Jayne Kennedy

Another installment in my ongoing series of articles on transgender and non-transgender women who have qualities that I admire.

When I was struggling with my gender issues in the late 70's. I was lamenting the last minute teen growth spurt that pushed my height over six feet. I was mumbling to myself that 'real women aren't this tall.'

Enter 5 foot 10 inch Jayne Kennedy. She was the first sistah to win the Miss Ohio title in 1970. In the Miss USA Pageant that year she was one of the ten semifinalists for the crown. She was a Jet Beauty pinup and made a few movies with her then-hubby Leon Isaac Kennedy before landing the job that would change the way that NFL pregame shows were done.

Not long after she was hired to do CBS NFL pregame show 'The NFL Today' in 1978, we had the honor of having Jayne visit my high school during my senior year in February 1980. I was already a big fan of hers prior to this trip and her performance on the NFL Today not only opened doors for her but for a host of other women sportscasters such as Robin Roberts and Pam Oliver at FOX.

Jayne has since gotten remarried, become a born again Christian and is a devoted mother. She's still as gorgeous as ever. She's one of the women that helped me see the point that Dr. Collier Cole drove home to me when I was first beginning my transition.

Women come in all shapes and sizes.

May 2006 TransGriot Column

I'll Always Love My Mama
Copyright 2006, THE LETTER


There’s a classic 1973 Intruders song that expresses how I feel about my mother back in H-Town. The chorus goes:

I’ll always love my mama
She’s my favorite girl.
I’ll always love my mama
She brought me in this world

Yep, Mable Roberts did a fantastic job of raising me and my brothers and sisters. She did it while juggling a teaching career, service to her church and to her sorority. I deeply appreciated the times she had to play mom and dad to us when my father was out of town. I was the one she used to roust out of bed on Saturday mornings to play chauffeur to various shopping malls.

Truth is, I enjoyed those trips as much as she and my grandmothers because of the quality time I got to spend with them.

One of the many things that I admire about my mother is her intelligence. She graduated cum laude with a degree in history while caring for a husband, a two year old toddler (the future TransGriot) and my newborn brother. When she started working on her masters she was pregnant with my sister. Mom is an even-tempered woman who instilled in my siblings and me our love of books, history, education and politics and is to this day a voracious reader with wide ranging tastes.

I marvel at Mom’s sense of style and how she did it on a budget. I jokingly call her ‘Imelda Marcos’ because of her sizable shoe collection. My sister Latoya gleefully gets to take advantage of it because they wear the same size. Speaking of sizes, she still cuts a shapely figure in a size 8 dress. (I’m jealous since I wear a size 16) She downplays her beauty, but I remember one Parent-Teacher conference day in fifth grade when she visited my classroom. My fifth grade teacher was a stunning looking sistah herself, but all the fellas said to me after she left “Your mama is finer than Ms. Ware.”

While mom and I are fairly close because I was her first born child, there are days when I wish I could’ve been her daughter from birth. I would’ve rather been in my sister’s position. While she was in college Latoya joined my mother’s sorority and Mom got the opportunity to pin her when she went over. I had to settle for the frustration while I was at UH of enviously watching the smartly dressed pledges walk around campus in skirted suits and heels in the sorority’s colors or being on the periphery when I DJed her sorority chapter’s Christmas party.

My Aunt Gwen along with a host of other relatives always told me that temperament wise I was more like her. That’s become more pronounced as I’ve gotten older. I inherited Mom’s sense of style and sense of humor. I can wield sarcasm with Ninja like precision just like her. In 1997 I ate Christmas dinner with the family for the first time since I transitioned. When I walked into the door of my grandmother’s house with my then roommate Vanity, mom quipped as she hugged me, “People always said when you were growing up that you looked like me. Now you REALLY look like me.” But don’t sleep on her. She’s tough as nails when she has to be. People that tried to take her kindness for weakness found out quickly that she wasn’t to be played with.

I have been living as a woman for over a decade now and I hope and pray that I am living up to the sterling example of African-American womanhood my mother embodies.

I love you Mom. Happy Mother’s Day.

Tommie Ross

There have been many women, trans and non trans who have inspired and motivated me at various times during my life long journey to become a Phenomenal Transwoman.

From time to time I'll talk about them and the qualities that they possess that I admired so much I've incorporatd them into my own unique expression of womanhood.

I'll start this series off with Tommie Ross.

I was first made aware of her existence courtesy of a 1980 article in the Houston Defender, one of the local African-American newspapers. The article mentioned that she performed at a club in Montrose but declined to give its name or location. I had a pretty good idea where it was and the club's name. Studio 13 on Westheimer Rd.

I rolled up to Studio 13 on a Sunday show night and watched Tommie perform for the first time. Houston during that early 80's time period before the initial wave of HIV/AIDS deaths decimated their ranks was a hotbed of female impersonation. We had Naomi Sims gearing up to win Miss Gay America at the time and Hot Chocolate was about to leave Houston for the bright lights of Las Vegas.

I marveled at Tommie's on stage elegant moves which extended to the way she carried herself off stage. She was cordial to her fans and always presented herself in a regal but not arrogant demeanor. I got the chance to talk to her at a short lived Black Houston GLBT club called Uptown-Downtown in 1990. I discovered that she's not only quite intelligent but plays a mean game of pool. She'd heard about me and seen me around the clubs. Tommie is a person that I always wanted to explore the possibilty of forming a friendship with but my increasing involvement with state and national level transgender politics and her pageant schedule kept that from happening to my chagrin.

She's living in the Memphis, TN area now and has gone on to capture the Miss Continental title in addition to countless others in her legendary career.

Thanks to that Defender article, I got the opportunity to discover a window to the African-American transgender community, meet a quality person and began traveling that winding road that led to me becoming a Phenomenal Transwoman in my own right.

Coretta Scott King-My Comments

Like many people who revere and fight for freedom and social justice I was saddened by the January 31 death of Coretta Scott King. She has been one of my role models in terms of becoming the type of woman that I wish to be.

I've been amused by the whining coming from our conservative friends recently that the funeral was 'too political' and it wasn't an appropriate venue for criticizing George W. Bush.

Au contraire. How quickly y'all forgot about Ronald Reagan's funeral.

Dr. King and Coretta Scott King were POLITICAL people. Therefore, it is appropriate in terms of commenting on the totality of their lives to refer to political themes when making remarks to honor them. Rev. Joseph Lowery, President Clinton, Mayor Shirley Franklin, and President Carter were saying publicly things about Junior that many African-Americans say about him in conversations with each other. If that bothers you conservatives, too bad. Must hurt to realize that you peeps are on the wrong side of history yet again and it shows your utter lack of understanding of African-American culture and traditions. It is also arrogant and presumptuous of people who fought (and still are fighting) tooth and nail to derail America's progress toward fulfilling The Dream to tell us how to mourn the passing of the 'Queen of the Civil Rights movement.'

I'm really getting sick of this conservative BS that there should be NO criticism of the president, when these SAME conservatives several years ago called President Clinton everything but a child of God. They even stooped as low as to attack their then-teenaged daughter Chelsea. If George got out amongst the 90% percent of African-Americans who DIDN'T vote for him in either election he'd hear those comments more often.

But back to Coretta Scott King. Talk about strong Black women. The definition for it should have her picture posted next to it. She simply oozed class, style, beauty and intelligence.

I wanna be just like her when I grow up.