Regina Gazelle- More Than a Woman

By Patrick Roland
Echo Magazine
Phoenix, AZ

Almira Enos had used meth since she was 13 years old. To get drugs, she would often prostitute herself. She was born a man, but always knew she was supposed to be a woman. Her own mother told her so. Her confused gender state fueled the chronic drug use. She often felt lost and suicidal. Enter Regina Gazelle, Echo’s Woman of the Year.

In April, Enos met Gazelle, who helped the now 26-year-old clean up and learn how to live in her own skin. Enos enrolled in Gazelle’s halfway house for transgender girls, “This Is H.O.W. (Honesty, Openmindedness, Willingness),” and today is sober and even has a job.

She credits Gazelle with her remarkable transformation.

“I don’t think I would have sobered up without Regina,” Enos said. “If it wasn’t for her and this halfway house, I don’t think I’d be here now. I know she’s always there for me.”

With Enos’ gratitude, tears spill from Gazelle’s eyes. The pair embrace and Gazelle, who has helped at least 15 other girls with similar stories, speaks from her heart about the miracles she’s seen occur since opening the halfway house in February.

“I feel blessed to be able to intervene in the ripe ages of their youth,” she said. “It wasn’t until I was 40 that I realized I needed to change. It’s a miracle I have reversed everything.”

Gazelle’s story reads much like the stories of other women born men. She knew early in life she was supposed to be a woman. Seeing Tina Turner on Ed Sullivan and learning of Christine Jorgensen’s very first sex change operation cemented this feeling. She came out as a woman to her family as a transsexual. They institutionalized her.

Young adulthood led to drug use, prostitution and more than one jail stint. She was raped and often beaten. Sometimes she did the beating. She says she still has scars all over her body from the various traumas she endured. This behavior lasted about 30 years, until a judge scared Gazelle straight. He told her if he ever saw her in his court again, he’d send her to prison and throw away the key.

She’s now been sober for about 10 years and decided early in sobriety she would take the second chance she was given and use her story to help and inspire people.

“One of the reasons I work so hard at helping people is because for most of my life, I contributed to killing them or ripping them off,” Gazelle said. “This is my way of paying society back and making amends. I’m a walking miracle. God is using me in a remarkable way.”

One person who has been with Gazelle every step of the way is Community Church of Hope’s Rev. Patrick Stout. Stout ministered to Gazelle during her last jail stint and never left her side.

“Even though she is sometimes a diamond in the rough, she has the passion that gets the job done,” Stout said. “There’s not the word impossible in her vocabulary. When she has a dream, she just goes out there and does it. She’s a fantastic woman.”

Gazelle, who has been with husband Casey for seven years, is also a very popular entertainer throughout the community. Her work with transgender girls and on stage helped earn another accolade this year, Co-Grand Marshall of 2008 Phoenix Pride.

She found out about being named Co-Grand Marshall and her Woman of the Year for Echo nomination on the same day in late November. She is the first transgender woman for both honors.

“The best thing about it is people are not only acknowledging me, but they are letting me know I am appreciated for what I am doing,” Gazelle said. “Mostly it shows doors are open for us. It’s good to be first. It’s a good incentive.”

Gazelle knows some people still judge her when they find out she was a man. It comes with the territory, she said.

“I’ve never hid what I am,” she said. “A lot of doors have been slammed in my face. But when one closes, another opens. You aren’t going to get everyone to like you, but you can tell people who you are. I don’t have a problem with being me.”

Her positive stance about who she is is not lost on the girls, she helps, who all say they’d be in a much different place if not for Gazelle.

“Without Regina, I’d either be in prison or dead,” “This Is H.O.W.” house manager Allison Hultstrand said. “I was very volatile before I came here.”

“I never had a family that actually cared,” Annette Ellis added. “I am a lone person. I have no family except for Regina.”


Gazelle is excited about the future. She will continue her work with “THIS IS HOW,” blaze a trail on stage and maybe even adopt children if she can get Casey to go for it. She’s also thinking 2008 will be the year she completes the surgery to erase the traces of her former manhood.

“I used to think I might die if I do not become a woman,” Gazelle said. “Today I am positive, strong and outgoing. I know how to get what I want and if I don’t, I know how to ask. God works through me. I know now, after everything that was bad in my life, what my calling is.”

Reach the reporter at editor@echomag.com.

You Can't Judge A Transwoman By Her Shoe Size

One of the more amusing conversations I recently eavesdropped on while I was out and about was two brothers trading their 'how to spot a transsexual' tips. In addition to the usual stereotypes about height, broad shoulders, and 'masculine' facial looks, the one that made me chuckle was about shoe size.

"I can spot a transsexual from ten miles away because of them big feet." the so-called tranny-spotting expert proclaimed.

Yeah, right. If that was the case, how'd you miss spotting my elegantly dressed 6'2" behind wearing the hell out of my black Timothy Hitsman pumps, size 12? I have a size 13 navy pair of the same shoes in my wannabe Imelda Marcos sized shoe collection sitting in my closet.

I laugh sometimes when I hear biomen and some biowomen spout that fallacy. While there's a grain of truth to the fact there are some transwomen who have to shop at Payless or online at various websites to get fashionably stylish heels in double digit sizes, we are increasingly jostling with biowomen to grab the limited pairs of size 11s, 12s and 13s that are made available on store shelves.

Take note, alleged tranny spotters. Americans are not only getting fatter, we're getting bigger and taller as well. Feet are keeping evolutionary pace with that reality.

According to podiactric historian William Rossi, the foot enlarging trend for women has been occuring for about 150 years. At the beginning of the 20th century, the average American woman wore a size 3.5 or a 4. That climbed to a size 5.5 by the 1940s.

According to the Professional Shoe Fitting Manual, the average American adult female's shoe size in the 1960s was a size 5.5 to a 6. By the '70s it climbed to a 7.5 and in the '80s it had reached a size 8 or 8.5. As of yet stats haven't been compiled for the 90's, but you can do the logical progression and presume that the average American woman's shoe size will have climbed to a size 9.

In addition, thanks to regular wear and tear, pregnancy, and the stretching of foot ligaments and joints, over the course of a lifetime a woman's shoe size tends to increase by about a half to one full shoe size.

My homegirl Tracy discovered that fact to her horror after she gave birth to her daughter a few years ago. She's six feet tall and before her pregnancy wore a size 10. Her foot grew an inch during her pregnancy and she now wears a size 11. She used to mildly tease me when I'd whine about how hard it was for me to find fashionable shoes. Now she feels my pain.

And bioboys, don't be so quick to diss the sistahs about expanding shoe sizes either. This phenomenon isn't just limited to the feminine half of the US population. According to US Army records, the average shoe size worn by male recruits has gone up from about a 6 to about a 9.5 since the American Revolution.

But back to my regularly scheduled post. Transwomen come in all shapes, sizes and shoe sizes. I had a roommate back in Houston who was 5'6" and wore a size 7. My homegirl Lexi is 5'7", is a size 0 dress size and wears a size 9 shoe.

I know more than a few transsistahs that wear anywhere from size 7.5-to 11. Dawn needles me about the fact that she wears an 11, which is the largest size that most women's shoe catalogs display.

Conversely, I not only personally know more than a few biowomen who wear double-digit shoe sizes like my homegirl, but I'm aware that some celebrity women such as Paris Hilton (size 11), Tyra Banks (10), assorted supermodels, and most of the WNBA wear double digit sizes as well. There are some women's college and WNBA basketball team players that have bigger feet than mine. I remember the day I quit griping about my shoe size when I read that Chamique Holdsclaw wears a size 14.

So bioboys, better check your pseudoscience at the door. You may be missing out on a wonderful woman because you're either mistaking her for a transwoman based on her shoe size, or not taking the time to get to know a transwoman who has character, class and substance because of her size 12 pumps.

Trantasia

Transtasia is a documentary about the 2004 World's Most Beautiful Transsexual Pageant. It not only shows scenes from the pageant, but interviews several contestants about their lives.

BBC America 'Teen Transsexual'

BBC America
Sunday, December 30, 2007
10:00pm EST /7:00pm PST
Repeated at 1:00am EST / 10:00pm PST

All Richard Parker wants for his 18th birthday is to be Lucy Parker.
Richard has spent his life dealing with gender identity issues and has long dreamed of the day when he can have surgery to become a real woman.

Unable to get the surgery until he turns 18 and has proven to doctors that he is psychologically committed to life as a woman, Richard has spent the last two years living as Lucy. This is her story.

Premieres December 30th at 10pm et/pt. Part of BBC America Reveals.

That's One Large Step For Women

Jodi Grace is riding a trend: Feet are getting bigger. Her store, Big Foot, 5610 Fourth St. N, specializes in women's shoes size 10 and up.
photo-James Borchuck

A New Specialty Shop Offers Large Shoes For Large Feet.

By PAUL SWIDER, Times Staff Writer
Published December 26, 2007
From the St. Petersburg Times

ST. PETERSBURG

Jodi Grace is not a big woman, only 5 feet 2 with a proportionate size 7 shoe. But like the market she is addressing, she knows people with big feet.

"When a woman has big feet, all her friends and family know it," said Grace, who in October opened Big Foot, a store that caters to women needing large shoes.

"I've had a lot of people come in and say, 'My father saw this store and told me about it.' How many fathers know their daughter's shoe size? Fathers of big-footed women do."

Grace's best friend is a size 12 so she has heard the stories for years about how impossible it is to find stylish shoes for big female feet.

One day, while Grace was telling her friend about career woes, her friend was again complaining about shoe shortages. And the idea was born. While a simple concept, big-shoe sales have their complexities.

"I thought, they're shoes, it's not rocket science," said Grace, 45, who has spent most of her career as a sales rep for others. "But I've learned a lot."

Those who don't know women with big feet think the store is a failure waiting to happen, Grace said; those with big-footed friends think it's a gold mine. Solving this latter group's pain is something like a public service, she said.

"It's not exactly social work, but people thank me all the time for starting this store," she said.

Grace did her homework before opening the store, but while business is good and growing, it's not in the areas she expected.

"I'm amazed at what's selling," she said. "The frumpy ones are doing 10 times better than I thought they would."

Grace had heard from her friend and others that it's hard for big-footed women to find style, so she deliberately downplayed the "old-lady" shoes. She also didn't think tall women would want heels, but they do. She's also waiting for the colorful sandals to start selling because her research told her big-footed women were tired of buying dull men's sandals and slippers.

Grace is playing on a trend: Feet are getting bigger. Humans generally are getting taller, but women's shoes seem to be growing more rapidly. Shoe stocks are changing, too, she said, perhaps because women now feel freer to buy their correct size instead of squeezing into the mainstream product that is on most shelves.

A hundred years ago, the average American woman wore a 3.5 or a 4, Grace said. The Professional Shoe Fitting Manual says that 60 years later, it was a 5.5 or a 6, then 8 or 8.5 during the 1980s. Now, the average women's size is somewhere in the 9s.

"I'm convinced it's the hormones in the food," Grace said. She also said that women are often attracted to taller men, which could create a kind of natural selection for tall genes that correlate with big feet.

The culture certainly has its examples of big-footed women. According to the Web site feetbytheinch.com, tall women celebrities like Geena Davis, Nicole Kidman, Tyra Banks and Uma Thurman all wear size 11s or bigger. But even Meg Ryan or Paris Hilton at 5-8 clock in with 11s, as does 5-6 Kate Winslet.

But Grace is not aiming at the celebrity market. Her average price point is about $70.

She goes after the athletic market. She has already sent letters to every high school women's basketball coach in Florida. Soon, she'll go for volleyball. With the 2008 Women's Final Four slated for the St. Pete Times Forum, Grace is working on that audience, too. She already has her foot in the door of the coaches' conference right before.

But Grace also wants more of the cross-dressing/transgender market. She expected it and researched to prepare for it but hasn't seen as many customers as she hoped.

She suspects it's because that community is disorganized, so word hasn't gotten out yet. It will soon, though, she said, because she's already getting referrals from some men she has helped.

"They live in secret," Grace said. "They tell me it's psychologically helpful for them just to come and talk to me."

She sometimes stands in front of the store as a lookout while a man tries on shoes. She is planning invitation-only sales events where she'll cover the windows for privacy.

The window has been a telltale for the store, too. Grace still works as a sales rep for a carpet company, so the store is closed Mondays and Tuesdays. She said that on Wednesdays, when she comes in, she can see nose and hand prints from where the curious eagerly tried to see exactly what was inside.

While the business has been a learning experience, one thing she got right was the name. Colleagues told her women might find it too blunt and offensive, but she said customers appreciate the directness.

"They're adults," she said. "They know they have big feet."

Paul Swider can be reached at pswider@sptimes.com or (727) 892-2271.

Fast facts

Big Foot
5610 Fourth St. N
St. Petersburg, FL
(727) 525-3300
e-mail j_c_grace@yahoo.com

STRAP To Philippine Supreme Court: We Understand

TransGriot Note: This is the official statement of the Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines (STRAP) in regards to a recent adverse Philippine Supreme Court decision in regards to name and document changes. It also drives home the point I make (and will continue to make) that transgender rights and recognition of our human right to live our lives are a worldwide struggle.

Official statement of the Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines regarding the decision of the Supreme Court of the Philippines

Filipina transsexual group to Supreme Court: We understand

The Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines (STRAP) understands why the Supreme Court of the Philippines denied the petition for a change of first name and sex of Ms. Mely Silverio, a landmark decision penned by Associate Justice Renato Corona, promulgated on the 22nd of October 2007.

In one way or another, we are all ignorant. Since omniscience is not a human quality, the decisions and choices that we make in life, no matter how we claim to be rational and intelligent, are always limited by the information that we have, the quality of the information, and by our capacity to process and interpret them. Moreover, our biases, prejudices, and emotional commitment to our long-cherished beliefs affect the manner we reach our conclusion. This is unavoidable for basking in the bliss of perpetual ignorance is very comfortable. Just like any decision, this one, without doubt, suffers from it. We understand for STRAP is also ignorant.

STRAP is ignorant of how the justice system in the Philippines really works or whether it is working at all.

STRAP is ignorant of whether or not the freedom of expression enshrined in our constitution includes gender expression.

STRAP is ignorant of the wisdom behind this decision that leaves us with the unnecessary suffering and inconvenience brought by the “M” on our birth certificates until Philippine Congress finally decide that we deserve to live a dignified, joyful, and self-fulfilling existence, just like every human being.

STRAP is ignorant of why our Supreme Court cannot be like the Supreme Court of South Korea, which decided in 2006 to allow transsexual people to change their sex on their birth certificates. Justice Kim, commenting on their decision, said that their decision “is the best choice to alleviate the suffering of transsexual people at a time when any tangible legislative measures to protect their rights is most likely a long time coming.”

But we are not comfortable in our ignorance for we know that there are a lot of countries whose legal systems allow our legal identity to reflect, even without sex reassignment surgery, the gender we actually live rather than the gender declared by the doctors upon our birth. Of course, these countries have access to the latest information regarding the reality behind the category of sex. Information that, undoubtedly, the Supreme Court of the Philippines failed to take into consideration. Perhaps the Supreme Court simply has no access to them. We understand.

However, access to information does not always guarantee wisdom. Without compassion, understanding, and the humility to accept that you are ignorant, wisdom is impossible. Perhaps our country’s institutions have not yet reached the same stage and level of compassion and understanding that other countries have towards people like us. We understand.

We are among the daughters and citizens of this country. We are humbly reclaiming the right to define our gender identity. Our male name is not the name that we use every day. The male on our birth certificates is not the life we live every day. The legal identity that we carry is a lie because that is not who we really are. We want the gender that we actually live, present and declare every day be the one reflected on our birth certificates and not what the doctors declared upon our birth.

We are not asking for the stars, just our real life to be reflected on our legal papers. When will we be understood? We hope that Philippine Congress is listening, compassionately.

In loving kindness,
The Society of Transsexual Women of the Philippines

E : strapmanila@gmail.com
W: www.tsphilippines.com

Leona Lo Seeks Education Meeting With Club

Transsexual Author Seeks To Educate Club That Asked Her To Leave
By Sylvia Tan
November 13, 2007
From fridae.com

A well known Singaporean transsexual author and speaker, who was asked to leave a club early Saturday morning, hopes to turn the incident into an opportunity to educate the club’s bouncers and management about gender diversity.

Leona Lo, the author of the first transsexual autobiography to be published in Singapore, was asked to leave a bar known as The Pump Room after being told that it did not welcome “lady boys.”

Leona Lo, author of From Leonard to Leona, the first transsexual autobiography to be published in Singapore. The author of From Leonard to Leona said she was approached by a bouncer while she was dancing at the Clarke Quay nightspot with her friends early Saturday morning.

In an email to the media over the weekend, Lo said that despite trying to explain that she is a transsexual author raising awareness of transsexual issues in Singapore, the supervisor whom the bouncer summoned reiterated that the club did not welcome "lady boys."

Feeling "enraged at being called a lady boy and being discriminated against," she had refused to show the bouncer her ID although it states female as her gender.

“Sorry, this not my policy, this the bar's policy. Our clients don't like. You not happy please leave.” Lo quoted the supervisor as saying.

When contacted by Fridae, Bill Graham, a director of The Pump Room, said in an email that the club is still “trying to patch together a picture of exactly what happened that night” as their security staff are largely part-timers especially on weekends.

He added that the club has “no policy excluding any groups whatsoever excepting those who are below our recommended age limit, are in breach of our very reasonable dress code, or people who are behaving inappropriately or have done so in the past.”

The British-educated 32-year-old, who runs her own public relations consultancy, told Fridae that she is not "looking for an apology - but the opportunity to conduct an hour-long lecture on gender diversity for the bouncers and their management.”

“In the States, when there are acts of discrimination, people are sometimes sentenced to community service. In this instance, I will undertake the 'community service' myself.”

When asked why she had alerted the media to her experience, she explained: “If this could happen to me, it's probably happening to lots of transsexuals on a regular basis. In the past, transsexuals used to live under the sword of fear, and no one stood up for them.”

“I feel it's my duty to stand up to the bullies - and that's what they are, bullies. Bullies try to strike fear in the hearts of the more socially vulnerable. But in so doing, they also reveal themselves to be cowards.”

“I hope to promote understanding and compassion among Singaporeans for those they perceive to be ‘different.’ I believe in promoting awareness through peaceful methods. Awareness has already been raised in Today and Shin Min (a Chinese-language daily), so I'm happy with this."

Both Lo and the management of the Pump Room have said that they will be in touch to seek a resolution to the matter.

Since 1996, Singapore has recognised the right of transsexuals to marry in their reassigned sex.

A Tale of Two Classmates

I've thought about running for public office from time to time. That was true when I lived back home and I entertain thoughts of running for office here from time to time as well.

One of my dreams that I put on hold to transition was possibly serving on Houston's City Council. That's on indefinite hold unless I move back home and reestablish my residency in the next few years or I run for an open seat up here in Da Ville.

In the meantime, life moves on and I got a reminder as I perused Chronicle.com and checked the election results that happened December 8. My mom also triggered this post as we talked about the latest happenings in H-town during a recent phone conversation and discussed her soror who now sits on the HISD school board.

The runoff elections saw two of my former classmates in races for Houston city council seats. It's not the first time I've seen my classmates run for office. My high school class president Tom Zakes ran in the mid 80's for a an at-large city council seat but lost.

In the 2007 election cycle (Houston council terms are for two year terms and you are limited to six years total per the city charter) my UH classmate and attorney Jolanda Jones was in an at large runoff seat race with Joe Trevino. I didn't have the pleasure of knowing her personally but we happened to be on campus at the same time. She was a star track athlete while I was there.

My fellow Falcon classmate Lawrence Allen Jr. was in a runoff battle with Wanda Adams for the District D seat. It's my home city council district and the one I wanted to sit in someday. It's also the one I'd been contemplating running for along with the District F one in southwest Houston I resided in. His mother is TX state Rep. Alma Allen, who represents my old Texas House district since she took out 16 year incumbent Ron Wilson in 2005. (another seat I had contemplated running for as well)


While Jolanda won her Position 5 seat by a two to one margin, 15,564 votes to 7,941 Lawrence wasn't so lucky. Wanda Adams got 58 percent of the vote to win District D, which covers not only my old south side Crestmont Plaza neighborhood, but Third Ward and the Montrose areas as well. So we're still waiting for a Falcon to end up on city council.

It was one of the things I was thinking about when I was a little down last week. My relocation rearranged a lot of long-range plans I had for my life and I'm struggling to deal with it. I'm also angry that it was triggered by GOP peeps who hated me as an out and proud transperson so much they jacked with my job.

The bottom line is that the deed's been done, it's over and there's not much I can do about it now. I have to move on, make lemonade out of this lemon situation, and get over the bitterness I have about it.

Even if it's taking me a little longer to readjust and make real the dreams I had for myself back home, I get my satisfaction on those who perpetrated the injustice on me by motivating myself to be as successful as I can with the remainder of the time I'm being granted by God to live my life. If that calls for the Phenomenal Transwoman to serve as a elected official, pass legislation by lobbying them, organize the transgender community, mentor young transwomen to make those moves in their lives to be successful regardless of the odds or speak truth to power, then that's all good too.

Whatever plans God has in store for me, I just have to be ready and prepared to do my part to successfully execute them.

Oh yeah, back to your regularly scheduled post. Better luck next time, Lawrence and congratulations Jolanda. Hope you have a sucessful run as a councilmember. Maybe we'll have the pleasure of seeing you as the first sistah mayor of Houston.

It's A Wonderful Trans Life

TransGriot Note: I was inspired to write this when I briefly flipped on the TV over the weekend and stumbled across one of my fave movies, It's A Wonderful Life. Hope you enjoy the little twist I gave it.

"Hello?"
"Hey Phyllis, it's The Boss."
"What's up?"
"I know you're rehearing at The Club for tonight's show, but I'm gonna need you to go back to Earth."
"What's going on?"
"You remember when you escorted Monica around Heaven during her out of body experience last year?"
"Yeah. She's a sweet kid."
"You did such a wonderful job during that time, we assigned you to be her permanent guardian angel."
"Thanks. So what's up, Boss?"
"She's feeling more than a little depressed about things lately. She's upset about a confluence of events in her life. While I know she's thinks too highly of herself to take her own life, I want to make sure she doesn't. I still have a lot of things I've prepared her to do on Earth that I need her to be around for to execute."
"So what do you need me to do?"
"Help her regain that sunny optimism of hers and her Christmas spirit for starters."
"When do you need me to leave?"
"How about in the next few minutes? I'll send you your briefing information about her current situation on the way down."
"Okay."

Monica sat at her computer desk and stared at the screen for a few hours, but the composition block for her TransGriot blog post was as empty as when she first sat down two hours before.
"This is useless. I might as well give it up for the night and see what movies Dawn rented," she said as she signed out of her blog and shut down her computer.

She exited her room and headed downstairs to the living room. She hooked a left into the kitchen to get herself some chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. She pulled a large mug out of the kitchen cabinet, made a beeline for the freezer and removed the ice cream container. She filled her mug and put the container back in the freezer before heading to the living room and setting it down on the small table next to the recliner. She then moved to the big screen TV to check out the latest pile of rental DVD’s on top of it. “Hmm, some of her usual anime stuff but some Christmas ones as well,” Monica thought as she perused the stack of DVD’s. “You’re Under Arrest Christmas Edition, Noir, A Diva’s Christmas and It’s A Wonderful Life.”

“I think I’ll start with It’s A Wonderful Life first before I get my Natsumi and Miyuki fix.” she remarked as she powered up the home theater system, opened the protective DVD box and placed it in the already opened DVD player tray before pressing play.

As that Christmas classic movie filled the screen, Monica started thinking about her own problems as she devoured her ice cream.
“I definitely feel George Bailey in this movie”, she said softly to herself as she finished the last of her ice cream and yawned. “Sometimes I wish I’d just been born a genetic female, then I wouldn’t have had all this drama in my life.”

“Are you sure about that?”
Monica looked over toward the couch where Dawn was sleeping. “I know I must be hallucinating. I thought I heard somebody say something.”
“You did.”
Monica turned her head to the sound of the voice and noted Phyllis Hyman’s shapely statuesque presence in the living room.
“Now I know I’m tripping. I gotta stop eating Blue Bell this late at night.”
“Yes, you do if you want to drop those ten pounds you’re always complaining about.”

Phyllis noted the confusion etched on Monica’s face and said, “No, this isn’t a dream. I’m here in the flesh, so to speak.”
“So to what do I owe this visit?”
“First, your grandmother says hello and told me to remind you to check on your Dad.”
‘Okay, will do.”
“Tyra and the gang at The Beauty Shop said hello as well.”
“Give ‘em my love as well. But back to my original question.”
“I’m your official guardian angel now. The Boss is concerned about you.”
”Because I’m depressed? I’ve been depressed before and He hasn’t sent my guardian angel to check on me in the flesh before.”
“Actually, He has. Those particular times you didn’t know it.”
“Oh, okay.”
‘Want some more ice cream before we get started?”
“Yeah, I’ll go get it,” Monica said as she prepared to get up from the recliner.
“Sit tight, Moni, I got this,” said Phyllis as she snapped her fingers. Monica’s empty mug was refilled while at the same time one appeared in Phyllis’ right hand complete with a spoon. She sampled the ice cream and said,” I see why you love this stuff.”
“It’s the bomb isn’t it?”
“Yep.”
“I grew up on it. Reminds me of home when I eat it.”
Phyllis finished her ice cream and resumed her mission. “Look, I know you’ve been going through some rough times lately…”
“You got that right.”
“And Christmas doesn’t make that any easier. But you gotta snap out of it.”
“Pardon me for sounding like the Grinch doll that’s sitting on the mantel next to my Trinity, but bah humbug.”
“I know you’re disappointed over the ENDA and JCPS votes…”
“Disappointed is a mild way of putting it.”
“But you, I and The Boss know it’s gonna happen. You just gotta have faith it will.”
“Phyllis, I’m tired of somedays. I’m tired of being repeatedly cut out of the legislation we desperately need as a community. I’m sick of sellout idiots who don’t have half of my God-given intelligence calling me crazy, the n-word or worse when I try to tell the truth to the transgender community about the people they shill for or expose their part in screwing this community.”

She listened emphatically as Monica continued venting her frustration about the recent developments and some other drama in her life. ”I understand.”
“No Phyllis, you don’t. It’s crap. I try to do the right, moral and decent things in my life and they seem to go unappreciated and unrewarded. It’s not that I’m looking for glory in trying to pass these laws, it’s the right thing to do. When am I gonna catch a break? When are the bad guys in life gonna lose? When are my people gonna stop being killed, denigrated and disrespected? It’s enough to make me wish that I didn’t have the ‘transgender’ label in my life. Then I wouldn’t have all this drama.”
“You really think your life would be better if you‘d been born a genetic female?”
“Yeah, I really do.”
Phyllis paused for a few moments before she said, ““Want some more ice cream?”
“Yeah”
“This is your last one for the night,”
“Okay”
She snapped her fingers as both mugs refilled, then she said as she sat in the other recliner in the room, “Moni, were gonna watch a movie.”
“Which one?”
“Oh, I won’t need a DVD for this one,” she said as she sat down and pointed the remote at the TV

In an instant Monica was transfixed as she was suddenly transported back to a 60’s era Houston hospital watching a young African-American woman give birth. When the camera zoomed in on the wall calendar it read May 4 and she realized the woman was her mother. The gentleman standing next to her as the baby took its first breaths and she held it was her family doctor back in Houston.
“Congratulations, it’s a girl.”
She watched her mother’s face light up, exhausted but happy in the knowledge that she’d delivered a healthy baby girl.

Monica continued to watch the movie as events happened in her life, but on the flip side of the gender spectrum. She got to observe during the movie a conversation between three girls who hated and mercilessly teased her not only because of her intelligence and looks, but who her parents were. As her growth spurt kicked in and she towered over everyone in her 5th grade class it got worse.
“Now you get to feel my pain,“ said Phyllis.

Monica also got to watch a conversation between her parents as they discussed a junior high report card in which her math grades were lower than expected.
“You know she doesn’t like math.”
“I know that. But Monica has to learn that she can’t skate by on her good looks. She’s too smart for that,” said her mother.
“You’re right, but I think suspending her phone privileges for three weeks was too harsh.”
“Maybe, but you’ll thank me later when she graduates from college.


Speaking of college, the next scenes show Monica standing in front of the UC on the University of Houston campus wearing a green dress suit, black hose, green pumps and holding an ivy plant. As she’s being inspected by her big sisters two of her future sorors were discussing the line and Monica’s chances of going over.

“I think Too Tall will be an excellent addition to our chapter.”
“I can’t stand her.”
“Why? Because she has a 3.4 GPA?”
“No, because she’s a legacy. She thinks she’s all that because her daddy’s on the radio.”
“The people I talked to about Monica from her old high school love her. They say she’s always been a sweet kid without a pretentious bone in her body. She was a cheerleader, student council president, editor of the school newspaper and an all district volleyball player.”
“So? It still doesn’t change the fact that I can’t stand her.”

I watched as she made Monica’s life on line hell, but she went over. She got her heart broken in college for the first time thanks to a UH football player. She was nearly date raped in another disastrous encounter She channeled that into graduating on time, serving in the sorority leadership ranks and upping her GPA to a 3.65. She also graduated from school with a psychology degree with a history minor. She’d been motivated to go into it after taking a human sexuality class her sophomore year and finding the transgender film fascinating.

Phyllis fast-forwarded it to the part where Monica has an office in the Med Center but is still single. She let her eavesdrop on a phone call in which she's being prodded by her mom to hurry up, get married and have some children before the first client enters her office for the day.

She paused the film after Monica said,” All this is doing is proving my point.”
“Yes, your life is turning out better, but what about the people’s lives who look at you as a role model?”

She showed one example of a young transsistah who was searching for any Internet blog or website that didn’t depict Black transwomen in a negative light.
“This girl stumbled across your Transsistahs-Transbrothas group on line. But since you're not a transwoman anymore, the group doesn’t get founded. Your blog and newspaper columns don’t exist either, which hundreds of people per day around the world read.”
“Yeah, I know that….”
“But you don’t know how many people you positively affect just by being you.”
“Hmm, you’ve given me something to think about.”
“God made all of us, even transpeople. You’re the only people on the planet who know what it’s like to be on both sides of the gender fence. That’s one quality that makes you special.”
“Too bad we don’t get treated that way.”
“One day, with your help, you will.”
Phyllis got up from the recliner and gave Monica a hug. “I’ve gotta get back and finish rehearsing for an upcoming show at The Club.’
“Who’s performing with you?”
“Aaliyah and Selena.”
“Wow, y’all have some interesting entertainment up there.”
“That we do. Hang in there Monica. Everything will work out and I’ll have your back.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Bye, Monica,” Phyllis said as she departed.
"Merry Christmas, Phyllis."
***
“Monica, I’m trying to sleep… Can you take that movie to your room?”
“Huh?” she said in a dreamy state.
“Turn it off or take that movie to your room, please.”
“Yeah, okay Dawn.”
Monica hit the remote and turned off the downstairs TV before heading to her room. She decided to flip on the TV and do a little channel surfing for something interesting. She gasped and chuckled when she discovered what the Christmas movie being broadcast that night was:

It’s A Wonderful Life.

Bah, Humbug

Hey TransGriot readers!

Sorry I've been MIBA the last couple of days. Haven't felt much like writing. My mood has matched the crappy weather we've had around Da Ville lately. The sun's out today, but it's still colder than HRC's heart. One thing that did come out of it my self-imposed temporary exile was a short piece I'll be posting in the next few days.

Every now and then a writer hits the creative wall and you need to step back for a few days until the creative juices and your love for writing takes over again.

But what I've been experiencing the last few days was more than mere writer's block. It's that combined with the Christmas blues, lack of satisfying progress in the activist part of my life, a little non-activism related drama in my life, being out of hormones until next payday and homesickness. The weather didn't help either, as I mentioned in the opening paragraph. Saturday we had a half-inch of sleet and slush coating the roads in Da Ville, but fortunately the temperature didn't get below freezing and create a traffic nightmare.

I'd even cut off the TV and the computer off. It had me feeling like George Bailey in the classic Christmas movie It's A Wonderful Life.


No peeps, the only thing I'm gonna do on a bridge is drive my car to the other side of it and back. ;) I love myself too much to even comtemplate something like that, even if I am depressed from time to time.

It took me a few days, some prayer, talking to my homegirls, some chocolate chip muffins and two gallons of Blue Bell ice cream (chocolate chip cookie dough and homemade vanilla, of course) and some creative writing for me to work things out. but the creative writing juices are starting to flow, I'm back to almost being the Phenomenal Transwoman and Christmas is only a week away.

Now that I'm feeling better, you'll see me posting on the regular again. But if anybody wants to send me any Christmas gifts, a round trip airline ticket to Houston will work.

New Transgender Veterans Survey

Transgender American Veterans Association
Contact: Monica F. Helms, President
president@tavausa.org
www.tavausa.org

A new survey has been created to achieve a more accurate picture of the state of the transgender American veteran population. Many of the issues facing transgender veterans are no different than those facing the rest of the transgender community. However negotiating healthcare thru the Veterans Administration and dealing with the Department of Defense poses its own unique set of challenges. This survey is also for those transgender people who are still serving in the military and those veterans who identify and are diagnosed as intersex.

The detailed survey of 117 short questions only takes between ten and twenty minutes of your time and it is the first of its kind to be undertaken. Many of the questions have several choices to them, but just a few will take multiple answers. A large percentage of the questions are a simple “Yes/No.” Some require a written response. While transgender veterans who do not, or have not ever used the VA for their medical needs, can skip that entire section.

The survey can be accessed at:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=SpQUvMM5ZvidQ8hNGCcIQA_3d_3d

TAVA would appreciate as many transgender/intersex veterans and active duty service members to take this survey as possible. If anyone knows of a transgender veteran who does not have access to a computer, then please help them log on at a local library or community center so TAVA can obtain their responses as well. The answers to this survey will not only help veterans’ organizations in providing assistance to their transgender members, but it will benefit other organizations from the answers not having to do with the military. Since there are no questions about personal contact information, this survey is completely confidential. For additional inquiries about this survey, please contact the Transgender American Veterans Association at: info@tavausa.org, or go to our web site at www.tavausa.org.

***


Founded in 2003, the Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA) is a 501 (c) 3 organization that acts proactively with other concerned civil rights and human rights organizations to ensure that transgender veterans will receive appropriate care for their medical conditions in accordance with the Veterans Health Administration’s Customer Service Standards promise to “treat you with courtesy and dignity . . . as the first class citizen that you are.” Further, TAVA will help in educating the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) on issues regarding fair and equal treatment of transgender individuals. Also, TAVA will help the general transgender community when deemed appropriate and within the IRS guidelines.

KK Logan Strikes Back

(Gary, IN, December, 12, 2007) — In court papers filed today in the Northern District Court of Indiana, Lambda Legal says that West Side High School violated Kevin "K.K." Logan's First Amendment rights when it barred him from his prom for wearing a dress.

K.K. Logan attended West Side High during his junior and senior year and expressed a deeply rooted femininity in his appearance and demeanor. Both classmates and teachers at the school supported him in his daily attendance dressed in clothes typically associated with girls his age.

However, on May 19, 2006, Principal Diane Rouse stretched her arms across the door of the Senior Prom, blocking Logan's entrance. His classmates and friends rallied to his defense to no avail — even though a female student was allowed entrance dressed in a tuxedo.

Principal Rouse has stood by a school policy that deems inappropriate any "clothing/ accessories that advertise sexual orientation, sex, drugs, alcohol, tobacco, profanity, negative social or negative educational statements."

"The fact that sexual orientation is lumped in with drugs and profanity in the school's dress code is just plain offensive, but even more troublesome is that the whole policy is in violation of students' First Amendment rights," said James P. Madigan, Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal's Midwest Regional Office in Chicago. "There are ways to write policies that both create rules for student behavior and also respect their rights — but this isn't one of them."

Lambda Legal argues that Logan's First Amendment rights were violated, including the freedoms of speech, symbolic action, and expressive conduct. The school district also engaged in unlawful discrimination on the basis of sex and gender.

"I dress this way because it's who I am and how I feel on the inside," says Logan. "Gay and trans students have rights, and they should be treated fairly."

The case is Logan vs. Gary Community School Corporation et al.

James Madigan, Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal's Midwest Regional Office in Chicago and Cole Thaler, Staff Attorney for Lambda Legal's Transgender Rights Project are handling the case with co-counsel from the law firm of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP in Chicago.

The Galleria

I sometimes think of The Galleria as a metaphor for my life. Ever since the tri-level mall opened in 1970, some portion of my life has involved either hanging out there, shopping or browsing its 375 stores or entertaining myself inside its walls.

My high school prom was held at the Galleria Plaza hotel. My neighborhood chums at Ross Sterling were holding their prom the same night at the Galleria Oaks. I remember us walking back and forth between the two hotels going to each other's events while window shopping along the way.. I learned how to ice skate on its rink and spent more than a few days and nights blissfully skating (or falling) on its surface. One of my neighbors worked at Neiman Marcus and she used to take me and her son there on Saturdays. She'd drop us off at the ice rink to spend all day skating and pick us up when she got off.

Even one of my transition benchmark goals involved the Galleria. I tested my ability to pass by walking the entire length of the largest mall in Houston. When I stopped getting derisive looks, stares or giggles I knew I was evolving to the level of passability I desired.

Like I have, The Galleria and the area around it has grown, changed and evolved as time moved on. I have an ice rink less than half a mile from the house in Da Ville, but it's not the same as skating and looking up through that vaulted glass ceiling at a clear blue Texas sky or while its backlit against a dark Houston night. Darting around that three story Christmas tree that's plaxced in the center of the rink during the holidays brings back some fond memories as well.

Darn, getting homesick again.

GLBT In Newark Ain't Pretty

In A Progressive State, A City Where Gay Life Hangs By A Thread

By ANDREW JACOBS
photos by Richard Perry

Published December 2, 2007
from the New York Times

NEWARK, Nov. 30 — To live in Newark often means grappling with unrelenting poverty, the anesthetizing lure of drugs, murderous gangs, a lack of decent jobs.

But for gay men, lesbians and transgender people, there are additional obstacles that are seldom acknowledged: gay bashings, H.I.V., open hostility from many religious leaders and sometimes callous treatment by the police.

When venturing outside his Central Ward neighborhood, Tyrone Simpson, 19, stays on main thoroughfares and steers clear of the men in gang colors looking for easy quarry. Dynasty Mitchell, 21, an aspiring poet who works at a supermarket, has learned to blend in by stretching a do-rag over his head and adopting a thuggish gait in public.

“If you’re not prepared to fight, you’re not going to survive in Newark,” said Mr. Simpson, who is unabashedly gay.

New Jersey has become a national beacon for gay equality. It boasts some of the toughest anti-discrimination laws in the country, and recent legislation makes it one of only three states that recognize same-sex civil unions. Gay marriage, some say, is just around the corner. Across the state, same-sex couples and their children have become integrated into suburban life.

But here in the state’s largest city, gay men and lesbians might as well live on another planet.

“You wouldn’t know that Greenwich Village is 10 miles away,” said James Credle, 62, a Vietnam veteran who is working with about a dozen other activists to revive the Newark Pride Alliance, a group established three years ago after a 15-year-old lesbian, Sakia Gunn, was stabbed to death by a man who, the police said, was infuriated that she had rejected his advances. “People here feel like we don’t deserve to be alive.For us, it’s about survival,” Mr. Credle said, “and all this talk of gay marriage is just a luxury.”

The city has no gay community center, no gay pride parade, no established gay organizations; there are no bars devoted exclusively to gay or lesbian clientele. “Newark is like one big closet,” said Ron Saleh, a consultant to the John Edwards presidential campaign, who moved here two years ago. “And there’s nothing going on for gay people. It’s like a desert.”

There are, however, a few hints of change. In June, Mayor Cory A. Booker became the first public official to embrace the issue by hoisting a rainbow flag over City Hall in recognition of Gay Pride Month. Yesterday, Gov. Jon S. Corzine was expected to attend a World AIDS Day event here. Last year, voters elected Dana Rone to the Municipal Council; she became the city’s first openly lesbian official when a newspaper, after her inauguration, reported on her sexual orientation.

And while many gay men and lesbians complain that they have been ridiculed and intimidated by the police, Garry F. McCarthy, the city’s police director, has begun requiring sensitivity training for all members of the force as part of biannual sessions that focus on sexual harassment.

Even those steps have met with resistance. When he presided over the raising of the rainbow flag, Mayor Booker said, he was stunned by the flood of angry phone calls to his office. “There’s a lot of silent pain in the city of Newark, and perpetrators of this pain — those who promote the bigotry and the alienation — must be confronted,” he said.

For a handful of gay activists in the city, the schoolyard shooting of four young people in August was a measure of that pain, if not of bigotry. They have been pressing law enforcement officials to investigate the shootings as a possible bias crime.

Mr. Credle, an organizer of Newark Pride Alliance, said that one of the teenagers arrested after the killings attended the same high school as three of the victims and may have thought they were gay because they hung around an openly gay crowd.

The police have said the killings were carried out during a robbery, but the Essex County prosecutor, Paula T. Dow, said investigators were still working to establish a motive.

James Harvey, the father of Dashon Harvey, one of the three who died in the schoolyard shootings, dismissed the suggestions that antigay bias played a role. “That’s so baloney, I don’t even want to give it a thought,” he said. “I’m just trying to get over my son being buried and gone from me.”

In some ways, the lack of a vibrant, organized gay community mirrors many other aspects of civic life in Newark, a city stunted by poverty and lacking the kind of comfortable middle class found in cities of similar size.

“We are an underdeveloped community in every area, so it is no surprise” that homophobia persists, said Ms. Rone.

Many churches in the city remain openly hostile to homosexuality.

Gary Paul Wright, executive director of the African American Office of Gay Concerns, a group that provides education and counseling on H.I.V. and AIDS, said his five-year effort to dispense AIDS educational material at local churches had been universally thwarted.

“There’s a whole lot of preaching about homosexuality and sin,” said Mr. Wright. “It really hurts and it makes me mad, but it also reinforces the stigma associated with H.I.V. and AIDS, which makes our job that much harder.”

Such institutional antipathy drives many people into lives marked by secrecy. Some turn to the Internet for connections. One site that is popular among black and Hispanic men here, Adam4Adam.com, has more than 500 active members in Newark; on a recent night, nearly 200 of them were online.

Not everyone feels the need to stay in the closet. June Dowell-Burton, 38, a social work student at the Newark campus of Rutgers University, said her neighbors did not seem bothered that she and her partner shared an apartment, a car and grocery shopping forays. “We don’t hide anything, and no one seems to mind,” she said.

Sharrieff Baker and his partner, Edwin Rosario, who own a house in the North Ward, said they had a very different experience when one of their tenants found out they were a couple. Last month, they said, the tenant tore up a shared bathroom, called them “faggots” and threatened to blow up their house. When they called 911, they said, Vincent Cordi, the responding police officer, appeared unconcerned and agreed only reluctantly to take their complaint. Back at the station house, they said, Officer Cordi sniggered with co-workers as he typed up the paperwork, at one point blurting out, “How do you spell ‘faggot’ ?”

When they returned home that day, they were attacked by the tenant in the hallway, they said; Officer Cordi responded to their 911 call and arrested all three men. Mr. Baker, who lost a front tooth in the skirmish, was charged with aggravated assault, as was the tenant; they both spent the weekend in jail. Mr. Rosario was not charged. Neither Officer Cordi nor officials in the Police Department responded to requests for comment.

Mr. Baker, who has filed a complaint with the internal affairs department, said he was especially angered by the Police Department’s refusal to designate the incident antigay. Newark, unlike many cities its size, does not compile data on antigay violence.

The day after he filed the complaint, Mr. Baker said, his car was towed from in front of his home. He suggested it was an act of vengeance; the police said it was removed for street cleaning.

Mr. Baker, 32, a real estate broker who moved to Newark from Jersey City last year, said that because of the incident, he and Mr. Rosario, a schoolteacher, want to move away. “I came here because I wanted to be part of Newark’s renaissance, but now I’m afraid even in my own house,” he said.

The Booker administration’s efforts to help establish a gay community center have been largely hamstrung by what veteran gay activists acknowledge are internal disagreements.

Then there is the apathy. When Laquetta Nelson tried to start a Newark chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, she gave up after a few months. “In the end, no one came to the meetings,” she said.

For now, the only refuge for gay people is in a nondescript building on the outskirts of downtown. Project Wow, as it is called, is a no-frills drop-in center run by the North Jersey Community Research Initiative, an organization that devotes most of its resources to research on AIDS drugs and free medical care. Project Wow draws a few dozen young people each night who come for counseling and H.I.V. prevention advice but mostly for the camaraderie and shelter from the city’s unsympathetic streets.

Alex Williams, Project Wow’s director, asked that the center’s location not be printed, noting that 15 of the center’s employees and clients had been attacked on their way to or from the building in the last six months.

Sitting in the lounge at the center, Tariq Pickens, 23, recalled how he and a friend dressed in drag were ambushed on the street by a group of men and women three years ago. During a few hellish moments, he said, they were slashed, punched, robbed and doused with lighter fluid, although the fuel failed to ignite. “I’ve had so many friends killed, beaten, raped, I can’t even count,” he said.

Kira Henry, too, has felt fear. Ms. Henry, 20, who is transgender, is taking a cooking class. When she walks to school in the morning, she said, she tries to look straight ahead and meet the inevitable taunts and catcalls with a forced smile. But when the bottles and bricks fly, she said, she knows how to fight — or sprint in six-inch heels.

“If you beat me up or shoot me,” she said, “I’m still going to be me.”

Like many of Project Wow’s clients, Willie Harden, 20, is homeless and jobless. He is also effectively orphaned, although his mother, a drug addict, is reputed to be somewhere in Jersey City.

Since aging out of foster care two years ago, Mr. Harden has lived at a series of shelters, the latest being Covenant House. He said he tried to hide his sexuality from strangers. The last thing he needed, he said, was more ridicule, or an uninvited beating.

“It’s hard living a double life,” he said. “It sounds crazy, but one day I’d like to walk down the street holding my boyfriend’s hand with nobody saying one bad word.”

My Might Have Been New York Life

There are times in your life in which decisions you made or didn't make affect your future either negatively or positively. There are also times that decisions your parents make can affect your life as well.

Sometimes I reflect on one of those parental decisions that may have taken my life in another direction. A while back my dad told me about a job offer he'd gotten in the 70's from a New York radio station that he seriously thought about taking. For peeps in the radio world, while my dad's AM drive time show in H-town wasn't exactly bush league, working in a major market such as New York is a big deal.

It had gotten to the point in my parents decision making process that they were researching the cost of homes in Brooklyn and other areas of New York. Mom was making inquiries about what the New York State requirements were for continuing her teaching career there. Dad, like myself is a native Texan and native Houstonian, and he thought long and hard about the pros and cons of it before he said no.

There are times when I watch Paris Is Burning and play the 'what if' game. I start thinking about how different my life would have been if Dad had said yes to that job offer.

I probably would have been spending my teen years in Brooklyn or somewhere in the New York metro area. I could see myself hanging out on the Chelsea Piers in Greenwich Village, just like I hung out in Montrose after my high school graduation. I can see myself being drawn to and probably getting involved in the ballroom scene instead of reading about Carmen Xtravaganza in a mid 80's Village Voice article on a Houston bookstore.



Then again, just as I wonder from time to time what my life would have been like if I'd been born female, all this is doing is exercising my brain cells. A lot of what makes me the Phenomenal Transwoman I am was shaped by the fact I grew up in Texas. Taking me out of Texas in my teens alters some of the life experiences that form my worldview and how I look at the world.

Being in New York for the emergence of hip-hop and house may slightly alter my music tastes, but I don't get to experience the denial of my voting rights in 1984 that fuels my passion as an activist. I trade seeing Kirk Whalum live in Houston jazz clubs and trips to New Orleans for the pleasure of seeing Phyllis Hyman perform live in the Village. I don't get as much face time with my grandmothers and my godmother who are important to the development of my love for Black history, my spirituality and political views. But that negative development is offset by the Schomburg Institute being a subway train ride away for me.

When I was trying to decide in my senior year where to attend college, Howard was one of my final two schools but I opted to stay home and attend UH. I probably end up at Howard since I'm now a five hour drive down I-95 or an Amtrak train ride from that campus instead of halfway across the country. And probably because I'm in Washington on a premier HBCU campus I get more immersed in politics and have opportunities to work as a congressional aide.

So yeah, sometimes I think about those interesting permutations my life could have taken, but the end result is that I most likely would have still ended up being the TransGriot and blogging about my life experiences as a proud transwoman.

They just would have been from a New York perspective instead of a Texas one. ;)

A Little Girl's Christmas

As much as I love the Christmas season, I have to admit that sometimes I do get a little down during the run up to that magic December 25 day.

Part of it is because I miss my family back home. I get homesick during the holidays, and it seems as though the 1000 miles between Houston and here are measured in light-years instead of interstate highway markers.

But that's not the only reason I feel down. One of the regrets I have in terms of transition pops up during this period. Just as I will never get to experience my high school prom as a female, I'll never know what it's like to experience a little girl's Christmas for myself.

Because I have two sisters, I did get a sample of what I missed out on as part of the Santa's Helpers Corps. I ended up losing sleep assembling their Barbie Dream Houses, their bicycles, hunting through multiple toy stores for African-American Cabbage Patch dolls or Barbies, and driving Mom to various Houston area malls in search of additional gender specific gifts and clothes for them.

And feeling envious and jealous at the same time,

I got my fair share of Christmas goodies back in the day, so I'm not complaining about that. It's just when I look back on it I wasn't feeling being a 'boy' at the time. I was simply playing one for public consumption.

On one of the nights it was my turn in the rotation to do KPFT-FM's 'After Hours' with Jimmy and Sarah, she mentioned on-air what her sweetie had done for her one Christmas.

After a major knockdown drag out argument with her father, she was depressed for a few days. C-Day arrives and Sarah is urged to get out of bed by her partner. She grumpily complies, and after turning the corner into the living room is blown away by the surprise that was unleashed on her.

The tree was decorated with ballerina and Barbie ornaments, pink ribbons and other feminine trimmings. She opens one of her gifts and its a Barbie doll. All her gifts had a feminine theme to them and after she hugged her partner she started crying. Needless to say Sarah forgot about whatever drama she'd had with her father a few days earlier.

For the most part I muddle through my day to day life as a Phenomenal Transwoman okay despite the occasional slings, arrows and shade. But every now and then I long for and am envious of my genetic sistahs who got to experience things in their childhoods or young adult periods that I unfortunately never will.

Christmas is a not-so-subtle reminder of that as well.

Becoming A Man

from The Huffington Post blog
by Nick Mwaluko
Posted November 20, 2007 | 04:07 PM (EST)

All I wanted from this country was to live as a man.

I grew up in a rural Tanzanian village with no electricity. We couldn't go to school unless we fetched water from the river, milked cows, let them graze for the day. Our chores reminded us that we were disciplined but poor so school was a privilege. School took place in the late afternoon, children of all ages sat under a tree into the early evening learning lessons that had little if any relevance to our daily lives. My father could not afford the mandatory uniform so every year I went to school for three weeks in the semester until the teacher dismissed me.

I didn't care; well, I did but I didn't let it show. I hated poverty; I hated its limitations. Stupid me because all around were golden fields of wild savannah, the sun set against the plains.

In those days, I knew I wanted to live as a man so I walked with my shoulders hunched so my chest was hidden deep into my back. My father scolded me, thinking I was ashamed because we were so poor. He told me to take pride in what little we had so that future blessings would shower our lives in the next life, if not this one.

I was never ashamed of him, ever. I loved him deeply. He was all I cared about but there was no room to say such things to your father. Respect meant little or no eye contact; speak only when spoken to; measure your words carefully with pointed, brief answers. One side-glance from my father ensured all pretense was lost: I straightened my back, held my head high, chest forward, hoping some day he might respect me, too, maybe even love me as a man in much the same way I loved him for being one.

Then the voice of God came to me, reassuring me that I'm already a man. But by nine my chest betrayed me and, more importantly, betrayed (my) God. By 13, my whole body was in revolution. Blood came between my legs once a month; little hills spurted into huge mountains on my chest. I couldn't afford a razor so I shaved my chin with dry leaves. Still, very little hair grew and the hair that did was faint, wispy compared to the mane on my father's handsome face. My sisters -- over six feet tall and less than one hundred pounds -- were all arms and long legs with little or no hips. I looked more like my brother: short, stubby, limbs stunted by family standards with no sign of future growth besides a slight bump from a permanent potbelly. Worse: boys walked barefoot until twenty-five to make sure their sisters wore sandals, "Jesus slippers" we called them in my language because they opened at the mouth. The slippers were an aphrodisiac to showcase the streamlined beauty of a woman's feet; they made me wear them.

Enough was enough. Rather than go to the edge of the village to consult with the witchdoctor -- a spiritual mediator between this world and the next -- I broke with tradition, going directly to my mother's grave for answers. I figured my body was going crazy because she was jealous that I looked nothing like her. My large chest, high-pitched voice, smooth delicate skin was her violent attempt to embarrass me into womanhood. So I waited. Nothing: stillness at her grave. So I asked my other ancestors. What did they do? Send a torrential downpour of such magnitude that I thought about wearing a dress for months.

I was scared but made plans to leave for the United States because I knew I could live as a man when there. I knew the money I made would help my family get electricity, running water at home, regular school fees for the kids, no more worries about the basics: food, clothes, shelter. Yes, I could play the man who provides for a family in need in much the same way African men abroad bankroll their families on the continent with comforts they could not afford otherwise. In America, I could have control, independence to manipulate money how I wanted.
Maybe marry American, buy a house, a dog, build a kidney-shaped swimming pool in my big backyard.

So when I arrived in the States my first thought was to get a job, which I did but left, right and center people referred to me as "miss," "she," "her," and "lesbian." I was baffled: were these people blind? My manly spirit, my quiet resolve, the firm will that dignified my actions were undeniably male. All they saw were the curves on my hips and chest that butchered the man in me.

I needed money but I also wanted to be seen as a man by society. With the little money I saved, I did the unthinkable, broke all ties with my family for hormone therapy for years. I sent small trickles of money here and there when I could, but I made sure I always had enough for my shot, a needle of testosterone taken bi-weekly, the cost amounting to school fees for two children in my village. Every month I robbed my village; every month I became the man I am today.

Am I selfish? Or should I live life miserable in the wrong body to support a family that will never support me? Make no mistake, no monthly contribution is large enough for them to accept me should I decide to return to Tanzania today in my new body. So I stay stuck to the same concerns I had as a child: where can I find my home? Not in white America where little old ladies hold their handbags the moment I come close. By home, I mean a place where memory is butchered by the present and future so the past sticks to my shadows, stays dead. And now I know something of death and resurrection, now that my old body died to give birth to a new one. With that experience comes an intense yearning for a resting place, a home where my new body can settle in peace, a village full of people from my tribe who are the same but
different.

On November 20, the Transgender Day of Remembrance, I embrace my transgender brothers and sisters in an adopted family in an adopted land and I acknowledge what it means to be part of a diverse social fabric. I do so because their struggle for acceptance touches me like a love-song, one that provokes sincere discomfort and deep joy. I listen for their music: silence. Then one note, neither male nor female but golden, separates itself from the sonic pack to rise higher and higher. Now look -- heaven.

Chanelle Pickett

In November 1995, Chanelle Pickett, an African-American transsexual woman, was strangled to death at age 23. At her service, Chanelle's twin sister, Gabrielle, also a transsexual woman, remembered her as a vibrant person, "full of life... high-spirited... with many goals."

Chanelle Pickett's murder illustrates why we fought so hard to stay in ENDA. When we say having gender identity language as part of ENDA is a life or death situation, we ain't kidding. Chanelle's murder graphically illustrates the connections between violence and pervasive employment discrimination.

This tragic story begins in 1994, the year prior to Chanelle's murder. The sisters and New York natives were both working steadily at NYNEX in Brookline, MA, (now Verizon's Northeast Bureau) until they were outed in November 2004 as transsexuals. The outing made both of them targets for harassment.

Chanelle sought help from a supervisor for relief but was ignored. She transferred to a different department, but the harassment continued openly and unabated until she and Gabrielle were terminated six weeks later in February 2005 because she got fed up and started standing up to co-workers who subjected her and her sister to gender harassment.

Stunned, unable to find work, feeling hopeless and desperate, having exhausted their options for legitimate employment elsewhere, and free falling toward a desperate poverty, Chanelle finally turned to the risky and dangerous last resort for young and beautiful transwomen trying to survive: Prostitution.

All because she and her twin sister were harassed out of a good job.

Then came the fateful meeting at Playland with William Palmer, a 34 year old computer programmer. Prior to that November 20 night, according to Newsweekly, Chanelle told Natoyear Sherarrion, her friend of eight years, that she had been having nightmares that someone was going to hurt her. They were similar to the fears that another transmurder victim, Amanda Milan would express five years later.

Playland, which opened in 1937 was one of Boston's original gay bars. Until it closed in 1998 it was located in the Combat Zone on Essex Street and had evolved to include a multicultural crowd. While William Palmer tried to deny that he knew Chanelle was transsexual, or that he enjoys the company of transsexuals, he's as familiar to the Boston transgender community that frequented the bar as Norm from Cheers was. He not only knew what and who a transsexual was, he frequently dated them.

Chanelle and Palmer had been seeing each other for some time and they had met at Playland on a number of occasions. Friends say that she really liked Palmer and wanted to have a more serious relationship with him. Palmer had written a letter to Chanelle not only expressing his affection for her, but had promised to help her get back on her feet and to take care of her.

On this particular night Chanelle, Gabrielle and Palmer went to the twins Chelsea area apartment first after leaving Playland and spent 90 minutes trying to convince them to have a three way with him. For some reason Chanelle agreed to go with Palmer to his home in Watertown, MA where he strangled her to death in the early morning hours on November 20. Palmer slept for six hours with Chanelle's dead body lying beside his bed before he turned himself in to a lawyer who informed the police.

According to the coroner, Chanelle's body was found with "bruised face and lips," and her "brain was badly swollen, the neck muscles were bruised, and there was hemorrhaging in the eyes."

With this overwhelming evidence, the letters to Chanelle and being seen in the company of her and other transwomen prior to the murder, Palmer's defense attorney came up with a then new variation of the 'homosexual panic' defense. He claimed that he'd never met Pickett until the night of the murder and because she didn't reveal her transgender status to him, he was overcome with such an uncontrollable rage that he killed her.

In other words, what he was arguing was that his attraction to Chanelle, and Chanelle's very existence as another human being on this planet, upset his white-collar sensibilities to the point where her death was both justifiable and necessary.

Psychologists, the denizens of the Playland, who corroborated the fact that Palmer was their version of Norm from 'Cheers' and the evidence debunked that, but the defense is designed to stir up whatever anti-GLBT feelings are in the juror's minds. In addition to that race reared its ugly head in this trial.

Palmer was portrayed in the Boston media as an average white-collar guy who was an upstanding member of his community. On the other hand, they saddled Chanelle with all the negativity directed at African-American transwomen. They never once pointed out her side of the story or thought of her as a human being who was a valued member of society.

One Boston Herald front-page story at the time described Palmer as a polite, clean-cut preppy. The article went on to describe the murder sympathetically as the only natural reaction any self-respecting, red-blooded, heterosexual man would have.

Despite the strong physical evidence against Palmer, unbelievably the 'trans panic defense worked and he was found not guilty of murder in April 1997. Palmer was convicted only of assault and battery. He received 2 years of jail time, a longer sentence than the prosecutor had requested, with Judge Robert A. Barton acknowledging the particularly "vicious" nature of the killing.

On the heels of the May 15 Deborah Forte strangulation killing and what happened to Tyra Hunter only three months later in August 1995, the verdict outraged the Boston and national transgender communities. Prior to the sentencing a month later, about 45 demonstrators gathered outside the courthouse and handed out leaflets that read "Jury Upholds Death Penalty for Transexualism" and carrying signs with pictures of Chanelle and saying "Justice: A Rich White Man's Game" and "End Violence Against Transgenders". The judge requested a copy of the flyer by courier, and was accommodated by the activists on the scene.

The judge sentenced Palmer in May 1997 to 2 years incarceration (2 1/2 years with 6 months suspended) and 5 years probation. In delivering the sentence, Judge Barton commented bitterly to the defendant "Mr. Palmer should kiss the ground the defense counsel walks on." Judge Barton also cited the gruesome pictures of the victim which, by his own ruling, the jury did not see, leading some observers to speculate that the judge had made an error in not allowing the jury to see the photographs.

Gabrielle Pickett gave moving testimony to the judge, saying "it's hell being transsexual", and "Chanelle wasn't just a sister, she was my best friend. We grew up together, took hormones together, transitioned together..."

While William Palmer successfully avoided contact with the press, outside the Middlesex County Courthouse, Gabrielle declared to reporters, "This isn't the end of it. I will continue to work to end violence against transgender people." She later told reporters outside the courtroom "There was some satisfaction in the sentence, but it doesn't make up for the fact that the verdict was only assault and battery."

Then GenderTalk radio host and activist Nancy Nangeroni told the reporters gathered outside the courtroom, "The judge, by this sentence, has made an unmistakable statement about the injustice of the verdict."

It's a theme that we have seen far too many times in this community. The discrimination that transgender people face leading to loss of employment that exponentially amplifies their vulnerability to violent crime.

Chanelle's sudden fall from life with a steady job and a bright future into poverty, desperation, and violent victimhood is a shocking story that is faced by far too many transpeople, and especially too many transwomen of color. The ever growing Remembering our Dead list and the TDOR's have depressingly pointed out this fact over the years.

Sherarrion sums it up in her comments to a Newsweekly reporter when she said, "She was a good, sweet, loving person. She didn't get her chance to shine. God didn't take my Chanelle, he [Palmer] did...and he won't get the punishment he deserves."