Kerry Washington

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

Beauty and brains is a combination that the women I admire share, and even if Kerry Washington doesn't think she is, most fellas have a dissenting opinion about it.

The Bronx native graduated from the same New York prep school as Gwyneth Paltrow, and graduated magna cum laude from George Washington University with a degree in theater arts. She has played opposite Oscar winners Forest Whitaker (Last King of Scotland) and Jamie Foxx (Ray) and likes playing challenging roles herself.

She also shares my brother's and my cousin's January 31 birthday.





She's a three time NAACP Image Award winner, and if I wasn't impressed by her intellect before, I was even more so when one night I watched her take on two conservatives on Bill Maher's HBO show and more than hold her own in the debate as an Obama supporter. She's also testified in front of Congress as well on behalf of the Foundation for the Arts.

She's also playing a transwoman in the upcoming movie Life Is Hot In Cracktown, and had LA transactivist Valerie Spencer as an advisor on the film to ensure she was accurately portraying her role.

I'm curious to see how she'll pull it off, and if it's anything like the other projects she's participated in, I shouldn't be disappointed.

Hopefully one day Kerry will be collecting her own Oscar one day instead of playing beside Oscar winners.

Stop Hatin' On Tyra

Y'all know how much I love Tyra Banks. She was one of my role models when I was trying to sort out what type of sistah I wanted to project to the world. Watching her proudly strut the runways in trailblazing fashion back during the 90's also helped me get over my height hangup when I first began my transition.

Lately I've been seeing a lot of haters on The Net posting their snide comments toward my girl. I also noted that one of the main cheerleaders of the 'Hate on Tyra' crowd is none other than Janice Dickinson's silicone enhanced behind.

While you peeps keep swigging Hateraid from 55 gallon drums, peep the SECOND Emmy award she just picked up for The Tyra Banks Show in the 'Best Talk Show' category.



She's made it clear that she is a supporter of the transgender community, she's a proud African-American woman and outside of my mother, sister and various other women in my family she's an excellent person to emulate.

I also love the fact that the more people keep sleeping on this sistah, dissing her, underestimating her intelligence and drive, the higher she rises.

So y'all keep on hatin'. The Inglewood girl is surviving, thriving and well on her way to becoming the 21st century Oprah Winfrey.

Shirley Chisholm's 1972 Presidential Announcement

In honor of the 88th anniversary of the day that women first gained the right to vote, here's some YouTube video of Shirley Chisholm (D-NY) the first African-American woman elected to Congress in 1968.

She was also the first African-American and first woman to run as a major party candidate for president and a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus in 1969. She held her Congressional seat until she retired from Congress in 1982 and was succeeded by Major Owens.

Chisholm's campaign inspired a young African-American volunteer by the name of Barbara Lee to remain active in politics and eventually run for and win a congressional seat herself in California.

Tina...Tina ...Tina

As a card carrying member of the Sea of Red and a former Comets season ticket holder, I love me some Tina Thompson.

She had a relatively quiet opening game for her Saturday with only seven points, so you know I was having a blast watching my girl light up the Chinese women for 27 points on 7 of 8 shooting that jumpstarted a 23-0 USA run. Team USA exceeded what the men did yesterday and beat China 108-63.

The guys beat China and Yao Ming 101-70 in what's being called the most watched basketball game ever played.

The rest of the team shot lights out as well. Candace Parker added 12 points, Sylvia Fowles chipped in 16 as Team USA shot 57 percent from the field and outrebounded the Chinese 47-30. They are now 2-0 in their pool and extended their Olympic winning streak to 27 games.

My favorite tennis playing siblings are also doing well so far. Venus, the 2000 Sydney Games singles and doubles gold medallist won her opening Olympic match versus Switzerland's Timea Bacsinszky 6-3, 6-2. Baby Sis concluded her rain delayed beatdown of Olga Govortsova of Belarus, 6-3, 6-1 in her frist singles match of the Beijing games as well. The Williams sisters are also competing in doubles as well. James Blake is the only American left on the men's singles side after defeating Aussie Chris Guccione 6-3, 7-6 (7-3) in his opening Olympic singles match.

The summer Olympics come only come once every four years, and you can't beat it for excitement and drama.

Donna Rose

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


I have much love, respect and admiration for Donna Rose. But she probably didn't feel the love when our paths first crossed back at the 2004 Southern Comfort Conference in Atlanta.

I was there to facilitate a Transsistahs-Transbrothers event we held during the 2004 SCC and Donna was conducting a seminar. It had just been recently announced that she was joining the HRC board and Monica Helms and Angela Brightfeather caught me after the TSTB event concluded. They asked me to tag along with them to check out the seminar she was conducting.

I remember one of the things I said to her that day was, "Donna, we are proud of you and the fact that one of our own is finally getting on that board. But what I and others who have been burned by HRC want to know is WHEN they screw us again, will you stand with them or with your people?"

Our paths crossed again at the 2006 IFGE Conference in Philadelphia, but that was the year I won my Trinity and after that speech I gave, I had half the convention either congratulating me or wanting to talk to me about various subjects. I also bounced away from the hotel not long after the awards luncheon concluded to hang out with my homegirls Dionne Stallworth and Jordana LeSesne to not only tour the city, but meet with local GLBT leaders in Philly. We didn't actually see each other again until Dawn, AC and I were checking out of the hotel on Sunday morning before we hit the road for the drive back to Louisville and I was engrossed in a conversation with Alison Laing.

Donna's answered the question I asked in 2004 and then some. She's been a sterling example of the ethically moral leadership that Dawn and I have talked about that our community needs. She's a Trinity Award winner like myself, blogger and eloquent spokesperson for our community. While she was on the HRC board she pushed transgender employment issues along with Jamison Green and tried to get them to see that adding transgender people to ENDA helped them as well to no avail. She even took time out of her busy schedule to compete in the 2006 Gay Games held in Chicago and win a gold medal in wrestling.

She's continuing to speak and be a postive role model for all of us and I'm looking forward to the New England Trans Pride March in Northampton, MA this June and having a chance to finally sit down with her, have a substinative chat and extend an invitation for her to hang out with us in the Bluegrass state.

Happy 80th Birthday Sister Maya!

In addition to the sad anniversary we'll be commemorating in terms of the 40th anniversary of Dr. King's assasination, we do have a happy event to celebrate.

Today is Dr. Maya Angelou's 80th birthday.

She's one of my favorite poets, writers and motivational speakers. One of my early posts on TransGriot was taking one of her poems, Phenomenal Woman and rewriting it with a transgender spin.

It has become my mantra and one of the motivating tools I use to inspire me to reach higher and be the best person I can be. It's ironic and kind of neat that a poem I wrote to motivate myself is also becoming an inspiration to some of my transsistahs as well. I'm honored that my homegirl Tona Brown loves this poem and will be using her considerable musical talents to set that piece to music. I'm looking forward to hearing her perform it one day.

But back to Sister Maya. She's not only an inspiration to me, but also Oprah and many women across ethnic backgrounds. Happy 80th birthday to one phenomenal woman!

Susan L. Taylor

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

One of the first things I did after starting my transition was subscribe to Essence magazine. It was not only cool seeing my name appear on the mailing label for that iconic magazine every month when it hit my mailbox, I got to read the inspiring words of Susan L. Taylor as well.

This woman I admire is responsible for getting me through many of my early doubt filled days that I could actually become the Phenomenal Transwoman I presently am, thanks to her In The Spirit column. She's written three books— In the Spirit: The Inspirational Writings of Susan L. Taylor, Lessons in Living and Confirmation, and The Spiritual Wisdom that has Shaped Our Lives with a fourth coming out soon.

In April 1994 I picked up her In the Spirit book. I not only have it in a prominent position on my bookshelf, I still refer to it from time to time as well. I also had the sincere pleasure of meeting her back in the late 90's on a flight I was working.

So who is Susan L. Taylor? Like the magazine, she's an icon in the African-American community. She has been at Essence magazine for 37 years. She rose from a freelance fashion and beauty writer in 1971 to serve as editor-in-chief of the magazine from 1981-2000, is the author of three books, in 1999 became the first African-American woman to win the magazine industry's highest honor, the Henry Johnson Fisher Award from the Magazine Publishers of America and was in 2002 inducted into the American Society of Magazine Editors' Hall of Fame. In 2006 she became the first recepient of the NAACP President's Award as well.

Taylor has been married for 15 years to writer Khephra Burns. Shana-Nequai, the daughter she raised is now married and runs her own beauty products company in Atlanta. But if you listen to Ms. Taylor, she'll tell you that she's struggled and worked tirelessly for everything she's accomplished, including being comfortable in that flawless skin of hers.

She started her award winning Essence tenure after previously owning and founding her own company, Nequai Cosmetics. She was without a college degree, newly divorced and a mother of a toddler at the time. But she persevered, rose through the ranks, earned a degree from Fordham University, and stepped into magazine giant Marcia Ann Gillespie's pumps when she took over as Essence's editor-in chief.

Under Taylor's guiding hand, Essence blossomed into a market-leading publication and franchise that includes an awards program, a New Orleans-based music festival, a seminar series, book publishing division and an initiative called Essence Cares, which has a goal of trying to get African American adults to mentor black youth.

Cynthia Griffin wrote in her Our Weekly.com article on Ms. Taylor that she's not only a nurturer, just like her In The Spirit column, she noted the long list of Essence editor's who have published their own books.

In a 2004 Black Issues Book Review article she explained why.

". . . and over the years, I’ve worked with brilliant women who also care deeply about black people and have more to say than they can communicate in Essence. My commitment is to try as best I can to support anyone trying to advance our people.

I also believe in wealth building for black folks, and no Essence editor’s salary is enough for her to live comfortably ever after, so I feel it’s important for editors to take the advice we give to our readers—have a gig on the side and invest. I may have occasionally gotten flak for giving editors the time and space needed to write books, but in the end, everybody’s happy because Essence editors’ books also promote the magazine.”

She's retiring this month from the magazine she helmed to work on other projects that include the post-Katrina recovery of New Orleans. But thanks to hers and other's efforts, the next generation of African-American girls and women will still have the opportunity of looking at a rack filled with a plethora of women's magzines and seeing one that intelligently reflects their beauty, their heritage, their issues and their culture.

Rep. Julia Carson Passes Away

I was saddened to learn about the death of US Rep. Julia Carson (D-IN) to lung cancer on December 15 at age 69. There was a lively memorial service for her in the Indiana Statehouse Rotunda Friday night and Rep. Carson's funeral was yesterday.




When I moved to Da Ville in 2001, because the congressional rep for this city at the time was the odious Anne Northup (R-KY) and I'd never been without Congressional Black Caucus representation in my life since the group's founding in 1971, I considered Julia Carson my congresswoman even though her district was up I-65 from me in Indianapolis. I shared that tidbit with the staffers in her office when I visited it during the lobby days I participated in back in May.

While I'm happy that John Yarmuth (D-KY) now ably represents the KY 3rd District and I've talked to him on a few occasions about various issues, I still considered Julia my rep as well. I found out later during my visit that she was actually born in Louisville, but grew up in Indy.



She was a remarkable and trailblazing woman that touched many people's lives. As I mentioned, she was born in Louisville in 1938 to an unwed teenage mother, but rose from those circumstances to get elected in 1972 to the Indiana state house. She ran in two dozen local, state and congressional races without ever suffering a defeat.

She became the first Black and first woman to represent Indianapolis and Indiana's 7th District in Congress when she won the first of her seven congressional terms in 1994. She'd announced that she wouldn't run again after she revealed that she had cancer.

"Not only did she make it, but she reached back to help other people to achieve and other people to make it, too," said Jeffrey Johnson, pastor of Eastern Star Church, where her four-hour long funeral service was held and attended by 2000 people. "She was for the poor, she was for the seniors, she was for our soldiers, she was for our country and she was for the community that she came out of."




The funeral and state house remembrance attendees came from all over the country and included some of her CBC colleagues, Rev. Jesse Jackson. Sr.,Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels (R-IN), Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) and Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), Former Indiana Sen. Birch Bayh (D-IN), former Indianapolis mayor Bart Peterson and longtime friend and former Gary, IN mayor Richard Hatcher.

The people of Indianapolis, the state of Indiana and the nation lost a giant woman on December 15. Whoever succeeds her in that seat will have a giant pair of shoes to fill. This country would be a much better place if we had more public servants and members of Congress like her. She will definitely be missed.

Monica Barros-Greene

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

One of the Dallas metro area's most esteemed restauranteurs is Monica Barros-Greene.

She owns a well known and highly regarded restaurant in Big D called Monica’s Aca y Alla in the Deep Ellum section of Dallas that innovatively mixes Mexico City and Tex-Mex cuisine.

Oh, did I forget to mention that in 2005 Monica narrowly lost a bid to become the first transgender person elected to the Dallas City Council? She ran for the open District 2 seat on the Dallas City Council, was endorsed by the Dallas Morning News but lost in a runoff to longtime activist Pauline Medrano.

Monica was born in Mexico City. When she was 17, on a whim she decided to travel with two friends to Indiana to win the heart of a Mexican girl who lived there.

At the border, the road trip with her friends couldn't continue because they didn't have the proper visas, so Monica proceeded without them. She arrived in Dallas a little after midnight on January 5, 1974.

But Monica had been struggling with her gender identity, trying on dresses behind locked doors. Her first impression of Dallas at the time was that she wasn't going to stay long. "But life has turns you don't necessarily see ahead," she said.

Her father wanted her to attend business school, but she wasn't amenable to the idea. He issued her an ultimatum: either attend business school or support yourself. She chose the latter, taking a job as a busboy.

After an initial rocky start, she quickly moved up the restaurant ranks and eventually became a manager for some of the hottest restaurants in town. She got married and divorced twice and had two kids with her first wife. In the midst of her second marriage she opened Eduardo's Aca y Calla in February 1992.

Her father died a year later back in Mexico, and that summer she shared her gender secret with her family. On March 4, 1994 she called the restaurant staff together for a meeting and announced that the restaurant would undergo a name change.

The restaurant wasn't the only place undergoing a change. Monica arrived wearing a black plaid miniskirt, white jacket and heels. She left the restaurant management duties to her second wife and moved in with an accountant who was also undergoing a gender change.

The roommate died two days after a successful GRS procedure, but that didn't dampen Monica's determination to undergo what she calls a 'reincarnation in the same lifetime'. With a passport in her new name in hand, on May 7, 1995 she boarded a plane to Brussels, Belgium and had GRS.

Monica has continued to have success post-surgery. She is a member of the international culinary organization Les Dames D'Escoffier and has received the Dallas Leadership Award. In 2002 and 2004 she was recognized by her Dallas area peers as 'Best Restaurateur', was a wine consultant for the Julius Schepps Company and has served as a judge for the Lone Star State Wine Competition and the Dallas Morning News Wine Tasting Competition.

Her narrow loss in the 2005 city council runoff garnered her recognition amongst the Dallas political ranks as a rising star. Former Dallas mayor Laura Miller said about her, "Monica is bright, she is gutsy, she is independent. All very important traits that few politicians at City Hall possess."

Monica has worn many hats in her lifetime. She's familiar with the plight of immigrants. She's a staple of the Dallas hospitality industry. Her story resonates with a wide spectrum of potential voters, GLBT and non-GLBT. And as she proudly points out, "I have become part of the fiber of this community."

Here's hoping that one day she'll add Council member to that list of accomplishments as well.


TransGriot Note: Thanks to KarenSerenity.com for some of the info I used to compile this post.

Lynnell Stephani Long

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

Lynnell Stephani Long is a trailblazer in her own right. I first became aware of her during the summer of 1999 when I was part of the activist team putting together NTAC. She was 'ejumacating' us on intersex issues. I traded e-mail with her for a while before we lost contact with each other.

She's a voice for a community that many African-Americans aren't aware exists, the intersex one.

According to ISNA, the Intersex Society of North America, about one in every 1500 children is born with genitalia ambiguous enough to call in a sex differentiation specialist.

Lynnell was one of those kids. She was born in Chicago on June 11, 1963 with ambiguous genitalia. After being surgically altered by doctors she was raised male most of her life. She went through major drama in her life until she saw ISNA's Cheryl Chase on TV in 1997 and discovered she was intersex. She eventually met Cheryl Chase at a 1999 GenderPac Lobby Day (how did I miss meeting both of them?) and began working with the organization by telling her story about growing up Black and intersex.

As any transperson can tell you, being outside the norms in the Black community can be a pain in the ass, and being an intersex child wasn't easy for her. As she wrote in a 2003 BLACKlines article,

"Growing up in an all-Black community and going to an all-Black high school was rough as hell. While a lot of the other boys walked around nude, proud of the size of their penis, I tried my best to hide. Hiding didn’t stop the questions though. Questions like, “Why is your penis so small? Why do you have breasts? What are you, a boy or a girl?”

She also states that African-Americans need to educate themselves on intersex issues. "There isn’t any one thing an organization like ISNA can do to help the Black community, except make sure information is available. I strongly believe people of color need to educate themselves."

"We need to step outside myths and stereotypes. If a child is born with a small penis, that child may be Intersex. If a girl is born with an enlarged clitoris, chances are she is Intersex. There is nothing to be ashamed about. There is no reason to hide the child or try to get that child fixed unless the child needs medical treatment."

She does her part to educate us by writing columns for various magazines, her website, appearing twice on the Montel Williams Show, doing performance art, and telling her story. She's a member of ISNA's Speakers Bureau and has spoken in the Chicago area and across the United States and Canada on ending intersex genital mutilation.

Lynnell's doing her part to let us know that intersex issues aren't just a 'white thang'.

Carole Simpson

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


“Everyone has something to contribute in the newsroom, but not if they have no place at the table, or no place at the rim."

"To have a real democracy we need a multitude of voices. If the news historically and currently is exclusively held by a select group of people, the discussion is exclusive. If the news does not reflect the nation’s diversity in on-air staff, in story selection, in management, in employment, we are doomed.”

Carole Simpson, in remarks to newsroom executives at an RTNDF luncheon

I'm a person who craves news and information. You'll find this news junkie the majority of the time when I'm not reading the newspaper or on the Net watching C-SPAN, CNN, ABC, the BBC and my local news.


One of the major reasons I used to watch ABC World News Sunday was to see Emmy Award winner and ABC's Washington senior correspondent Carole Simpson use her distinctive voice to deliver it.

The University of Michigan journalism graduate started her broadcast career as a reporter and weekend anchor at WMAQ-TV in her hometown of Chicago. Before joining NBC News in 1974, she was a journalism instructor at Northwestern University's Medill School. She also spent two years as a journalism instructor and director of the information bureau at Tuskegee University.

At NBC News she covered the US Congress and then vice president George HW Bush before joining ABC News in 1982. She accompanied him on his foreign and domestic trips and covered Bush during the 1988 presidential campaign. In 1990 she anchored the ABC live coverage of Nelson Mandela's release from his 27 year imprisonment. She's also done live coverage of major breaking stories such as the Persian Gulf War, the Tiananmen Square massacre, the fall of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, and the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill hearings. She was moderator for the second 1992 Presidential debate in Richmond, VA.

From 1988-2004 she was the anchor for ABC World News Tonight-Sunday, and her reports also appeared on '20/20'. 'Good Morning America', 'Nightline' and other ABC programs. She was also a substitute anchor for the late Peter Jennings on World News Tonight.

In addition to the Emmy, Simpson garnered numerous journalism awards including a 1992 Journalist of the Year one from the National Association of Black Journalists. She has also established numerous college scholarships for women and minorities pursuing careers in broadcast journalism at her alma mater. The RTNDF named its scholarship in her honor. She retired from ABC News just last year.

Not long after she stepped down from her anchor position Simpson embarked on what she says "may potentially be the most important job of my career." She was named a News Ambassador by ABC and given the task of speaking to high school students across the country.

She engages students in discussions about the value of reading, listening and watching the news, the role of a free press in a democratic society, and the importance of becoming an informed citizen in an America facing serious challenges at home and abroad.

She has her work cut out for her in this assignment. But if anyone can pull it off, I have no doubts that Carole Simpson will get her message across to at least some of the kids she talks to. She may even inspire a few of them to follow in her legendary journalistic footsteps.

One person who did follow in her footsteps is her daughter, Dr. Mallika Marshall. She's a practicing physician who is also the medical correspondent for CBS affiliate WBZ-TV in Boston. She appears every Saturday on the CBS 'Early Show,'

One of the other things I love about Carole is that she's never been shy to speak truth to power or to speak her mind. It's one of her values that I diligently work on incorporating in my column and on this blog.

If I get to even half of the level of excellence that Carole Simpson achieved over her career, I'd consider it an honor.

Cookie LaCook RIP

I was saddened to hear that legendary Houston drag performer and emcee Cookie LaCook, AKA 'The Mouth of the South', passed away on July 27.

The Louisiana born Cookie moved to Houston and became an icon in the Houston SGL community. She was a former 1987 Miss Gay Texas USofA at Large who was always happy to do a benefit show, host an event, visit the sick or attend a funeral for someone whose loved ones had disowned them. She even hosted a Juneteenth event in Dallas. And she always loved her f*****g great audiences.

I got to chat with her numerous times over the years whenever I visited Studio 13/Rascals or happened to occasionally bump into her when I was downtown. The one conversation I had with Cookie that's the most memorable one happened at a short lived GLBT club called Uptown/Downtown in the early 90s. She introduced me to her favorite drink, the amaretto sour while we had a long free ranging conversation over a wide range of subjects. (y'all know how much I love intelligent conversation). After that night anytime I showed up at Rascals and she spotted me in the crowd I was incorporated into her monologue as 'Soul Sister Number 1'.

As someone noted on the Houston Splash website, a f*****g great audience has a f*****g great host. Cookie was all that and three bags of chips. Best of all, she was a first class human being as well.

It's gonna be strange next May if I'm lucky enough to attend Houston Splash and not see Cookie's regal presence keeping things moving and making us laugh.

Rest in peace, Cookie. You've earned it.

Nichelle Nichols

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

photos-Nichelle Nichols in 2004, as Lt Uhura, the EBONY magazine cover, Dr. Mae Jemison, Whoopi Goldberg as Guinan, the christening of the Space Shuttle Enterprise

Nichelle Nichols in addition to being a trailblazing actress has been an inspiration for people of my generation and subsequent ones to not only follow their dreams, but reach for the stars.

She was born in Robbins, IL as Grace Nichols on December 28, 1932, just outside Chicago. She toured the Unites States, Canada and Europe with the Lionel Hampton and Duke Ellington bands. She appeared in a Chicago production of Carmen Jones before she moved west and had her fateful meeting with Gene Roddenberry. Before casting her as Lt. Nyota Upenda Uhura on Star Trek, she'd worked as a guest actress on Roddenberry's first television series The Lieutenant.

As we Trekkies all know, it was Star Trek that made her a historical icon, launched her life into a new direction and sharpened her interest in space exploration.

But she almost quit the show. Frustrated during the first season over what she perceived as playing just a glorified telephone operator, she was ready to hang up the Starfleet uniform until she ran into Dr. Martin Luther King at a civil rights rally. Dr. King was a huge Star Trek fan and urged her not to quit. He pointed out to her that she was the first African-American actress who was on a network TV show playing a non-stereotypical role.

According to Nichols, he told her "Don't you know you have the first non-stereotypical role in television? For the first time the world will see us as we should be seen -- people of quality in the future. You created a role with dignity and beauty and grace and intelligence. You're not just a role model for our children, but for people who don't look like us to see us for the first time as equals."

She stayed and later made television history with the first interracial kiss on TV with costar William Shatner. She costarred in the six subsequent Star Trek movies and eventually her character was promoted to Commander.

Once Star Trek ended, she worked for NASA in the 70's and early 80's as part of a program to not only encourage African-American youth to consider math and science careers but recruit women and minority astronauts for NASA. She recruited Dr. Sally K. Ride, US Air Force Col. Guion Bluford (the first African-American in space), Dr. Judith Resnik and Dr. Ron McNair, who flew missions before both were killed in the 1986 Challenger disaster. The essay contest I won in 8th grade in which I earned a trip to NASA was part of that program.

And like other issues that Dr. King was prescient on, he was on target in terms of Nichols being a role model to African-American children and others. She was the inspiration for another Chicago girl who grew up to become the first African-American woman in space, Dr. Mae C. Jemison. She also inspired a New York City girl by the name of Caryn Elaine Johnson to shoot for an entertainment career after seeing her on Star Trek. Caryn Elaine Johnson would not only accomplish that goal, but would have a recurring role herself on Star Trek-The Next Generation as Guinan.

Nichols is considered part of the NASA family. She flew aboard NASA's C-141 Astronomy Observatory on its eight hour high altitude mission to analyze the atmospheres of Mars and Saturn. She was present along with her Star Trek castmates when the first space shuttle Enterprise was christened and was a guest of the Jet Propulsion Lab when Viking 1 soft landed on Mars on July 17, 1976. She has written two science-fiction novels about a tough black woman in space, Saturn's Child and its sequel, Saturna's Quest and is working on a third. She has since the mid 80's sat on the Board of Governors for the National Space Society.

So if you haven't had the pleasure of meeting her like I did back in the mid 70's, check out this multi-talented and passionate ambassador for space exploration.

Live long and prosper, Nichelle.

Constable May Walker

I remember when May Walker became the first Black female officer in the Houston Police Department. It was back in 1975 and HPD still had a negative shoot first and ask questions later reputation in our community.

As May patrolled our neighborhoods and became a well known and comforting presence as a African-American officer in the Houston Police Department, she quickly earned a nickname among myself and the kids in our South Park neighborhood. We called her Christie Love, after the short lived ABC-TV show about ironically, the first female African-American officer to join a big city police force. The other irony was that the late Teresa Graves, who played Christie Love was from Houston as well.

For 24 years as a HPD officer May not only won over people in our community, she fought the entrenched racism and good-ole-boy culture within HPD as well. She opened doors that African-American youth in my neighborhood and beyond would follow. The current multi-ethnic professional force that Houston enjoys is largely because of her efforts. She also earned the respect and admiration of her law enforement peers.

But she was just getting started in terms of making more history. In November 2004 she ran for Harris County Precinct 7 Constable and won with 82% of the vote. When she was sworn in on January 2, 2005 she became the first female constable in Harris County history.

In addition to Constable Walker's long and distinguished law enforcement career, she's an author and is active in a long list of organizations in the Houston area.

Congratulations to Constable Walker and may 'Christie Love' continue to blaze trails for my generation and others to follow.

Janelle Commissiong

On this date 30 years ago I was in front of the TV one hot summer night watching the Miss Universe Pageant. Little did I know that I was watching history being made by a girl from Trinidad.

During this 26th Miss Universe pageant being held in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, then 24 year old Janelle Commissiong became the first woman of African descent to break through and win the Miss Universe crown. Even though she was from Trinidad, we African-Americans were just as proud of her as the Trinis, who issued three postage stamps in her honor and gave her the Trinity Cross, Trinidad's highest honor in celebration of her victory. Janelle ended up gracing the cover of Jet magazine and we felt connected to her not only because of our shared African ancestry but because she spent ten years living in New York before she returned home in 1976.

When her reign was over she moved on with her life. She got married to Brian Bowen, the founder of Bowen Marine, a successful Trinidad based boat building business. When he was killed in a November 1989 accident she took over running the business. Bowen Marine sells them not only across the Caribbean, but in the US and Europe as well. She started a cosmetics line in 1997 and has gotten married a second time to publishing executive Alwin Chow. She is stepmother to a 13 year old daughter named Sasha.

It took another twenty-one years before another Trini, statuesque Wendy Fitzwilliam won Miss Universe and became the third Black woman to win the crown. Janelle Commissiong Bowen Chow has not only become more beautiful over time, but has reinforced the old saying that true beauty is inside, not outside.

Elizabeth Kizito

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

I was introduced to her cookies a year before I actually met Elizabeth Kizito in 2001. She lived two doors down from our old house and one of the things I hated about our move to the new one is that every Christmas we used to get a cookie basket from her. We used to fight over who would get to devour the snickerdoodles.

Elizabeth Namusoke Kizito-Bartlett parlayed her father's cookie recipe and business acumen learned as a little girl in Uganda and turned it into a legendary Louisville institution.

She's known as 'The Cookie Lady' in Louisville and you'll see her delectable treats in stores all over Louisville. You can also get them at her shop on Bardstown Road which also has African arts and crafts for sale. She sells her treats at various Louisville events, several local Louisville outlets and at Louisville Bats games by using a skill she learned back in Uganda. She will walk through the crowd balancing a basket on her head filled to the rim with her cookies.

At 17 she was sent by her father, who owned a bakery business in her homeland to attend school. She moved to Louisville in 1978 and worked as a waitress at a local restaurant. She baked cookies for her co-workers and after the restaurant closed down, she decided to try to make a living baking her cookies.

Without the benefit of savings or a bank loan she started Kizito's Cookies in 1987 and worked hard to build it up. She had no store or collateral when she started and needed a co-signer just to get a six month lease on a bakery. Only after much hard work and five years of building the business did she finally gain the ability to get a bank loan to expand her business.

Her work resulted in her being named Women's Business Owner of the Year by Louisville's chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners. She has been approached by numerous investors about franchising her business. In addition to the 10 types of cookies and seven types of muffins she bakes, she has brownies and biscotti for sale as well.

See y'all later. I'm gonna head out the door and grab a few of her cookies to eat with my Blue Bell homemade vanilla ice cream.

BernNadette Stanis

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

Back in 1974 a spin off show from Maude debuted on CBS called Good Times. The iconic show chronicled the trials, travails and sometimes comic pitfalls of the Evans family, who were trying to earn their piece of the American Dream while dealing with the reality of living in the Cabrini-Green projects of Chicago.

This was the first television show show to focus on an African-American lower income family. One of the things that made it entertaining to watch for many teenaged boys of my generation besides Jimmie Walker was BernNadette Stanis, who played Thelma Evans.

She was the Brooklyn born sistah that African-American boys of my generation drooled over. In my case I wanted to BE her, but that's a story for another time. ;)

We got to see for the first time on American television a young, smart, proud, strong-willed, beautiful and sexy sister who had dreams bigger than the environment she lived in. She was a good girl, which only enhanced the enjoyment that the fellas got when they saw her in her tastefully sexy clothes she got to wear as Thelma or showed off her graceful dance moves honed as a Julliard graduate.

The former Miss Black New York was our first sex symbol. She showed mainstream America that the stereotypes of folks that lived in the ghetto were wrong. There were beautiful peeps there in body, mind and spirit who had hopes, dreams, aspirations, integrity and class. We had the pleasure of seeing her on the small screen for seven seasons until Good Times went off the air in 1979.

BernNadette has done guest spots on various TV shows, most recently on Girlfriends in an episode when she played Maya's cousin. She was set up on a date with William, who blathered on and on in her presence about his teenage crush on Thelma.

She eventually got married and became the mother of two daughters. She is a writer and producer, and has acted in some stage plays, most notably one called Whatever Happened to Black Love that she also produced with her husband Kevin Fontana. She also had a role in He Say...She Say But What Does God Say? She's written a book on relationships called Situations 101 that she is currently promoting.

And yes fellas, BernNadette's still as beautiful, smart and sexy as she was in 1974.

Happy Birthday Monica!

Just in case you're wondering, I celebrated my birthday a month ago. The Monica I'm wishing a Happy Birthday to is one who is no longer with us, but is still very special to me in my heart.

Her name is Monica Monet Holloway-Barrett and she was born on this date in 1962 in Mobile, AL.

So how did a native Houstonian get to meet this Alabama girl? Her grandparents lived in Houston and during her spring break in 1980 she traveled to H-town to visit them. HISD was still in session at the time and my classmate and her friend Virginia Tucker lived next door to Monica's grandparents.

Virginia invited Monica to hang out with her for the day at Jones and Virginia was in my trig class. When she and Monica walked through the door she had my undivided attention that day instead of my math teacher Mr. Stevenson.

Intelligent people tend to gravitate to other intelligent people and I picked up on that. My 'twin' liked smart sistahs. Monica was about 5'6", had a flawless light caramel colored skin tone and shoulder length jet black hair framing her face.

We exchanged contact data and I was even more smitten with her after I discovered her birthday was June 4, which also happens to be my late Grandmother Tama's birthday as well.

Through the summer of 1980 we traded letters but as the demands of my census enumerator job increased and her summer classes at Rensselear Polytechnic Institute demanded more of her attention we gradually lost contact with each other. When my own freshman year at UH approached and subsequently my transgender issues demanded resolution during the spring semester she faded from my memory for a while.

Over the years I wondered what happened to the girl I met during the last months of my senior year and developed a serious crush on. One day I was flipping through the Houston Chronicle and stumbled across her wedding announcement that her grandparents had placed.

It caught me up on her life up until that time. She'd graduated from Duke in 1984, pledged AKA and had become a doctor after graduating from medical school in 1990. I also discovered that she was now living in Houston. I'd seen the announcement too late to attend the wedding, was a little jealous of the guy she was marrying, but at the same time was pleased to know that things were going well for Monica. I was also happy to know that she'd found someone special to spend the rest of her life with.

In April 1998 I was once again perusing the Houston Chronicle when I was shocked to see something I didn't expect.

Monica's obituary

It didn't mention how she died, but Dr. Monica Holloway-Barrett had become nonetheless an Ivy Beyond The Wall. That obituary also updated me on the final chapter of her life before she was called home April 9. She'd given birth to a daughter in 1993, was teaching classes at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and was involved in a long list of local organizations at the point of her untimely passing.

I cried for a few moments after reading it and realizing that she was only 35 when she died. Once again I was seeing it too late to attend and pay my last respects and I was a little upset about that. It's also ironic and frustrating to me that our paths could have crossed before she passed away. One of the schools that we used to do Trans 101 seminars at was Baylor College of Medicine and the first one I was part of took place in February 1998.

I took some time to remember the beautiful girl I met in my math class that day who'd become an outstanding woman. I clipped that obituary, scanned the picture (which is on my other computer, darn it) and stored it in my high school memory book.

She's one of the reasons that when it came time for me to choose a feminine name when I transitioned in 1994, I chose Monica.

My name today is a reminder to myself on multiple levels. I wanted to honor her memory, so I strive to carry myself in the same way that I remember her as a classy, beautiful and intelligent woman. It's also a reminder to myself to make every moment count and make quality use of the time that you're allotted.

Unlike the Cylons of Battlestar Galactica, we only get one shot at living our lives and you don't get multiple practice runs until it's perfect.

Happy birthday, Monica. Say hello to my grandmother Tama for me.