“Because apologizing and moving on doesn’t make the world a better place for people who are gay or people who are transgender. Being an ally does.”-Don Lemon
From time to time I have put Don Lemon on blast on these electronic pages for fumbling on trans issues. But since the Orange Fool has been in power, he has been on fire in terms of calling crap out on a wide range of subjects.
Now, he is taking on Kevin Hart's recent appearance on Ellen and Hart's comments that he wasn't to move on from the conversation.
Naw player, those of us in Black Trans, Bi and SGL World would submit that we have yet to even have this family discussion about transphobia and homophobia in Black World, and it needs to happen now.
Black trans people definitely wish to have this family conversation because toxic masculinity and toxic transphobia are killing us. |
As you longtime TransGriot readers are aware of, I unequivocally and enthusiastically support our trans siblings serving in the armed forces of our nation.
There are 15,500 trans people serving around the globe in our military and their right to mdo so is under attack by the Trump misadministration.
Thanks to our allies, SPART*A and the federal judiciary, the Trump trans military ban is NOT in effect and trans troops can keep serving our country.
If you haven't heard of SPART*A , it's the nonpartisan TBLGQ organization that supports active duty military personnel, their spouses, or anyone in our community who has proudly served in our armed forces.
SPART*A’s mission is to advocate for our actively serving transgender military members, veterans, and their families. SPART*A provides our members with a peer support network, assistance in navigating military transgender policy and health care, and educational resources for their professional development. SPART*A actively coordinates and collaborates with other LGBT advocacy organizations to promote an inclusive military environment that values the contributions of all Americans with the desire to serve.
Here's a video from our trans service members and their spouses thanking you for your support of them.
Know trans service members, I will also continue to have your back on the home front.
Every Christmas Queen Elizabeth II gives across The Pond what is called 'The Queen's Speech' on television that's similar to our State of the Union one that happens in January.
The more formal name for it is the Royal Christmas Message, and it started with King George V in 1932. It is now broadcast on radio and television in Britain and across the Commonwealth. In the US, you can see it on C-SPAN because they usually broadcast it or if you live in a US state along the Canadian border since the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) also televises it..
In the nearly 66 years that Queen Elizabeth II has sat on the British throne, she has not said one word or syllable concerning TBLGQ rights issues in the UK.
Trans advocate Munroe Bergdorf, frustrated by another speech in which the Queen failed to mention her British TBLGQ subjects, took to social media to give her own alternative one called 'A Qween's Speech'
She also made it clear she wasn't trying to deliberately pick a fight with the Queen.
“I’m not trying to cause beef with the Queen, but it’s very frustrating to see institutions of high influence glaze over the issues and sprinkle sugar on things when things aren’t going very well. Bergdorf said." "To not even mention racism, sexually transmitted diseases, gender-based discrimination, or the rise in hate crimes since Brexit invalidates the experiences of so many people," she added.
Bergdorf started by talking about education. “Let’s start with education, please think of the children. Take a moment to think about the young ones who still don’t see any representation or relatable role models in history, on television, or in classrooms."
She also talked about some of the progress being made, and laid out ways in which Britain can improve when it comes to TBLGQ rights issues.
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Here's the video of Bergdorf's speech.
There's a new digital show called Fearless hosted by model Ashley Graham that focuses on people who do not fit the status quo.
This particular episode just in time for Trans Awareness Week features a trans trans man named Rickey who is a year into his physical transition, and says has never met another trans person.
That ended when Laverne Cox walked out to join them on set. Hope you have the tissues handy.
The race between Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum (D) and Rep. Ron DeSantis (R) has been ugly from the start, with DeSantis wasting no time going low and deploying racist tactics against the first African American nominee for governor of the Sunshine State.
Well, it shouldn't be a surprise since DeSantis has been swimming in the white supremacist sewers.
Early voting is now taking place in Florida as you read this, so if you live in the Sunshine State, handle you business. If you didn't see the October 21 debate that was broadcast on CNN, as a TransGriot public service, here's the debate video
The Black population of Texas as of the 2010 US Census was 12%. We have one of the most exciting US Senate races going on in over 20 years, and this Vice News/HBO discussion speaks to the national interest in this election.
But do you notice the one thing missing in this discussion of 16 people who are either Beto or Cruz supporters? Out of the 16 people in this room, NONE of them are African American Texans.
What's up with that?
It's already problematic enough that partisan Republican pollster Frank Luntz is conducting this Vice News/HBO discussion. But the glaring absence of Black Texans makes this even more problematic.
How did Vice News NOT catch this? Never mind, I answered my own question.
Here's the video if you think I'm kidding about this.
Tony Perkins is head of the SPLC-certified evilgelical (I refuse to call then Christians) hate group the Family Research Council.
They are unabashed supporters of Trump and his racist agenda. They are also transphobic haters that have been orchestrating along with Mike Pence many of the Trump misadministration anti-trans policies being thankfully (for now) stymied in court.
Perkins was on C-SPAN recently, and got his behind handed to him on live television by many of the folks who called in to that show.
One particular call came from an self identified ex-evangelical from North Carolina who shamed the conservadevil by calling him and evilgelicals out for basically becoming a cult that worships Trump.
TX Senator Sylvia Garcia is taking on the transphobic Phillip Aronoff in their US House 29 district race. Sen, Garcia and Aronoff recently confronted each other during a September 25 debate at the University of Houston Downtown campus.
TX House District 29 is a predominately Latinx district in Houston that was created in 1990 specifically to produce a Latinx congressmember. While it has been safely in Democratic hands since its creation, it has never had a Latinx person represent it.
The TX-29 district has been since 1992 represented by Gene Green, and Rep Green announced that he is retiring. That opened up a mad scramble for this seat on the Democratic side that grew to seven candidates.
Sen. Sylvia Garcia handily won the Democratic nomination for the seat, taking 63% of the vote while doing so. She narrowly missed in 1992 making it to the Democratic Party primary runoff for the seat when it was created,
But back to the debate, moderated by ABC13 anchor Mayra Moreno. Many of the questions asked of the candidates were from UHD students.
As a TransGriot public service for all folks inside and outside of Texas who may not have gotten the chance to see the debate between incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz (R) and Rep. Beto O' Rourke (D), here's the video of their first encounter from the campus of Southern Methodist University in Dallas and hosted bu SMU, the Dallas Morning News and KXAS 5 TV.
The debate was held in front of a raucous crowd of supporters for both candidates .
This is the first of three debates. The next two will take place on September 30 at the University of Houston and October 16 in San Antonio.
The debate, like the one scheduled for UH, will be focused on domestic policy. The San Antonio one will be a mix of domestic and foreign policy
If you're trans, Muslim and live in Malaysia, it means that you are not only dealing with the anti-trans hatred aimed at you, you also have to contend with the religious police messing with you as well.
You also have to contend with religious authorities trying to forcibly detransition you back to living in a gender role you are not comfortable in
This situation our trans Muslim fam face in Malaysia is probably the wet dream of our Talabaptist right wing fundies to replicate the religious persecution of trans Americans here.
Here is a documentary discussing the fight for trans Malaysian Muslims to not only have their human rights they deserve, but just have the ability to happily live their lives.
"We are Americans. We are supposed to stand up to bullies, not follow them. We are supposed to stand up to discrimination. And we sure as heck supposed to stand up clearly and unequivocally to Nazi sympathizers. How hard can that be, saying that Nazis are bad?" -Barack Obama
Former president Barack Obama in a fiery speech, called out the Trump misadministration during a speech at the University of Illinois and urged people to get out and vote this November.
"Aretha's singing challenged the dangling discords of hate and lies and racism and injustice. Her singing was revelation and was revolution."
-Rev Dr. William J. Barber II
There has been a lot of online chatter about how problematic the nine hour homegoing service of the Queen of Soul was.
Soe peeps justifiable are dragging the Rev Jasper Williams for filth for his jacked up single mother bashing eulogy. He forgot that the woman he was eulogizing was a single mother.
Fox Noise also stuck their vanillacentric privileged noses in this mess by cosigning Williams' sermon as 'a message the Black community needed to hear" while disingenuously whining that the funeral was 'too political' when Dolt 45 got called out. .
Others are complaining about Bishop Charles Ellis III, the pastor who was inappropriately laying a hand on Ariana Grande's boobie while telling a cringe worthy joke.
Black church folk, it is NOT appropriate for your pastor (or the deacons) to fondle any woman while she is standing in the pulpit or anywhere on church property.
And how she is dressed is no justification for excusing the pastor's reprehensible behavior
Speaking of how people were dressed, you have people who are castigating and defending on the Net the black dress that Ariana Grande wore for her performance during the funeral.
No matter what your opinion, she did look good in it.
Some peeps are arguing that the twentysomething singer should have 'dressed appropriately' for the occasion. Others are pissed that slut shaming comments are being made about her by folks trying to defend Bishop Ellis.
Don't you just love Black funerals?
Anyway, for those of you like myself who didn't get to see it in its entirety, here's the video of it.
Vice News has been doing some excellent trans themed stories lately. As y'all know I made an appearance in the Trans in Texas segment that aired last week .
Now they talk to 12 year old Maddison Rose and her family. She's the trans feminine child at the center of the controversy she didn't cause in Achille, OK that has gone national.
The bullying from transphobic adults that approached hate crime levels is a major reason why Maddie and her family will be Houstonians soon. We're ready to welcome Maddie and her family here to H-town with open arms.
I do television interviews from time to time, and sometimes they end up on the cutting room floor instead of the final broadcast show.
I'd done an interview during this year's BTAC conference, but once I took off the mic I forgot about it until my Facebook page started blowing up Friday night with people seeing the short segment that I'd taped.
The sixth season of Vice on HBO/recently broadcast an episode entitled Trans In Texas that features Kai and Kimberly Shappley, Dee Dee Watters, Dana Hinton and some GLAAD Media Award winning blogger y'all know
It's only 17 minutes, and they barely scratched the surface on some of the issues we're dealing with in the Lone Star State
The video was finally released on their YouTube channel, so I got to see it. Here's the video for you
Sir Lady Java was one of our trans pioneers and elders who worked with Lena Horne, Redd Foxx and others as the premiere female illusionist of the 60s and 70's.
Lady Java is still with is. She's living in Los Angeles these days and now doing interviews talking about her life and 'her people' as she calls girls like us.
As many of you TransGriot readers are aware of, I'm a huge supporter of trans actors playing trans people in film and television roles, and trans writers predominately writing those characters.
The success of the FX TV show POSE speaks to what can happen when you let trans people tell their stories. It also speaks to the authenticity that shines through it when you cast trans actors to play trans roles.
FYI Hollywood, trans actors can also play cis roles. How about hiring some of my Hollywood trans peeps to do just that?
Variety magazine, the media publication of record for Hollowood, just released a Transgender In Hollywood issue.
It also conducted this first ever Transgender Artists Roundtable discussion that included Laverne Cox, Alexandra Billings, Trace Lysette, Brian Michael, Chaz Bono, and Jen Richards.
You long time TransGriot reader know that over the history of this blog I've had my issues at times with CNN's Don Lemon. But since Trump's election he has been calling out Dolt 45 on the regular and tellin' it like it T-I-S is.
After Dolt 45 made more racist tweets attacking him and Lebron James, Lemon took some time on his CNN show to put Dumb Donald on blast.
"The young, black athletes are not disrespecting America or the military by taking a knee during the anthem. They are respecting the best thing about America. It’s a dog whistle to the racists among us to say otherwise.
They, and all of us, should protest how black Americans are treated in this country. And if you don’t think white privilege is a fact, you don’t understand America."
-Dale Hansen, September 2017
As someone who lives on the southern end of I-45 and unapologetically roots for every Houston sports team, I've always had my hate on for the Dallas Cowchips. One NFL game I'll definitely be watching in this 2018 season is on October 7 when my beloved Texans play the Cowchips in a nationally televised game at NRG Stadium
It's not about as Cowchip fans like to crow Houston envy for their Super Bowl titles they won in the last century, but their faith based arrogance in running with the 'America's Team' moniker bestowed upon them by NFL Films.
And Jerry Jones has given me more ammo to despise them with.
Despite the fact the NFL Players Association and the NFL are currently in talks to come to a happy medium on the anthem protests, Jones decided to kiss Trump's anus and declare along with his son Stephen Jones that Cowboys players would not be allowed to sit in the locker room during the anthem. He also declared that any Cowboys player who protests during the anthem will be fined or cut from his team.
But Jerry loves America so much that when the anthem was played before a Cowchip practice last Saturday, he left his cap on. When told about his mistake, he left it on anyway.
Thirty years ago today Ann Richards, who was our state treasurer at the time, gave the keynote address to the Democratic National Convention delegates gathered in Atlanta.
Two years later, she would become the second female governor of Texas.
She is still dearly missed by all of us who loved having her in the Governor's Mansion and in Texas Democratic Party circles.
It would be interesting to see what Governor Ann would say about the current occupant of the White House if she were still with us.
But enjoy this respite from the Trump madness and check out this video of her 1988 keynote speech.
