Laverne Cox On MHP

Laverne Cox's highly anticipated debut appearance in #nerdland happened yesterday morning as she along with several castmates from Orange Is The New Black discussed the show and the issues revolving around incarcerated women highlighted by it.

Laverne not only discussed her groundbreaking OITNB Sophia Burset character, but also talked about some of the issues inherent in navigating the world as a Black trans woman. 

For those of you who missed her segment of the Melissa Harris-Perry Show,  here are the videos.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

British Trans Woman Gets Justice For Sexual Assault After Her Death

(TRIGGER WARNING:  This post discusses a sexual assault) 

Anna Vincent finally got justice for what happened to her on a horrible January 23, 2001 night.  Too bad she wasn't alive to see this day happen.

She was 36 at the time and on her way home inebriated from attending a birthday party.  Just outside the Camden Town tube station she was snatched by Mohammed Salim at approximately 10 PM and dragged by him to a nearby alley.   He tried to force her to perform a oral sex act on him before forcing himself on her, anally raping the post operative trans woman, vomiting and running away from the scene.

At first Vincent wasn't going to report the sexual assault because she felt the police wouldn't care, take it seriously or do anything about it because of her transfeminine status.  She was persuaded to report it anyway and did so the next day.

Good thing she did.  Semen was found in that alleyway, but the case remained unsolved until a cold case review took place in 2011.  
   
With the ability to now do DNA testing on the semen sample, it came up as a billion to one match for the 43 year old Mohammed Salim, who was arrested and charged with her rape and two counts of indecent assault.  

The initial trial for Salim at Old Bailey in June resulted in a hung jury, but in the retrial that started July 8 Salem was convicted and sentenced to eight years in jail for the assault on Vincent. 

Unfortunately Anna Vincent didn't see her attacker get brought to justice because she died in 2006. 

The London Metropolitan Police suspect that Salim was involved in other sexual assault cases and are asking for people to call their Serious and Complex Case Team on 0208 217 6526. To remain anonymous call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Washington DC Proposing Legislation To Ease Trans Birth Certificate Guidelines

More positive news out of Washington DC in that the District of Columbia is working on legislation that would make it easier for trans people to obtain new birth certificates reflecting the people they are now.

“D.C.’s law as it currently exists makes it really hard for trans people to get their vital records in line with who they really are,” said Andy Bowen of the DC Trans Coalition in an interview with WRC-TV

Under the old rules to get a birth certificate change not only required genital surgery, but public notification for several days via classified newspaper ads.  The new ones would simply require a certified statement from a medical doctor and issue a new birth certificate rather than amending the old one.  

Too bad Washington DC's proposed approach isn't universal across this country.   Would make things a lot easier documentation wise for transpeople.   

The DC  Council Judiciary Committee has already approved the legislation and it will come before the full DC City Council in the next few weeks where it is expected to easily pass. 

Transwomen Must Work Four Times As Hard To Be Considered Half As Good

Former Ottawa, ON mayor Charlotte Whitton once said 'Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought of half as good.'   For transwomen, it's triple that, and for transwomen of color it's four times as well as men to be considered half as good.

It's a concept that trans women of color are already bitterly familiar with. It isn't fair, but it's the hand we're dealt and it's what we have to overcome to be the best #girlslikeus we can be. 

I know we have some smart, talented and exceptional trans women out there who if given just half a chance, can not only excel at whatever they set their minds to do, they will thrive if given the support they need.

But we have to be given the opportunities to succeed or fail on our own merits, not you cis peeps gay and straight throwing barriers and obstacles in our path every chance you get and then chuckling to yourself when that person falls short.

But we transwomen relish a challenge.   We like it when you cis people engage in the hard bigotry of low trans expectations and presume we'll fail.  It makes it even sweeter when we spectacularly succeed and make you look foolish in the process.

But before we can get to that point of spectacular success, we have to be prepared and ready to take advantage of the opportunities when they present themselves.  It's why we need to make sure we have as much education as possible.   It's why we need to be networking, building sistahcircles, lifting each other up in transfeminine circles as we climb and reaching out to cis women friends and allies. 

It's why we need to be fighting tooth and nail to pass trans human rights legislation with airtight public accommodations language and reaching out to our trans younglings at every opportunity.

We knew it wasn't going to be easy to be girls like us.  We knew before we took our first estrogen shots we were going to have to be better than the average cis woman just to be included and accepted in the feminine ranks.  

There are some haters who will always be chomping Hater Tots fresh out the grease and make it their foaming at the mouth transphobic hate filled mission to never accept girls like us into the sorority. 

Frack 'em.   That doesn't mean we don't keep striving to be the best people we can be.  Our best revenge is to contribute our talents to the various communities we interact and intersect with and make the cis haters look bigoted and stupid for being the transphobic oppressors they are.

It's also why I and everybody else in trans femme world needs to be consistently striving to be the quality women we know we can be inside and outside.

Even if we have to work three or four times as hard to get to that point.

Nobody Has The Right To Deny You Power Over Your Body Or Your Future

'Nobody has the right to deny you power over your body or your future'   Sandra Fluke

But it seems like when it comes to girls like us, a diverse group of transphobes seem to think they have the ability to do precisely that.   Whether it's the trans exterminationalist rad fems, the conservative elements of the Catholic Church and other faiths, elements of the gay and lesbian community or right wing legislators, they are united in their zeal to deny transpeople the power over their bodies and their futures. 

Article 3 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.   When it comes to transpeople, that right to life, liberty and security of person has been under sustained attack.

And it's past time we transpeople in the United States and around the world fight for our human right to exist/ Because for us to have a future, we must change our bodies as the first step towards us beginning to acquire the confidence, strength and will to do what is necessary to have positive outcomes in our lives..

So what is it about the simple demand of transpeople wanting to peacefully live our lives just like anyone else on the planet that scares the crap out of people?   Is it because we strive to be our authentic selves and in that gender metamorphosis it forces us to sort out issues that most cispeople refuse to contemplate much less deal with over their lifetimes?

Is it because it forces cis people who uncomfortable in their own skins to think about gender identity characteristics that people once thought were immutable?  Are cis people bothered by the realization that a little more or less testosterone in vitro would have them either walking in our trans shoes or on the other side of the gender divide in a body opposite the one they arrived out of the birth canal with? 

Or is it because transpeople make cisfolks realize that the dividing line between masculine and feminine is not the rigid Berlin Wall binary many people envision it as but a thin line segment that we all fall along somewhere along?  

All we transpeople is around the world want is to proudly live our lives in our various nations just like any other cis person.  We want to get a good education, good jobs, be the best people we can be, have the ability to marry the people we find are worthy of our love, start families, and do our part to build up the nations we inhabit.  We also want to live our lives free from fear, discrimination and transphobic bigotry as we do so.

Owning our bodies and the power to determine what happens to them is a major step towards making the other things happen.  The international fight to make trans human rights a reality puts us on the correct side of the arc of the moral universe that is always bending toward justice.

Even if it seems that inevitable day is slow in arriving at times for transpeople.

This is the second decade of the 21st century.  The medical means to help transpeople because the men and women they were born to be exists. The science is on our side, the laws are catching up to where we've always been.

The only people that should ever have the power over our trans bodies is us.   We trans people are becoming more cognizant that control of our bodies and what to do with them is not only worth fighting for, it's imperative we do so if we're going to have futures to look forward to.

And it's a fight that we must win for the sake of our trans younglings following in our footsteps. 

Smith College Teach In Tonight

For those of you in Western Massachusetts, you may wish to roll over to Northampton and check out a teach in that's happening on the Smith College campus tonight from 6:30-7:30 PM EDT  outside the Smith Campus Center.

It's being hosted by Smith Q & A (Queers & Alliez)  in response to the issue of exclusion of trans women from being able to enroll and matriculate at one of the premiere women's colleges in the country.

A petition calling for the end of transphobic discrimination in Smith admissions policies has garnered over 4000 signatures.

One of the people who will be speaking is longtime activist and historian Bet Power, and I hope the video cameras are rolling for this one.

Hope you'll come and show your support for this event.

Ask A Trans Attracted Man Latest Video

Troy's latest video in the Ask A Trans Attracted Man series.   In this fifth video in the series Troy touches on people not loving themselves on either the trans attracted male end or the trans woman end can lead to negative consequences.

Love yourself first before you put yourself out there to love somebody else. 

The K-11 Issues Are Still The Same...

That still doesn't change the fact that once again you had ciswomen playing what is ostensibly a trans role. 

Even with different casting.   

When I first wrote about the movie in 2009,  Nikki Reed and Kristen Stewart were set to play the lead roles in the movie K-11.   But as can happen with movies in development, scheduling conflicts can arise or other issues occur that force announced actors to pull out of a project.  

Kristen Stewart was forced due to a scheduling conflict to pull out of this film her mother Jules Stewart was producing.   She still has a small voice cameo in it and the role of Butterfly she was supposed to play was given to Portia Doubleday.   The Mousey role, the queen bee of the K-11 dorm went to veteran Latina actress Kate del Castillo after Nikki Reed dropped out of it.

Granted Calpernia Addams and Andrea James served as coaches for del Castillo, she embraced the challenge of it, and I'm not saying ciswomen can't or shouldn't play transwomen if they are offered the part.  Felicity Huffman, Kerry Washington, Rebecca Romijn, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Chloe Sevigny come to mind as ciswomen who have pulled it off successfully and to rave reviews in various movie and television projects.

But ciswomen are offered those roles far too often, especially when you have transwomen who are acting in Hollywood such as Laverne Cox, Jamie Clayton, Calpernia Addams, Candis Cayne, Alexandra Billings, Aleshia Brevard, and others who are striving to get the level of recognition these ladies have.

It would be nice for them to get paid and get a shot at a role they have some intimate familiarity with like transwomen in other countries get a chance to do more frequently than their American counterparts..

And I also have to agree with Gina Morvay of the Skip The Makeup blog and this comment she left on the original K-11 post that is still valid.

As you've pointed out, in many other countries trans people have played trans people... and, surprise, it comes out a lot more moving and full blooded than having someone like Nicole Kidman or Nikki Reed do their actor schtick and pretending it's accurate. And the biggest joke is, people would be more interested to see a film with real trans actresses or actors than seeing yet another Nicole Kidman bomb or Nikki Reed vehicle (anyone remember '13'?).

I know just like you, I'd be quite interested in seeing a movie or television series in which trans women play realistic trans characters.   I'm not holding my breath on that happening any time soon.

Transphobic Bigot Eruption Earns UFC Fighter A Suspension

UFC heavyweight boxer Matt Mitrione ended a two match losing streak by knocking out in 19 seconds Philip De Fries in their bout in Sweden Saturday night to push his record to 6-2.

He went on the MMA Today show and got knocked out yesterday by his own big mouth. 

Mitrione has been suspended and is under investigation for launching into a vicious transphobic tirade near the end of his interview on MMA Today with Ariel Helwani aimed at Fallon Fox.. 

"She's not a he. He's a he. He's chromosomally a man. He had a gender change, not a sex change. He's still a man. He was a man for thirty-one years. Thirty-one years! That's a couple years younger than I am. He's a man. Six years of taking performance de-hancing drugs, you think is going to change all that? That's ridiculous…. That is a lying, sick, sociopathic, disgusting freak."

Matt, I don't see MD behind you name, so how the hell would you know what Fallon Fox's chromosomes are unless you ran the tests?   And BTW, hormone replacement therapy sure does work those kind of wonders on our bodies in less time than you think.  The science and medical evidence back that up and are on Fox's side.  

But Mitrione kept going with the tirade that would have made the womyn at certain TERF hate websites proud.

"It's an embarrassment to us as fighters, as a sport, and we all should protest that," he said in his interview. "The woman that's fighting him, props to you. I hope you beat his ass, and I hope he gets blackballed and never fights again because that's disgusting and I'm appalled by that." 

The UFC is appalled and embarrassed by your nekulturny behavior and is about to call your azz on it. 

Back in January the UFC announced a code of conduct for its fighters under contract to it which they indicated in a statement they released  that Mitrione was in significant breach of

"The UFC was appalled by the transphobic comments made by heavyweight Matt Mitrione today in an interview on 'The MMA Hour,'" the statement read.  The organization finds Mr. Mitrione's comments offensive and wholly unacceptable and – as a direct result of this significant breach of the UFC's code of conduct – Mr. Mitrione's UFC contract has been suspended and the incident is being investigated. The UFC is a friend and ally of the (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community, and expects and requires all 450 of its athletes to treat others with dignity and respect."

The MMA fans may not like it and are whining about 'free speech' in the comment threads along with their transphobic science-deficient commentary.   But free speech comes with consequences, especially if you have a UFC contract with a Code of Conduct in it and you let your transphobic bigotry run wild during a televised interview. 

While you're on suspension Matt, may I suggest you actually do some reading (if you're capable of doing that) on how HRT works and what the International Olympic Committee and other international sporting organizations who allow trans people to compete have to say about it.

#GirlsLikeUs Turns One

A space created by and for trans* women with the purpose of connecting, upLIFTing one another, and sharing resources and stories. It reaches across generations and color, location and socioeconomic standing, established by @janetmock in March 2012 to empower trans women to live visibly and connect in sisterhood and solidarity.  Happy birthday to the #GirlsLikeUs hashtag and campaign that Janet Mock created  which turns a year old today.  It's the Twitter hashtag that grew up quickly to become a pride based movement.  

It was March 27, 2012, during the contentious fight Jenna Talackova waged to bring down the odious 'natural born woman' rule being used to bar transwomen from competing in pageants that Janet Mock first used the #GirlsLikeUs Twitter hashtag in a tweet linked to a petition supporting Jenna.

We know that Jenna's fight to take down that rule was successful and she proudly walked the stage as a contestant in the Miss Canada Universe pageant a few weeks later.  That battle Jenna and transwomen around the planet waged in support of her also opened the doors for other girls like us to compete in Miss Universe pageant system events around the world (despite a few transphobic holdouts) starting this year.

From that March 27 first use of it the #Girlslikeus hashtag took off and went viral to the point that as an enthusiastic supporter of the campaign, I weave it into my TransGriot posts from time to time when I want to have a change of pace phrase to describe us instead of just trans woman. 

Although it's a campaign created by a Black trans woman, she's created it for all of us and I hope the trans brothers do something similar.  Janet made that clear in a subsequent post she wrote on her blog and a May 15, 2012 tweet about the #Girlslikeus campaign.

#GirlsLikeUs is for ALL trans women, regardless of color, but all who lend their voice to amplify ours knows that intersectionality matters.

Happy first birthday, #GirlsLikeUs. 

Unjust 'Your Trans Papers To Pee' SB 1432 Bill Filed In Arizona

When I spoke at the University of Arizona last year, I had a wonderful time visiting the state, chatting and having lunch with Antonia D'orsay, dinner with Dr. Susan Stryker, and interacting with the students, faculty and people in the Gallagher Theater audience during my speech.

When I was transiting the Phoenix and Tucson airports entering and leaving the state, eating lunch and dinner at the two restaurants I dined at in Tucson, and just before I took the stage for my speech in the Gallagher Theater I committed an act several times during that visit that would have gotten me arrested or harassed had an unjust bill that is now being proposed been in effect at that time.

I used the gender appropriate public restroom..

In the right wing (and trans exclusionary rad fem) zeal to grasp at anything to frack with the human rights of transpeople that they know they have no logic based reason or excuse to oppose, they have seized upon a tactic from the old white supremacist segregationist playbook and are trying to 'scurr' up opposition to transpeople by pimping the bathroom meme.

In the wake of Phoenix passing last month and preparing to implement a trans human rights law with public accommodations protections, the Forces of Intolerance in Arizona struck back. 

Republican John Kavanagh (surprise, surprise) penned SB 1432, an unjust bill that would make it a Class 1 misdemeanor offense punishable by six months in jail and a $2,500 fine to use a public toilet, bathroom, shower, bath, dressing room or changing room associated with a gender other than what is on one's birth certificate.

And y'all wanna know why I went off last year about the Massachusetts trans rights bill that doesn't have public accommodations language in it that they're trying to lobby to get added in now? 

Never mind the fact that two states, Idaho and Ohio will not let you change the gender markers period on your birth certificate, and others require gender reassignment surgery before they will do so.

While the unjust 'Your Trans Papers To Pee' bill was aimed at the transgender community, cisgender gay and straight folks who have ambiguous gender presentations would also find themselves caught up in this gender policing dragnet if SB 1432 passes the Republican-dominated Arizona legislature and gets Gov. Jan Brewer's (R) signature.

I'm concerned for my Arizona trans brothers and sisters about the increased harassment they will face from overzealous police officers and security guards, transphobic restroom patrons, passerbys and business owners if the unjust SB 1432 bill passes.

I'm also concerned about the trans people traveling into or through the state via its airports, by bus,  Amtrak trains, or driving Interstates 8, 10, 15, 17, 19 and 40 who would also be affected by this unjust bill and have to deal with that statewide cadre of  gender policing vigilantes.  These cisprivileged folks would have no problem reporting others to the po-po's who in their opinion don't measure up to their goalpost shifting standards of what a man or woman is supposed to look like.

I'm also concerned as a trans person of color that those unwanted interactions with POC transpeople and police could escalate to deadly levels.    

So Arizona TransGriot readers and allies, get busy helping our Arizona trans brothers and sisters defeat this unjust bill.   Here's some talking points on SB 1432 courtesy of my homegirl and proud Arizona resident Dyssonance to get you started.   

Let our people pee in peace.  And if they won't, time to consider having a few sit in's and pee in's protesting this unjust bill until they do.
   

African, Trans* And Proud

As I keep repeating on this blog, being trans is part of the diverse mosaic of human life.   Trans people exist on every continent that humans inhabit, and that is also true of the second largest continent on planet Earth in Africa.   

A Transgender and Intersex Africa video project initiative is cranking up which backs up what I'm talking about. 

Transgender and Intersex Africa is a group for transgender people who are proud to be both African and Trans*.

They also emphatically point out to their detractors that being trans or Transgenderism is not a Western concept.


As they point out, they are not copying the West.   They are proud transpeople who know who they are!
As a matter of fact, some of the early pioneering European trans women such as Great Britain's April Ashley and France's Jacqueline-Charlotte Dufresnoy (AKA Coccinelle) went to Casablanca to have their surgeries done by Georges Bourou.  

Enjoy the first video in the series. 

Monica Beverly Hillz Comes Out As Trans

I thought I had it tough when I came out as trans nearly 19 years ago and transitioned in the middle of an international airline terminal.   But to do so in front of a national television audience is infinitely tougher.

My homegirl Isis King can talk about the experience of competing on a reality show while trans along with Laverne Cox and Jaila Simms.

That small sorority is about to get a new member in Monica Beverly Hillz..

The RuPaul's Drag Race contestant came out as a trans woman during the February 4 episode of the show I refuse to support.

While there have been two other contestants in the history of that show, Sonique and Carmen Carrera who have come out as trans, they did so after they completed their competitive runs  Monica is the first to do it while competing.on the show..

It also adds an exclamation point to something I've been saying on this blog for years and the pseudo cisprivilege chasing TS seps claim is a lie or impossible.  There is movement in the trans umbrella amongst the gender variant categories.  I also pointed out in a post that some peeps use the drag and pageant world as a way to facilitate their transitions.

And it looks like this is exactly what it happening in Monica's case.

Hmm.  I may have to reconsider watching this show to support my trans sister.

Fernanda Milan Granted Danish Asylum!

Thought I would pass along to you TransGriot readers the wonderful news that Fernanda Milan has been granted asylum in Denmark on November 26.

She did not publicize the news according to ILGA Europe at the time because she is angry that she was forced to go through lengthy and grueling proceedings.  

Asylum was even denied to her in the beginning with the reversal happening only days before she was scheduled to be deported from Denmark.

She got a right to be angry considering the  European Union Parliament adopted asylum standards  in October 2011 stating EU member nations must now include gender identity as a ground of persecution and take it into account when they make decisions to grant or deny asylum status to people seeking it
Stine Larsen, of the T-Refugee Project says:

“We are very relieved that our struggle, together with Fernanda, ended in her being granted asylum. But it has been a soul-destroying asylum process with an initial refusal which was then reversed just three days before her scheduled departure on September 17, 2012. Fernanda has needed time and space to recover from this ordeal. That’s why we are only publicizing the good news now.”

“I am very grateful to all the people who have helped me to fight, because in the end I could not have done it on my own.”  said Fernanda.

“I have been a transgender person all my life. And I have been fighting against prejudice as long as I remember. I had to flee from Guatemala because I was fighting for human rights. Now I have the chance to live my life as a woman and an activist. Now I want to keep on the fight for a better world, where everybody can educate, work, create families and live a dignifying life regardless of their gender identity,”

Amen Fernanda, and congratulations.   Denmark should be proud to have someone like you residing inside its borders.

A Trans Radio Show In DC-InsighT

Thanks to Consuella Lopez I was advised about another radio show you folks may wish to listen to.

If you're wondering where you've heard that name before, she's the same girl like us whose lovely visage is on one of the Washington DC Office of Human Rights anti trans discrimination campaign posters 

Consuella is now part of the broadcast team bringing you InsighT,  Washington DC's transgender talk radio show.

Consuella is joined by Wesley Garson, Kisha De'javu Allure and Sami Haidar on their show which is broadcast at 6 PM EST Sundays on WLVS Radio.

You can check InsighT out via this link at www.listenvisionlive.com
Best of luck and much success for the show.



   

Upcoming Can We Talk For Real Show Appearance

I have the honor and pleasure of doing interviews either in print, radio or on radio podcasts on behalf of this community. 

Hopefully you'll be seeing my smiling face discussing trans issues in television and video interviews in 2013 because I do want to put the GLAAD National POC Media training I received last year to good use. 

Enough jibber-jabber.  My first 2013 interview will be courtesy of the Can We Talk For REAL podcast team of Terry Boi, Michelle and Ina on January 16.  

Can We Talk For REAL is a Blog Talk Radio Show geared toward discussing the important issues of the LGBTQ Community including many issues that are hard to discuss within the community

I along with TPOCC Executive Director Kylar Broadus and Chicago's Kokumo Kinetic will be discussing trans issues with the Can We Talk for Real broadcast team, and whatever issues crop up in our on air discussion during the time we're on the air. 

You can also take part in that discussion or listen to the show if you're not near your computer by calling 347-215-8985.   

Looking forward to talking to everyone next week and having another dynamic discussion on trans issues and how they affect our community.
 

My 'Real' Name Is What I Tell You It Is

When we trans people go through a gender transition, we spend a lot of time and thoughtful contemplation considering what our new name will be that matches our gender presentation. 


So when we hear someone ask us the question "No, what's your 'real' name?", which is a roundabout way for that cisperson to broach the subject of what was the name given to us at birth that no longer fits our lives, it can be irritating, unsettling and insulting to the trans person. 

Read my lips and this next sentence.   My real name is what I tell you it is.

So use it, and get used to having it cross your lips on a regular basis. Calling me or any other transperson by a name that doesn't fit the way we live our lives now is not only disrespectful, if you do so in front of a person who didn't know our gender business, you have just inadvertently outed us by doing that. .If that person is a transphobe, you may have just set the wheels in motion for that person to experience discrimination at their place of employment or set them up for a hate crime.

And using a transperson's name in all situations is to them vitally important and a sign that you respect them.

One of the things that pisses me and many transpeople the hell off is when media people reporting on trans issues or transpeople use that 'born as _____"  line in a story about them, put their chosen name in quotation marks or ask them that question during an interview.  

It's unnecessary, and you don't do it to Cher, Muhammad Ali, Tom Cruise, or any other celebrity or cis person who has changed their name for whatever reason.   So why do you feel you need to know what the transperson in question's old birth name was?   That's in none of your business territory just like what genitalia we are currently sporting between our legs.

So the next time you think about asking a transperson what their 'real name' is, don't.  Our real name is what we tell you it is.  Accept that fact and move on.

The Trans Conclusion Jump Strikes Again

One of the things that annoys me about the transgender community is the conclusion jump.

It's a tendency to take a snippet of information and come up with a pessimistic scenario severely out of whack with the available evidence or presume that the jumped conclusion is true even though the weight of evidence doesn't support it.      TransGriot July 5, 2007

The London Olympic Games unfortunately closed without an open trans athlete participating in that fortnight of competition.  But I can guarantee if the conclusion jump were an Olympic event some peeps in my community would take the gold medal for it. 

I wrote about this tendency of elements of our community to engage in this behavior during a situation in 2007 in which liberal-progressive talk show host Randi Rhodes called Ann Coulter a transwoman and transpeople justifiably called her on it.  

But a few conclusion jumped to the point where one person jawdroppingly equated her to transphobic right wing talker Michael Savage and another called her a transphobe when Rhodes clearly was neither.

We had another example of the trans conclusion jump at work last week when a transwoman had a not so pleasant flying experience in a Texas airport.    The incident as it turned out as more information became available got blown up way out of proportion to the facts of the case.

One thing you must do as a blogger (or on social media) is verify before posting. Your credibility as a blogger is important, especially when you represent a marginalized community and people are relying on you to help give them the facts they need to form their opinions on issues.  

You have to think like a reporter. Facts and accurate information should be first and foremost in a post. You can do point of view opinion style commentary in a later post if necessary.

Trusting your instincts is also paramount. I had questions about that incident, which is why you didn't see it posted on TransGriot when it first started appearing on the Net. 

Because I'm one of the biggest award winning bloggers of color, I have an international readership, I'm an award-winning activist, I talk about the African-American trans community in my writing, and what I write is highly valued,  I have to get it right.  It's more important in my mind to be accurate than to be the first to post it.
TransGriot will be seven years old on January 1.  I've put a lot of work into building its reputation as a go-to source for information on the African-American trans community and fearlessly and accurately discussing issues of importance to me and the trans community in general.  I take that responsibility seriously. 

The trans community and its hundreds of bloggers must consider the blogosphere as one of the vitally important tools in our civil rights toolkit.   It  has been one of the reasons that our trans human rights movement has made the remarkable progress it has over the last decade. 

Our trans bloggers from our A-list award winners to the folks just starting and building their blogging reps have raised our community's visibility along with bringing the trans community's issue concerns to the attention of the general public, politicians and civil rights organizations.  They have played a major role in pointing out transpeople are part of the diverse mosaic of human life.So chill with the conclusion jumping, okay?   It takes years to build up a solid reputation in the blogosphere for accuracy and being a go-to blog for commentary for our community, and one horribly incorrect post to screw it up.

TransGriot Note: Second picture is of Louisville television personality and Voice-Tribune editor Angie Fenton.  

What's The 4-1-1 With The DSM-V And Trans People?

Ever since the announcement was made Saturday that the APA Board of Trustees approved the changes made to the DSM-V, confusion has reigned over whether the trans community was depathologized or what exactly happened to the Gender Identity Disorder diagnosis.

Was it a watershed event similar to what happened when homosexuality started in 1973 on the road to being depathologized across several DSM's?  Is it as some people are arguing a status quo event?  Or is it as some people are contending we didn't get depathologized and in fact the trans community is in an even worse position than we were in previously?

From Naomi Fontanos, executive director of Ganda Filipinas who also sits on the board of WPATH:

To my friends who are asking about the confusing reports about the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) V of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Here are the facts:

1. Gender Identity Disorder (GID) will only be replaced with a new name, Gender Dysphoria (GD), which is still classified as a sexual disorder in the DSM. GD will still be used to psychopathologize transgender and gender diverse people of all ages including children.

2. GID was not delisted from the DSM like homosexuality was delisted in 1973.

3. The DSM V will also include Transvestic Disorder that will replace Transvestic Fetishisim. Transvestic Disorder will include anyone who engages in sexual activity and wears the clothing of the gender that one was NOT ASSIGNED to him or her at birth. This diagnosis affects a large portion of transcommunities around the world.

Until GD is removed from the DSM, the fight to depsychopathologize the humanity of transgender people continues!

Kelley Winters, who has been fighting the GID reform battle for years, had this to say: in her post breaking down the gender diagnoses

"Despite retention of the unconscionable Transvestic Disorder category, I believe that the Gender Dysphoria category revisions in the DSM-5 will bring some long-awaited forward progress to trans and transsexual people facing barriers to social and medical transition. I hope that much more progress will follow."

Julia Serano also commented on the DSM-5 controversy.

In case you're wondering what the TransGriot's postion is on this DSM-V revision hereit is.:I'm in favor of trans being depathologized and removed from both the DSM and the ICD, but have a medical protocol in place so that trans related healthcare can be covered by insurance.
So stay tuned, the debate is still raging over what exactly did happen concerning the trans community and the DSM-V. 

But what it does do is heighten the importance that the international trans community gets busy collectively making sure the job of trans depathologization is done properly as the World Health Organization takes up the task of revising their ICD-11 manual.  

Being Considered Beautiful Is A Trans Human Rights Strategy

In the feminist ranks I hear a lot of railing about the beauty standard that women are judged by.  Far too often that chatter is coming from the vanillacentric privileged wielding women who the system was designed to benefit.  We had an example of that recently from Oxford University student Alice Robb who complained that President Obama calling his daughters strong, smart and beautiful like their mother 'stung her'.

Easy to say that problematic bull feces when the beauty standard is designed to make women who look like you the default setting for what society considers attractive.

I submit that if the trans community is going to accomplish our stated goal of making the TDOR irrelevant, what has to happen is to make it untenable for society to easily dehumanize us.   When people are dehumanized, they are considered irrelevant and disposable by that society, and that leads to the slippery slope of genocidal levels of mayhem and violence aimed at them.

As the trans human rights push gains momentum, we will have to use all the tools in our civil rights toolbox in this fight to reduce anti-trans hate crimes committed against us and ensure that the perpetrators of them are punished. 

One of the things we trans women have to confront is the 'unwoman' meme. I believe the 'unwoman' meme aimed at trans women is one of the factors that fuels the anti-trans violence aimed at us, and it needs to be destroyed.  One of the methods in doing so will be thinking of being considered beautiful not as a detriment to womanhood but as a human rights strategy.  

We trans women have to deal with the reality that we live and interact with a world in which being attractive is considered an asset.  When I talk about being beautiful in this post, I'm not just talking about the physical aspect of it.  I'm talking about inside your mind and heart as well.

One of the strategies we African-Americans used during the civil rights movement in terms of battling the 'unwoman' meme aimed at our women and girls was to not only consistently reinforce the fact they are beautiful, but create the Miss Black America one to drive that message home at a time when we didn't have Black contestants in the predominately white Miss America and Miss Universe pageant systems.

The Miss Universal Queen pageant in Thailand, the Amazing Philippine Beauties one in Manila and the Miss Continental pageant system here in the States are ones specifically created for trans women.  There are also similar pageant systems create for African-American transwomen as well even though the compete, place and win in the Miss Continental ones.   

Now thanks to Jenna Talackova's fight, the Miss Universe system is open to trans women who have the desire to compete in them.  It remains to be seen if Miss America and the Miss World system will follow. .  

I believe that far from hatin' on the beautiful trans women among us, we need to be holding them up as examples.  We point to the world and say yes, trans women are beautiful, attractive, and given the opportunity can compete and possibly win a beauty contest in a head to head match up with a cis woman. 

When we acknowledge to ourselves that we are beautiful women in our own right, we own our power.

Being more determined not to allow others to denigrate our femininity and our beauty is also a way to deal with the shame, guilt and fear in our own ranks.   When we do so, we take pride in ourselves, have better self-esteem, stand up a little taller, are more confident as we deal with the world around us, will be less likely to engage in self-destructive behaviors and less likely to take crap from people.

We'll also experience the freeing of our minds and spirits the revelation that we are beautiful gives us.

So yes, we trans women need to consider being beautiful as a trans human rights strategy.