Don`t Spend Your T-Bills Where You Aren`t Respected

I`ve been busy the last few days moving to the new Casa De Monica, and just started catching up with all the trans news that I need to comment on.

One of those issues I felt the need to comment on is a trans dignity and respect.

I was perusing my Facebook feed and noted a comment from a well known activist who was recounting a transphobic experience she`d had at her local hairdresser.

She was getting her hair done when a conversation started in the shop about last week`s  SCOTUS marriage ruling.   She was stunned and pissed off to hear the beautician working on her hair express a negative reaction to it, and then take a potshot at guys and girls like us by adding that she couldn`t stand people who `changed their sex.`

Little did the transphobic hairdresser know that she was working on the tresses of one of those people she hated.

The person in question didn`t elaborate on how far along she was in the process of getting her hair done at the time the transphobic comment was uttered.   But having been in a similar situation back in the late 90s when I was getting my hair done and another beautician not working on my hair at the time made several derogatory comments about Black Americans (she was Nigerian), I ripped her a new anus.

So what is Moni`s moral in this story?   The bottom line is that if you are so inclined and the situation calls for it, we need to call out disrespectful commentary and negative treatment of trans people.   I understand it`s a judgment call as whether or not you feel safe to do so, but if you are in a reasonably safe space,  put them in check.

How you do it is your call.

Now why am I saying this?  Because the odds are that transphobes aren`t going to let their negative commentary loose unless they think they will have majority support in whatever venue this is happening in.  

If we let transphobic comments slide for whatever set of reasons, then it will happen again to someone else until the transphobe finally gets checked on their nekulturny behavior.

Maybe missing out on some service fees plus tips or getting checked by their supervisor after you have a chat with them will speed up that process

Neither should we trans peeps spend our precious T-bills with people or companies who don`t respect our humanity.  

A Trans Ally Sounds Off

TransGriot Note: A guest post from Tresha Ruthe that originally appeared on her Facebook page, but it's deserving of more widespread readership and attention.   Thanks for allowing me to post it here.

With the widespread idiocy in the last few days regarding the LGBT community at large, and specifically the Trans community, let me explain the Trans experience in the most succinct way I know: Your brain, not your body is the seat, source, and home of your identity. If you, as you are now, with all your likes, dislikes, hates, loves, preferences, tastes, and all those things that define you as you, woke up tomorrow with the opposite gender's genitals, you would be living in the Trans experience. Now, try for just 10 seconds to imagine not only the internal, "This is wrong!" but also having the entire world tell you that you CAN'T (not shouldn't) but CANNOT be who you are at the very core of your soul. THAT is what it means to be Transgender.

Whether you understand why a transgender person is transgender or not; whether that is a choice you would make or not; whether you are comfortable around them or not; they deserve tolerance, understanding, support, love, and to be championed. No matter who the person was "before transition" they are still, at the core of their being, the same person "after transition". If you loved them "before" why can't you love them "after". A "sister" doesn't "become a brother", they always were one, it's just that you couldn't SEE that they were a brother and not a sister. Transition is nothing more than making a physical change so that others can see what's inside. In many ways, transition is on the same level as dying one's hair, losing weight, having plastic surgery, or any other form of body modification done to make us feel more comfortable in our own skins. Yes, Transition is an extremely difficult process. Yes, it is far more extreme than dying one's hair, and I have yet to meet a Trans person who didn't take their choices with every ounce of the gravity that those choices deserve. Until you have personally had to choose between living a lie, dying a truthful suicide, or going through one of the world's most humiliating processes of change, do not presume to assume that you "know what those people are really after." I can tell you, from deep, direct, constant contact with not just one, but many Trans people, what they are really after is love, acceptance, and their own truth of identity. None of that should threaten or frighten you. If seeing them around does either of those things to you, that is ignorance, intolerance, and unacceptable. Get over yourself.

PS: This is not directed at anyone I know personally, but rather some things happening in the society.

A Mother-Trans Daughter Femininity Dinner Discussion

Some of the Facebook trans groups I'm a member of have very interesting discussion threads at times that eventually trigger hard solid thinking by me to turn it into a post.

This was the case two weeks ago when Lotus, a member of a predominately African-American trans Facebook group I'm on that prides itself on thoughtful discussions of trans issues talked about the night she recently had  dinner with her mother. 

Their dinner discussion turned into a mother-daughter chat that discussed femininity and the perception difference between cis and trans women.

***

Lotus:  Over dinner, my mother and I began an open discussion about the perception of natal females as it pertains to Transgender women. I wanted to bring some of the points that came up during the conversation to the group and see how you all felt about them.

My mother's main point in the conversation was that there is no one SET STANDARD that defines what it means to be a woman. Women come in all shapes, sizes, class levels, and intellectual capabilities; nonetheless they are a woman. With this in mind she inquired as to why someone would assume that all girls like us should strive to be more than the average neighborhood hood rat. As transwomen why is it not okay for us to be the kind of woman we feel most comfortable being (even if that's a "Ratchet Ass Hoe").

I explained to her that as transwomen we should aspire to be a compliment to womanhood not a detriment. Her counter argument was that women are detrimental to themselves so why should a woman in transition feel burdened by the pressure of complimenting womanhood?

We are individuals embarking on a unique journey into what many would perceive as the unknown. We all must make decisions as to who we would like to be, much like any other woman.

All things considered I believe that all points are valid when viewed from that person's perspective. I still stand steadfast by my belief that as a young woman in transition I want to make natal females proud to accept me as the woman that I am, but her perspective opened up another gateway for dialog about the representation of transgender women in society; how we chose to present ourselves.

***

That dinner conversation most certainly did open up a dialog in that group we gleefully began to discuss.  Our trans elder Cheryl Courtney-Evans pointed out in the discussion thread that developed in the wake of Lotus' initial post:: 

I think that perhaps this concept may be simply explained by a sentence/attitude that accompanied the advance of the African American community in it's reach for parity with Whites..."You're a credit to your race." For many years that's what Blacks strove to be, in order to garner 'acceptance'.

Angel V. also pointed out:

When I started my transition, the last thing that was on my mind was acceptance from cis-women. As a matter of fact, the only acceptance that I will ever need is my own. You were not put on this planet to cater to everyone's wants and needs. None of us were. There are plenty of cis-women who will accept us and many who will not. Their opinions will not dictate or change who I am in any capacity.

That said, I like your mom, Lotus. She made some interesting points!! Some ladies will never strive to be better. Trans or otherwise.

What I would have said in response to Lotus' mom is I believe one of the reasons we Black trans women are so adamant about being considered compliments to Black womanhood is because after being stuck on the Black masculinity side where we were considered suspects and targets regardless of the content of our character, some of us don't want to fight that psychic battle again.

But what you come to realize is that Black women also have their own psychic battle they fight in which their femininity is demonized every day by whiteness and white supremacy.  They are depicted as the 'unwoman', 'ugly' and juxtaposed as the polar opposite to white women, who are held up as the penultimate form of feminine beauty and template of womanhood that women of non-white ethnic groups should aspire to be.

As Angel pointed out, some cis Black women don't care, do what they please, don't give a second thought about the historic and current images of Black women and never will. 

So why should we Black trans women care?   Because Black transwomen don't have the luxury to be that cavalier about the feminine images they project to the world.  We're already demonized, have few positive trans feminine role models to counteract the negative images already on the minds of people and fear that whatever negativity happens in our trans ranks will be unfairly projected back at cis African-American women.

But then again, trans women are damned if we do and damned if we don't live up to the standards of Black womanhood.   Even when we try to live our lives as complements to Black womanhood, we're demonized and hated on by many of those same cis Black women we desire sisterhood with and fell like that standarsd is a shifting goalpost. .
   
Cheryl basically dropped some more knowledge on us in this discussion with this sentence. 

Well, I'm sure you've heard the phrase, "Do you"...that's what you do; we must each do as we aspire...whatever that is.

She's right.  And I concur with her that's the point where we Black trans women need to be comfortable in our own minds of getting to.

As Lotus said in that thread, she wasn't aspiring to be hypersexualized by society, but some of her girls like us friends see that as their desired feminine presentation standard and set out to achieve it. 

In my case the elegant Diahann Carroll was one of my feminine role models along with my mother, sis and other cis and trans feminine role modes whose qualities I admired and wanted to role model in my feminine evolutionary path.  

Whatever type of woman we trans women are trying to project to the world, that's ultimately our decision.  Once we start down that path, we have to deal with whatever the consequences are of emulating the type of woman we wish to project to the world as we go through our lives.

But we transwomen also have to become comfortable with just simply being able to 'do you' and being allowed the space to 'do us' just like our cis feminine counterparts. 



TransGriot Note: Last graphic in the post created by Randi of TransMusePlanet.

Still Striving To Be A Quality Black Woman

When I say 'quality Black woman', I wanted to be the type of woman that even if you knew or discovered after meting me I was a transwoman, you wouldn't care, you'd see me as an asset and not a liability on the balance sheet of femininity and you'd want me in your life as a friend.

TransGriot, January 8,2009   'Becoming A Quality Black Woman'

Had a wonderful conversation Wednesday with my BFF Maxine that I met during my time in the airline biz and who had a birthday March 30.  (Happy belated birthday Max!)   She congratulated me for making the Trans 100 and told me she was very proud of moi.  

That made me smile because she knew 'The Twin' before I began my very public transition in the middle of Terminals C and D in 1994 and having to deal with all the issues of having to go from zero to femininity in a year that go along with it.

Maxine's reaction after she saw me during that first nerve racking week of transitioning on the job was to walk her elegant self over to my gate as she was coming off her flight, hug me, say, 'What took you so long?" and tell me we needed to chat before she bounced to her next flight.    

We did have that frank conversation in the lobby of my gate area a few days later.  I valued her opinion about whether I'd make the feminine cut because I knew she was a model who was the face of major ad campaigns in the 70's and 80's.  Because she'd done time in the modeling world she read me as a girl like us and called me on it. 

One of the things I told her after she expressed her concerns is not only had I done a lot of hard solid thinking about the subject, done everything possible to try and play with the uniform I was issued (and still wasn't happy), I let her know one of my guiding transition principles (and still is) was wanting to be a compliment to Black womanhood, not a detriment to it.  

Maxine was one of the cadre of cis and trans women who stayed on my butt to make sure I never lost sight of that goal.  They also reminded me (amongst other things) there is a proud legacy and history of struggle attached to being a Black woman.  I had to reconcile that with being a Black trans leader and figuring out as part of my ongoing evolution into Black womanhood what type of Black woman I wanted to project to the world. 

And as Audre Lorde said, 'If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.'

As I approach the 20 year anniversary next year of me taking the transition plunge,  I'm confident enough to say I'm continuing to strive towards becoming that quality Black woman even if some of you think I'm already there.

There is however, always room for improvement.

Why The Trans Community Loathes HRC

Back in 2007 I wrote a post entitled 'Why The Transgender Community Hates HRC' that chronicles the history of the animosity between HRC and the transgender community that I've had a ringside seat for.

It's been one of the most widely read and popular posts that I've ever written on TransGriot since I started the blog back in 2006. 

I realized we are now past the five year anniversary of the time when trans community anger over Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), on September 28, 2007 cutting us out of an inclusive ENDA (Employment and Non Discrimination Act) and HRC's deafening silence about it blew up in mushroom cloud fashion.  

It happened in the wake of Joe Solmonese's Big ENDA Lie and HRC walking away from the ATL and the Southern Comfort Conference with $20,000 of the trans community fraudulently obtained money in their coffers.  Solmonese stated during his 2007 SCC speech HRC wouldn't support any ENDA bill unless it was absolutely inclusive, then afterwards claimed he 'misspoke'.

You can also see that anger seep into the posts I wrote about the issue and the controversy that blew up in the wake of it if you peruse my TransGriot post archives starting in late September 2007 and continuing through early 2008.

At the time I ended the 'Hates HRC' post the subsequent drama over the ENDA betrayal was starting.  Now that it's five years since that watershed event, I thought it was past time for me to move forward from September 2007 and continue the story to where we are in the second decade of the 21st century.  My goal at the conclusion of this post is to give a snapshot look at where the trans community is now concerning their feelings for HRC and the overall TBLG rights movement.

But I need to start this sequel to the original post by going back to the November 2006 midterms and the overwhelming November 7 Democratic victory in which they picked up 31 seats to regain control of the US House.  It not only resulted in a 233-202 Democratic House majority but the Democrats regaining control of the Senate with the help of two independents who joined their caucus for a 51-49 edge after they picked up 6 senate seats.  More importantly, it resulted in Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), whose congressional district covers San Francisco, becoming the first female Speaker of the House.  

Optimism was high in the LGB and trans community during that historic moment on January 4, 2007 when Nancy Pelosi was handed the speakers gavel by John Boehner for the start of the 110th Congress and when HR 2015, that session's version of ENDA was introduced with gender identity protections for the first time on April 24, 2007 by Rep. Frank (D-MA), Rep Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Chris Shays (R-CT) and Deborah Pryce (R-OH). 

The trans community's stratospheric level optimism was fueled by the knowledge that HRC became in 2004 the last civil rights organization to endorse a fully inclusive ENDA.  The HRC Board unanimously voted as policy at the time that they would not support any version of ENDA that didn’t include gender identity as a protected class.

When the TransGriot and my NTAC (National Transgender Advocacy Coalition) cohorts showed up on Capitol Hill to lobby for HR 2015 from May 15-17, we started hearing the first ominous signs that something shady was about to happen inside I-495 concerning trans inclusion in ENDA.  First we were hearing that Sen. Ted Kennedy's (D-MA) S.717 version of the bill didn't include us.   Mine and Dawn Wilson's continued forays into Congressional Black Caucus offices in the House and Senate (remember Barack Obama was the junior senator from Illinois at the time) began to confirm the ugly picture that was developing, and I wrote this July 2007 TransGriot print column sounding the alarm to the trans community that we weren't included in ENDA 

And what was the National Center for Trans Equality (NCTE) and its founding Executive Director Mara Keisling's reaction to it?   Calling those of us who sounded the alarm 'crazy' at a Seattle trans conference and claiming that trans inclusion in ENDA was a 'slam dunk'   Well, that slam dunk as Keisling characterized it clanked off the rim and the trans inclusion basketball dribbled out of bounds on the civil rights basketball court on September 27.

Bear in mind that this is the same Mara Keisling (of the same NCTE) which a few years earlier had magically appeared out of nowhere, fully funded, to provide a Gay, Inc.-approved alternative to the willing-to-critique-Gay, Inc. and make trans rights a reality NTAC. 

Barely three months before the ENDA betrayal, she had played apologist for Gay, Inc., in a serious discussion of the egregious disparity between the numbers of gainfully-employed trans men and trans women within even those portions of Gay, Inc. that will hire any trans people at all. 

Defending the employment practices of Gay, Inc, which were then (as now) resulting in, for all practical purposes, no trans women being employed by Gay, Inc.organizations while plenty of trans men were getting paid to do trans advocacy work, Keisling asserted that such discrimination is "mostly not overt or conscious."

Those who are best able to get away with discrimination know how to avoid doing it overtly. 

Rant alert::

And putting HRC aside for a second, what does it say about the purported 'national trans organization' when its founding ED refuses to stand up and call out the disparity and acts as an apologist for those who consciously and continually piss on trans women when we seek employment, by telling us that the piss is just unconscious rain?

Rant over, back to the rest of the story.  

Based on a questionable whip count conference call that was conducted while much of the Congressional Black Caucus and several congressmembers including Sen. Ted Kennedy and Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) were occupied at the Walter E. Williams Convention Center for the 2007 edition of the CBCF-Annual Legislative Conference that ran from September 26-29, it was claimed there were not enough votes to pass a trans inclusive ENDA. 

No credible activist believes that George W. Bush would have signed ENDA into law had either version of the bill passed Congress and hit his Oval Office desk.   Since the gay-only ones failed in 1994, 1995 and 1996, why not run the trans inclusive ENDA one and see what happens?   

Instead Frank used that whip count excuse to split the inclusive HR 2015 into two separate bills that had the effect of throwing the trans community under the ENDA civil rights bus.  HR 3685, the gay-only bill the Democratic majority began legislatively moving forward at his behest, triggered the nuclear explosion of anger from the trans community which, in turn, was backed up by our allies. The only group in favor of Frank's action?   You guessed it- HRC. 

The betrayal triggered an unprecedented reaction in the trans community. Donna Rose, the first trans person on the HRC Board of Directors resigned from it on October 8, 2007.   She was replaced by Meghan Stabler in 2008.  In addition to the formation of a progressive coalition of over 300 LGBT organizations entitled United ENDA calling on the Democratic congressional majority to pass the inclusive HR 2015,  the trans community resumed an old strategy of picketing HRC leaders and dinners around the nation, starting with their October 2007 one in Washington DC.   The HRC dinner pickets continued well into 2008.

The lone organization that wasn't part of United ENDA?   Can you say HRC?  I knew you could.. 

HRC tried to mend fences during this period of white hot anti-HRC sentiment with the trans community by flying Joe Solmonese to San Francisco for a tense two hour January 5, 2008 meeting with 30-40 Bay Area trans leaders over ENDA and apologize for 'misspeaking' at SCC.  But those Bay Area trans leaders, like just about every transperson in the country at the time were still angry at HRC and extremely pissed about being legislatively left behind. .  

At that contentious meeting, Theresa Sparks, the president of the San Francisco Police Commission returned the 2004 Equality Award she received from the Human Rights Campaign.

Sparks stated she could no longer stand to even look at the etched glass award when it was on her credenza. 'It no longer symbolized equality to me," she told the Bay Area Reporter's Cynthia Laird as she exited the meeting at the time.  "It's a matter of their integrity and not following through and my own integrity."

The dawn of 2008 also meant that it was a presidential election year.  HRC endorsed then Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) who was one of the three front runners for the nomination.   The trans community, still majorly pissed at HRC, was split at the time about who to support in the upcoming presidential election.   Many trans people backed Sen. Clinton, but because of the early HRC endorsement of her and his support of an inclusive ENDA elements of the community (myself included) decided to support then Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) in the Democratic presidential primary. 

The trans community also did something else politically unprecedented with the help of Helen Boyd and the Stonewall Democrats in that 2008 election cycle.  They publicly put their t-bills behind a presidential candidate and set up an ActBlue page that raised over $10,000 for the Obama campaign.  
 
The trans community moves once again validated their savvy national political instincts as Sen. Obama not only went on to become the first African-American to win the Democratic presidential nomination, he and his running mate Sen. Joe Biden went on to claim the presidency later that year over Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin in an 365-173 electoral landslide.   

While we've had some issues with him on a few subjects like DADT repeal not covering the trans community and ENDA, for the most part President Obama has validated the wisdom of the trans community supporting him in 2008 and his re-election in 2012 by becoming one of the most trans friendly presidents ever in US history. 

For a large inside the Beltway based organization, HRC can be politically tone deaf at times.  HRC's tendency to back Republicans in political campaigns over qualified gay and lesbian candidates or GLBT friendly allies has caused embarrassing problems for them.  In 1998 during the 'Angry Black Vote' midterm election they backed controversial New York GOP incumbent senator Al D'Amato over Democratic nominee Chuck Schumer despite protests from a broad spectrum of local NY gay organizations and Richard Socarides, the Clinton administration White House liaison to the gay community.

HRC compounded their D'Amato endorsement fiasco when then HRC executive director Elizabeth Birch tried to justify it via The New York Times by arrogantly asserting New Yorkers “didn’t know D’Amato’s record.”  It was the opposite that was true.  HRC overlooked D'Amato's history of gay-bashing that was part of that record while New York's gay community didn't.  They voted in 4 to 1 numbers to send the incumbent senator packing as Schumer won the seat. 

Just two years later HRC pissed off the African-American LGBT community by backing Rep. Mary Bono over telegenic openly gay African-American Palm Springs, CA councilmember Ron Oden despite the fact that Bono had a '25' rating on HRC's congressional scorecards during the 105th Congress.  Oden lost that race, but became in 2003 the first African-American mayor of Palm Springs, CA.  

HRC stubbed its toe in Palm Springs again last year.  They pissed off gay and lesbian peeps in the area when they declined to endorse either candidate in the redrawn California 36th Congressional District race between Democratic candidate Dr. Raul Ruiz and their longtime favorite GOP Rep. Mary Bono Mack despite Ruiz's repeated support of marriage equality and Mack's refusing to take a stand on it. 

Latinos make up a quarter of the new 36th Congressional District's voters and 47% of its population.  That fact alone should have pushed them in the direction of endorsing Ruiz along with his solidifying support in polling data in the months before the election.  A 2006 e-mail that surfaced in which Bono Mack agreed with a conservative talk show radio host that the heavily Latino part of the district was a 'Third World toilet' along with her voting for Rep. Paul Ryan's Social Security killing budget also contributed mightily to Ruiz going on to beat Bono Mack 52.9%-47.1% on election night and HRC being on the wrong side of an election result.  


In the wake of the 2004 presidential election and 11 states passing same gender marriage bans after being warned by trans community leaders like NTAC chair Vanessa Edwards Foster not to push for marriage equality in advance of those elections, in December 2004 HRC considered selling out seniors and uncoupled people in the community.  They considered striking a deal with the George W. Bush administration to support Social Security privatization in return for allowing domestic partners to receive Social Security benefits. 

Even when they tried to do something right for the trans community, it got messed up by their diversity blind spot.  HRC trumpeted the fact they helped set up the historic first ever June 26, 2008 all-trans panel for a House subcommittee hearing discussing trans unemployment issues.

Unfortunately it was a trans panel that had no African-American representation on it. Since the African-American trans community suffers with a 26% unemployment rate double the overall trans unemployment rate they were justifiably pissed off about the erasure and the lost opportunity to tell congressional reps their stories.   


There was the head spinning 2011 HRC decision to honor Goldman Sachs with a 2011 Workplace Equality Innovation Award followed up in February 2012 with an HRC Workplace Equality Award. 

Never mind that Goldman Sachs is the same investment banking firm that has outraged Americans inside and outside the LGBT community for being one of the securities firms at the epicenter of the October 2008 economic meltdown that wrecked the economies of the United States and several other nations.
  
The pattern of backing Republicans over Democrats was shifting slowly as the GOP got more intolerant on LGBT issues, but old habits die hard. 

In 2010 HRC was slow in taking Best Buy and Target to task over a $250,000 donation made to anti-gay Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer who lost to former Democratic Senator Mark Dayton.. 

They didn't join the DADT repeal effort until it appeared it was well on its way to becoming a reality thanks to Dan Choi giving the issue a recognizable face along with transwoman Autumn Sandeen, Choi publicly calling out HRC in the process and cadres of grassroots activists and organizations such as GetEqual doing the grunt work to push the Obama administration into getting behind the repeal effort.


The 2011 Road To Equality Bus Tour is another glaring example of the political tone deafness, cluelessness and arrogance they operate with at times.  The folks in Louisville and Lexington, KY. have longstanding animus with HRC over being called a 'civil rights backwater' before the cities passed the trans inclusive Fairness laws in 1999.

They were shocked and angered to discover by press release they were on the bus tour's list of 17 cities in 11 states and D.C. to visit on September 23-25.  HRC not only didn't bother to ask the Kentucky LGBT community if they wanted to be a stop on the tour, long time activists still haven't forgiven or forgotten the insulting comment hurled in their direction.   They reacted accordingly to not roll out the welcome mat for it. 

The Kentucky activists threatened to picket the bus if they went ahead with their planned stops in Louisville and Lexington.  A meeting HRC arranged in Louisville led to their finding out firsthand how viscerally negative the reaction was to HRC's bus making a stop there.  They were also shocked to discover the broad diversity of Louisville's LGBT community leaders included trans people in powerful and influential positions and trans and same gender loving people of color.  

If they had bothered to ask the Kentucky activist community before they set up the bus tour schedule, HRC would have discovered the Kentuckians were dealing with a contentious gubernatorial election between incumbent Democratic governor Steve Beshear and longtime anti-LGBT rights foe and Republican Senate President David L. Williams.

While Gov. Beshear at the time had a healthy 52%-30% lead in the opinion polls at the time the tour was announced in late June, the last thing Kentucky activists wanted was HRC's yellow and blue bus rolling into the two largest LGBT friendly cities in the state less than five weeks before the November 8 election.  

The Kentucky TBLG leaders didn't want that visual galvanizing the Tea Party haters to bumrush the polls and potentially cause electoral problems for a GLBT community friendly Democratic governor and friendly legislators in the Kentucky House and Senate they would need to pass a statewide pro-BTLG Fairness bill. 

So now we come to the latest incident in a long sorry history of HRC disrespecting trans people with the March 27 SCOTUS rally in Washington DC.

An HRC staffer later identified as Karin Quimby demanded the trans pride flag be taken down.  She is also alleged to have stated 'marriage equality isn't a transgender issue'.

HRC resorted to an old public relations tactic to try to quell the growing online media firestorm that occurs when they get caught disrespecting transpeople in terms of circling the wagons, denying it happened and demonizing the messenger.

“It is not true to suggest that any person or organization was told their flag was less important than another – this did not occur and no HRC staff member would ever tolerate such behavior. To be clear, it is the position of the Human Rights Campaign that marriage is an issue that affects everyone in the LGBT community.   Michael Cole-Schwartz HRC Communications Director

But after National Stonewall Democrats Executive Director Jerame Davis blew up that spin coming from Cole-Schwartz by verifying the incident did occur along with another incident during that same rally in which a queer undocumented Latino activist was silenced, the simmering anger the trans community has had since September 2007 for the Human Rights Campaign exploded.   It blew up on the Net, in LGBT media and in social media circles until HRC Vice President of Communications and Marketing Fred Sainz apologized on April 1. 

An apology that came on April Fool's Day.  

While Sainz's apology may have been heartfelt, it certainly has the appearance and stench based on the date it was done of being insincere.  Karin Quimby surfaced at a San Antonio Gender Alliance (SAGA) meeting April 5 to do a mea culpa amidst increasingly loud calls from people in the trans community for her resignation or termination.

So in conclusion, things not only haven't changed since 2007 in terms of the tense, contentious relationship between HRC and the trans community, in many people's opinions it's gotten worse despite the work of many people at the local levels of HRC, trans community activists and Diego Sanchez's (who sat on their Business Council with Stabler for a year until hired by Frank) and Meghan Stabler's attempts at the board level to change that transphobic paradigm.


The self-proclaimed largest LGBT rights organization at this moment still has the same number of out and proud trans employees working at its Rhode Island Ave headquarters as it did in 2007 (zero) and that needed to change a long time ago. The HRC penchant (when you deign to do so) to hire transpeople who have no trans grassroots organizing experience or background, are newly out or aren't familiar with the history of the trans rights movement is troubling to the trans community and plays into the perception they aren't serious about advancing trans human rights.  

In the wake of the 2007 ENDA debacle HRC should have immediately started hiring (and cultivating in its ranks) a large, ethnically diverse group of trans masculine and trans feminine employees in policy making areas that cut their activist teeth in trans human rights grassroots organizing to address their glaring shortcomings in that area.  

The lack of a critical mass of trans people in the policy formation and lobbying areas combined with the failure to root out and eliminate the historic anti-trans attitudes embedded in the organizational DNA hamstrings your ability to actually advance trans rights issues on The Hill and in state legislatures. 

Or is that part of the HRC 'all marriage all the time' advocacy plan?

HRC excels at the illusion of inclusion.  They'll show up with  a representative for a Trans Day of Remembrance, sponsor a trans-related conference here or there, or even tinker with their Corporate Equality Index to have trans specific issues reflected in it and trumpet it in a press release.  But when it's time to put their money where their civil rights mouths are and actually use their Equal Sign bully pulpit, fiscal resources, political clout and influence to help push legislation that will result in human rights for trans people, they are MIA.

Not only did HRC fail to assist in helping push for GENDA's (the statewide trans rights bill) passage in New York as forcefully as they did when marriage equality was pending in the State Assembly and passed in 2011, they repeated the pattern last year in Maryland.  

This press release highlighting the support mustered and the millions spent to get marriage equality passed in Maryland stands in stark contrast to what they wouldn't do to support an effort to pass a statewide trans rights bill that was pending in the Maryland state legislature at the same time.

It lends credence to the widely held view in the trans community that HRC pays lip service to trans human rights, doesn't really care about us or our issues.  Even if there is change genuinely happening at Rhode Island Avenue, it's occurring on trans issues at a superficial level.  

Don't even get me started about what non-white trans people think about HRC, that's another post.  And the sad part is it doesn't have to be this way.

It's a disservice to the dedicated people who work for HRC, want to see it succeed and want it to have a reputation in the trans and GLB community they can be proud of.   I too, would love to see HRC live up to what it posts on its blog as working for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender human rights.  I would be thrilled to see it get past its ugly history of being more of a trans oppressor organization than a trans ally.  

But sadly, it keeps making the same stupid mistakes repeatedly with trans people and it's why the trans community loathes HRC.       

Netroots Nation Post Trans Panel Thoughts

Autumn, Jennifer, Jillian, Jos and I only had an hour and thirty minutes to discuss Blogging For Transgender Equality and the wide variety of issues, challenges and triumphs that have resulted in us engaging in this new media medium.

And yes, we started on time at 10:30 AM EDT in doing so and still the hour concluded with us not being able to talk about a long list of issues I would have liked to have addressed.

But in the wake of this historic panel and the discussions it generated at Netroots Nation and hopefully will continue across the liberal progressive political sphere, y'all know the TransGriot has some things to say that I didn't get to articulate during that panel and in the two radio interviews I was a part of during that event.

One of the things that was glaringly clear to me even before I arrived in Providence was that we needed a Latin@ trans blogger on that panel and a trans man.   GLAD did a wonderful job in putting it together and even they recognize that point.

We also need at future Netroots Nation events (and any other liberal progressive conferences) several trans panels dealing with a wide range of subjects.   I would also submit a trans POC panel is desperately needed to highlight and give exposure to our emerging and long time trans leaders of color, touch on and explore those issues that deleteriously affect us and highlight the intersectional overlaps with the other communities we are part of.

I was honored to be part of that historic Friday discussion, the LGBT pre-conference event on Wednesday and the Netroots Nation Black Caucus on Thursday.  Only thing that prevented my participation in the LGBT caucus was me flying back to Houston. 

Netroots Nation 2012 helped me make some contacts, meet some people and drive home the point that yes, trans African-Americans exist and yes we are capable of speaking on behalf of this community and many others.   The question remains that will the people I made contact with follow up and how serious are they about their commitments?  

I certainly plan on doing so and letting you know how successful those efforts are as I attempt to honor the commitments I made on behalf of myself and the African-American trans community.   I want to do my part to ensure that the conversation, policies and political strategies that result from these conversation include input from us and benefit our community as well.   

NBJC ED Sharon-Lettman Hicks' 'Own Our Power' words were ringing in my ears when I stepped off the plane at TG Green Airport Tuesday night along with a conversation I recently had with Leslye Huff when we were talking about out Out On The Hill and ALC 2011 experiences.  I decided I wasn't just going to hang out in my LGBT comfort zone, but also make my voice heard in African-American spaces as well.  

When I walked into that Black caucus meeting Wednesday afternoon and made my statement that the Black community needs to stop treating the Black TBLG one as a separate entity, pointed out politically astute down with the Black community's uplift and progress trans people exist, and Black BTLG people were part of the kente cloth fabric of the community little did I realize that two hours later that would get me on Elon James White and L. Joy Williams 'Blacking It Up radio podcast.

They  moderated that Black Caucus event, and my interview with Elon and Joy also got the attention of Michaelangelo Signorile's producers because he was hearing and watching it as well.

Note to my haters (and you know who you are), and still I rise despite your best efforts.

It also for the remainder of the event got me much love from African American LGBT peeps of all ages and our allies who were thinking the same thing but Moni was bold enough to state the obvious.

The point is that trans human rights coverage not only benefits me personally, it expands your human rights and is good for you and all the communities trans people intersect and interact with. 

Janet Mock Launches #GirlsLikeUs Twitter Campaign

“I will never depart from my core belief that CeCe and Paige and thousands of other girls like us matter.”   Janet Mock

You TransGriot readers know I have much love admiration and respect for People.com editor Janet Mock who ever since she revealed her trans status and her personal journey in the May 2011 Marie Claire article has been an eloquent advocate for transwomen who share our African descended roots.

Now Janet is taking it another step further by launching a Twitter campaign with the #GirlsLikeUs hashtag.   So for you folks who spend time at Twitter, when your subject is about trans women, use that hashtag

As Janet wrote in this post at her janetmock.com blog,

We are not disposable. No human life is. And until we all come around to this belief we’ll never achieve equality. When I say equality, it’s not only a phrase we attach to the right to get married, I attach it to the the fabric of our lives: the right to work, the right to have a home, the right to use the restroom without second guessing, the right to walk in your neighborhood and feel safe.

Just as we all rose up in collective anger and justifiable outrage over Trayvon Martin's killing, neither should it be acceptable what happened to Paige, Brandy and Cece.

When it comes to African descended #GirlsLikeUs, that message needs to be used as a clarion call inside and outside our community.  It's past time that our iconic legacy organizations such as the NAACP, the Urban League, the Congressional Black Caucus and countless others stop ignoring what is happening to African descended transpeople like us.

It's time for them to step up to the plate and unequivocally state that we are part of the kente cloth fabric of the African-American community and anti-trans violence and transphobia will not be tolerated.

Thanks Janet for getting this Twitter party started.

Hard Solid Thinking About The State Of The Black Trans Community

One of the things I was contemplating during my downtime at Out on the Hill, while riding the Washington Metro and on the plane ride home is the state of the Black trans community.  

During the Transgender Person of Color (TPOC) breakout session, one of the things that was foremost on our minds amongst the participants in it was the vast gulf between us and the white trans community on many issues. 

One glaring issue of difference is one that was pointed out to us by our cis female allies.  They noted that white transpeople are quicker to declare they are out and proud of being a transperson   

Trans pride is much easier to declare and maintain when everything and every happy-happy joy-joy positive image about being trans in America reflects a vanillacentric heritage.   It's easier to be proud of being trans when the history of the community overwhelmingly reflects you.    It's easier to be proud of being trans when the leadership ranks and people driving the policy agenda and thinking look like you and the voices speaking for it are predominately white.  It's also easier to be an out and proud trans person when you're not facing a life and death struggle to survive and off the charts violence aimed at you as evidenced in DC lately.

For us to improve the state of the Black trans community means we are going to have to reverse the spirit crushing negativity connected with being Black and trans in America and the ills that disproportionately impact our community. 

We as a chocolate trans community must reclaim our history.  It's hard for us to be proud of who we are as trans people of African descent if we don't know our history, where we've been, how far we've come and pass it on.   You will find nuggets of that history here at TransGriot and not just every February.

We must celebrate our leaders and icons, point out our successes, be honest about our failures and rectify them while relentlessly pointing out we are African descended Americans who demand our human rights be respected and protected.      
 
We must also call out and put an end to the anti-trans bigotry and hatred aimed at us from people inside and outside the African American community, including our LGB/SGL brothers and sisters.

We also have to work on ourselves internally.   We must deal with our shame and guilt issues in the African descended trans community that prevent us from claiming our power  

As we build that chocolate trans community that reflects or pride in ourselves and our values, it is going to be a long, hard process in which we will have to conduct some serious internal and external family conversations along the way, but have those conversations we will.  

I was heartened to hear during this just concluded OUT on the Hill week in the many conversations I was honored and privileged to be involved in that the NBJC, their BOD, their outstanding ED/CEO Sharon Lettman-Hicks and other leaders inside and outside the African American LGBT community are committed to ensuring the 'T' stays capitalized an an integral part of our Black LGBT movement.  Our Black LGB/SGL leaders and allies also want us to realize and made it clear to me that we are a valued and necessary part of the coalition, not an afterthought.

They are quite aware that I and other trans leaders are going to hold them to that standard. and they are going to hold me and us to some standards as well.   .

I'm going to contribute my talents in leading that effort on the unapologetically Black electronic pages of TransGriot to hammer home that out and proud message as a necessary first step in us 'Owning Our Power' . 

I want to role model that Black trans pride in my hometown and elsewhere.  I'm plan on lifting up and highlighting the stories of trans leaders of African descent locally, across the state of Texas, nationally and across the Diaspora who are providing visionary leadership but aren't getting the recognition and love they deserve for it.   

I'm going to do that even if I am the only person or blog doing so.   It's past time my diverse hometown had trans leadership and a trans community that reflects the city of Houston's diversity   

Starting today, the 'T' will no longer be silent for transpeople of color in Houston or the state of Texas.  I am busy compiling a short term and long term plan to help achieve that long needed goal.

And yes, that diversity needs to happen on the national level as well.


We Black trans people are starting that process of closing ranks with our African descended GLB/SGL brothers and sisters in order to be a stronger, more cohesive part of the communities we intersect with we must have that happen.  

The African American TBLG community and the overall African American community needs our talents that we bring to the table and we can no longer afford to waste or ignore them.   At the same time, we African descended trans people have to own our power and do our part as well.

To my trans younglings, stay in school and get that 'ejumacation'   Your elders are aware of and beginning to address the bullying issues on the local and federal levels in order to make your schools safe zones for you to focus on your books from the elementary school to collegiate level. 

We are beginning the process of having HBCU's make the same kinds of advances for trans students as their white counterparts have been engaged in and have proudly trumpeted they have done for a decade or longer.
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But it all starts Black trans community with us being proud of who we are and demanding our human rights. .   It's all about a comprehensive program that addresses the shame and guilt issues, aggressively attacks our problems, builds pride and self esteem and channels that pride and self esteem into action that will uplift our entire community.

This is nothing earth shattering I'm talking about.   It's the same blueprint our people used to overcome slavery, Jim Crow racism, and jumpstart the civil rights movement .   We just have to tweak that blueprint so that it works for us as well. 
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Say it loud, we're Black, transgender and proud.  Name it, claim it and own that label. 

Now let's get busy closing ranks so that we can become a greater, more powerful, more cohesive part of the African American community and the trans one as well.