential candidate Gary Johnson may not be able to name a foreign leader he admires, but I can rattle off a long list of them.

One of the top people on my list is Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who recently gave his first UN General Assembly speech at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

And yeah, Prime Minister Trudeau called out a certain oompa-loompa running for president without mentioning him by name.

Here is the Prime Minister's UN speech.

Friday, September 30, 2016

Rep. Geraldine Roman Handling Her Legislative Business

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Back in May Geraldine Roman became the first out trans person elected to the Philippine Congress and only the sixth person internationally to become a member of that small sorority of trans national legislators.

It was a BFD when it happened, and it's still a BFD now.that she is now officially Congressmember Roman.

There has been recent debate in the Philippines concerning an anti-discrimination bill that would include sexual orientation and gender identity language, and she has been at the forefront, since she is now a legislator, of helping craft that legislation

Here's two videos that you need to watch.

Image result for Rep geraldine romanThe first is a privileged speech that starts at the 36:00 minute mark that she is making concerning the proposed bill.

The second is the Q&A she is engaged in with several legislators concerning the proposed legislation.

Enjoy it, and imagine it happening in the USA.

Someday we will have one of our own trans peeps elected to Congress, and I hope I'm still around to see that glorious day occur..
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It's what we need to have happen in our US Congress and state houses across the nation in terms of electing trans people to our national and state legislatures to help write good laws and kill bad ones.

Thanks Rep. Roman for doing so with dignity and class.
 

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

The GLAAD Gala San Francisco Speech


Angelica Ross recorded much of the speech, but here's the video of my complete GLAAD Gala SF speech I delivered on September 8, 2016.

On this night I accepted a Special Recognition Award from GLAAD for the decade of service to the community as TransGriot's founding editor and my nearly two decades of activism on behalf of our community.