Black Houston, Cease And Desist With The Transphobia

One of the things I'm getting sick and tired of is elements of the Houston Black community being willfully transphobic.  I'm beyond tired of it along with my Houston Black trans fam and our families, friends, and allies.

What's driving me to write this is Dee Dee telling me about a event that happened on Tuesday at the Ensemble Theater that I almost went to but because I was catching up on my backlogged writing didn't attend.

Wish I had, and I'm about to tell you why.

It was supposed to be an open mic event in which people were encouraged to step to the mic and talk for one minute about whatever issues that were bothering them.

Dee Dee spoke, and was followed up three speakers later by a man named Vince Duncan who not only misgendered her, but bragged about in the card he handed out at the event of being one of the sellout fools who worked for the defeat of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance last year.

Dee Dee was already upset about an incident that happened at a Black Lives Matter Houston event at City Hall that we both attended two months ago when a woman at that event misgendered her.  So you know she was not a happy camper when she returned home and told me she was done with attending cis Black events.

Their loss, and it's sad they have made her and many of us feel unwelcome in a community that should be our refuge from all the transphobic Hateraid we get from the rest of the world..

I love my people and my hometown, but damn folks, y'all have to show us Black trans Houstonians not only some love but respect for our humanity.  Neither I, Dee Dee or any Black trans Houstonian gave up our Black cards when we transitioned, and y'all need to recognize that fact.

Black trans women are women.  Black trans men are men.   How many times do I and countless other people inside and outside Trans World have to repeat that easy to grasp concept until you get it?  

Something else y'all need to recognize is that Black trans Houstonians aren't going back into the closet just because you wish to be willfully ignorant of the fact we exist   Neither are our trans lives and our humanity up for theological or political discussion.

Miss me with that crap.   And some of you repeating those anti-trans talking points are in the Black SGL community, and y'all need to chill with that as well.  The anti-trans comments and right wing bathroom predator lies are not only Grade A bull feces, but are hurtful and wrong,

The anti-trans rhetoric you are repeating makes Steven Hotze, the Texas GOP, Dave Wilson, Max Miller, FN Williams and other assorted Houston area transphobes smile.  It leads to anti-trans discrimination, harassment and violence.

It is getting Black trans kids thrown out of their homes.  Black trans teens make up 13% of the homeless trans teen population, and that needs to end ASAP.   It also led to many of you in Black Houston stupidly voting to repeal a HERO ordinance that I, Dee Dee and other Houstonians fought tooth and nail against GOP out of town oppressors to pass that protected your human rights in the city of Houston.

It was disgusting to me as a native Houstonian to see you fall for the 'men in dresses' okey doke lie parroted to you by suburban white Republicans, white fundie pastors egged on by sellout kneegrow pastors, and them gleefully laughing at your behinds for allowing them to hoodwink and bamboozle you into voting against your own human rights on Election Night 2015.

It's past time for the verbal abuse of trans people in our Black Houston ranks to cease and desist.  Black Trans Houstonians are part of the diverse mosaic of humanity in our beloved hometown, and all we want in addition to having our humanity and human rights respected and protected by law is to simply be able to live our lives to the best of our ability and contribute our talents to building our community and our city.

But the minimum requirement for that to happen is for you Black Houston, to cease and desist with the transphobia, and respect out humanity, because our Black Lives Matter, too.   

Texas Association of Business Formally Opposes HB2 Style Bills

If you;re wondering why I and other TBLGQ Texans and our allies stay and fight the right wing powers that be to make our state better, this is just another example why having angelic troublemakers in the Lone Star State matters.

On Friday the influential Texas Association of Business (TAB) Board of Governors overwhelmingly approved a resolution that states according to TAB president Chris Wallace the TAB opposes 'legislation that is seen as discriminatory and would impact workforce recruitment and/or cause a negative economic impact on the state'.

The 4,300 member Texas Association of Business is our statewide chamber of commerce, and has the ear of conservative politicians in the Lone Star State.

They are nervous in the wake of our transphobic Lt. Governor Dan Patrick (R) statements back in May of wanting to repeat the mistake of the North Carolina GOP to legislatively hate on Texas trans people.  

The TAB is nervous that when the 85th session of the Texas legislature opens in January, Patrick and his GOP colleagues will try to pass an HB2 style bill that will cause the same economic damage to Texas that its blitzkrieged passage in North Carolina has done to their state's economy.

They are trying to prevent that self inflicted Texas GOP legislative idiocy from happening along with Texas Competes, a coalition of 1,100 + Texas businesses and business friendly organizations that are making the case that TBLGQ equality is good for Texas, Texas based businesses and the Texas economy.

North Carolina since the passage of HB2 has suffered an estimated $395 million dollars (and counting) in lost business, conventions, and sporting events, and the NC GOP refuses to take responsibility for their lack of human rights vision.

"We don't want economic fallout here because of legislative action that could be prevented, said Wallace. "We know it's going to be a top issue, and because of that, business has to speak up."

Texas has in 2017 the NCAA women's Final Four scheduled to come to Dallas, the NCAA FBS Championship Game in the Dallas suburb of Frisco, and the 2018 NCAA men's championship game in San Antonio.

All are in jeopardy along with scheduled conventions and other business if Patrick and the Texas GOP persists with their delusional thinking that Texas will not suffer the same fiscal fallout that North Carolina has if they pass anti-trans hate bills or HB2 style legislation.  

The Texas GOP has made hatred of Texas trans people part of their reprehensible 2016 platform, and just as their attempts to legislate bigotry against LGB Texans failed, they will fail against transgender Texans.

And thanks to the Texas Association of Business, Texas Competes and other Texas business leaders who are stepping us to say in a loud and collective voice we don't want the self inflicted economic disaster that is happening in North Carolina to happen in Texas

Moni's Had It Up To Here With White Cisgender Males Playing Trans Women In Hollywood

September will witness television history when the CBS legal drama Doubt debuts with Laverne Cox playing the first main cast transgender character for a scripted network TV series.    The web series Her Story featuring my homegirls Angelica Ross and Jen Richards received an Emmy nomination.

Another reality show series featuring a trans cast in the Whoopi Goldberg produced Strut will debut September 20, and we are waiting to see if I Am Jazz gets renewed for a third season.

Tangerine, a move featuring two trans actresses in Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez garnered attention for the Oscar campaign that was run for its two stars.

The indie movie Boy Meets Girl that's on Netflix right now, featured a trans feminine character named Ricky that surprise, surprise was played by trans actress Michelle Hendley, also got some well deserved buzz and attention

You would think that with all the interest in trans people's lives, that Hollywood would be planning to whet that appetite with movies that have transgender characters being played by trans actors.

But nope, hasn't worked out that way.  

And now after hearing Matt Bomer is going to be the latest white cisgender male to play a transwoman on the silver screen in an attempt to parlay that into an Academy Award nomination a la Jared Leto and Eddie Redmayne, it's time for Hollywood to have several sections of seats at the Rose Bowl about that transphobic practice.

As a matter of fact, here's a Change.org petition calling for the movie Anything to not even be released.

That's how fed up the trans feminine community is about this irritating pattern of seeing white cisgender actors repeatedly get to play trans characters on the silver screen to mine and our community's displeasure, and especially the displeasure of the trans actresses trying to make a living in Hollywood.

Jen Richards calls out the problems with why it's a big deal with cis men playing trans women and I agree with many of the points she made in her Twitter chain that is featured in the Mic post I linked to.

As for cis women playing trans characters, since I was asked about it at Chautauqua, I'll repeat what I said there.  Personally I don't like it simply because I want my trans sisters to have first cracks at those roles, and there is no equity yet in Hollywood in terms of trans actresses getting fair shots to play cis feminine characters.  

But if it's done by the cis actress in question with respect for our lives, I can deal with it.  If I'm forced to choose, I prefer a cis woman playing a trans woman instead of the reprehensible transphobic pattern going on right now.

One example of a cis woman who is respectfully playing a trans woman and nailing it is Karla Mosley, who plays model Maya Avant Forrester on the CBS soap The Bold and the Beautiful.

I've been impressed by how Mosley and the B& B writers have handled the nuances of Maya's character living as a trans woman, and the added bonus of that is it is the first time we have seen it play out in a Black family on network television

As for the tired trope of 'transwomen are men' trope that's a relic of disco-era second wave feminism, past time to give that crap a rest. especially in Hollywood.  Some of you Hollywood peeps need to show up at a trans pageant or a trans convention.  When you do so, you'll note that some of my trans feminine sisters will give Miss Universe a run for her money in the beauty department.

But even having a cis woman playing a trans woman has bumped into at times the entrenched Hollywood transphobia about trans women.

Several years ago Kerry Washington played a trans woman in the 2009 movie Life Is Hot In Cracktown, and she said in an interview in the runup to its release at the time she didn't get the part at first because the director thought she was 'too beautiful to play a transwoman'.

Even some of the cis women actresses playing trans women have had some interesting reactions and revelations about what we deal with while walking in our trans feminine pumps for their roles.

Chloe Sevigny admitted in an interview that when she played Mia in the British series Hit and Miss, because of the prosthetic penis she had to wear for the role, she not only cried every day when she had to put it on, she felt unattractive and questioned her desirability when she was in character.

Kerry Washington said this in an interview about her Marybeth character.

"The biggest thing I learned is that these are individuals who are born as women. They are women but their biology/anatomy has betrayed them in some way and that’s the fundamental thing to understand. I am not playing a man who wants to be a woman, I am playing a woman who has been born with a physical inconsistency so my body doesn’t reflect my emotional truth. That’s key to understanding who this person is."

Too bad the rest of Hollywood doesn't get the fundamental truth about trans women that Kerry Washington so easily grasped.

That being said, I still have a major problem with cisgender males playing trans women in Hollywood when there's a long list of trans women like Alexandra Billings, Trace Lysette. Jamie Clayton, Mya Taylor and countless others ready, willing and able to do the job if given the opportunity to play these roles.

But the key reason I have a problem with it is because as Jen and other trans women across our community have stated, it reinforces the stereotype that 'transwomen are men', and that has negative life or death consequences for us.

The 'that's a man' stereotype repeatedly spat at trans women of all ethnic backgrounds is also negatively affecting the human rights of trans people and our allies around the country as HB2 and the repeal of HERO were Exhibits A and B of.

And with the Republican Party and conservative movement revving up bathroom fears of trans people in order to attack human rights laws and demonize trans people for their own political gain, we trans women of color are paying in blood for that and the desire of Hollywood cisgender men to get an Oscar.

So it's why I have had it up to here with lazy Hollywood directors and casting directors repeatedly putting cis men in drag to play trans women.

Meagan Taylor's Iowa Discrimination Case Settled

You TransGriot readers may recall last July when girl like us Meagan Taylor and a trans friend's stay at a West Des Moines, Iowa Drury Inn on their way to Kansas City for a funeral turned ugly after a transphobic hotel employee called the police with a false claim of prostitution on the premises..

It resulted in Taylor spending 8 days in the Polk County, Iowa jail, missing the funeral, and becoming a real time example of why public accommodations language is critical in any non discrimination ordinance that aims to cover trans people.

Taylor and the ACLU-Iowa sued in November, and I'm pleased to report that with the help of the ACLU, Taylor's case was settled to the mutual satisfaction of the hotel and herself.

"What happened to Meagan was simply unacceptable and un-Iowan," said Rita Bettis, the legal director of the ACLU-Iowa. "Iowans have long valued the importance of treating every person fairly, and Iowa law has expressly protected against this sort of harmful discrimination by businesses against their transgender customers since 2007."

Thank you Meagan for standing up for your human rights, and glad the case was successfully resolved to your satisfaction.

Is Open Trans Hate Becoming A Political Liability?

Another piece of political news I was gleefully doing the happy dance about was hearing about two trans hating Republican politicians in Colorado and South Carolina losing their reelection bids.

Colorado state Rep. and faux faith based transphobe Gordon Klingenschmitt lost his reelection bid for a third term last night in the GOP primary.   He was blown out by his primary challenger Bob Gardner, a former state representative who won with 62% of vote to represent Colorado Springs in the state Senate.

Gardner is considered more moderate than 'Dr. Chaps', who will not be missed in the state senate, especially by the Colorado TBLG community.

He wasn't alone in tasting electoral defeat last night. South Carolina state senator Lee Bright, who sponsored the failed anti-trans legislation in the Palmetto State, lost his bid for a third term as a South Carolina senator.

He lost his runoff race to former state Rep. Scott Talley, a candidate backed by SC Gov. Nikki Haley (R) who once again, was considered more moderate than Bright..

With Sen. Ted Cruz attempting to deploy transphobia in his last ditch effort to keep Donald Trump from becoming the GOP nominee, spectacularly failing in the Indiana primary and dropping out of the presidential race the next day, are the losses of anti-trans politicians a coincidence or a sign that open hatred of transgender people is a political liability?

Both Klingenschmitt and Bright were unpopular and had committed other unforgivable sins in their party besides being unrepentant transphobes that led to their political demise, but I sure hope so.

As I have pointed out, trans people are at least 1% to 3% of our population, and we are just as diverse as the US population.

Some of those adult trans folks are not only Republican, but some of our trans kids have parents who are members of that party like Debi Jackson, Kimberly Shappley and Rep Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) .

Those parents and their allies are increasingly becoming fed up with the demonization of their children and trans family members and seeing member of the party they support propose legislation and dehumanizing policies to make their kids third class citizens and are retaliating at the polls..

We'll find out if the nascent political hypothesis I'm pondering about transphobia for fun and GOP political gain becoming a liability is valid if North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory (R) falls on November 8 to his Democratic gubernatorial challenger Roy Cooper  

Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, Gov. Greg Abbott and AG Ken Paxton, assuming he isn't convicted or in jail by then we won't find out about until they face the voters in 2018.

Hopefully by that time the Texas voter suppression law will be dead.

But I'm hopeful that the pattern of politicians gleefully and openly hating trans people for political gain goes the way of hanging chads on punchcard ballots.

You Mad Because You're Attracted To A Trans Woman?

One of the things I'm more than a little sick of is the meme floating around the Net denying the femininity and humanity of trans feminine women.  My sis Raquel Willis was sick of it too and tweeted that meme to counter a transphobic one that was floating around.

Just an FYI cis boys (and cis girls), trans women are women.  That's a far too simple concept for you to grasp.

As women, we not only come in all shapes, sizes and skin tones, some of us were blessed to have the right combinations of genetic material that also make us attractive to people who like attractive feminine bodies.  Some of u spent the extra cash to surgically enhance our bodies to get them where we wanted them in order to hake ourselves happy.

And if by doing so, we became more aesthetically pleasing to you, that's a bonus.

And if some of you transphobes are bothered by that last statement, too damned bad if you are.  Don't get mad if you saw a pic of a trans woman, you said to yourself "Damn she's fine!" and in response your junk starts stiffening as you ogle her picture.

Yeah, we know it happens.  Some of y'all are hitting those trans porn sites on the regular to see what my pre and non op sisters may or may not have in their panties, so don't even front.

Once again, a trans woman is a woman. If you are attracted to femininity, you are going to react to an attractive trans woman just as you would a cis woman, especially if you aren't prejudiced by knowing the trans woman's background before you scope out her pictures.

And not all of us are over 6 feet tall.  I repeat, just like cis women, we come in all shapes, sizes and body configurations, and I know more than a few trans women who are petite size 8 shoe wearing divas.

I ain't mad or jealous of my trans sisters who were blessed with that combination of traits that make them attractive to the male species.  Neither should you cis he-men be hating on that trans women either to the point that you wish to inflict unhinged levels of violence upon her..

So don't get mad if you're attracted to a trans woman.  If you actually take the time to get to know some of us, you'll find that many of us are smart, sexy, talented and make great friends.

And if you allow yourself to do so, you may even find yourself if you open your heart to doing so, taking her home to meet your family or eventually putting a ring on her finger.

The Transphobes Look Stupid Now

One of the things I've been pondering lately is that iconic photo of an impeccably dressed teenage Elizabeth Eckford, a member of the Little Rock Nine, proudly making her way to her first day of classes at the newly integrated Little Rock Central High through a hostile white mob as a teenage Hazel Bryan Massery screams at her.

We've seen that moment immortalized in an iconic photo that pissed Louis Armstrong off in a epic rant that probably motivated President Dwight Eisenhower to send federal troops to Little Rock.

As for Ms Eckford and Ms Bryan-Massery, they eventually reunited under less contentious circumstances at the 40th anniversary of that event, and in 1999 on the Oprah Winfrey Show stage in 1999 as Hazel Bryan Massery continues her journey to atone for her actions conducted on that September 1957 morning that negatively impacted Elizabeth Eckford's life.

As far as the crowd of people in the top picture in this meme are concerned, so far don't know if they have expressed regrets for their back in the day bigot eruptions..

Speaking of bigot eruptions, we now have predominately conservative white people who have failed to l;earn from past history and are repeating it by trying to oppress another marginalized minority group.

The Republican Party, the Southern Baptists, white fundamentalists and TERFs (trans exclusionary/exterminationalist radical feminists) have united in an Axis of Trans Intolerance with the mission to hate on and attempt to turn their transphobic bigotry into public policy.  

And we won't have to wait forty years to see if the transphobes look stupid, they look, act and sound that way in real time, and their transphobic scribblings, hate speech and actions are being preserved for historical posterity

As we learned from the history of the African-American civil rights movement and the LGBT rights movement, those conservative efforts are doomed to failure since conservatives have been on the wrong side of human rights issues for the last two centuries.

But they still declared World War T on us anyway.

With the trans rights moment increasingly shaping up in the words of Vice President Joe Biden as the civil rights issue of our time, four decades from now your kids, grandkids and great grandkids will be asking you the question when trans human rights are an undeniable fact in ours and their lives where you stood during this early 21st century time they will probably be studying in their history books.

UCLA Bruin Republicans Haley Nieves, Victoria Metzel, Julia Nista and UC-Santa Barbara's Carlos Flores, the transphobic quartet in the bottom half of that meme, like a lot of trans oppression enablers will have to admit (if they ever evolve and are brutally honest with themselves) they were on the transphobic side of the moral arc of the human rights universe.

Their fellow Bruins seem to think so and condemned them for their hate speech as they do what Republicans always do, avoid taking responsibility for their bigoted and transphobic actions.

And ladies, FYI, it is hatred of trans people that is the mental disorder. You may also wish to while you're matriculating on the UCLA campus take a class with Dr Eric Vilain to 'ejumacate' you on the latest science as it pertains to sexual orientation and gender identity.

We'll see if over time Haley, Victoria, Julia, Carlos and other assorted transphobic haters evolve, or are forced to do so if karma kicks them in the behind and blesses them with a transgender child, grandchild or relative to speed up that evolution.

But whether that happens or not, based on their current nekulturny behavior, this transphobic quartet will have to grow up first and realize that they, like all transphobes in this nation and around the world are the people who look stupid now, not the people they sought to demonize

Ho Hum, Another Transphobic Gay White Male Advocating TBLG Separation

Another day, another not so shocking instance of a transphobic white gay male making the case to throw transpeople under the human rights bus.

On the eve of South Dakota governor Dennis Daugaard trying to make up his mind whether he is going to be a trans human rights hero or a trans human rights oppressor, another one of those 'We Want A Divorce From The T******s' pieces popped up this morning in USA Today.

This op-ed was written by Joseph R. Murray, who was a campaign official for Pat Buchanan and would be surprised if he was a member of either GOProud or the Log Cabin Republicans.

Let me get right to the heart of why I and other trans people are tired of white gay men clamoring for separation now that you have accomplished much of your gay and lesbian legislative and societal wish list by simultaneously using the trans community as legislative bargaining chips.

It was trans people, and specifically trans people of color like Marsha P. Johnson who threw the first bricks and shot glasses at Stonewall while you Fire Island gays were cowering in your closets.  And far too often in my nearly two decades of human rights advocacy,it has been primarily white gay men who have been the biggest obstacles to trans human rights progress.

If you think I'm kidding about that, LGBT history has far too many instances of trans folks being thrown under the legislative bus in the name of 'incremental progress' and LG led groups breaking those promises to come back for us.  

And who came up with the bathroom meme?  Before the right wing started using it to attack us and human rights laws in general, it was Rep. Barney Frank with his 'penis in showers' arguments in the late 90's designed to stymie trans inclusion in ENDA.

Which brings me back to talking about this latest example and the repeated ignorant line that trans rights and gay rights are not the same.   While there are some issues that are unique to the trans community. we also identify as gay, bi or lesbian in Trans World in terms of our sexual orientations.

And if our human rights as trans people aren't secured, your hard won human rights gains in Gay World are also less secure.

Now that we have the Republican Party and right wing evangelicals coming out of the closet in terms of working to openly attack our humanity and human rights, now is not the time for advocating kicking the trans community to the curb from a movement we helped build and far too much of our blood has been shed in order to make real the promises of democracy and human rights for trans Americans.

And we're tired of conservative white gay men showing their inner transphobe and making the fatally flawed assumption that your whiteness, your wallets and your eager willingness to sell out the rest of the LGBT community will protect you from the anti-LGBT discrimination that your party wishes to impose on all of us.

Womanhood Does Not Equal To Childbirth Alone

While I was surfing the Net last night ran across a Facebook conversation on a trans girlfriend's page in which a cis woman threw the shady comment that trans women were 'men' because we can't conceive or give birth to children.

Of course y'all knew I couldn't let that stand, and shot a comment back at the transphobic sistah would it be okay for trans women when she hits menopause to call her a man?  I pointed out that since in her mind womanhood =  ability to procreate, once she no longer had that ability to do so for whatever reason, by her own narrow definition, she would be a 'man'. 

As for her reaction to the clapback comment I laid on her, she had none.
One of the things that I and my trans sisters are tired of is TERF's and elements of the cisfeminine community throwing that ignorant insult around to either make themselves feel superior to trans women or piss us off.

Just an FYI for some of you who were asleep in biology class, there are some cis women who can't bear children because they have MRKH Syndrome, a rare condition that affects one in every 5000 women in which they are born without a uterus.

Some may have a uterus, but it doesn't function because of fertility or other issues, or the baby making parts work but the cis woman in question chooses not to have children.

Since 2000, medical science has been perfecting the ability to transplant a uterus. The medical technology for that procedure has advanced to the point in which a cis woman in Sweden who received a uterine transplant in 2014 gave birth to a child via Caesarian section.

Now the technology has also advanced to the point that the donor uterus can not only be grown in the lab with stem cells, the lab grown uterus is less susceptible to rejection by the patient it is implanted in.

So as this uterine transplant procedure becomes routine over the next decade, how long will it be before trans women who wish to have children are able to not only have a uterine transplant, but bear children?   Once that happens, it eliminates the ability for TERF's and cis women to weaponize as an insult they shadily throw at trans women their ability to procreate.

As philosopher Simone de Beauvoir once stated, 'Women are made, not born,'  There are many elements that go into womanhood including living culturally as one, and trans and cis women need to realize we have far more in common than they have differences.

We cis and trans women have to do a better job of building sisterhood between us, and discuss the issues that negatively impact that happening.  This is one of those irritant issues for trans women.

Basing womanhood on ability to procreate is also insulting to cis women who can't bear children for whatever reason or choose not to.,

If you claim that femininity and gender roles are artificial constructs that have nothing to do with the body or other biological characteristics, then that applies to trans women as well.

Jazzmun Speaks About Transphobia

One of the people I finally had the pleasure of meeting in 2015 was Jazzmun.

You have seen this California native on television and the silver screen in numerous roles in movies like The 40 Year Old Virgin and Punks, and the documentary In Full Bloom.  I had a wonderful time getting to know our amazing sister earlier this year in Chicago and I hope 2016 is the year she gets the opportunity to really show Hollywood and the world what she can do as an actor.

This is her speaking on the issue of transphobia, and it's something that we need to leave behind in 2015 as we move to a new year this Friday.

911 Call Proves Taylor Was Arrested For Existing While Trans

I've made the point more than a few times that mismatched ID's and statutory and procedural roadblocks that prevent trans folks from getting identification that matches their present day lives can lead (and far too often does) to anti-trans discrimination.

It appears based on the transcript from the 911 call in the Meagan Taylor case, that is exactly what happened.

Meagan Taylor with the help of the ACLU, has filed a civil rights complaint with the Iowa Civil Rights Commission over an incident in which she and her trans feminine friend Shyann were both transphobically disrespected and falsely profiled back in July after checking in at a Drury Inn in West Des Moines, IA enroute to driving to a funeral in Kansas City.  The manager called the police and it resulted in Taylor spending 8 days in jail  

The 911 call emphatically backs up Taylor's story.

911 Dispatcher: Communications, this is Holly.
Hotel manager: Yeah, hi, Holly, this is Kim, the general manager over at Drury Inn & Suites. And I have somebody that is a little unusual that is checking into the hotel, and I didn’t know if there was any way to possibly run their name or information through the database. They’re dressed as a woman, but it’s a man’s driver’s license.
Dispatcher: Okay, I can send an officer, but I can’t do it over the phone. What’s your address there?
Hotel manager: It’s 5505 Mills Civic Parkway. I’d want it to be discreet though.
Dispatcher: Okay, well, um, I can’t do it on the phone, that’s the only thing. It’s against the law. So I can have someone come over. Where — are they in the lobby there, or?
Hotel manager: They went up to the room and stuff. So I guess if they just kind of discreetly park in the parking lot, instead of, you know, right out front, that would be great.
Dispatcher: Well, I’ll leave that up to them. But, what’s your number phone number, Kim?
Hotel manager: It’s (515) 457-9500.
Dispatcher: Okay, so that’s a female, with a male’s driver’s license.
Hotel manager: There’s two males, but they’re dressed as females. And they have Illinois driver’s license.
Dispatcher: And are they — what are their driver’s licenses? Male or female?
Hotel manager: Male. And I took pictures with my camera, so.
Dispatcher: Okay, so just because they’re dressed as — is it because they’re dressed as females, is that why you’re concerned?
Hotel manager: Um, It’s just, you know, it’s, I guess so. They’re dressed a little bit over the top, too. I just want to make sure they’re not hookers either.
Dispatcher: Okay, gotcha. Okay, ma’am, we’ll have them swing over there.
Hotel manager: Perfect. Thank you.
Dispatcher: Bye bye.
Hotel manager: Bye bye.

Here's hoping that justice is served in Meagan's case.

Mount Horeb, WI Rebukes Transphobes, Schedules Public Readings Of 'I Am Jazz'

After a six year old trans feminine student came out last Monday at Mount Horeb Primary Center, a reading and discussion of Jazz Jennings book I Am Jazz was scheduled as part of her coming out process to help her fellow students understand what was going on.

Unfortunately the Florida based Liberty Counsel, an SPLC certified hate group, stuck their noses in this Wisconsin business  and threatened a lawsuit if the planned reading went forward.

The school canceled the reading, but in response to the right wing bullying, the community of Mount Horeb rebuked the transphobic hatemongers and organized two public readings of I Am Jazz that will take place on Wednesday.

The Mount Horeb High School Straight and Gay Alliance (SAGA) will host one of the public readings at 7:35 AM at the MHHS flagpole.

The SAGA students, according to MHHS teacher Beth Maglio, are staging the reading to "show our support and solidarity with the transgender community, staff and students."

Maglio teaches a high school 'Social Problems' course in which students learn about advocacy and standing up for their beliefs.  When she noticed the SAGA students discussing the cancellation on Facebook, she asked them what they thought they should do about it, and doing a public reading of I Am Jazz was their response.

The second reading was organized by parent Amy Lyle, and it will take place at the Mount Horeb Library from 6:30-8 PM.   Like the reading by the Mount Horeb SAGA group, Lyle organized the library reading as a way to support the trans feminine student an her family.

"We were concerned about how the family would be feeling and we felt  a need to communicate to them that there is support in our community." Lyle said in a Wisconsin State Journal interview. "We want all LGBT youth to feel supported and feel accepted, and to know that Mount Horeb is an accepting place for all."

Thank you Mount Horeb for demonstrating that acceptance and not falling for the anti-trans fear mongering.  hope the trans community in the area will thank these groups by supporting the Wednesday readings.

Just to stick it to the Liberty Counsel, I'd take it a step further and start donating copies of I Am Jazz to local primary school and public libraries around the country.


H/T Lexie Cannes

8 Holiday Comebacks For Shady Transphobic Relatives

For those of my trans family members about to travel home for the holidays, while some of you are unconditionally accepted by your family and looking forward to the opportunity to break bread with them, some of you with more complicated relationships with your blood family are dreading the trip home to break bread with them because of transphobic relatives that may drop by.

You may have had at one time or another while happily getting your grub on at the holiday dinner table some transphobic comments get dropped either in ignorance or microaggressively aimed at you by less than accepting relatives.

Thanks to MTV News, Kat Blaque and  Franchesca Ramsey have come up with eight comeback lines for you to fire back at the transphobes related to you if you find yourself during the holidays getting shadily served by your relatives an unwanted side of transphobia with your holiday meal.

As a TransGriot public service, I'm signal boosting the MTV video so you'll have it in a nice convenient spot to quickly view on your phones, laptops or tablets on the way to dinner with your blood family.




Safe travels to and from your holiday destinations, and here's hoping that your holiday meal is free of transphobic drama.

Change.org Drop The T Petition Needs To Die

In the wake of the Prop 1 loss, I talked about how we have some folks in LG World who are bigger transphobes and oppressors than our right wing friends.

And right on cue, I was advised by a longtime reader about this problematic anti-trans Change.org petition.

This anonymous coward calling themselves Drop The T started a Change.org petition that has at the time I am writing this post 647 signatures.  It seeks to have trans people dropped from the community they helped jump start with their human rights activism.

We are a group of gay/bisexual men and women who have come to the conclusion that the transgender community needs to be disassociated from the larger LGB community; in essence, we ask that organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD, Lambda Legal and media outlets such as The Advocate, Out, Huff Post Gay Voices, etc., stop representing the transgender community as we feel their ideology is not only completely different from that promoted by the LGB community (LGB is about sexual orientation, trans is about gender identity), but is ultimately regressive and actually hostile to the goals of women and gay men.

To the ignorant person who started this petition, that seeks to have the Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD, Lambda Legal, and media outlets like The Advocate, OUT and Huff Po Gay Voices to stop representing the trans community, trans people are also part of the bi, lesbian and gay communities as well as pink, white and blue flag waving members of the trans community.

While you claim to not be advocating intolerance or hatred against transgender people, that is exactly what you are doing by advocating the separation of the trans community from the LGB wing.  I also find it interesting to note that if you actually felt you weren't advocating anti-trans hatred, your azz would have proudly stuck your name on it.

I was tempted to sign it so I could find out who the 647 current  transphobes are who willingly signed it.  But one thing is certain.   This anti-trans Change.org petition needs to die.

Open Letter To My Cis Feminine HS Classmate Colleen

Dear Colleen,
I'm writing this open letter to you since you blocked me for rebutting this transphobic comment you unleashed on your personal Facebook page on Sunday night.

if you were not born a woman, you don't belong in a women's bathroom. i could care less what you identify as

So yeah, not gonna lie, that comment hurt.  It was also hurtful to see many of the cis women that I like, am proud of and admire on one level or another in The Class With Class cosign your transphobia.   But what pissed my unapologetically Black trans behind off was when you exercised your right since it was your page to delete my responses to it.

Fortunately as an internationally recognized award winning trans human rights advocate and writer, I have a big award winning platform I can use to turn this transphobic Facebook lemon of a comment into teachable moment lemonade you denied me the opportunity to do on your page Sunday morning.

I'm also reading your comment several days after becoming the first African-American trans person and the second Texan to be honored by my community with the Virginia Prince Transgender Pioneer Award and several hours before I took three bumpy flights back home to Texas.   I was anxious to get back in the fight to keep the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance I fought hard last year along with other Houstonians to pass and cast my YES vote in favor of Prop 1.

I also read your microaggressive comment after spending an amazing and empowering week here in Provincetown. MA enveloped in love and gratitude by Fantasia Fair attendees, townspeople and others for being my awesome self along with the repeated thanks for being a human rights warrior

Colleen, as you stated in your subsequent e-mail to me this morning, you have every right to express yourself on your Facebook page. You most certainly do.  I also have the reciprocal right and the duty to call your behind out on it and not let the foul stench of transphobic bigotry in my Houston Black community ranks go unchallenged because that has been happening far too much lately.

Black trans people exist in Houston and everywhere else on this planet, we aren't going back in the closet to make you feel better about yourselves and neither are we going to quietly whimper and cry in the corner as our humanity is attacked.

Just in case you and the preachers in the Baptist Ministers Association of Houston and Vicinity didn't notice or keep trying to ignore, I'm Black.  I did not lose my Black Like Me card when I transitioned, nor will I allow you or anyone else to police my femininity simply because you were fortunate enough to have your body and brain line up when you were born two months before me in 1962.

First off, I and my trans sisters have to poop and pee just like any other human beings on the planet. and have been doing so in bathrooms marked female for over 50 years    I and my trans sisters are not 'men' as you disrespectfully put it and increasing medical research will confirm for you that the organ that determines your gender identity and how you express it is between the ears, not your legs,

Medical science and increasing research is also pointing out that gender is not the rigid binary system it was assumed and taught when we were in school, but is a non-binary spectrum.

And if you don't like the fact I will be going to the bathroom marked 'female' at any future JJ class event I have the time to attend and pay my hard earned money to do so, too bad.   BTW, there are trans men who happen to possess the same genitalia you do, but damned sure aren't women.

The bathroom predator meme you and Ben Hall have recited has been widely debunked in Texas and elsewhere , and if any person goes into a bathroom for the purposes of committing a criminal act, they will be prosecuted for it.  The keeping of HERO will not change that as HPD Chief McClellan pointed out.
 
This bathroom predator meme is also derived from the same talking points used by the GOP oppressors you're siding with they aimed at our parents and grandparents to justify Jim Crow segregation.

The sad part Colleen, is that you are a prime example in just how successful the anti-HERO peeps were in getting transphobic attitudes implanted in elements of the cis Black community it will take us years to root out.

And just to make one more point, I don't live as you commented in our private conversation a 'trans life.'   I live a life period that is a much better quality one than when I was miserably walking the halls of JJ and sitting in my Vanguard classes in a body that didn't match the person inside.

It is a life in which I have been to the White House five times. It is a life in which I get to talk to college students here and across the country. It is a life in which I can pick up the phone and call Janet Mock, Laverne Cox, Dr Kortney Ryan Ziegler, Geena Rocero and countless others just to say hello.  It is a life in which Jazz Jennings and her amazing family and the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement are a small sample of the people I have been fortunate to meet in the 21 years and counting I have been me.

It is a life in which my cis and trans friends live around the world, I get to attend conferences, do panel discussions and talk to the attendees as I was doing last week during Fantasia Fair in Massachusetts.

It is a life in which I not only get blessed to make history, it is also one in which I practice the principles of my Christian faith rooted in Kingian love and Black liberation theology to fight and call out oppression wherever and whenever it pops up.

And I'm just not fighting for trans specific human rights issues.  I was speaking out at those hearings at Jones and HISD headquarters when they tried to close JJ.  I spoke at a Trayvon Martin rally on the Houston city hall steps in the wake of his 2013 murder.

And I was there in all three City Council hearings of pro and anti- HERO testimony enduring 10 plus hour days to get a human rights law that protects all Houstonians passed.   It is a law that provides ALL Houstonians in 15 categories a local remedy against discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations we all need that you wish to vote against because of a HERO opposition lie.

As for being blocked from your Facebook page, no big deal to me when I have other people who love, care about and respect the person I am now add me to theirs.

But what I do hope and pray happens for you is evolution and reevaluation of your current anti-trans position.

You don't have to like me.  You don't even have to speak to me ever again in life. Your loss.  You and other misguided folks can exercise your right to vote against the HERO and think you're sticking it to Mayor Parker, the Houston LGBT community, and me.

But before you do that, some food for thought.  54% of the complaints filed with the Houston OIG tasked with investigating HERO complaints before it was unjustly suspended by SCOTX were for RACIAL discrimination, followed by 17% for GENDER discrimination.

And the very people spreading the anti-trans lie at the behest of their Republican masters like Kendall Baker are guilty of sexual harassment or worse.  But those are the ignorant cis masculine folks you are listening to when you have a classmate who actually lives at this very moment as a trans feminine woman, has unapologetically done so for 21 years and who does seminars and panel discussions on these issues.

As the testimony of Judge Alexandra Smoots-Hogan and Dan Scarbrough points out, discrimination is still happening in H-town, and you would be voting to kill the HERO and against your own human rights based on a monstrous lie.

God bless you Colleen, and may you have ever increasing blessings in your life.

Your Classmate,
Monica