Sir Lady Java Interview

Sir Lady Java was one of our trans pioneers and elders who worked with Lena Horne, Redd Foxx and others as the premiere female illusionist of the 60s and 70's.

She was not only #BlackTransExcellence in her day, Lady Java was also a trans rights warrior, helping to take down the odious LAPD Rule Number 9.

Lady Java is still with is.  She's living in Los Angeles these days and now doing interviews talking about her life and 'her people' as she calls girls like us. 

Check out this

45th Anniversary of School House Rock

Back in 1973 as my brother and I, and later my sisters watched Saturday morning cartoons on ABC, some of the advertising breaks were taken up by the Emmy Award winning educational cartoons that later became known as Schoolhouse Rock.

It ran on ABC from 1973-1985, and then was revived for a second run from 1993-1999. 

Those musical education cartoons that dropped knowledge on math, science, grammar and history have become so beloved that I and a lot of peeps own them on DVD.

I bought the 30th Anniversary DVD in 2009 when I lived in Louisville, and when I purchased it, Dawn Wilson and I spent several hours watching them and singing along to our fave ones like 'Conjunction Junction', 'Interplanet Janet',' Suffering Until Suffrage', 'Three Is A Magic Number' , 'Interjections! ' , A Noun Is A Person Place or Thing  and 'Hey Little Twelvetoes'  as the rest of our roommates and friends watched us with bemused looks on their faces .

Of course, as you probably guessed, the political junkie in me loves 'I'm Just A Bill'  which explains the legislative process an has been parodied by Saturday Night Live to lampoon 45.. 

But I was also in love with the 'Verb; That's What's Happening' one as well because it was one of the few in the original series of School House Rock videos in which the main protagonist looked like me.



So happy 45th Anniversary School House Rock!.   Those videos helped a lot of kids get to math, science, grammar and history tests. 

Houston Trans History- Rachelle Annette 'Toni' Mayes

'If you think I can be harassed until I leave town, you're wrong.  I love Houston and I will stay."
-Toni Mayes to Houston City Council,, October 1972, 

Houston has a long, proud history of trans folks who have no problem standing up against anti- trans bigotry, harassment and oppression   It is a proud part of our Houston trans history that has continued into this century.   It's something I have learned as I began my own transition just how deep and far back Houston trans history goes, and how i'm just past of the latest generation of trans people who speak truth to power while fighting for their humanity and their human rights.

One of my trans elders I've been thinking about a lot recently is Rachelle Annette 'Toni'  Mayes, who also was known as Anne Mayes. Thanks to JD Doyle, I now know what happened with Anne Mayes, and I'm going to share her story with you so I have it down for the current and future generations of trans Houstonians.

Toni was born on December 13, 1947 and grew up here in Houston.   From her earliest memories she  knew she was a girl..   Her parents however disagreed, and she talked about in one interview how she was punished by her mother for wearing her younger sister's panties.

She ran away from home at age 14 to California with a cousin, but when she started living with two gay men there, the cousin called her parents, who brought her back to Houston

Her family after the California trip was determined to in their words 'make a real man out of her', and her mother even signed papers in an attempt to enlist her in the Navy even though she was just 15 at the time. .

But that trip to California also convinced her that she wasn't gay and something else was going on with her.   She eventually joined the Navy in 1964,  While she was as she said in an interview 'embarrassed' to be showering with 75 guys',  Mayes' time in the Navy led to her falling for a girl in Iowa, and she jumped ship in Florida to be with her.

She was arrested by the FBI for going AWOL and taken to a military jail in Illinois.  During the investigation, she was given a questionnaire that asked the question if she had ever had gay sex. While she hadn't, she saw this question as her ticket out of the Navy, so she answered the question affirmatively and got dishonorably discharged for homosexuality, as our military was doing at the time..  .
She returned to the girl in Iowa, married her and conceived a daughter with her in 1966, but her marriage broke up soon afterward and her ex-spouse retained custody of their daughter.   Mayes got married again to another woman, but that marriage also broke up in large part to her gender identity issues.

Mayes returned to Houston, started working as a television repair person, and then through a newspaper article learned that transsexuals existed.   The now 25 year old Mayes now had a name for the issue she was dealing with.  She was now aware of thanks to that article it was possible for her to become the woman she wanted to be.

Mayes was also fortunate that at that time, the nation's second full service gender identity clinic was getting started in the Houston area at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) in Galveston   She now had the place to go to help her become her true self, and the gender transition for her started on December 11, 1971.

Like many cities at that time, Houston had an anti-crossdressing law that had been on the books. Section 28-42.4 prohibited people from wearing the clothes of the opposite sex.  Because the ordinance was vague and Council was worried about it being struck down in the courts because of that vague language, the Houston City Council in June 1972 strengthened the ordinance with this language:

 'It shall be unlawful for any person to appear on any public street, sidewalk, alley or public thoroughfare dressed with the design intent to disguise his or her true sex as that of the opposite sex'

That 1904 ordinance clashed with one of the HBIGDA/transition protocols of the time that required someone on the path for gender confirmation surgery to dress and live as their target gender for at least a year prior to doing so.

HPD, run at the time by the reviled police chief Herman Short, gleefully enforced Section 28-42.4 not only against the Houston trans community and drag queens, but also the Houston lesbian community.

While Mayes was happy that she'd begun her transition, she also found herself being frequently targeted by HPD vice squad officers.  She was arrested eight times in 1972 by HPD for violations of the anti-crossdressing ordinance.  As you probably guessed, when Mayes was arrested on that crossdressing charge, she was taken to the men's side of the Houston city jail.  

Four of those charges were dropped because they happened before the Houston City Council revised the ordinance on June 2, but there were some that stuck that she and her attorney appealed.  There were two arrests that happened literally as she stepped onto the sidewalk outside the city municipal court building moments after she'd had those previous charges dismissed.

Tired of being harassed by HPD vice officers, she filed a federal lawsuit on December 20, 1972 seeking $200,000 in damages against HPD Chief Herman Short and five HPD officers.   Mayes in addition to seeking to have the Houston crossdressing ordinance declared unconstitutional, was also seeking an injunction against further arrests  

Interestingly enough the harassing arrests of her by HPD ceased after that federal suit was filed.

The federal lawsuit seeking to declare the Houston crossdressing ordinance unconstitutional eventually went all the way to the SCOTUS, who unfortunately rejected it without comment in April 1974.   That law stayed in the Houston Code of Ordinances until Phyllis Frye got it repealed in August 1980

While the court cases were percolating at the local and federal level, Toni's transition continued to move forward.   She eventually became on January 23, 1974 the fourth person to have gender confirmation surgery done via the UTMB gender program, and on March 11, 1974 her name change petition to Rachelle Annette Mayes was granted by a state district judge

An April 1978 Houston Post article that I had clipped and saved when my teen self was coming to grips with the fact I was transgender updated us about Toni's life in the intervening years.

After an attempt to ironically join the Houston Police Department was rebuffed, she'd ended up as a successful sales rep for a local company.  She was taking courses toward a business administration degree at the University of Houston, and from time to time would lecture college classes at UH and other local colleges in the Houston - Galveston area about gender identity issues.

But as far as trans activism, she'd felt she'd more than paid her dues and was just ready to live her life.

I sadly discovered thanks to JD's research that Rachelle Annette Mayes died on November 6, 2007, just a few weeks short of her 60th birthday.

I wish I'd had a chance to meet and talk to her before that happened.  I would have loved to have had a chance to tell her thank you for being willing to fight to make it easier for the trans people in the Houston area and beyond that came behind her like me.

Rest in power and peace, Anne.   You earned it.  Something else you've earned is also having your story preserved and told forever to every trans person and trans kid who lives in the Houston area and beyond.

Muhammad Ali 1942-2016

So saddened to hear that another one of our community icons has gone on to join the ancestors.

Muhammad Ali, 1960 light heavyweight Olympic champion, three time world boxing champion, humanitarian, father and beloved civil rights advocate passed away in a Phoenix area hospital on June 3..

Much of my childhood and teen years spanned his remarkable boxing career.  Him becoming the heavyweight champion three times.  The three fights with Joe Frazier including the 'Thrilla In Manila'. .The 'Rumble in the Jungle' in Zaire in which he rope a doped George Foreman into defeat.

While his long battle with Parkinson's .Disease robbed him of his verbal loquaciousness, he still remained one of the world's most beloved figures and humanitarian .  He helped negotiate the release of 14 American hostages before Desert Storm kicked off in 1991.    

He received the honor of lighting the Olympic cauldron to start the Atlanta Games in 1996.

I also lived in his hometown of Louisville, and visited the Muhammad Ali Center several times in the period I lived there after its 2006 opening for different events..

 His hometown is also feeling the loss.

Said Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer in a statement.: “The values of hard work, conviction and compassion that Muhammad Ali developed while growing up in Louisville helped him become a global icon. As a boxer, he became The Greatest, though his most lasting victories happened outside the ring. Muhammad leveraged his fame as a platform to promote peace, justice and humanitarian efforts around the world, while always keeping strong ties to his hometown. Today, Muhammad Ali’s fellow Louisvillians join the billions whose lives he touched worldwide in mourning his passing, celebrating his legacy, and committing to continue his fight to spread love and hope."
Congressman John Yarmuth (D) said in a statement, "The word champion has never fit a man better. Muhammad Ali was a champion for peace, a champion for justice, and a champion for equality. He was a man who gained fame in a violent game, but immortality as a gentle and caring soul. In the ring, there was no one better, but his contributions to humanity managed to eclipse his boxing prowess."

But to many of us, and especially those of us who grew up during the 60's and 70's, he was simply The Greatest.

Rest in power and peace Champ/  You've earned it.

RIP Natalie Cole

Another iconic singer from my childhood has gone.   Was shocked to hear that iconic singer Natalie Cole joined the ancestors last night at age 65 die to persistent health complications.

I remember when I first heard her breakout hit from her debut gold album Inseparable.  The Top Ten hit 'This Will Be' from that album was dominating my radio in May 1975 and I recall being surprised to hear that it was Nat King Cole's daughter singing it.  

She was born on February 6, 1950 in Los Angeles to musical royalty.  In addition to her father being one of the iconic singers of the post World War II era, her mother Maria sang with the Duke Ellington Orchestra.  She was singing on her father's Christmas album at age 6 and began performing at age 11.  But after her father's untimely death in 1965, she turned away from music and graduated with a degree in child psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1972.
 
Cole was soon after graduation singing in small clubs with her band Black Magic, but refused to do her father's material.  She was discovered by Chicago based music producers Marvin Yancy and Chuck Jackson who wrote many of her early songs.

Cole would become an instant star, winning the first two of her nine career Grammys in 1976, when she won the Best New Artist Grammy and another one for Best R&B Vocal Performance Female for 'This Will Be'.    Her subsequent albums Natalie (1976) and Unpredictable (1977) hit gold and platinum status respectively and she was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1979.




Serious drug addition problems derailed that early success to the point Cole entered rehab in 1983, but she reemerged in 1987 with the comeback album Everlasting.  The success of that album, with three number one singles, set her up for the monster 1991 success of Unforgettable..With Love. 

That album featured the technology assisted duet with her late father singing 'Unforgettable' that helped her sweep the three major Grammy categories in 1992 and sold seven million copies in the US.




She's had persistent health problems due to a kidney transplant and battling hepatitis C, and had canceled several December 2015 events due to illness.

But like her father, Natalie Cole will be an unforgettable music icon to me and all the people who loved her music, and may she rest in power and peace.

     

Moni's Thoughts On The 35th Anniversary Of The Houston Anti-Crossdressing Ordinance Repeal

I, wanted to post this on the anniversary date, but with all the breaking news that week, slipped my mind I needed to finish my thoughts about what this August 12, 1980 anniversary date meant to me as a trans Houstonian who graduated from high school three months before the odious ordinance died 

This ordinance was hated not only by the Houston trans community but by the Houston lesbian community and the drag community as well.

Little did I know that when I stepped outside dressed as moi in June 1980, anytime I stepped inside Studio 13 and sat in the audience watching a show or was just hanging out in Montrose en femme prior to that date, I was violating Section 28-42.4 of the city’s Code of Ordinances, AKA the Houston Anti-Crossdressing Ordinance that was the harassment weapon of choice for HPD their aimed at the Houston TBLG community at the time.

I'd seen Anne Mayes and coverage of her fight in the early 70's to not be harassed by Herman Short's HPD oppressors on the local news, and it was my first inkling that there was a name for what I was feeling at the time as a pre-teenager. 

Anne after her genital surgery and a 1978 Houston Chronicle interview dropped out of sight in the Houston trans community.  I wish I could tell her thank you for standing up for me and future generations of trans Houstonians who received the blessing of not knowing what it was like to go to jail for simply wanting to put on the clothes that matched who we are as people.

I would also love to talk to her simply to get a taste of what the late 60's- early 70's were like for trans historical purposes.

I wouldn't meet Judge Phyllis Frye until a decade and a half later, but she at that time had been working for three and a half years to kill that ordinance to make it easier for hers, mine and future generations of trans Houstonians to be able to walk the streets without being messed with by HPD.

I also wasn't aware of it until much later that our paths crossed while I was a UH freshman and she was at the UH law school working on her law degree. 

When she accomplished that on August 12, 1980 I was still working on my census enumerator summer job and wasn't aware that the lobbying work she was doing at City Hall would have such a ginormous impact.

It's also fitting to revisit this seeing that we have an ongoing attempt by a transphobe to inject anti-trans hatred into our city charter.

So Houston trans younglings, the next time y'all go out, you drag artists get or stage, or you lesbians decide you wish to wear a pair of jeans while out and about, say thank you to Phyllis, Anne and Rita Wanstrom   who enabled you to do so.

40th Anniversary Of Nixon's Presidential Resignation

The Watergate saga came to an end when embattled President Richard Nixon, who was about to become the first president to be impeached and removed from office, resigned effective at noon EDT on August 9, 1974 rather than face the ignominy of being impeached and removed from office.

And yeah, as a teenaged political junkie, I watched the speech that Nixon gave to the nation on the night of August 8, 1974

'YMCA' Is Not A Gay Anthem? Really?

I am a huge disco fan, and one of the groups I used to listen to and liked was the Village People back in the day.

And yeah, I was quite aware of the impression amongst my high school peers that it was LGBT-family friendly music.

One of the comedians in my high school classes used to sarcastically call the 'Macho Man' Village People song 'Montrose Man' to make it very clear what he thought the heterosexuality quotient of the tune was.    

So I laughed my azz off when I recently heard Village People frontman Victor Willis try to claim that the monster Village People hit song 'YMCA' is not a gay anthem.  

Seems that some gay activists keen on having some kind of show of support for the TBLG Russian population for the rapidly approaching Sochi Winter Olympic Games suggested that the USA Olympic team march into the stadium as it is being played.  That's not gonna happen since the host nation has wide latitude in how they want the Olympic opening ceremony to unfold, but nice sentiment.

But here was Willis' reaction to that idea.    

“If they want to use the song that way, go right ahead, but I think it's silly because the lyrics were written by me as an expression of urban youths having fun at the YMCA,” Willis said. 

“The words were crafted by me to be taken any number of ways but not specific to gays. It's much broader than that. The song is universal.

Umm hmm.  And what say you Blaine and Antoine to that comment?

The Village People had to be the most in your face with the gay archetypes band ever put together.  The late Village people producer Jacques Morali got the name of the group from New York's Greenwich Village gayborhood and was designed to be aimed at and marketing to disco's gay demographic. 

And let's go down the list of songs shall we?   'Village People', 'San Francisco (You Got Me)', 'Key West', 'Go West', 'Macho Man', 'In The Navy'. 

Two album titles were Cruisin'  (1978) and Go West (1979) and Village People songs were played in Black, Latino and gay underground nightclubs before getting radio airplay on R&B, Top 40 and disco formatted stations .

I'll concede your point since you wrote the lyrics to it that YMCA has become part of universal pop culture.  But it also a universal pop culture touchstone that flies the rainbow flag. 

You may not have intended for 'YMCA' to become a gay anthem, and we know not everyone in the Village People was family, but like Diana Ross' 'I'm Coming Out', that is exactly what the song has become.

So yeah Victor, keep tellin' yourself that YMCA is not a gay anthem.   The rest of the world, and especially those of us in the GLBT community beg to differ with your assessment.

40th Anniversary Of The Yom Kippur War

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the start of the 1973 Yom Kippur war between a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria against Israel that started on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

That year the Muslim holy month of Ramadan occurred during that time period, so it's also known as the Ramadan War in the Arab world.  

It had its roots in the devastating and humiliating defeat the Arab coalition of Egypt, Syria and Jordan suffered in June 1967 during the Six Day War.  It resulted in Israel not only obliterating the air forces of Egypt, Jordan and Syria in a surprise preemptive attack but also capturing East Jerusalem and the West Bank of Jordan, Syria's Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt in a swift combined arms ground attack supported by an Israeli Air Force with uncontested control of the skies. 

The decisive Israeli military victory and subsequent occupation of all that previously Arab held territory four time the size of Israel itself made the stinging 1967 blitzkrieg defeat handed them by the IDF impossible to forget for the Arab coalition.   Meanwhile the ease of their victory in addition to making it clear to the world Israel was the preeminent military power in the region led to the Israel Defense Forces becoming complacent and arrogantly dismissive about the military capabilities of their Arab neighbors.  

In the years leading up to 1973 new leaders took over during that period in the faces of Anwar Sadat in Egypt and Hafez al-Assad in Syria.   Egypt and Syria rebuilt their military might with the latest Soviet weaponry in preparation to take on Israel and regain their pride and honor.  As they did so the IDF continued to train and hone their tactics as their combat engineers built the Bar-Lev Line along the Suez Canal's east bank complete with an 18 meter high (59 feet) sand wall sloping at a 60 degree angle reinforced by concrete at the waters edge.  

In the Golan Heights Israeli combat engineers dug a 32 km (20 mile) long anti-tank ditch from Mount Hermon to Rafid along the length of the Purple Line, the UN monitored cease fire line between the two nations.  

Egypt also erected a dense SAM missile belt along the entire west bank of the Suez Canal designed to keep the Israeli Air Force at bay as they secretly rehearsed their plans to rapidly cross the Suez Canal and seize the Sinai.  Syria did the same on their side of the Purple Line augmented by the latest Soviet anti-aircraft artillery and SAM's as they planned their military campaign to recapture the Golan Heights.

At 2:00 PM on October 6, 1973 Egypt and Syria launched Operation Badr, their coordinated surprise attack on the Sinai and Golan Heights fronts on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement and the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. It caught the Israeli Defense Forces off guard and away from their posts.

Even worse for the IDF, there were skeleton forces defending both the Bar-Lev Line and the Golan Heights because of the holiday and no time to call up their reserves or calibrate their equipment before immediately deploy them to both fronts.  Neither was their time for the Israeli Air Force to launch effective suppression missions against the Egyptian and Syrian SAM belts. 

On the Sinai front facing the five Egyptian divisions totaling 100,000 soldiers, 1,350 tanks and 2,000 guns and heavy mortars tasked to regain the Sinai were 450 soldiers of the Jerusalem Brigade, spread out in the 16 Bar-Lev Line forts along the length of the Canal and 290 Israeli tanks in the entire Sinai peninsula divided into three armored brigades.  Only one of those armored brigades was near the Suez Canal when hostilities started.

The Egyptians crossed the Suez Canal at five points, breached the steeply sloped sand banks and quickly overwhelmed 15 of the sixteen spaced out forts guarding the eastern bank of the canal.   After repelling several piecemeal Israeli counterattacks and the Egyptian SAM umbrella does its job of keeping the Israeli Air Force at bay, after three days of fighting they settle into a stalemate as Israeli reinforcements arrive in the combat zone and the IDF elects to build up their forces before resuming the battle. 

In the Golan Heights, two Israeli brigades of 3,000 troops, 180 tanks and 60 artillery pieces faced a classic Soviet-style combined arms frontal assault conducted by the Syrian 5th, 7th and 9th mechanized infantry divisions with large armour components comprising 28,000 Syrian troops, 800 tanks and 600 artillery pieces with the Syrian 1st and 3rd Armored divisions deployed in the follow up attacks.   

At 2:00 PM Syria begins their portion of the coordinated attack with a massive artillery barrage and supporting air strikes.along the entire 57 km (36 mile) Golan front. A heliborne troop assault is also launched at the Israeli outpost on the slopes of Mt. Hermon that oversaw the entire area  

While the Syrian units attacking in the northern Golan were held up for four days because of the rocky terrain and heavy losses inflicted on them by Israel's 7th Armored Brigade, the Syrians successfully overwhelm the Mt. Hermon garrison and their southern units break through and obliterate the 188th Barak Armored Brigade in the flatter terrain of the southern Golan.  

The Syrians get within an agonizingly close 10 minute drive to their targets, the Bnot Yaakov Bridge over the Jordan River and the Arik Bridge near the northern Sea of Galilee that lead into northern Israel before an inexplicable overnight pause by the Syrians and Israeli reserve forces arriving in the area in the nick of time save the day.  They contain the Syrian advance, push them back to the pre-war start lines and Israel then launches on October 10 a four day counteroffensive that eventually brought them within 40 km (25 miles) of Damascus 

In the early days of the Yom Kippur War with the successful Egyptian canal crossing, Syrian tanks approaching the Jordan River and northern Israel and fearing the war was lost, the conflict almost went nuclear.  The orders were given to assemble thirteen 20 kiloton tactical nukes at two airbases on the night of October 8-9 and use them on the Sinai and Golan fronts. 

The Israeli nuclear preparations alarmed both the Soviets and the US and triggered Operation Nickel Grass, a resupply airlift to Israel that commenced October 10 after the Soviets did the same via air and sea for their Arab client states. The US also launched an SR-71 recon mission over the area that gave the Israelis critical intel for future military operations.

President Sadat, worried about the success of the Israeli Golan Heights offensive and the military cohesion of his Syrian ally, ordered a massive Egyptian armored offensive on October 14 to capture the Mitla and Gidi passes in the central Sinai that was quickly repulsed with heavy losses.   

The Israelis on October 16 launched Operation Gazelle, an offensive to split the gap between the Egyptian Second and Third Armies detected by the SR-71 mission and cross the Suez Canal at Deversoir on the northern edge of the Great Bitter Lake.  Once ensconced on the west bank, the 20 tanks and 7 APCs that made the initial crossing formed a raiding party that attacked Egyptian SAM sites and military columns with impunity. By destroying the SAM's,  it allowed the Israeli Air Force to join the fray and flex its power as the ground forces continued to widen, deepen and expand their African Egypt bridgehead.   

The Israeli offensives on both fronts continued to the point that on the Golan front they were in the process of retaking all the positions they lost on Mt Hermon. and were 16 km (10 miles) from Damascus.

On the Egyptian front the IDF was 64 km (40 miles) from Cairo, had the Egyptian Third Army surrounded and trapped with the Great Bitter Lake to their rear, and in the Ismailia and Suez City outskirts.

October 20 saw the unanimous passage of UN Security Resolution 338, which called for an immediate cease-fire, the implementation of Security Resolution 242, which called for an exchange of land for peace and negotiations between the “parties concerned” aimed at establishing a “just and durable peace.”

The first cease fire attempt fails with both sides accusing the other of violating it.   The UN Security Council then passes Security Resolution 339, which basically restates what 338 said with the addition of UN observers. Syria accepts that cease fire on October 23, but the fighting still continues between Egyptian and Israeli forces on their front.  

It almost escalated into an armed clash between US and Soviet forces.  The Soviets activated their seven elite paratroop divisions, sent 40,000 naval infantry troops to the Mediterranean Sea on seven amphibious warfare ships, put some southern USSR air units on alert and threatened to intervene on behalf of the Arab nations and the surrounded Egyptian Third Army.  The US responded by going from DEFCON 4 to DEFCON 3, putting nuclear forces on alert and threatening to intervene on behalf of Israel.

That also caused the IDF to put their nuclear forces on alert again before cooler heads prevailed to ratchet down the tension and seek a Soviet-US brokered solution that led to a October 25 cease fire on the Egyptian front  On October 28 Egyptian and Israeli military met at the Kilometer 101 marker in the Sinai to conduct their first meeting in 25 years to discuss plans for implementing the cease fire. 

While the Yom Kippur War was a short duration one of three weeks, it was a costly one with far reaching ripple effects. The Israelis lost 2800 soldiers with over 8800 wounded.  The Arab coalition forces suffered 18,500 dead with 35,000 wounded.

The Arab OPEC nations launched an oil embargo on October 17 aimed at the United States, Japan and Western European nations that wasn't lifted until March 1974.   

Because the IDF was caught off guard, Prime Minister Golda Meir's Alignment Party paid dearly for it in the December 1973 Israeli elections, losing five Knesset seats.  Meir later resigned along with her entire cabinet and Defense Minster Moshe Dayan on April 11, 1974.  It resulted in Yitzhak Rabin beating Shimon Peres for the leadership of the Alignment Party and later becoming Israel's Prime Minister in June 1974.  It also to increased respect for the military abilities of the Arab nations and decreased confidence in the abilities of the IDF to defeat the Arab coalition in a subsequent war despite being the preeminent military nation in the Middle East.

That new reality and status quo in the Middle East led to Egypt and Israel heading to the negotiating table for the 1978 Camp David Accords and signing the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty a year later 

For the Arab coalition, it shattered the Israeli military invincibility myth, healed the psychological wounds from the 1967 defeat and earned them the political capital of negotiating with the Israelis as equals.  It also made Anwar Sadat a hero in Egypt.

I say Arab coalition because there were nine other nations involved besides the Egyptian and Syrians.  Iraq sent a squadron of Hunter jets to Egypt, deployed MiG's as early as October 8 and deployed a division comprised of 18,000 men, and several hundred tanks in the central Golan.  Saudi Arabia and Kuwait were fiscal underwriters of the war along with the Saudis sending a 3000 man brigade to Syria.  Jordan and King Hussein were reluctant participants in Syria and Libya sent Mirage fighters to Egypt. .        

The late reversals in the war also convinced the Arab coalition and many in the Arab world that despite their improved fighting capability since 1967, Israel couldn't be eradicated by force of arms, strengthening the hand of peace movements seeking negotiated settlements in the Middle East. 

Both sides would honor and bury their dead and tend to their wounded warriors as another Arab-Israeli conflict came to a close. 

40th Anniversary of 'The Battle Of The Sexes' Tennis Match

There was a huge tennis match that took place in my hometown on September 20, 1973 that had major implications for women's sports. 

40 years ago Billie Jean King in front of what is still the largest crowd to ever witness a tennis match in the United States, beat 55 year old Bobby Riggs at the Astrodome in front of 30, 472 people and a worldwide television audience of 90 million people. (50 million in the US who watched the ABC-TV broadcast with Howard Cosell as the lead announcer). 

Unfortunately the broadcast was blacked out here in Houston at the time and I had to see the tape delay later.   

What led up to this seriously hyped tennis match was Bobby Riggs flapping his gums and denigrating the game of women's tennis.   He claimed it was inferior to the men's game (oink, oink), his 55 year old self could beat the top ranked women's player in the world and challenged Billie Jean King to a match. 

When the then 29 year old King declined to take him on, then 30 year old Australian Margaret Court, the top ranked women's player at the time accepted the challenge.  They played the US televised match on May 13, 1973 (which happened to be Mother's Day) in Ramona, CA.  Riggs used lobs and drop shots to keep Court off balance and beat her in straight sets 6-2, 6-1.

It's also alleged that Court considered the match an exhibition and didn't take it seriously, but the male dominated media sure did. .The win over Margaret Court got Riggs on the covers of Sports Illustrated and Time magazines and he resumed his male chauvinist taunting of all female tennis players.  

After founding the Women's Tennis Association in June, King accepted a lucrative offer to play a winner take all best three of five set nationally televised match at the Astrodome that was dubbed by promoters as 'The Battle of The Sexes'.

And yes, the young TransGriot took the opportunity to put her allowance where her mouth in terms of my belief that King would win.  I made a few bets with my skeptical male classmates who believed Riggs' hype. 
 
On that September night before the match started King entered the Dome Cleopatra-style carried by four bodybuilders and Riggs followed in a rickshaw pulled by scantily clad models. The exchanged gifts, with Riggs giving her a large Sugar Daddy sucker and King presenting him with a piglet before they began playing the  match.

King had also prepared herself to counter the drop shot tactics Riggs used to great effect against Court.

Instead of her usual aggressive style of play, she stayed at the baseline and gave Riggs a taste of his own tennis medicine. She made him run all over the court and forced him to change tactics to a serve and volley style of game. 

King beat him in straight sets 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 to claim the $100,000 prize for winning the match and defended the honor of professional women's tennis players everywhere.  

And the next day at school I collected the money I won with Billie Jean King's victory


King's win in addition to being profitable for teenage me also gave women's tennis the critical early credibility it needed and has used to grow the sport.   Women's tennis grew from that point to eventually garner its own television contracts and see women players like King, Chris Evert and countless others earning six and seven figure amounts in prize money.  They later won the battle to secure equal prize money for female tennis players.

And that happened in the wake of a tennis match played at the Astrodome. 

Huey Newton's August 15, 1970 Speech About Gay and Women's Rights

TransGriot Note:  Another blow to the false 'Black people are more homophobic' meme.   Check out this interesting speech by Black Panther Party co-founder and Minister of Defense Huey P. Newton concerning the issues of gay rights and women's rights.  Bear in mind this is one year AFTER Stonewall. 


During the past few years strong movements have developed among women and among homosexuals seeking their liberation. There has been some uncertainty about how to relate to these movements.

Whatever your personal opinions and your insecurities about homosexuality and the various liberation movements among homosexuals and women (and I speak of the homosexuals and women as oppressed groups), we should try to unite with them in a revolutionary fashion.

I say ” whatever your insecurities are” because as we very well know, sometimes our first instinct is to want to hit a homosexual in the mouth, and want a woman to be quiet. We want to hit a homosexual in the mouth because we are afraid that we might be homosexual; and we want to hit the women or shut her up because we are afraid that she might castrate us, or take the nuts that we might not have to start with.
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We must gain security in ourselves and therefore have respect and feelings for all oppressed people. We must not use the racist attitude that the White racists use against our people because they are Black and poor.. Many times the poorest White person is the most racist because he is afraid that he might lose something, or discover something that he does not have. So you’re some kind of a threat to him.
This kind of psychology is in operation when we view oppressed people and we are angry with them because of their particular kind of behavior, or their particular kind of deviation from the established norm.

Remember, we have not established a revolutionary value system; we are only in the process of establishing it. I do not remember our ever constituting any value that said that a revolutionary must say offensive things towards homosexuals, or that a revolutionary should make sure that women do not speak out about their own particular kind of oppression. As a matter of fact, it is just the opposite: we say that we recognize the women’s right to be free. We have not said much about the homosexual at all, but we must relate to the homosexual movement because it is a real thing. And I know through reading, and through my life experience and observations that homosexuals are not given freedom and liberty by anyone in the society. They might be the most oppressed people in the society.

And what made them homosexual? Perhaps it’s a phenomenon that I don’t understand entirely. Some people say that it is the decadence of capitalism. I don’t know if that is the case; I rather doubt it. But whatever the case is, we know that homosexuality is a fact that exists, and we must understand it in its purest form: that is, a person should have the freedom to use his body in whatever way he wants.

That is not endorsing things in homosexuality that we wouldn’t view as revolutionary. But there is nothing to say that a homosexual cannot also be a revolutionary. And maybe I’m now injecting some of my prejudice by saying that “even a homosexual can be a revolutionary.”  Quite the contrary, maybe a homosexual could be the most revolutionary.

When we have revolutionary conferences, rallies, and demonstrations, there should be full participation of the gay liberation movement and the women’s liberation movement. Some groups might be more revolutionary than others. We should not use the actions of a few to say that they are all reactionary or counterrevolutionary, because they are not. 

We should deal with the factions just as we deal with any other group or party that claims to be revolutionary. We should try to judge, somehow, whether they are operating in a sincere revolutionary fashion and from a really oppressed situation. (And we will grant that if they are women they are probably oppressed.) If they do things that are unrevolutionary or counterrevolutionary, then criticize that action.
If we feel that the group in spirit means to be revolutionary in practice, but they make mistakes in interpretation of the revolutionary philosophy, or they do not understand the dialectics of the social forces in operation, we should criticize that and not criticize them because they are women trying to be free.

And the same is true for homosexuals. We should never say a whole movement is dishonest when in fact they are trying to be honest. They are just making honest mistakes. Friends are allowed to make mistakes. The enemy is not allowed to make mistakes because his whole existence is a mistake, and we suffer from it. But the women’s liberation front and gay liberation front are our friends, they are our potential allies, and we need as many allies as possible. We should be willing to discuss the insecurities that many people have about homosexuality. When I say “insecurities,” I mean the fear that they are some kind of threat to our manhood. I can understand this fear. Because of the long conditioning process which builds insecurity in the American male, homosexuality might produce certain hang-ups in us. I have hang-ups myself about male homosexuality. But on the other hand, I have no hang-up about female homosexuality. And that is a phenomenon in itself. I think it is probably because male homosexuality is a threat to me and female homosexuality is not.

We should be careful about using those terms that might turn our friends off. The terms “faggot” and “punk” should be deleted from our vocabulary, and especially we should not attach names normally designed for homosexuals to men who are enemies of the people, such as Nixon or Mitchell. Homosexuals are not enemies of the people.

We should try to form a working coalition with the gay liberation and women’s liberation groups. We must always handle social forces in the most appropriate manner.


H/T to Davey D's Hip Hop Corner

Dissing Lee Brewster

Want to know why I can't stand the radfems, or as they are sometimes referred to in some online circles the TERF's?  (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists).   I call them the Whyte Womyn Gone Wyld.

They have spent four decades of their vanillacentric cisprivileged time hating on transpeople and opposing our human rights, and as Cristan Williams points out once again in her latest post at Ehipassiko, those of us in the 2k10's aren't the only ones to have felt the ugliness of their transphobia.   Our pioneers Sylvia Rivera and Lee Brewster did so as well.

Here's a taste of Cristan's post:

I’ve noted before how RadFems inspired the violence inflicted upon Stonewall hero Sylvia Rivera. Until now, I wasn’t aware that their cruelty was extended to the transperson who coordinated and paid for overturning anti-gay NY laws:

Lee Brewster staged a number of actions designed to bring a case against NY so that Brewster could have NY’s anti-gay laws overturned. Have you ever wondered where the Mattachine Society’s money came from? That was Lee Brewster. Ever wonder where the cash came from to have the early 1960s national queer meetings? That was Lee Brewster. The cash for challenging anti-gay laws came from Lee too.

Any hope that giving a moment to Jean O’Leary and Sylvia Rivera would end this squall disappeared the moment Lee Brewster took the stage. He, too, was in full drag, with thick eye makeup, a lush blond wig tumbling over his shoulders and a queen’s crown resting on the wig. “I cannot sit and let my people be insulted,” Brewster said. “They’ve accused me of reminding you too many times that today you’re celebrating what was the result of what the drag queens did at the Stonewall. You go to bars because of what drag queens did for you, and these bitches”—he gestured to the lesbians—”tell us to quit being ourselves.” Vito Russo walked over to Brewster, slipped his arm around Brewster’s waist and whispered into his ear, but Brewster pushed him off.

You can read the rest of Christan's interesting look at our history.

TransGriot Note:  The portrait of Lee Brewster was by artist Vicki West.  Brewster ran Lee's Mardi Gras Boutique from 1968 until passing away in 2000.  And yep, I visited it on one of my New York trips in 1998 

Trans Pioneer April Ashley Receives Her MBE

I wrote about this when it happened back in June, and in a morning investiture ceremony held at Buckingham Palace last Thursday, trans pioneer April Ashley was awarded the Member of the British Empire (MBE) as part of the annual Queen Birthday Honors list.

The now 77 year old Ashley  was one of the first persons from Great Britain who underwent SRS back in 1960, became a successful actress and model, appeared in the Road To Hong Kong movie with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope and became a trans human rights advocate..

She was also one of the parties in the horrible 1970 Corbet v Corbett divorce case that set a grossly negative marriage precedent for transpeople in Great Britain by not allowing them to get married until it was reversed in 2004 by the British Gender Recognition Act.

Ashley received the Member of the British Empire in the investiture ceremony from Prince Charles for her long time work as a British trans human rights advocate, and congratulations to her for a well deserved honor.

Ashley said that for over half a century she had "been writing to people and helping people and I've written thousands and thousands of letters".

"Strangely enough although it was transgender, it was also gay and lesbian [people writing to me] and women desperate for divorces," she said.

About her gender reassignment surgery in 1960 and being awarded the MBE Ashley said, "To me it was just a normal thing to do - I never thought I was doing anything special quite frankly, so to be suddenly awarded this is astonishing."

Bella Jay, who organizes the annual Sparkle event in Manchester, UK said the former model had "faced many struggles in life, which perhaps people don't really understand in the more tolerant and open society in which we live today".

"Achieving real transgender equality is a big issue for many people in modern Britain, but all too often it either fails to gain any real publicity or is misunderstood," said Jay in a BBC interview.

"I congratulate April on the award which recognizes her achievements and again helps bring the issues facing the trans-community into the public eye.

Ashley's trans cousins across the Pond and around the world that she was an inspiration and beacon of hope to in the 60's and beyond also join our British cousins in recognizing April Ashley, MBE as well.

Sylvia Rivera 1973 Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally Speech

This is 1973 video of Sylvia Rivera speaking at the Christopher Street Liberation Day Rally despite attempts to silence her.   

She pushed her way past rainbow community transphobes determined to keep her off that stage and still managed to grab the mic, have her say and be heard that day over a crowd that was hatin' on her.  

That it the legacy that we trans activists living in the second decade of the 21st century must honor and live up to.

Here's the video of Sylvia's speech.

y'all better quiet down! from reina july on Vimeo.

40th Anniversary Of The Munich Olympic Massacre

If you younglings are wondering why security is a major issue at every Olympic Games and what the moment of silence kerfluffle was about in the runup to the recently concluded London Games, it's because of what happened during the XX Olympic Games in Munich 40 years ago today.

On this date 11 members of the Israeli Olympic delegation and a German policeman died during a failed attempt to end the hostage standoff and rescue nine athletes being held in two helicopters at the NATO Fürstenfeldbruck airbase.  Five of the eight PLO terrorists also died during the failed rescue mission with three survivors being captured..

When Munich won the Olympic bid on April 26, 1966 to host the Games over Madrid, Montreal and Detroit concerns were expressed over the facts this would be the first Summer Olympics held in Germany since the 1936 Berlin Games and Munich was where the Nazi Party was founded and headquartered.

The (West) Germans were extremely sensitive to that history and when the Games opened on August 26, 1972 they wanted to make certain they took every opportunity to present an optimistic, happy, non-militaristic and democratic Germany to the world. 

But there were stormy political clouds intruding on that sunny picture the Germans planned to present to the world.  The IOC denied a request by the Palestine Liberation Organization for it to send a Palestinian team to the Olympic Games, and in response chatter started that retaliation would take place during the Games. There were rumblings and intelligence warnings before the Munich Games started that were unfortunately ignored that some kind of terrorist attack would take place as late as September 2. 

The Israeli Olympic delegation was understandably nervous in the runup to the Munich Games, had asked to have their own security team present, a request that for some reason was denied.   They were concerned during the Games about the lack of armed security guards patrolling the fences surrounding the Olympic Village and lax security procedures to enter and exit it once the Games started on August 26. 

In the early morning hours of September 5 eight members of the PLO terrorist group Black September scaled the two meter (six foot) fence surrounding the Olympic Village dressed in track suits, made it to the apartment building at 31 Connollystrasse housing the Israeli Olympic team, broke in, killed Youssef Romano and Moshe Weinberg, two members of the team that tried to resist the apartment invasion and took the remaining nine members hostage.  Fortunately the female members of the Israeli team were housed in a separate section of the Olympic Village, and the team members participating in the sailing events were 400 km away in Kiel.

It triggered an almost 18 hour standoff between the Black September terrorists and German authorities in which the PLO terrorists demanded the release of over 200 of their comrades in Israeli jails, Germany release the notorious Red Army Faction founders Andreas Baader and Ulrike Meinhof and be given safe passage out of the country in exchange for the Israeli hostages.

Later that evening the terrorists and their hostages were helicoptered to Fürstenfeldbruck airbase  to ostensibly be transported by air to Egypt but in reality were flying into a planned German ambush that went horribly wrong.

A firefight ensued with Anton Fliegerbauer, one of the undermanned German police team members snipers conducting the rescue operation being shot and killed in the control tower along with five of the eight Black September terrorists. 

When the remaining terrorists saw armored cars being deployed they realized their chances of holding out were over.  They shot four of the Israeli hostages on one of the helicopters and then detonated a grenade that resulted in their incineration.   The five remaining Israeli hostages on the second helicopter were then machine-gunned by another terrorist.



In the wake of the attack and amongst mounting international pressure to do so, the IOC suspended Olympic competition for 24 hours and a memorial service was held September 6 in the Olympic stadium for the slain athletes.  The three captured surviving terrorists were later released by the German government October 29 in response to demands by terrorists who hijacked Lufthansa Flight 615.  

Two of the released Munich Massacre terrorists were later allegedly assassinated by Israeli Mossad agents and Jamal Al-Gashey, the surviving Munich Black September attacker is alleged to be still in hiding somewhere in Syria or an unnamed North African nation.

In addition to the Munich Olympic Massacre leading to heightened security at every subsequent Olympic Games, the failed rescue mission led to a German government reassessment of their anti-terrorism policies and forming the elite GSG-9 unit in response to the multiple failures of September 5.  

The Israelis in addition to the Mossad unleashed an anti-terrorism campaign called Operation Act of God with the goal of assassinating individuals in the PLO either directly or indirectly involved with the 1972 Munich Massacre.   

September 5, 1972 still remains 40 years later one of the most horrific days ever for the modern Olympic movement.  I agree with many people including the widows of those 11 Israeli athletes there should have been a moment of silence at the London Games opening ceremony.

Andre Spitzer, Kehat Shorr, Youssef Gutfreund, Amitzur Shapira, Yakov Springer, David Berger, Ze'ev Friedman, Mark Slavin and Eliezer Halfin, those of us who remember what happened on that horrific September 5 day, the world shall never forget you.  

Youssef Romano and Moshe Weinberg, we'll never forget your heroism in sacrificing your lives and giving enough of a warning to your teammates that it allowed several members of your delegation to escape. 

German police officer Anton Fliegerbauer also gave his life in order to rescue the Israeli Olympians.

And shame on you IOC for not taking the time during these just concluded games to remember the September 5 attack and all the people who died in it.

Black Trans History-Ajita Wilson

Stumbled across an interesting piece of Black trans history while searching for something trans related to write about.   It concerns the surprising note that cult film actress Ajita Wilson was a trans woman.   But then again, why should I be surprised about what I discover when it comes to women like us?

It's simply another fascinating piece of Black trans history that I'm bringing to your attention.     

She was born in Brooklyn, New York around 1950 and started out as a female illusionist and entertainer in New York's red light district   She had her sex realignment surgery in the mid 1970's and not long after that occurred began appearing in underground adult films being produced in the New York area. 

She was discovered by a European film producer who got her roles in French, Italian, Greek and Spanish films.  By 1978 Wilson had built up quite a following and name recognition in doing so.  
She appeared in a seemingly nonstop series of films during the 1970s and 1980's that ranged from soft and hardcore porn films to mainstream horror, light comedy, anachronistic historical epics and espionage thrillers.  

Interestingly enough one of the people she worked with during her film career was The Exorcist actress Linda Blair in the movie Savage Island.

To add another interesting note to this post about her, she was a Jet Magazine pin up girl.  Ajita Wilson appeared in the August 20, 1981 issue of the iconic Jet Magazine as their Beauty of The Week    That may make her possibly the first trans woman to hold that distinction.

While her acting career was still going strong and in a positive direction for her she was involved in a horrific automobile accident in Rome, Italy.   She passed away from a brain hemorrhage on May 26, 1987 that resulted from that accident.

After Wilson's death, speculation about her trans status began to emerge.  When director Carlos Aured was asked to comment on it, he said this in reply.to the interviewer's question.

"She was charming, beautiful and very professional. The rest is not important." he said. 

Indeed.  Ajita Wilson was as director Aured said, charming, beautiful and professional as an actress.  But I'd disagree about the second part of his comment.  

In that time period there were very few out Black transfeminine role models.  While I understand what the transition protocols were at that time and she was a product of that era, it sure would have been nice to know that Ajita Wilson was also a girl like us, too.