Transphobia On The UH Campus?

Here's another example of why HERO is needed and necessary to combat discrimination in the city of Houston, and sadly it is on the campus of my alma mater, the University of Houston.

And it's also what happens when anti-trans attitudes are allowed to run unchecked in local media. They eventually filter down to the rest of the ignorati and start becoming microaggressive problems for Trans World and trans people just trying to get through their lives without drama.

Was reported to me by one of my on campus sources Monday night that this handmade sign was hanging on the ladies restroom door in the Tealicious restaurant in irony of ironies, the UH Welcome Center.

When Glissette Santana, the editor in chief of the Daily Cougar took a news team to the restaurant to check out reports concerning the alleged transphobic sign, the Tealicious management claimed the sign was in response to the broken single stall men's toilet.

Yeah right.   If you only have one functioning bathroom of a dual set of binary gendered potties, it would stand to reason the remaining operational toilet becomes by default a gender neutral restroom.  There is no need to post a jacked up sign like this unless you are harboring transphobic tendencies in the first place and wish to just be a transphobic jerk about it..

Something about this doesn't smell right, and I'm not talking about the stench from the allegedly stopped up men's bathroom at Tealicious.


TransGriot Update:  My source at UH has advised me that the transphobic sign has been taken down

Not Feeling Pope Francis' USA Visit

While I was in Washington DC, I discovered that I was staying a mere two blocks from St. Matthew's Cathedral, where Pope Francis is scheduled to have a private prayer event at noon with the US bishops.   St. Matthew's Cathedral FYI was where President John F. Kennedy's funeral was held after his assassination in 1963.

St. Matthew's Cathedral is also two blocks down Rhode Island Ave NW from HRC headquarters. After I noticed in the waning moments of a Thursday #OOTH2015 panel discussion news cameras rolling up and taking shots of the side of the headquarters building, I went outside and noticed this huge banner hanging on the side of the building facing St. Matthews.

While the media and many people are going gaga over Pope Francis and think he is this progressive figure vis a vis Pope Benedict  in the Catholic Church, frankly I and some of my trans kindred aren't feeling him and the hoopla surrounding the pontiff's trip and today's stop in Washington DC.

While I agree with Pope Francis on some of the things he has called out, I have a major problem with his anti-trans rhetoric. When it comes to transgender human rights issues,.many trans folks see no difference between Pope Frank and his predecessor.

We trans peeps haven't been feeling the love from the Roman Catholic Church since 2003, when Paul McHugh successfully implanted anti-trans dogma into the Vatican, and that anti-trans hate has spread to the flock.

It's difficult to nearly impossible to feel warm and fuzzy about someone who has publicly compared your very existence to nuclear weapons. and has done little to reverse or cease and desist with the anti-trans dogma contaminating the Roman Catholic church conversations about trans people since 2003.

It's even more problematic for me because I am a Christian.

Y'all and the media may consider him 'the people's Pope', but it's obvious from the Roman Catholic Church perspective that trans people aren't included in being considered people.  I'm finding something else to watch because the all pope at the time saturation news coverage is irritating me.

The anti-trans hatred preached from Catholic pulpits and uttered by Pope Benedict, Pope Francis and other Catholic leaders from the Vatican to the local parish I believe is a factor in why trans murders in Brazil, Central America and much of Latin America have exponentially increased.

And I hope the trans folks who get to meet him at the White House convey to Pope Francis and others in that room just how pissed off we trans folks worldwide are about those comments and how they contribute to anti-trans hatred and violence not only here in the US but around the world.

The rest of y'all can go swoon over Pope Francis and succumb to Popemania.   Because frankly, I'm not feeling him,    

The Fight To Keep HERO-September 10

One day closer to November 3 and the 2015 Houston city and mayoral elections that will determine the fate of Proposition 1, AKA HERO

Mayoral candidate Ben Hall and his merry band of faux 'christian' HERO haters have ramped up their attacks on the ordinance, with Hall hosting an event at Northbrook MS in which he flat out lied about the ordinance and tried to claim the Fort Worth ordinance was better.   Yeah, figures he and his friends would like that one since it threw trans people under the civil rights bus there.  

The HERO haters have also been throwing out the talking point that the HERO is 'poorly written' and needs to be redone so that we can 'make it better.' That's bigot speak for 'we want to erase the Houston TBLG community out of it and protect our special right to discriminate'.


Funny, the Greater Houston Partnership likes it as is, can read it, and is urging a YES vote on Proposition 1.   The ordinance is also written so clearly that even a conservafool like Sarah Palin can understand it.

And what sayeth Moni to those kneegrows bearing false witness against the Houston trans community and colluding with white conservafool pastors to pimp anti-trans hate in the Houston Black community we reside in?

'Our fate as Black TBLGQ people in this country is inextricably tied to the rest of Black America, and Black folks wishing to divide the Black SGL and non-SGL communities would do well to remember that'--TransGriot March 25, 2015

Back to the HERO update.  

Transphobic ignorance has been raging unchecked in the Black community due to the HERO hatin' ministers colluding with White conservative pastors, fanning the hellfire flames of transphobic bigotry.

But we HERO supporters have been pushing back hard against the ignorance.  There was Cristan Williams masterfully pushing back against the debunked trans predator bathroom lie that has been nauseatingly repeated since 2014.

Fran Watson took on the HERO haters on Majic 102's Sunday Morning Live show. It is one of the most listened to FM stations in Black Houston, and so far it has been on the wrong side of this debate.  Didn't get any better yesterday when Majic 102 featured sexual harasser, hypocrite pastor and city council candidate Kendall Baker, who is running against Councilmember Richard Nguyen.

Kudos to Fran for going into the belly of the HERO hatin' beast yesterday when she went to Ben Hall owned KCOH-AM to confront Hall and the HERO ignorati.

Noel Freeman was recently on a KTRK-TV 13 public affairs program and demolished the bathroom predator lie.



Take notes people, this is what needs to be said about it for the rest of the HERO defense campaign and anywhere else in the country this issue comes up.

To give you an example of the bigoted ignorance we Houston Black TBLG people are encountering (and need IMMEDIATE help confronting Houston Unites), this is a snippet of an online conversation advocate Ashton Woods had with a faux faith based HERO hater (part of the anti-LGBT COGIC denomination) on a Facebook discussion thread I was also heavily active on yesterday.


I had fun dropping 20 megatons of HERO knowledge on willfully ignorant people in that thread as well..

And FYI, this is what trans people do in the bathroom.

Ashton also has an interesting post on his Strength In Numbers blog that documents who we're fighting against in this battle to keep HERO.

Ashton is also putting together a press conference that will take place at 5:30 PM CDT tomorrow (September 11) at Miller Outdoor Theater in Hermann Park.  It will give the Houston TBLG communities of color a chance to speak about why HERO is needed and necessary,

One of the other things I'm not liking in addition to the lack of trans, bi and SGL voices of color in this Houston Unites campaign defending the HERO is the silence of the local NAACP, the local Houston Urban League chapter, and the silence of far too many Black legislators at all levels of government in terms of confronting the ignorance around HERO.

Y'all need to speak up, be courageous drum majors and majorettes for justice and clearly outline where you stand on HERO before early voting starts next month.

If you support HERO, better name it and claim it.   That also goes for you peeps running for council as well.

Will pop the popcorn and see which Houston mayoral candidates during the mayoral debate tonight on ABC-13 and Univision stand up for HERO.

I already know the ones who hate it.

Tyra Hunter Death 20th Anniversary

Today is the 20th anniversary of a needless tragedy that occurred on this date in 1995.

A 24 year old trans woman by the name of Tyra Hunter needlessly died after a car accident at 50th and C Streets in SE Washington DC of survivable injuries because of a transphobic EMT.

That happened a mere 16 months into my own physical body morphing.  The Hunter case still bothers me 20 years later because the blatant medical transphobia on display could have easily happened to me or any other trans person.

The fact it was fellow African-Americans involved in his episode of transphobic hate along with it happening in the early stages of my own transition is probably why this Hunter case has stuck with me for so long.   It was also one of the events that began to push me toward the trans human rights activism path.

I find myself on this 20th anniversary of Tyra's death pondering many what if questions and coming up with some possible resolution scenarios for them.:.

What if Tyra had gotten the care she needed to save her life?   What would a now 44 year old Tyra Hunter's life be like now?   Would she be flexing her hairdressing skills and owning her own shop by now?  Would she have found love?   Would she still be living in the DC area?

What kind of contributions would Tyra be making to our community and society in general if she were still here?

But no matter what scenarios I come up with good, bad or middle of the road for a 44 year old Tyra Hunter, I know deep down in my soul that they are questions we will never find out the answer to. 

The reason why is because she is resting in power and peace due to the transphobic actions of one DC Fire Department EMT named Adrian Williams  and subsequently at the now closed DC General Hospital from Dr Bastian because these people entrusted with the responsibility of saving human lives failed to see her as a human being..

#WeExist.  Black trans people exist.   And on this day we in Black Trans World and our allies must rededicate ourselves to reminding our fellow cis Black people that our Black trans lives matter, too.

The one thing that we can take away from this tragedy is that medical transphobia kills.   In Tyra Hunter's memory, we need to as a community be vigilant in ensuring the avoidable tragedy that happened to Tyra Hunter on this sad August 7 day 20 years ago never happens to another trans person of any ethnic background ever again.

Meagan Taylor Is Free!

Received the wonderful news that Meagan Taylor, who was visiting Iowa with a trans friend and ended up in jail after being racially profiled because of a transphobic Drury Inn employee, is now free!

“I’m ecstatic to be released,” Meagan told the Transgender Law Center. “Words cannot express the way I feel to be out. I want to thank everyone who shared my story, and let people know that I am going to seek justice for what they did profiling me as a Black transgender woman.”

She spent over a week in isolated custody in the Polk County jail in Des Moines as local activists Kaija Carter, Tony Tyler and Mira Bellwheter , national organizations and San Francisco based Rev. Megan Rohrer teamed up to free Meagan.   Pastor Rohrer, who is also transgender, raised over $4400 thanks to 133 donors to help pay her bond as the Transgender Law Center worked to get the Illinois warrant vacated.

I thank Kaija for keeping me informed as to what was happening on the ground in Des Moines.

“We are relieved and thrilled that Meagan is finally free, but know that her story is all too common,” said Flor Bermudez, Esq., Director of the Detention Project at Transgender Law Center, which helped advocate for Meagan’s release. “Black transgender women are regularly viewed as criminals in public spaces, triggering unlawful arrests. In the vast majority of cases, transgender women are jailed in facilities that do not know how to house them safely and humanely.”

Ass for what happens now, that remains to be seen.  The Drury Inn has yet to issue an apology to Taylor, and may be facing action on a possible violation of the Iowa Civil Rights Act.

But the important part of this story is that  Meagan is free, and hope the next time she gets to take a trip it is drama free.

Ben Hall Still Hatin' On Trans Houstonians Y'all

"..It was unacceptable for transgendered people who are “anatomically another gender” to be treated as anything but the anatomical gender.
--Ben hall, KUHF-FM  Houston Matters interview, October 28, 2013

With our mayoral election just a mere four months away, the campaign to replace our term limited mayor Annise Parker will be heating up soon as we get inexorably closer to the traditional Labor Day start for Houston civic election campaigns.

Out of all the candidates running for mayor in 2015, the one I have the most disdain for is Benjamin Lewis Hall, our former city attorney who spent $3 million dollars of his own money getting thumped by Mayor Parker by double digits in the 2013 mayoral race.

Hey, as I've said before, I don't have to like or respect people who are trying to oppress me..

He not only said to my face in an October 2013 mayoral town hall that he wasn't in favor of HERO, but if he had been elected, would have repealed the executive orders of Mayors Brown and Parker that protected Houston LGBT people in city employment.  He also doubled down on the BTLG hate in the last two weeks of that 2013 campaign.

As to whether he has changed his mind on HERO or the human rights of trans Houstonians,, the answer to that question is an emphatic NO.   He made it clear at a recent Harris County Democratic Party Brown Bag luncheon I attended that he hasn't evolved on either of those issues

A recent check of the signatures of Dave Wilson's second failed effort to enshrine anti-trans bigotry in the Houston City Charter by a team of Houston GLBT citizens and allies revealed an interesting name that popped up:   Ben Hall.

So Houston trans peeps and allies, if you were thinking about voting for this man as our next mayor, don't.

Find someone else to cast your precious vote for on November 3, because it is quite clear Hall is a trans oppressor who will if elected, throw my hard won human rights as a trans Houstonian away to curry favor with faux faith based bigots like the Baptist Ministers Assn of Houston and Vicinity and professional gaybaiters like Steve Hotze who don't even live in this city.

There is also little doubt by his signature on that transphobic petition and behavior pattern dating back to 2013 that Ben Hall's vision of this city doesn't include transgender Houstonians like me.

Time To Root Out US Embassy Transphobia

Last month I talked about the situation of Amruta Soni, an Indian trans person whose visa application was held up to visit the United States to attend the recently concluded Philadelphia Trans Health Conference.

Soni eventually got her visa and was able to get to Philadelphia for the conference and her panel.

But I'm hearing disturbing news that it has happened once again for another group of trans women trying to get visas to travel to the US for an event, and I'm not a happy camper about that.

According to the Washington Blade, three Central American trans feminine activists, Mixair Nolasco, Stacy Vasquez  Velasquez and Ambar Alvarado Alfaro from Panama, Guatemala and El Salvador were invited to attend the Organization of American States (OAS) General Assembly that took place June 15-16.  

They unfortunately missed it because they were denied visas by embassy personnel in their home nations.

The trio brought their passports, the OAS invitations, and all necessary paperwork in conjunction with their visa applications for those embassy visa interviews, but were denied by US Embassy personnel working in those nations.

One embassy staffer exhibited a shocking level of ignorance by not even knowing what the Washington DC headquartered OAS was.

These nations these trans women are from are also nations in which the human rights situation for trans persons is problematic, as the recent murder of a Salvadoran trans activist is a glaring example of.

The Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) LGBT Rapporteurship was aware of the situation, and not happy these activists could be there to testify about the conditions for trans women in these Central American nations.  The IACHR has previously expressed concerns about the inability of trans person to travel to Washington DC to participate and testify in hearings concerning human rights related issues in the Americas.

Randy Berry, the US special envoy to promote global LGBT rights, insists there isn't a problem and told the Blade, "I'm quite satisfied that there is not an issue of discrimination on the issue of gender identity.  As a policy point we work very, very hard against it."

But tell that BS to Amruta Soni and the trans activists who were denied an opportunity to tell their stories at the just concluded OAS General Assembly.

You have a transphobia problem in various US embassies that it negatively impacting the ability of international trans people to travel to the US for whatever reason they need to do so. 

And that problem needs to be fixed.

Trans Woman Attacked In NYC Subway Station

When I last visited New York City in December, one of the things I was cognizant of while riding their subways was making sure I was standing in the middle of the subway station platforms as I waited for my MTA trains to take me wherever I wanted to go.

I was well aware of the history of people being either shoved onto the tracks or into oncoming trains by disturbed people.

And while there are a lot of girls in NYC who are my height, I was definitely paying attention to my surroundings when I was riding the subways.

With the increased attention on trans people because of the media hoopla surrounding Caitlyn Jenner, it's also had the affect of transphobia being ramped up in right wing circles that may manifest itself into increased hate attacks on transpeople

On Monday a 28 year old trans woman waiting for a  southbound 6 train at Manhattan's Bleecker St. Station at 9 AM EDT was assaulted and shoved off the platform by a male assailant.

The assailant asked the woman “What are you looking at?” while standing nearby on the platform. He then “ran to a garbage pail” and removed a plastic bottle which he threw at her before pushing her onto the tracks, according to an NYPD spokesperson.

Commuters pulled the woman off the tracks and back onto the platform as the assailant fled the scene  Authorities then took the woman to Bellevue Hospital where she was treated for lacerations on her chin and other bruises on her chin and arm before being released.

NYPD is investigating this incident as a hate crime, and this person is wanted for the crime.

And note to you trans haters, trans women are not your societal punching bags for your personal problems and issues.

As we wish our trans sister who was attacked a speedy recovery from her injuries, let us also hope the waste of DNA who committed this crime be swiftly arrested and punished for it.

Louisiana Girl Scout Council Bans Trans Feminine Kids

One of the reasons I love the Girl Scouts USA is that they not only have an amazing organization that for over a century has excelled in developing the leadership skills of girls and young women, they have continued to do so while under continued conservafool assault.

The conservafools have hated on the Girl Scouts because unlike the Boy Scouts, they failed in their attempt to take them over.  Ever since them different conservative pundits and politicians have attacked them for their progressive stances.

They have even taken their off the charts hatred of the Girl Scouts to the extreme level of attacking the Girl Scouts annual cookie drives (which is why I buy mass quantities of them every year) to forming their own conservative alternative to Girl Scouts USA called the American Heritage Girls. 

Now that the conservative movement is shifting their energy and attention to attacking transgender people, the American Fascist Family Association on May 13 created a transphobic petition that gained the signatures of 38,000 people demanding the Girl Scouts USA rescind the policy allowing trans feminine participation in Girl Scouts.

The next day Girl Scouts USA put out a statement authored by Andrea Bastiani Archibald that reiterated their support for the trans inclusive policy.

"If a girl is recognized by her family, school and community as a girl and lives culturally as a girl, Girl Scouts is an organization that can serve her in a setting that is both emotionally and physically safe.\ Inclusion of transgender girls is handled at a council level on a case by case basis, with the welfare and best interests of all members as a top priority."

That local case by case basis part of the statement leaves a problematic loophole big enough to drive a Mack truck through it.   And as any marginalized group is keenly aware of, if you give transphobes an inch, they'll go the transphobic mile.

While I have yet to hear what the local Girl Scouts of San Jacinto Council (Houston area) stance is on transgender scouts, I'm aware of the Girl Scouts of Colorado supported a trans kid that wished to join one of their troops, and know the Kentuckiana Council just reaffirmed their support of the national policy, that wasn't the case of the Girl Scouts Louisiana East Council that covers Baton Rouge, New Orleans and the eastern parishes of the state.

The Girl Scouts Louisiana East Council since November 2011 has proudly had a policy in place barring trans feminine kids.

“We recognize that girls benefit most from a program designed specifically for them and delivered in an all-girl setting. We affirm that our council’s programming is for girls only, and has not been designed to meet the specific needs of boys or transgendered youth.”

They doubled down on it in the wake of the AFA attack on the National GSA with a transphobic dog whistle included in their May 20 memo claiming "the health and safety of our girls is our number one priority."
As Baton Rouge parent of a Brownie Mary Ellen Slayter told NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune, "I don't feel like the presence of a transgender child poses any threat to my daughter. We are talking about children here. If they're questioning their gender identity, I would want the Girl Scouts to be a safe place for them to explore that and be in the company of adults who could help them through that... These kids are far more likely to be harmed by other people than to cause harm."

Louisiana East Council, you may wish to join Ms. Slayter and the rest of us in the 21st century, and stop the problematic pimping of the lie that trans kids are a threat to cisgender girls.

H/T Lexie Cannes

Unjust Florida HB 583 Is Dead!

While I was at BTAC, the Florida legislative session ended.   What that means is that is filed bills didn't pass either chamber and make it to the governor's desk to become law, they are dead for this session.

I'm doing the happy dance because the end of Florida's legislative session means the unjust HB 583 filed by transphobic GOP legislator Frank Artiles (R-Miami) is dead for 2015!

The unjust bill that sought to  criminalize trans people's lives and its senate counterpart didn't clear either chamber before the end of the Florida legislative session on April 30.   I and the trans people planning to visit Florida in the near or distant future are thankful we don't have to worry about a nouveau Jim Crow law forcing us to show our papers to pee or risk jail time to do so.

It's probably a huge relief to the just moved to Florida Southern Comfort Conference and its board, who were strangely silent as the human rights of transpeople in the Sunshine State were under attack by an unjust anti-trans bill that could have done fatal damage to SCC.

I'm happy for my trans homies and homettes living in Florida that Artiles' attempt to legislate transphobia failed. 

And yeah, Frank Artiles, you can peddle that 'this was a public safety issue' lie all you wish on FOX Noise, but let's be real, you are a vanillacentric privileged trans oppressor who gleefully filed this bill to attack and dehumanize trans Floridians because you were pissed Miami-Dade was doing the right thing for its trans citizens and protecting them from people who wish to discriminate against them like you.

And I hope the trans community and their allies punish you at the polls for being a trans oppressor.

Great job Florida trans community being agents of your own trans liberation and doing what it took to kill that unjust bill along with your allies.
.

MichFest Dead After This 40th Anniversary Year

I'm one of the peeps in Trans World who could care less about the cesspool of transphobia known as the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, but I do support the people in our community who would like to have a chance to go to MichFest if the hypocritically transphobic 'womyn born womyn' policy weren't in effect.

The so called 'unofficial' policy allows trans men on 'The Land', but trans women aren't welcome.

But MichFest was co-founded and is owned by one of the trans community's long time oppressors in Lisa Vogel, a TERF who was one of the peeps who signed the 1977 Olivia Records Letter demanding the ouster of Sandy Stone from that feminist record label.

A petition initiated by Equality Michigan has called for a boycott of the festival until they end the policy, and artists such as the Indigo Girls and Nona Hendryx have joined that boycott.

The Equality Michigan petition contains these bullet points:

1. Demanding you end the "womyn-born-womyn" intention at Michigan Womyn's Music Festival.
2. Request that Lisa Vogel, as co-founder and owner, meet with leaders of the transgender community and enter the space with an open mind to the notion that transgender womyn are womyn too, and have shared in their experiences.
3. Asking artists, attendees, and vendors to act in harmony with their equal rights values and NOT attend the festival until the transgender discrimination ends, and instead support other women's events which are creating a safe space for transgender women so they can join as well.
4. Requesting that any artists participating this year speak against the policy while on stage.

One of the organizations that stepped up to call for MichFest to end their transphobic ways was the National Black Justice Coalition.

“Our transgender sisters are simply women and deserve to be treated as such. It is baffling that at MWMF -- an event organized by and built exclusively for women -- imposes such blatant discrimination against one of the most marginalized groups of women in our society,” said Sharon Lettman-Hicks, NBJC Executive Director and CEO. “NBJC joins with Equality Michigan and the host of other advocacy organizations calling on the organizers of MWMF to immediately end their policy of not welcoming transgender women. This unjust policy only perpetuates hate and stigma, and has no place in a space meant to empower women.”

The MichFest is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year and Lisa Vogel has announced this year will be the last

"I am writing to tell you that the 40th Festival will be the last Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. The spirit of this community will live on forever, the friends and family we have found on the Land are eternal. Everything we have created together will feed the inspiration for what comes next. It’s possible that I will come back with something else, or that other sisters will take the inspiration of the Michigan community and create the next expression of our Amazon culture. What is true for me is that now is the time to bring this 40-year cycle to a close, stepping out on joy at our most incredible anniversary celebration."

Yep, 40 years of anti-trans discrimination on 'The Land'.  Whoopee.  Good riddance.

The TERF's can whine the boycott killed MichFest all they want, but that would be a lie like everything else they have said about trans people since the 1970's has been. 

Lisa Vogel's stubborn insistence to cling to disco era racist and transphobic TERF hatred of trans women in a world that is rapidly evolving toward acceptance of trans women, is the reason MichFest is dying and will soon be on the ash heap of history.