My San Diego Queer Black History Month Keynote Speech

The speech I'm delivering at the Queer Black History Month event in San Diego.

***


To the leadership of the Gender Phluid Collective, Angelle Maua, my trans siblings, allies, friends and honored guests

Thank you for the invitation to address you at this Queer Black History event.  It was a well timed one as well. seeing that my hometown is being hit with freezing temps while I'm basking in the warmth of your love and these heavenly temperatures.

As we all know, this is Black History Month.   As the child and godchild of historians, every month on the calendar is Black History Month, and I celebrate the ongoing story being written for and about a mighty people.

Those mighty Black people also include those of us who are also members of the trans, gender non conforming and same gender loving communities as well.

Far too often we are seen as 'too Black' for the TBLGQ plus community and 'not Black enough' for the cis hetero Black one.   The bottom line is that we exist, and aren't going away anytime soon.  .

That is also true of those of us who proudly and unapologetically claim our  trans and gender non conforming status.  We will not be erased from society, or have our blood ties to the African American community and the African Diaspora denied or debated.

Black trans people are Black people.  We have been here as long as modern humans have walked this planet  and we will fight with every fiber of our beings any attempt to marginalize and erase us from our shared Black history.

In 1822 Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm, the founders of the abolitionist newspaper, Freedom's Journal said,  "We wish to plead our own case.  For too long others have spoken about us, but our virtues go unnoticed'

While they were talking about African Americans in general, their words could easily apply to the queer Black community of the 21st Century.

When it comes to talking about the virtues of Black trans people, our virtues are willfully ignored while a far too long list of people inside and outside our community that includes D-list rappers, unfunny comedians, wannabe Black lesbian TERF’s, kneegrow conservafool pundits and assorted ignorati gleefully attack and denigrate us.

That crap needs to stop.

That's a major reason why we need to be talking about the amazing things we have done and are doing in 21st Century America and the world as Black trans people.  It's why our history matters.  
It's why this event has been organized and my unapologetically Black trans self is proudly standing before you today.


Gender variant behavior has been part of African culture going back to ancient Egypt.   There are still peoples on the African continent that have third gender categories.   In the Yoruba language, there is no specific word for male or female.

So spare me that fake news that being trans or queer is 'unAfrican'   Many of our gender nonconforming ancestors got that same unwanted free boat ride to the Western Hemisphere like everyone else who survived the Middle Passage here..

It's time to plead our case.   What case you ask?   Our case that we are undeniably part of the Black community.  And what an amazing one it is that I get to argue in front of you today.

Our case includes people like Mary Jones, who transitioned at a New Orleans brothel, made her way to New York City, and found herself in the middle of an 1836 trial covered in the New York Times.

It includes people like Frances Thompson, who along with her cisgender Black roommate was sexually assaulted during the 1866 Memphis riots, and told her story to the US Congressional committee documenting what happened.

It includes people like Lucy Hicks Anderson, who just up the road from here in Ventura California became the first known marriage equality case in 1945.

It includes the story of Wilmer Broadnax, a trans masculine person who was a major gospel singer from the 40s to the 70's.

It's early Black trans masculine leaders like Marcelle Cook Daniels and Alexander John Goodrum who helped shape the direction of the modern trans rights movement. .

Goodrum is responsible for helping pass the trans inclusive Tucson, AZ non discrimination ordinance in 1999.

There's Althea Garrison, who in 1990 became the first trans persons elected to a state legislature when she accomplished that feat in Massachusetts.  And of course, Marsha P  Johnson, Miss Major, Kylar Broadus, and some five time nominated GLAAD award winning blogger.

It's also important to hear the stories of our trans elders like Tracie Jada O'Brien who can tell us what it was like to transition back in the day and is still serving our community right now.

The father of the study of Black History, Carter G. Woodson, said that those who have no record of what their forebears accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.

Black History isn't just a robotic recitation of names of people and dates of events.  There are people right now who are making Black history like Minneapolis city Councilmembers Andrea Jenkins and Phillipe Cunningham.    It's Aria Said putting together the Compton Trans Historical District in San Francisco.   It's Marisa Richmond blazing leadership trails in the Democratic Party upper echelon leadership ranks while teaching history herself at the collegiate level.

It's Janet Mock, Angelica Ross and the ladies of POSE blazing trails in Hollywood and telling our stories on the small and silver screens.  It's Jessica Zyrie sashaying down catwalks during New York Fashion Week.  It's Jazelle Barbie Royale becoming last year the first Black winner of the Miss International Queen trans pageant in Thailand.

It's our Black trans men from Carter Brown to Louis Mitchell to Rev. Lawrence Richardson not only blazing trails, but also beginning those conversations with cis masculine men about what Black masculinity looks like, how it can evolve into a more positive direction, and role modeling it..

We also can't forget our trans younglings like Trinity Neal and Zaya Wade, who represent our next generation of trans people.   It is them and trans and gender non conforming kids yet unborn who we do this work for to make our communities and world better

What telling our history accomplishes is several critical missions.  It establishes the irrefutable fact that we have and always will continue to exist.    It points out that not matter how much you hate on us, we remain an undeniable part of the Black community.   It points out that we are doing our part to contribute our talents to make the Black community and all the communities we intersect and interact with better.

It also gives our trans kids, in a world irrationally hostile to their existence, possibility models they can be proud of and builds up their self esteem.   Telling our stories also allows us to assert that we are more than just the 'tragic transsexuals' narrative the media consistently tries to paint us with.

So I'm saying it loud, I'm unapologetically, Black trans and proud of it.   I not only am a history maker, so are you.   I have a history as a Black trans person I am exceedingly proud of.

And that is why our history is Black history.

Moni's TENT Trans Lobby Day Speech

This is the full text of the TENT Trans Lobby Day speech I gave on the north steps of the state capitol building earlier this morning,

***

To Emmett Schelling and the TENT leadership team,  the Texas NASW leadership team, my fellow trans Texans, you Mama and Papa Bears,you citizen lobbyists, friends and allies in attendance.

It is a tremendous honor, blessing and privilege to be standing before you today as we prepare to head into the Pink Dome and lobby our state legislators and senators for our human rights. And since I am the TransGriot. I needed to take a moment to drop your trans history on you before we send you on your way to lobby your state reps and state senators.  

Our job today, citizen lobbyists is very simple. It is to advocate for just laws to get enacted and do our best to ensure that unjust laws don’t pass this session.

So what is a just law versus an unjust law?   As the Rev Dr Martin Luther King so eloquently put it in his 1963 ‘Letter From Birmingham City Jail’, ‘Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”

Translation:  if you’re trying to pass laws that denigrate marginalized communities and people you don’t like, it is an unjust law.   If you’re trying to pass laws that uplift people, they are just laws.

I had fun reminding Sen. Lois Kolkhorst and Lt Governor Dan Patrick of that point two years ago. I will continue to drive that point home to any legislator who believes their dry as dust religion gives them the right to oppress and discriminate against people they don’t like..

I’m happily here in the ATX with you a mere 26 days before my 25th transition anniversary on April 4.  I’m also here exactly 20 years to the day I made my first trip to Austin to participate in a trans specific lobby day.   

I’m also doing so with a heavy heart.   Sarah DePalma, one of our trans elders who was the former executive director of TENT’s progenitor organization TGAIN, the Texas Gender Advocacy Information Network, passed away a few weeks ago at age 67   Her memorial service is today. .

She not only was TGAIN’s executive director, she also headed an early national trans rights organization called It’s Time America   She was proudly standing up for our human rights in the late 80’s, 90’s and early 2000’s, and walked these Capitol building halls multiple times.

Sarah was also along with Phyllis Frye one of my activist mentors.   She was standing up for trans rights before I transitioned in 1994. She was a co host on KPFT-FM’s ‘After Hours’ show

As TGAIN’s executive director, DePalma also organized trans lobby days over multiple Texas legislative sessions.   She fought for trans inclusion in lesbian and gay orgs resisting it until Parkinson’s Disease started affecting her in 2005.

We in Texas and the nation are indebted to our transcestor for being a fierce warrior for our community.

DePalma wrote in a 1994 letter a comment that was published by the This Week In Texas LGBTQ magazine that I’m going to remix here  “Transgender people and drag queens cannot be hidden without our cooperation, and we refuse to hide. Get used to it, Texas.”

May we please take time to honor Sarah DePalma by having a moment of silence in her memory? Thank you

It’s roll call time!  What part of the Lone Star State are you peeps from?.  Dallas-Fort Worth-North Texas, where y’all at? East Texas?   The Beaumont-Port Arthur-Orange Golden Triangle? The Rio Grande Valley?  West Texas? The Panhandle? San Antonio? Austin? Central Texas? Houston, are y’all in the house?

Raise your hands if this is the first time you have participated in a trans lobby day or a lobby day of any kind.  

Whether this is your first time or you’re a veteran of these events like me, I want to take the opportunity to thank you for taking time out of your busy lives to let your legislators know that your human rights are precious to you.

There are nearly one million of us TBLGQ Texans in the Lone Star State.   If all of the estimated 930,000 of us were living in our own fabulous rainbow flavored city, we would be the fifth largest city by population in Texas.  It would also be a city that had non discrimination protections for its citizens, something that the unjust SB 15 wants to take away.

And note to all you politicians within and beyond the sound of my voice.   We LGBTQ Texans vote in EVERY election cycle..

As I mentioned, I first ventured to Austin for a trans lobby day in 1999.   The political landscape was different at that time. George W Bush was our governor.   The Texas House had a six seat Democratic edge, and a one seat Republican one in the Texas Senate.

We had a modest goal of getting included in the James Byrd Hate Crimes bill and getting a TGAIN sponsored name change bill passed that would take the name change process out of the Texas court system and make it an administrative process.

While we weren’t successful in doing so in 1999, what we did accomplish was visiting all 150 house offices and all 31 Texas senators despite having about 20 people to do so who were predominately from Houston, San Antonio, and Austin.

Today that torch on the name change legislation has been picked up by Reps Jon Rosenthal with HB 1835, HB 2089 by Rep. Garnet Coleman, and Sen. Jose Rodriguez with SB 154.

We’re also still trying to get included in the Byrd Hate Crime bill, and Rep Coleman has sponsored HB 1513 to make that happen    

One of the things we didn’t have 20 years ago that we do now is the support of many organizations like the Texas chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, PFLAG, Equality Texas, and HRC,

Texas based organizations now exist that advocate for the issues of trans people of color like the Dallas based Black Trans Advocacy Coalition founded by Carter Brown, and the Houston based Organization Latina de Trans in Texas founded by Ana Andrea Molina   

We also have fighting alongside of us the parents of transgender kids that we lovingly call Mama and Papa Bears.   They have been invaluable, along with our trans kids themselves, in dispelling the myths and stereotypes that crop up about trans people, and even getting legislators through their lobbying efforts to change their minds about unjust legislation and pass    

The trans kids have also been some of our best community ambassadors for spreading the word that trans people exist, and that we are an undeniable part of the diverse mosaic of human life.

And everything we are doing here on March 7, 2019 is to ensure that 20 years from now the Kai Shappleys, Libby Gonzales’ and Zuri’s of our state who are in elementary and middle school don’t have to come here to lobby every session for basic human rights coverage.

I want them to be building upon the trans lobbying work we do in our Capitol today. But since I’m still doing this work 20 years later, I won't be surprised if I'm still blessed to be around in 2039 to witness it that I will probably see them doing so on behalf of our community

Yes, Trans Lobby Day is about our trans and gender non conforming kids and making life better for future generations .  Some of what we elders do here we may never reap the benefits of it. But if it does happen for us trans elders sooner than that, that’s all good as well.  

Texas trans kids, here’s a message to you from your Aunt Moni.  I and your trans elders will fight for you with every fiber of our unapologetic trans beings   You are our future. We will do our utmost to make it a great one for you. So dream big, get those good grades, make friends with people who unconditionally love you, and be better quality people than the bullies who irrationally hate on you.

One of the things we also have going for us now we didn’t have in 1999 was the overwhelming support of the business community.   They said it loud and clear in 2017 and before this session started that they see diversity as a core principle of their businesses, and discrimination hurts their bottom line.  

Target and Victoria’s Secret are excellent examples of what I’m talking about here.   Target just reported their best earnings since 2005 and business is booming for them.  Meanwhile a business that went in the opposite direction in Victoria’s Secret is seeing lackluster sales and is  closing 58 stores.

Bigotry costs you money   As North Carolina proved in the wake of the passage of the unjust and transphobic HB 2, it can also cost you convention and hospitality business and sporting events that bring in millions of dollars to your state's economy. .  

We also have increasing support from progressive pastors who have no problem telling the world we trans people are God’s children despite whatever faux faith based anti-trans hate speech Dave Welch, Jonathan Saenz, Steven Hotze and other Texas right wing hate mongers keep putting out there.

I also must give thanks to the people in the social work, education, media and medical communities who unequivocally support our human rights struggle and fight back against the ignorance and attempts to demonize and dehumanize our community.

In closing I want to salute you citizen lobbyists and give you a few pro tips.   Relax, take a deep breath and don’t be scared to talk to your state senators and state reps.  Yes, they reprepresent you here in Austin and have the power to write legislation, but the bottom line is that they still work for you.

Frankly, your legislators and staffers enjoy talking to a constituent who made the effort to come to Austin from their district far more than they do some paid corporate lobbyist with an expense account who is here in the Pink Dome nearly every day    

Know your bill numbers and the basics of what they do when you talk to staffers and legislators so they can be on the alert for them when that bill hits their committee or the floor  They can also tell you where they are in the legislative process as well in their respective chamber.

Please and thank you works, especially in liberal progressive offices that get a constant barrage of nasty calls from our loud and wrong opposition.   Thank them for doing their demanding jobs and being legislative supporters of our TBLGQ community.

And before you leave Austin, take some time to get to know some of your fellow citizen lobbyists here today.  You may make a lifelong friend before this day is over.

Your authenticity is your strength as a citizen lobbyist.  You have a unique story to tell, so tell as much of that story to your reps and the legislative assistants in their offices as you feel comfortable in doing.  

You don’t have to be perfect.   Just be the beautifully human people I know all of you are.  

Barack Obama- Democracy Under Threat Speech

"We are Americans. We are supposed to stand up to bullies, not follow them. We are supposed to stand up to discrimination. And we sure as heck supposed to stand up clearly and unequivocally to Nazi sympathizers. How hard can that be, saying that Nazis are bad?"
-Barack Obama 

Former president Barack Obama in a fiery speech,  called out the Trump misadministration during a speech at the University of Illinois and urged people to get out and vote this November.

30th Anniversary Of Ann Richards DNC Keynote Speech

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.

50th Anniversary Of The 'I've Been To The Mountaintop' Speech

Today is the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's  'I've Been To The Mountaintop' Speech. 

It was delivered at the Mason Temple (Church Of God In Christ Headquarters) in Memphis, TN on the evening of April 3, 1968.    Unfortunately it would turn out to be Dr. King's last speech and the last night he would live in our plane of existence.   The next day he was assassinated aa he left Room 306 of the Lorraine Motel .

Dr. King had been in Memphis to lend his support to striking sanitation workers.

Here's the entire 'I've Been To The Mountaintop' speech for your listening and viewing pleasure.

Oprah's 2018 Golden Globe Speech

I wasn't watching this year's Golden Globe Awards, and probably should have been because Oprah Winfrey made history by becoming the first Black woman to receive this year's Cecil B. DeMille Award for Lifetime Achievement.

And based on the online chatter I'm seeing, looks like a lot of people LOVED her acceptance speech for it to the point some people are saying the words 'Run Oprah Run!

Here's the video of the speech:

Sen. Jeff Flake's US Senate Floor Speech

TransGriot Note: I'm not a fan of Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) because far too often he has been on the wrong side of human rights and other issues I deem important as an unapologetic liberal Texas Democrat. 

But I do have to give him his props for rising on the floor of the US. Senate today and giving a speech calling out 45 that was needed and necessary for someone in his party to say and be heard by the entire nation. 

It would have been more impressive though if he were going to run for re-election next year. 

Here's the text of Sen/ Flake's speech as prepared for delivery.

***

"Mr. President, I rise today to address a matter that has been much on my mind, at a moment when it seems that our democracy is more defined by our discord and our dysfunction than it is by our values and our principles. Let me begin by noting a somewhat obvious point that these offices that we hold are not ours to hold indefinitely. We are not here simply to mark time. Sustained incumbency is certainly not the point of seeking office. And there are times when we must risk our careers in favor of our principles.

Now is such a time.

It must also be said that I rise today with no small measure of regret. Regret, because of the state of our disunion, regret because of the disrepair and destructiveness of our politics, regret because of the indecency of our discourse, regret because of the coarseness of our leadership, regret for the compromise of our moral authority, and by our – all of our – complicity in this alarming and dangerous state of affairs. It is time for our complicity and our accommodation of the unacceptable to end.

In this century, a new phrase has entered the language to describe the accommodation of a new and undesirable order – that phrase being “the new normal.” But we must never adjust to the present coarseness of our national dialogue – with the tone set at the top.

We must never regard as “normal” the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals. We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country - the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth or decency, the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have all been elected to serve.

None of these appalling features of our current politics should ever be regarded as normal. We must never allow ourselves to lapse into thinking that this is just the way things are now. If we simply become inured to this condition, thinking that this is just politics as usual, then heaven help us. Without fear of the consequences, and without consideration of the rules of what is politically safe or palatable, we must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal. They are not normal.

Reckless, outrageous, and undignified behavior has become excused and countenanced as “telling it like it is,” when it is actually just reckless, outrageous, and undignified.

And when such behavior emanates from the top of our government, it is something else: It is dangerous to a democracy. Such behavior does not project strength – because our strength comes from our values. It instead projects a corruption of the spirit, and weakness.

It is often said that children are watching. Well, they are. And what are we going to do about that? When the next generation asks us, Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you speak up? -- what are we going to say?

Mr. President, I rise today to say: Enough. We must dedicate ourselves to making sure that the anomalous never becomes normal. With respect and humility, I must say that we have fooled ourselves for long enough that a pivot to governing is right around the corner, a return to civility and stability right behind it. We know better than that. By now, we all know better than that.

Here, today, I stand to say that we would better serve the country and better fulfill our obligations under the constitution by adhering to our Article 1 “old normal” – Mr. Madison’s doctrine of the separation of powers. This genius innovation which affirms Madison’s status as a true visionary and for which Madison argued in Federalist 51 – held that the equal branches of our government would balance and counteract each other when necessary. “Ambition counteracts ambition,” he wrote.

But what happens if ambition fails to counteract ambition? What happens if stability fails to assert itself in the face of chaos and instability? If decency fails to call out indecency? Were the shoe on the other foot, would we Republicans meekly accept such behavior on display from dominant Democrats? Of course not, and we would be wrong if we did.

When we remain silent and fail to act when we know that that silence and inaction is the wrong thing to do – because of political considerations, because we might make enemies, because we might alienate the base, because we might provoke a primary challenge, because ad infinitum, ad nauseum – when we succumb to those considerations in spite of what should be greater considerations and imperatives in defense of the institutions of our liberty, then we dishonor our principles and forsake our obligations. Those things are far more important than politics.

Now, I am aware that more politically savvy people than I caution against such talk. I am aware that a segment of my party believes that anything short of complete and unquestioning loyalty to a president who belongs to my party is unacceptable and suspect.

If I have been critical, it not because I relish criticizing the behavior of the president of the United States. If I have been critical, it is because I believe that it is my obligation to do so, as a matter of duty and conscience. The notion that one should stay silent as the norms and values that keep America strong are undermined and as the alliances and agreements that ensure the stability of the entire world are routinely threatened by the level of thought that goes into 140 characters - the notion that one should say and do nothing in the face of such mercurial behavior is ahistoric and, I believe, profoundly misguided.

A Republican president named Roosevelt had this to say about the president and a citizen’s relationship to the office:

“The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile.” President Roosevelt continued. “To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”

Acting on conscience and principle is the manner in which we express our moral selves, and as such, loyalty to conscience and principle should supersede loyalty to any man or party. We can all be forgiven for failing in that measure from time to time. I certainly put myself at the top of the list of those who fall short in that regard. I am holier-than-none. But too often, we rush not to salvage principle but to forgive and excuse our failures so that we might accommodate them and go right on failing—until the accommodation itself becomes our principle.

In that way and over time, we can justify almost any behavior and sacrifice almost any principle. I’m afraid that is where we now find ourselves.

When a leader correctly identifies real hurt and insecurity in our country and instead of addressing it goes looking for somebody to blame, there is perhaps nothing more devastating to a pluralistic society. Leadership knows that most often a good place to start in assigning blame is to first look somewhat closer to home. Leadership knows where the buck stops. Humility helps. Character counts. Leadership does not knowingly encourage or feed ugly and debased appetites in us.

Leadership lives by the American creed: E Pluribus Unum. From many, one. American leadership looks to the world, and just as Lincoln did, sees the family of man. Humanity is not a zero-sum game. When we have been at our most prosperous, we have also been at our most principled. And when we do well, the rest of the world also does well.

These articles of civic faith have been central to the American identity for as long as we have all been alive. They are our birthright and our obligation. We must guard them jealously, and pass them on for as long as the calendar has days. To betray them, or to be unserious in their defense is a betrayal of the fundamental obligations of American leadership. And to behave as if they don’t matter is simply not who we are.

Now, the efficacy of American leadership around the globe has come into question. When the United States emerged from World War II we contributed about half of the world’s economic activity. It would have been easy to secure our dominance, keeping the countries that had been defeated or greatly weakened during the war in their place. We didn’t do that. It would have been easy to focus inward. We resisted those impulses. Instead, we financed reconstruction of shattered countries and created international organizations and institutions that have helped provide security and foster prosperity around the world for more than 70 years.

Now, it seems that we, the architects of this visionary rules-based world order that has brought so much freedom and prosperity, are the ones most eager to abandon it.

The implications of this abandonment are profound. And the beneficiaries of this rather radical departure in the American approach to the world are the ideological enemies of our values. Despotism loves a vacuum. And our allies are now looking elsewhere for leadership. Why are they doing this? None of this is normal. And what do we as United States Senators have to say about it?

The principles that underlie our politics, the values of our founding, are too vital to our identity and to our survival to allow them to be compromised by the requirements of politics. Because politics can make us silent when we should speak, and silence can equal complicity.

I have children and grandchildren to answer to, and so, Mr. President, I will not be complicit.

I have decided that I will be better able to represent the people of Arizona and to better serve my country and my conscience by freeing myself from the political considerations that consume far too much bandwidth and would cause me to compromise far too many principles.

To that end, I am announcing today that my service in the Senate will conclude at the end of my term in early January 2019.

It is clear at this moment that a traditional conservative who believes in limited government and free markets, who is devoted to free trade, and who is pro-immigration, has a narrower and narrower path to nomination in the Republican party – the party that for so long has defined itself by belief in those things. It is also clear to me for the moment we have given in or given up on those core principles in favor of the more viscerally satisfying anger and resentment. To be clear, the anger and resentment that the people feel at the royal mess we have created are justified. But anger and resentment are not a governing philosophy.

There is an undeniable potency to a populist appeal – but mischaracterizing or misunderstanding our problems and giving in to the impulse to scapegoat and belittle threatens to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking people. In the case of the Republican party, those things also threaten to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking minority party.

We were not made great as a country by indulging or even exalting our worst impulses, turning against ourselves, glorying in the things which divide us, and calling fake things true and true things fake. And we did not become the beacon of freedom in the darkest corners of the world by flouting our institutions and failing to understand just how hard-won and vulnerable they are.

This spell will eventually break. That is my belief. We will return to ourselves once more, and I say the sooner the better. Because to have a healthy government we must have healthy and functioning parties. We must respect each other again in an atmosphere of shared facts and shared values, comity and good faith. We must argue our positions fervently, and never be afraid to compromise. We must assume the best of our fellow man, and always look for the good. Until that days comes, we must be unafraid to stand up and speak out as if our country depends on it. Because it does.

I plan to spend the remaining fourteen months of my senate term doing just that.

Mr. President, the graveyard is full of indispensable men and women -- none of us here is indispensable. Nor were even the great figures from history who toiled at these very desks in this very chamber to shape this country that we have inherited. What is indispensable are the values that they consecrated in Philadelphia and in this place, values which have endured and will endure for so long as men and women wish to remain free. What is indispensable is what we do here in defense of those values. A political career doesn’t mean much if we are complicit in undermining those values.

I thank my colleagues for indulging me here today, and will close by borrowing the words of President Lincoln, who knew more about healing enmity and preserving our founding values than any other American who has ever lived. His words from his first inaugural were a prayer in his time, and are no less so in ours:

“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor."

Air Force Academy Superintendent Calls Out Racism On AFA Campus

“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. 

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.

Trump Embarrasses Himself At UN

There are many of us in reality based America who are feeling the same way as White House Chief of Staff John Kelly who had the displeasure of being in the audience and watching Donald Trump embarrass the nation in front of the entire world during his United Nations General Assembly speech yesterday.

I won't subject you loyal TransGriot readers to the avalanche of idiocy that was on display in New York including Trump throwing juvenile 'Rocket Man' insults at North Korea's Kim Jong Un and threatening to 'totally destroy' North Korea from the Un podium after its delegation walked out before his speech.

Great, two egomaniacal idiots armed with nukes trying to one up each other. This is not going to turn out well.

Do y'all miss this man, the 44th president of the United States?

In case you forgot, this is what a UN speech given by an intelligent, exceptional president of the United States looks and sounds like.

And this is just a taste of what we would have gotten had we elected Hillary Clinton last year, the most qualified person in over a century regardless of gender to run for the presidency.



But instead, we got a nekulturny idiot who isn't qualified to be POTUS, much less sit in the Oval Office and run this country.

Even more distressing to me as a Cold War baby, this man has his fingers on the nuclear launch codes.

And it ain't just Moni and other people across the US saying it and proclaiming his white supremacist behind is an embarrassment.   The media around the world is also saying that Trump is unfit to be POTUS.

Exhibit A:  Germany's Der Spiegel, where the Leader of the Free World Angela Merkel, assuming that she and her party win in the upcoming German federal elections this Sunday. is still chancellor.

'Donald Trump is not fit to be president of the United States. He does not possess the requisite intellect and does not understand the significance of the office he holds nor the tasks associated with it. He doesn’t read. He doesn’t bother to peruse important files and intelligence reports and knows little about the issues that he has identified as his priorities. His decisions are capricious and they are delivered in the form of tyrannical decrees.'
-Der Spiegel

Trump has embarrassed himself and the country once again on the world's biggest international stage.  Sad!

President Obama and Chancellor Merkel Speak At Kirchentag

President Obama journeyed to Berlin at the invitation of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the leader of the free world, for the Kirchentag, the German Protestant Church Congress.

This one was taking place not only during the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, but with a looming German federal election in September that you know the Russians are just itching to mess with.

The invitation to speak came last year, so it's a coincidence that the former POTUS is here in Europe as the same time as 45 is on his problematic first international trip in which he's Making America Look Bad Again..

And President Obama is still very popular in Germany.   He visited Germany six times, with the initial trip happening during his 2008 campaign in which 200,000 Germans gathered to hear him speak in front of Berlin's Siegessaule (Victory Column).

Here's the video from today's event with Chancellor Merkel

The All In For Equality Texas Rally Speeches

I got up at 3:30 AM CDT so I could board a bus headed to Austin to participate in the All In For Equality Lobby Day.  I was also tapped to be one of the speakers at the rally happening on the south Texas Capitol steps, and if you wish to hear my comments, they start around the 13;00 minute mark of the video

And here's the link to me, Sara Ramirez and other orators speaking truth to power outside the Texas State Capitol.

Janet Mock's DC Women's March Speech

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.

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.

Clinton To Speak At Joint NABJ-NAHJ Convention

Looks like I'll definitely need to get to the hotel early to get a seat for this event on Friday.

I'm leaving Houston on Wednesday morning to attend the joint convention of the National Assn of Black Journalists (NABJ) and National Assn of Hispanic Journalists (NAHJ) that is taking place August 3-7 in Washington DC..

I was happy to hear that Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has accepted an invitation to speak at the convention this Friday that will have 4000 Latinx and Black media professionals on hand to hear her speech.

As you probably guessed,  no word on whether Donald Trump has accepted his invitation to speak to the joint convention.   I presume he is going to turn down that invite, especially since he has demonized Black and Latinx people throughout his campaign and is probably terrified of the prospect and the optics of a convention full of members of the ethnic groups he demonized professionally calling his butt on the carpet for it as the nation gleefully watches it happen on the news.

Should be fun to see Sec. Clinton's speech, and I'll be blessed to be in the house for it.

2015 Virginia Prince Transgender Pioneer Award Acceptance Speech

TransGriot Note: This is the text of the speech I'm currently delivering at Fantasia Fair that's entitled 'A Fantastic Voyage Towards Trans Human Rights Progress'


Good afternoon to Barbara Curry, Jamie Dailey, Dallas Denny, Mary Beth Cooper, Miqqi Gilbert, Fantasia Fair staff and volunteers, my fellow transpeople, my mentor Dainna Cicotello, Fantasia Fair attendees, significant others and spouses, allies and friends.

Thank you Denise Norris for that wonderful introduction, and thank you for the work that you have done to make this world better for all of us.

Thanks also to the Fantasia Fair team that has worked hard to not only make it possible for me to be standing in front of you delivering this speech, but is working daily to make this week a special and enjoyable one for all of you here in attendance here in Provincetown today and for the rest of the 41st edition of this conference.

I am pleased and proud to be standing before you making history this afternoon as the first African-American transperson to be honored by Fantasia Fair with the Virginia Prince Transgender Pioneer Award.  I enthusiastically accept it on behalf of myself and the trans ancestors who preceded me in proudly living our trans lives and fighting for our humanity and freedom,.

I also accept this award in the name of all of the people we have lost this year be it through murder or suicide, and may we please have a moment of silence to remind ourselves their lives mattered.

Thank you.

While I may be the first African-American trans person honored with this Virginia Prince Transgender Pioneer Award, I emphatically believe I won't be the last one to be so honored.   We have some people who have been and still are trailblazing African-American leaders such as Marisa Richmond, Kylar Broadus, Dawn Wilson, Miss Major and Louis Mitchell just to name a few who could have easily been standing here today instead of me.

But hey, I'm not going to lie.  I am so happy y'all gave it to me.

It's actually fitting when you think about it, since Texans have figured prominently in shaping the history of the modern trans community.  My fellow Texan Phyllis Frye, who won this award in 2003 is called 'The Godmother of the Trans Rights Movement for providing the innovative leadership we needed at that time as an out trans woman.  She got the Houston anti-crossdressing law killed in August 1980.  She founded the Houston based ICTLEP conferences that started in 1992 and helped organize the trans community, got us focused on the legal aspects of being transgender, got us on the same page politically, instilled a sense of pride in being out, trans and proud, and trained my generation of activists.

The second gender clinic founded in this country after the now closed Johns Hopkins one was in Galveston, TX. in the early 70s at the University of Texas Medical Branch there.. To the west of me in San Antonio the Texas 'T' Party organized in 1988 by Linda and Cynthia Phillips was mushrooming from a regional crossdresser and trans gathering into the then largest trans themed event in the country before it shut down in 1996 and the Atlanta based Southern Comfort grew to take that title.

When the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition was founded in 1999 at an Italian restaurant in Bethesda, MD, two Texans were sitting at that table helping to put it together in myself and Vanessa Edwards Foster.  

And that legacy of innovative Lone Star State trans leadership continues with Josephine Tittsworth's founding of the Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summit, which has resulted in 20 Texas colleges and universities and five school districts adopting trans inclusive policies.  Carter Brown has grown Black Trans Men Inc from a trans masculine centered conference that happened in Dallas to the Black Trans Advocacy Conference that will be held again in Big D in late April

We have trans leaders emerging across our state that is bigger than France like Lou Weaver, Nell Gaiter, Dr Oliver Blumer, Dee Dee Watters, Lauryn Farris, Katy Stewart, Robyn Morgan Collado, Ana Andrea Molina and Nikki Araguz Loyd.

Thanks fellow trans Texans for your contributions in making the trans community, Texas and our local communities better for transkind.

So don't hate on Texas, appreciate it because of our tradition of producing some kick ass trans leaders, and contrary to outside of Texas public opinion, Austin is not the only spot in my bigger than France sized state that is a liberal progressive bastion.
There is also the Rio Grande Valley, Corpus Christi, El Paso, Dallas, San Antonio, Beaumont-Port Arthur and my soon to be third largest city in the US hometown of Houston,

Houston has proudly elected Annise Parker, an out lesbian and longtime LGBT community activist as our mayor three times, and we will shock the world again on November 3 when my fellow Houstonians reject right wing fear and smear campaign tactics and vote to keep the HERO.

For those of you who are not aware of my story beyond what you have seen printed in your Fantasia Fair program, here is the short version.   I have been on my evolutionary trans feminine journey for 21 years and counting.  I love history and I am a Christian in the Rev. Dr MLK Jr liberation theology mode of my faith.   I have been involved in trans human rights activism at the local and state level in Kentucky and Texas, and the federal level since 1998.  

I have an award winning nearly ten year old blog called TransGriot that according to my haters nobody reads.

I am an unapologetically Black Texas trans angelic troublemaker who has zero tolerance for TERFs, fundamentalist idiots, trans community sellouts and anyone else who wishes to oppress and demonize trans people or trample the human rights of others. And I vote in every election cycle despite your attempts Texas GOP to make that harder for me and other people they hate in the Lone Star State to do.

At the time I transitioned on April 4, 1994, the landscape for trans people was light years different than it is now.  Minnesota was the only state along with ten cities, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, St. Paul, MN,  Harrisburg, PA, Champaign, IL, Urbana IL, Santa Cruz, CA, and Grand Rapids, MI which had trans inclusive nondiscrimination laws.   We were a few months from doing a national lobby day in Washington DC, and the trans human rights case law was sketchy at best,

We now have 16 states, the District of Columbia and over 200 jurisdictions that have trans inclusive laws.  We are starting to have court rulings go in our favor and even popular culture is starting to add trans characters like the CBS soap The Bold and the Beautiful, Transparent and Orange Is The New Black.  

And sometimes they will even have wonder of wonders, trans actors like Scott Turner Schofield and Laverne Cox, playing trans characters.

We are also a few months from seeing the 15,000 trans people in our armed forces get the ability to openly serve our country.    Thanks to TAVA, SPARTA, our allies and people inside our military like Sgt. Shane Ortega who pushed our nation to do what 16 other countries have already done and allowed trans people to enthusiastically answer the call to serve our nation.

Why is that important?  Because people like Kristin Beck, Amanda Simpson, Brynn Tannehill and our trans elders like Monica Helms, Christine Jorgensen and Allyson Robinson have in common is they served in the military, and are now using those leadership skills to benefit our community and our nation.

Another thing I have been moved and gratified to see is the emergence of trans teen leaders like Jazz Jennings, Nicole Maines and others with the help and loving support of their amazing parents, step up around the country to not only educate their peers about trans issues, but fight for their own and our human rights while kicking knowledge to us trans elders and others outside our community as well.

I can`t forget my amazing sister Fallon Fox, who is kicking ass and taking names in the women's MMA world while my sportswriting sis Christina Kahrl is reporting the sports news.

And speaking of reporters, I can't forget the trailblazing Eden Lane, who was the first out trans woman to report on a national political convention back in 2008 when she did so for PBS during the historic Democratic National Convention in Denver that served as then Sen. Barack Obama`s springboard to a presidency that has been the best ever for trans people.

I have been proud to see Geena Rocero, Isis King, Andreja Pejic, Carmen Carrera, Arisce Wanzer and others continue down the path that people like April Ashley, Caroline Cossey, Tracy Africa Norman, Roberta Close  and Lauren Foster blazed down the world's fashion runways.

And even in the tech world, we are represented in that world by Dr Kortney Ziegler and Angelica Ross building on the accomplishments of Dr Lynn Conway.  

But unfortunately one thing hasn't changed since I began my own transition, and that is the level of anti-trans violence aimed at our community.

We received another reminder of it happening on the eve of this conference when Zella Ziona Smith was murdered last Thursday in Maryland.   The thing that infuriates me is that she was just 21 years old and continues the upsetting to me pattern of trans women of  color taking the disproportionate brunt of it.

Thankfully the waste of DNA who is accused of killing her was arrested by the Montgomery County MD police and is rotting in jail without bond.

I am going to say this and continue to say it loudly and proudly until they bury me six feet under my beloved Texas soil.   As a person who is unapologetically Black and trans, my transition does not mean because you don`t like my Black trans behind or my Black trans brothers and trans sisters,  you can unilaterally erase us from the Black community we are an intertwined kente cloth part of.

Neither will we put up with in Trans and LGBT World attempts to erase us from the community we have shed blood for, helped to create or its historical record.

We trans peeps are part of the diverse mosaic of human life on Planet Earth and didn't just pop up in the late 20th early 21st century.   You haters of all ethnic backgrounds don`t like the fact we trans peeps exist, tough.

We ain't having it or putting up with that crap any more because Black trans issues are Black community issues and vice versa.  Trigger happy policing and voter suppression negatively affect me as an unapologetically Black trans person along with the historic demonization of Blackness and Black femininity.    

We have seen far too many people in Houston, including a mayoral candidate named Ben Hall and misguided hypocritical Black ministers who share my ethnic background in this battle to keep our much needed human rights law bearing false witness against the trans community.   We in Black TBLG Houston are not going to tolerate that revolting development, especially when the off the charts anti-trans hate being spewed is resulting in the deaths of my trans younglings.

Hate thoughts + hate speech = hate violence is an equation that leads to the deaths of far too many of our people here and around the world.  And it needs to stop.        

Black community, when will #BlackTransLivesMatter enough to you for you to get off your asses and recognize that our babies are being killed?  I am beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of having to remind Black America that Black transpeople are Black people too.

I`ve discussed some issues pertinent to our community, so let`s shift gears for a moment and talk about where do I see this amazing trans human rights voyage we are on needing to go?

One thing we need to do ASAP is have more trans people run for public office.  As that attempt in several states to criminalize being trans in this 2015 legislative cycle points out, we need to be writing the laws that govern us and not on our knees begging to kill the bad bills or get included in the good ones that advance our human rights.

And before you ask me if I am going to take my own advice and run Moni run, let`s just say I am seriously thinking about it.

I would also like to see every trans person who is eligible to do so to not only register to vote, but to exercise it in each and EVERY election cycle.  If we wish to see trans city council members, trans judges, trans mayors, trans state legislators, trans congress members and a trans president someday, we've got to do our part and provide the trans candidate that steps up to run for office support that includes a cadre of base voters they can reliably count on.

We also need as a trans community to be proactive in tackling systemic race issues in our ranks and doing the hard work to dismantle racism, sexism, homophobia and internalized transphobia in our ranks.  Some of our trans brothers need to stop being as misogynistic as their cis masculine counterparts and be the quality men of trans experience we know they can be.

And as Precious Davis and Myles Brady have been role modeling lately,  trans men and trans women loving each other is a powerful and revolutionary act.

As the stats from the 2011 NTDS point out, my transition as an African descended transperson is not like many of yours in this Fantasia Fair room, and neither is it like the one our Latina trans sisters like Arianna Lint, Jennicet Gutierrez, Ruby Corado, Joanna Cifredo and Elizabeth Rivera among others face.

We have an opportunity to role model to the rest of cis world what the Beloved Community that the Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr talked about looks like in practice. White that is going to be a bumpy process at times, it need to be done as part of our ongoing community building efforts.

We must to do a better job on addressing HIV/AIDS issues in Trans World, and the recent Positively Trans Survey was a major first step to doing precisely that.

And people, to borrow the words of Elizabeth Rivera, #StopThe Shade.   We have an array of enemies from the Catholic and Southern Baptist Churches to the TERF`s, FOX Noise and the conservative movement hating on us.

There is enough work that needs to be done in Trans World and beyyond across this country for all of us to excel and shine.  It is time to get busy figuring out what you wish to do, if you have the talent and skill set to accomplish that mission you laid out for yourselves, and get busy making positive change happen.  We do not need to be hating on each other when the reality is we have enemies who wish to destroy all of us.

We need to have regular intergenerational conversations with each other.   I enjoy the phone calls I get for example from Miss Major and Sharyn Grayson, and I`m committing to havoing more conmversations with younger trans activistsgoing forward.   I learn just as much from those conversations as you do from me.

I was blessed to have one of those conversations with Sylvia Rivera in May 2000, and trans younglings, I wish to do for you what Sylvia did for me as a neophyte trans activist.   Those intersectional conversations are important in passing along our history, strategy and tactics, training our replacements in this struggle, and building pride in being the trans men and trans women we are.

We are blessed to be in a tipping point moment for not only the acceptance of trans people in all walks of life, but seeing trans human rights progress grow around the world.

I can`t wait to see how this fantastic voyage of trans human rights progress is going to transpire (pun intended) in the next five to ten years and what exciting things are in store for us.

I also hope we remember the words of the late Nelson Mandela as we continue on this trans human rights voyage  when he said, `For to be free is not merely to cast off one`s chains, but to live in a way that enhances the freedom of others`

I am proud to be doing my part at this pivotal moment in our history to help our community do exactly that as we continue to steer the SS Trans Human Rights to the safe harbor of codified human rights and having our humanity recognized until I have to pass the steering wheel of this ship to the next generation of trans leaders

And I`m confident that when that day comes, the SS Trans Human Rights will be in good hands.

Thank you, may God bless us and our community, may we love one another and ourselves, and you have a wonderful rest of your time here at Fantasia Fair 41.