'I Am Cait' Cancelled

Won't have to worry or be pissed off about Caitlyn Jenner making future TV trips to Houston to ignore local trans activists any more.   Multiple reports and chatter is coming out of Hollywood stating I Am Cait is being cancelled after two seasons due to low ratings..

I Am Cait started off with over 2.7 million viewers, but has had a steep falloff to 800,000 viewers this season from those initial lofty first season numbers due to several factors.

There is a trans community backlash against it because of Jenner's constant missteps with our community that we finally got fed up with.   Jenner's fab lifestyle doesn't match much of the way that trans folks do live their lives, and has angered others.  Toss in her revelation that she is a Republican followed up by her laughable assertion that the GOP has been supportive of trans rights issues.

It's an assertion not supported by current political reality like HB2 and politicians with the GOP label gleefully oppressing trans people..

People have also not been happy about controversial comments from Jenner about her ex-wife Kris, and there's also the Hateraid people have for Cait's Kardashian stepdaughters that's probably part of the reason why the show's ratings are sinking.

And it's not helping that you have the very popular Jazz Jennings with a reality show following her fascinating teen life on TLC.

So not surprised I Am Cait is now I Am Cancelled

I Am Jazz Season 2 Debuts June 8

We have a date for the Season 2 debut of the hit TLC reality TV show featuring our community's fave transteen Jazz Jennings and her family.

The second season will debut on June 8, and during its eight episode run will document Jazz's life as she navigates the jump to high school, sports, her social life and being an advocate

Just your average teenage girl who won a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Reality Series and was named to TIME Magazine's 25 Most Influential Teens list in 2014  and 2015.


This season she's learning that she may need surgery to deal with the puberty blocking implant, she and her mom Jeanette take on anti-trans haters targeting their family, dating and learning how to drive.

In other words, she's just your average teen.   Her parents Greg and Jeanette, sister Ari and twin brothers Sander and Griffen will also return for season two.  

The new season stats June 8, and if you have Xfinity On Demand, all the season one episodes are available for replay.

Looking forward to watching Season 2.

President Obama Stands Up For Trans People In PBS Town Hall

Another historic moment for transkind took place in a PBS town hall Wednesday  hosted by Gwen Ifill as President Obama continued to cement his legacy as the best president ever on trans human rights.

A question was asked of him during the town hall in Elkhart, IN concerning why the bathroom has become a pressing political issue?

As any trans person can tel;l you, it isn't about bathrooms, it's about human rights coverage for trans people, but check out courtesy of this video how eloquently President Obama made that case.

Legal Drama 'Doubt' Featuring Laverne Cox Being Picked Up By CBS!

Been talking about the legal series Doubt, which features Laverne Cox as an Ivy League educated attorney that works at a boutique law firm.

The original pilot wasn't picked up by CBS last season, but what they did do was order a second retooled pilot episode with Katherine Heigl and Steven Pasquale as the new lead actors to replace KaDee Strickland and Teddy Sears.  

Laverne was part of both Doubt pilots, and it looks like CBS is finally going to pick up the show and order it as a series for its 2016-17 television lineup.

She'll be playing Cameron Wirth, who is competitive, fierce, funny, compassionate and fights hard for her clients as someone who experiences regular discrimination herself according to the character description..

By doing so, CBS helped Laverne make more groundbreaking Hollywood and television history.  When Doubt broadcasts its first episode this fall, it will become the first television series that has an out trans actress playing a trans main character in a broadcast series.

The show's cast in addition to Heigl and Pasquale in the lead roles, includes, Dule Hill, Dreama Walker, Elliott Gould, and Kobi Libii.

While Candis Cayne was on ABC's short lived 2007-2009 series Dirty Sexy Money for 11 episodes, her Carmelita Rainer character wasn't a main character, she was a recurring character.   Laverne's Cameron Wirth will be a main character from the outset of the show, and the first Black main trans character on a network TV show .

So congrats Laverne for getting another opportunity to make more television history, and may Doubt be a runaway success..

Jillian Weiss Appearing Again On CNN Legal View

I guess CNN loves Dr. Jillian Weiss as much as I and the trans community does.

After her May 9 appearance on Legal View With Ashleigh Banfield to discuss the legal issues surrounding HB 2, Dr Weiss will be back on CNN again at 12 noon EDT/11 AM CDT to discuss not only HB 2, but the recent declaration by the DOJ that they will do everything possible to protect trans people and today's Department of Education decree..

Should be an interesting and informative discussion from one of our community's wonderful attorneys.  If you want to hear how this affect us trans folks legally from someone who has tried and won trans civil rights cases, then you need to tune in if possible..  

Once CNN posts the video from this latest conversation, I'll post it on the blog.,

The SNL Church Lady Humorously LambasTED My Canadian Senator

Y'all know I have no love for Sen. Damien Thorn, oops Ted Cruz, who I call on these electronic pages the junior senator from Alberta in addition to other sarcastic nicknames when I'm in the mood for calling out his perennial Shut Up Fool award winning behind. .

In the wake of his withdrawal last from the Republican presidential primary after being humiliaTED in the Indiana Republican primary by Donald Trump, NBC's Saturday Night Live brought back former SNL castmember Dana Carvey and his iconic Church Lady character to lampoon my junior senator.

Well isn't that special?   Sure is, and I heartily approve of the SNL skit whacking the defeaTED transphobic Republican presidential candidate.

Here's the video of it if you missed it.

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Angelica Ross On The Daily Show

Last night my homegirl Angelica Ross was on The Daily Show, and I missed the original telecast because I'm not usually in the habit of watching it and Empire was on.

Here's Angelica's appearance on The Daily Show and her interview with Trevor Noah for those of you who missed it like I did.

Don't Forget This Groundbreaking Black Trans Character

But one thing I would love to see is a fictional trans woman, and especially a transwoman of color play a professional character who happens to be a trans woman more often-TransGriot,  November 16, 2013

As we enter the last two weeks of 2015, the Best Of 2015 articles and 2015 list articles are multiplying.  One of those lists is one that has been compiled by Autostraddle about LGBT television characters.

While Autostraddle has been on point about discussing trans topics including trans media representation, they touched upon some of the trans characters on TV and noted that a separate article specifically focusing on trans characters was forthcoming. in this initial Best of one they continued to miss the trans character that is the most groundbreaking one in Maya Avant on the CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful.


It's groundbreaking for several reasons.  The character played by actress Karla Mosley is a major one on the soap as Forrester Creations lead model, and one of the few African-American lead characters in the soap world.   She is also the first African-American trans character on daytime television.

Yes, the Maya Avant character is at BFD, especially when far too often the television characters who look like me have either far too often been sex workers, drag ones that gets killed in the first ten minutes of the show, or only show up once on the show like 1977's Edie Stokes on The Jeffersons.

Since Maya's reveal as a trans woman in March, we have gotten to meet her sister Nicole, played by Reign Edwards and see that relationship evolve from an adversarial one to one in which Nicole is her loving sister who in one of the current B&B storylines involving the Avant family is acting as the surrogate mother to Rick and Maya's child.

We have met Maya and Nicole's parents Vivienne and Julius Avant. played by veteran actors Anna Maria Horsford and Obba Babatunde, and see her marry the love of her life in Rick Forrester.

We have even met Maya's friend Nick, played by trans man Scott Turner Schofield.  Nick met Maya when she first moved to Los Angeles from Chicago and before the subsequent fame and success for her.  He serves as her adviser, her link to the rest of the trans community, and reminds her that she is beautiful and deserves to be loved as her authentic self..

Schofield is also making history as the first trans man with a recurring role on a daytime television show.

So yes, while Laverne's Sophia Burset on Orange Is The New Black has gotten some well deserved attention and even Emmy nominations, Karla Mosley's Maya Avant character deserves just as much attention and discussion for expanding the way we think about and see Black trans women portrayed on television.

Alexandra Billings On 'How To Get Away With Murder' Tonight

Another TransGriot Must See Trans TV alert for you.

For those of you who are fans of the ABC-TV show How To Get Away With Murder, in tonight's episode of it, we'll have longtime girl like us actress Alexandra Billings making an appearance on it

She is excited about appearing on this top rated ABC drama, and I'm jut as excited to see her performance tonight to see if she does indeed get away with murder.

How To Get Away With Murder comes on at 9 PM CDT on you local ABC station, and hope you'll tune in.

Break a leg, Alexandra!

Trans Woman Wins Holland's Next Top Model

We watched Isis King attempt to do so on the American version of the show that is ceasing production after 12 years,.but in the Netherlands it's still on the air and a trans woman has broken through to become the first out trans feminine winner of Holland's Next Top Model.

20 year old Loiza Lammers initially decided to not disclose her trans status at first, but as the rumors started flying and she secured her spot on the show, she announced she was trans and subsequently began to dominate the competition.

While there have been trans contestants on the other international versions of Top Model who have attempted to win those versions in their nations and failed, Lammers has broken through and along the way to the win became an icon to the Dutch TBLG community..



She won a modeling contract with Touche Models, and hopefully this is the first step to a long and successful career for her.
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Upcoming Must See Trans TV- The 'Transgender In America' Show On HLN

I'd talked about it in terms of the O'Bannon women being on this show, and now the preview videos are finally coming out.

On August 26 and 27 HLN's  Dr Drew show will be broadcasting over two nights a Transgender In America show in front of an all-trans audience starting at 8 PM CDT.

You may wish to set your DVR's for this one, and here's the preview video of the upcoming broacast .


Once again, the Transgender In America show will be broadcast on HLN, and I'm looking forward to seeing what people I know show up not only as the guests on the show, but in the studio audience.,

The O'Bannon's On HLN August 27

During my Texan in Exile days in Louisville, two of the many people I got to meet in the nearly nine years I lived there were Sheila O'Bannon and her lovely trans feminine daughter Shemiyia

I met them back in 2004, when Miyia was just getting started with her transition, and Sheila was adjusting to it as well.

It's a story that Sheila captured in a play she wrote and produced entitled The Prodigal.  It was a fictionalized account of a family's journey to understand and eventually come to accept the transition journey of one of its family members. 

It debuted at the Kentucky Center for the Arts in downtown Louisville, and yours truly was going to be the moderator for its June 2010 debut until I had to move back to Houston several weeks before the play had the first of its two sold out performances on June 26-27.

It was another piece of unfinished Louisville business I was disappointed and pissed off about not getting a chance to complete as I pointed the moving van southward on I-65 toward Nashville and the opening leg of my journey back home.

I did get to catch up and have lunch with the O'Bannon women at the 59 Diner when they rolled through Houston on vacation two years ago. We had a wonderful time catching up on what was transpiring in all our lives at the time while discussing the then state of the trans community for Black trans folks vis a vis our white counterparts..

Thanks to Miyia's FB page, she's alerted me to an upcoming appearance of her and her mother on Dr. Drew On Call that they taped yesterday.   It's scheduled to air on HLN August 27.

Looking forward to seeing it, and you may wish to set your DVR's for it.  I'm also looking forward to the next time I get a chance to talk to these TV stars.
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Janet's Guest Hosting On MHP This Weekend!

It wasn't too long ago I was jumping up and down excited because Janet Mock was making an appearance on the Melissa Harris -Perry Show on MSNBC.   Now she gets to be the guest host of #Nerdland for this weekend!

Congrats Janet and so bursting at the seams proud of you!   I will definitely be tuned in to watch as you handle your broadcasting business.  I also hope that this weekend's guest stint leads to something bigger and better for you. 

If you wish to check her out or set your DVR's for watching it later, the shows will air this Saturday and Sunday starting at 9 AM CDT.

NIkki Araguz Loyd Eviscerates Dave Welch In Local News Debate

Y'all know I love my sis Nikki Araguz Loyd,  who is a kick butt activist in her own right fighting a now five year long battle to have recognition of her marriage to her late husband Thomas Araguz III restored.

The case is now at the Texas Supreme Court level, and in like of the Oberkfell SCOTUS ruling legalizing same sex marriage, it remains to be seen how this will  affect Nikki's still pending case.

Nikki was on FOX 26 last night not to talk about her pending marriage case, but to tangle with Dave Welch in a segment moderated by FOX 26's Isiah Carey.  

Dave Welch is a longtime hater and professional gaybaiter who before heading the Houston Area Pastoral Council, the predominately white right wing group of haters that Max Miller and his Baptist Ministers Assn of Houston and Vicinity cooned it up for in last year's HERO fight, worked for Ralph Reed's Christian Coalition in Washington DC.

He's been back in Texas attempting to spread his special brand of hate with the aid of sellout non-white preachers like Miller and friends.

Note to Zoey Tur, this is how you deal with a right wing hater.

Here's the link to the FOX26 webpage if you can't see the video..

Welch is probably tired of getting his azz kicked when he tangles with Houston trans women.  First Cristan took him down to the point where he refuses to debate her any more, then moi, and now Nikki have made him look bad on local TV.

But hey, the existence of trans people is not up for debate, and neither is whether or not as Houstonians, Texans and Americans we should have human rights protection.

Anybody like Welch who thinks their religious beliefs and praying to Conservagod trumps human rights  is our enemy, and doesn't deserve our pity or respect.

Three Must See Trans TV Events!

Wednesday is going to be an interesting day of television in that you have three shows being broadcast that will be broadcast that feature well known transpeople on them.

First up will be Isis King spending the next few days (Wednesday-Friday) on The Bold and the Beautiful playing Sonya, a friend of Maya Avant's who will also be featured in a fashion show that is being headlined by Maya.

If you're asking who's Maya Avant, she's a major character in the B&B universe that was recently revealed to be trans and is played by Karla Mosley.

Carmen Carrera will also pop up in one of the fashion show episodes as well.

Looking forward to seeing Isis on The Bold and the Beautiful, and I hope they make the Sonya character a recurring role for her.

The ESPY Awards are also on later tonight starting at 7 PM CDT, and they will feature Caitlyn Jenner receiving the Arthur Ashe Courage Award. 

There has been some criticism of ESPN for giving the award to the recently out as trans Jenner, with Bob Costas questioning their motivation for doing so.  

But as I've told people who have asked for my opinion about it, it's ESPN's call on who gets that award, and anything that humanizes us and shows a transperson doing something positive is a good thing for the community at large.

I'll also be interested in seeing Ms. Jenner, seeing the crowd reaction in the hall from her sporting peers to it and hearing what she has to say about it during her acceptance speech for it.

Then at 9 PM CDT is the long awaited debut of I Am Jazz on TLC.

The reality show features our fave transteen Jazz Jennings and her family as the cameras follow her now 14 year old self as she navigates the world around her.

Jazz is one of the sweetest people you'll ever want to meet along with her mom Jeanette, and I've been looking forward to the debut of this show ever since it was announced that it was going to happen.. I believe once America gets to see the amazing Jennings family onscreen they'll fall in love with Jazz and them.  

So if you can't watch any of those shows, you may wish to set your DVD's and check them out later.


TransGriot Note:  In the interest of journalistic integrity, need to note that Isis and I both share as of yesterday the same celebrity publicist

Isis King To Appear On 'The Bold And The Beautiful'

Y'all know how much I love my little sis Isis King and enjoyed hanging out with her and the cast of the Hello Forever movie when it debuted at WorldFest here in H-town.

Well, my sis is going to be back on the small screen to do a guest appearance on the CBS soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful.

As you know The Bold and the Beautiful has an ongoing and evolving trans lead character in Maya Avant played by Karla Mosley. 

Maya is the lead model for Forrester Creations, and starting on Wednesday there will be a fashion show featuring Maya and Isis as one of the models.

I also noted this photo of Isis, Karla and possibly Carmen Carrera on a website that tracks soap opera news, so can I presume based on that photo this particular soon to be broadcast Forrester fashion show in question has all trans models? 

The B&B episodes featuring Isis will start on Wednesday and run through Friday, and I'm pleased and excited for her . I'm looking forward with heightened interest to watching those upcoming Bold and the Beautiful episodes and see how they transpire.

As for my sis Isis, she's becoming more visible these days, and I hope this leads to more amazing opportunities and acting work for this hard working lady.

Nicole's 'Royal Pains' Episode

If you missed it, there was a Royal Pains episode that aired on June 23 featuring another of our amazing trans teens in Nicole Maines called 'The Prince of Nucleotides'

I finally got a chance to see some video of her performance  courtesy of YouTube, and here it is a scene from it..  If I can find the full episode I'll post it here.

Jazz And Jeanette On 'The View'

So what did you do this morning?  

If you're the fabulous trans teen  Jazz Jennings you woke up early this morning in New York along with your wonderful mom Jeanette to get ready for a live TV appearance on ABC's The View. 

I think Jazz has more frequent flier miles than I do this year, but I digress.

As you all know the TLC reality show featuring Jazz and her amazing family I Am Jazz is set to start on July 15.  Jazz is also a spokesmodel for Clean and Clear, has written a picture book to inspire other trans kids with the same title, and as someone who has had the pleasure of meeting her, is one very sweet kid.

She's had some amazing stuff happened for her. as she continues to live her life, fight for the human rights of transpeople, educate others along the way and be a shining example for other trans kids.

Hey. she's also a wonderful role model for us adult trans folks as well.

As soon as I find the video for this morning's broadcast, I'll post it on the blog for you peeps to see it.

Looking forward to seeing this The View episode since I missed it, the reality show and seeing what happens next for this amazing young lady.

'I Am Jazz' Starts July 15

I've had the pleasure of meeting Jazz, Jeanette, her grandparents and her big sis Ari last year at PTHC, and now the rest of America will on July 15.

TLC will launch the I Am Jazz reality TV show on that date ay 9 PM CDT, and while I'm not a huge fan of reality television, this is one show I'll definitely be tuning in to watch if I have cable installed by then

But for those of you who do, you may not want to miss this show about one of our amazing trans teen advocates and her wonderful family.

Here  are some of the promo videos to give you a taste of what's coming on July 15.

Nicole's 'Royal Pains' Episode To Be Broadcast June 23

I mentioned in a recent post I wrote about her last month that the amazing trans teen Nicole Maines was taping an episode of USA Network's show Royal Pains

Well, get ready to set your DVRs because that episode in which she plays a character named Anna will be broadcast starting June 23.

Will be looking forward to seeing it when it gets broadcast, and hope it leads to more acting work for you.

And best of luck to you as you start your freshman year of college