Diamond Stylz- Her Comments About Chimamanda Adichie

It's been a while since I've posted one of Diamond's videos, and this one definitely deserves to be signal boosted.

I've said what I've had to say about Chimamanda Adichie, and now Diamond Stylz weighs in on Adichie's problematic comments about trans women

Happy International Women's Day 2017

Got back from ATX after a long day at the SB 6 hearing yesterday and then crashing into bed nanoseconds after I finally hit the house,  but now that I'm awake and in hard solid thinking and writing mode wanted to wish everyone a happy International Women's Day.

On this day I'm thinking about all the amazing women in my life cis and transgender who are amazing leaders in various fields, entrepreneurs, teachers,  moms, aunts, nieces, and just generally bad ass. in every way.  And thanks to the men, cis and trans who ain't 'scurred' to love, support and kick it with us bad ass women

Thank you sisters for being your fabulous selves in every way.   I also thank on this International Women's Day those cis women who are intelligent enough to realize that trans women are women, and just go with it from there in terms of helping us build the relationships and sisterhood we will need to challenge the issues that ail all women together

I'm also thinking about my international sisters who are also facing challenges in their various corners of the world.   I see you, I hear you, and on this day pledge to do what I can to elevate your concerns and get the discussion started with input from you in what actions we can take together to make your lives better.

On this day, it's all about honoring women across the planet for being themselves and working together to make this a better world for all of us to navigate.

Happy International Women's Day 2017!.

My #NotUpForGrabs Story

In the wake of Trump's reprehensible 2005 comments about groping women, I wanted to point out that trans women once our bodies morph to their feminine shape, are subject to the same drama and BS our cis sisters experience, up to and including groping and sexual assault.

In the wake of the Trump comments, women across the country have been telling their stories on social media about the first time they were groped by men.

To point out it happens to trans women as well, I'm sharing my #NotUpForGrabs story

***

I was two years into my gender transition, and  I was on the bus headed to work. Our CAL uniforms at that 1996 time had a walking shorts option, and I was wearing mine on that hot July summer day.

I was asleep against the window of the 65 Bissonnet bus on the first leg of my work commute when I was jolted out of it by a elderly Black male hand feeling the inside of my left thigh. When I woke up I saw him drawing his hand back, so I decided to fake going back to sleep to catch him in the act.

When he thought I was asleep again his hand once again started feeling the inside of my left thigh. He got closer to my crotch before I quickly looked in his direction and once again caught his hand moving back.

So I turned my head once again against the window to feign sleep, and this time he got a surprise when he got to my crotch area.

He was shocked because he was grabbing something he wasn't expecting. I leaned over and whispered in his ear, "Yes, that's 100% beef you're holding. And if you don't get your hands off my crotch you're about to find out how much testosterone I have left in my system when i kick your ass for touching me without my permission."

I was pissed off about it, but I consoled myself on the remaining part of my journey to IAH that it hopefully would make him think twice about doing it to some other woman.

Sadly I have the feeling it probably didn't

Geena Rocero Takes Part In The #GirlsCan Campaign

Y'all know how much I love my modeling sis Geena Rocero, and it was wonderful to see the latest thing she is involved in.    Geena's stylishly dressed self was onstage sitting with other accomplished women discussing the kickoff of a COVERGIRL Cosmetics #GirlsCan campaign videos.

It's a campaign launched in February 2014 by Soledad O'Brien and COVERGIRL that encourages young women to break down social stigmas and challenge themselves to achieve what many would say impossible.

In this photo Geena was sharing the stage with a CEO, a computer science specialist and a rapper who have not only broken down social stigmas and barriers in their own lives, but have excelled in their respective fields.    

Congratulations Geena for being part of this campaign and repping #GirlsLikeUs

Here's Geena's #GirlsCan video with Soledad O'Brien

All The Seven Sisters Will Admit Trans Feminine Students

The Seven Sisters are a group of historical elite women's collegiate institutions in the Northeast US founded between 1837-1889 whose primary was to not only give female students a liberal arts education equivalent to men, but provide opportunities for women in academia. 

The Seven Sisters received that nickname in 1927 and are Barnard College,in New York City; Bryn Mawr College, in suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, MA; Radcliffe College in Cambridge, MA; Smith College in Northampton, MA; Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY; and Wellesley College in Wellesley, NY.

Radcliffe and Vassar were once women only colleges, but became coed institutions.  The remaining Seven Sisters institutions had debate about the issue, but decided to remain women's colleges.

They were founded  in an era in which their mission was to give women a college education, and they have been exceedingly successful at that mission. 

The Seven Sisters count as their alumni such notable people as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Emily Dickinson, Secretary of State Madeline K. Albright, Diane Sawyer, Glenda Hatchett, Debra Martin Chase,Yolanda King, Sen. Tammy Baldwin, Joan Rivers, Cynthia Nixon, Ntozake Shange, Molly Ivins, Gloria Steinem and Katharine Hepburn along with thousands of other alums around the world that include several friends of mine..

But in the late 20th and early 21st century, the question of how to accommodate transgender students has arisen. The  definition of womanhood has evolved, but the admissions policies of the Seven Sisters haven't.   Those hypocritical policies allowed trans men to matriculate on those campuses if they started their transitions after being admitted as female bodied people but barred trans feminine students from even enrolling.

When Calliope Wong was denied admission at Smith, that brought new scrutiny to those Smith policies and triggered reexamination of those policies to ensure they admitted all women who wished to attend.

Mount Holyoke because the first of the Seven Sisters to admit trans feminine students in 2014, and now Barnard College starting this fall will do so.

“As expected, a wide range of passionate and deeply held beliefs were discussed and debated,” Barnard’s president, Debora Spar, and the chair of its board of trustees, Jolyne Caruso-FitzGerald, wrote in a joint June 4 letter to the Barnard community. “But on two main points, the responses were compelling and clear.

“There was no question that Barnard must reaffirm its mission as a college for women. And there was little debate that trans women should be eligible for admission to Barnard.”

Barnard will consider applications from anyone who now “consistently identifies as a woman,” but not those who have transitioned to become men, or those whose gender identity is fluid.

It will be interesting to see what happens now that trans feminine students can matriculate at Barnard and the other Seven Sisters campuses.

Love The Body You're In

How many times have all of us (myself included) over the years said either one or many of the comments echoed in this graphic?   For those of us on the transfeminine end of the spectrum, we have said all of the above and we can add a few more not included in this graphic when our trans going gets rough.   

I wish I'd been born a cis woman. 
I am too tall. 
I hate my double digit shoe size.  
I'm not feminine enough.
I hate being trans*
(Insert other trans themed comment here)

The point I'm making is that we trans women have body image issues just like our cis feminine counterparts.   Some of those body issues are far too common ones expressed by all women cis and trans, while others are exclusively our particular transfeminne cross to bear. 

But the cure for those body image issues is pretty much the same.  It's getting comfortable in your own skin, understanding that gender identity is between your ears, and confidently projecting and expressing to the world acceptance of your gender identity.

It goes a long way toward helping one love the body they are in.  The point also needs to be repeatedly driven home until it becomes a mantra that women come in all shapes, sizes and genitalia configurations.

You are perfectly imperfect, so get busy loving the body you're in.  

Transmisogyny Isn't Just Being Aimed At Black Trans Women Anymore

Y'all know I love my people and my culture across the African Diaspora.  But damn, I wish elements of y'all would grow up and join the 21st century when it comes to gender identity issues.

One of the things I get tired of in the Black community is the at times willful ignorance around gender and gender identity issues.   News flash, they just don't affect trans folks, they affect all of us because everyone has a gender identity and expresses it in different ways.

As I have pointed out before, you get half your genetic material from mommy, half from daddy.  We are all blends and combinations of traits from our parents. 

As medical science is increasingly proving, there's a thin line and series of events that happen during pregnancy that determines whether you come out of mommy's womb in a masculine or feminine body.. 

One of the things I'm also tired of is the scourge of transmisogyny being gleefully spread by the TERF's and clueless cis women for the last 40 years.   While we trans women are the main targets of it, because the right wingers are giving up on their War Against Marriage Equality, they are shifting targets and money to ratchet up the War on Transwomen.

And because they are doing that, their sliming of transwomen will also have collateral damage effects in terms of that transmisogyny backed by right wing money hitting Black cis women as well.  
What a lot of peeps don't realize is that when you transition, in addition to having to deal with sexism, being walking targets for sexual assault, and all the issues that come with walking Planet Earth in a feminine body,  Black trans women also inherit all the baggage that Black cis women have had to deal with for the last four  centuries in terms of the 'unwoman' meme. So what am I talking about when I say the 'unwoman' meme?

If society has set up one group of women (white women) as the paragons of beauty, virtue and fertility for all women to aspire to, then it stands to reason that you also have to come up with a counternarrative of women you point to that are the ones you don't want others to wish to aspire to be and hate on..

And guess what group of women got that narrative assigned to them?   Yep, Black women.

They are called every pejorative you can throw at them. They are called 'ugly', even by fools that are social scientists.  Even their own men, who are supposed to be their defenders and protectors join in the assault on Black womanhood by leveling a weaponized level of the b-word at them courtesy of gangsta rap music. 

And one of the words they'll get to throw at cis Black women as a weaponized insult since the b-word will increasingly come under attack is the t-word.

If you're 4' 11", 5' 11" or 6' 11" with your heels on, you don't have that classic Coke bottle feminine curves, are on the darker end of those 23 shades of Black skin tones, don't possess the sistah booty, are an athlete or don't fit the stereotypical standards of femininity, your femininity will get called into question, especially as a Black woman.

One of the pejoratives they will use while doing so is the t-word.  

And it won't be just Black men engaged in the process of doing so, it will also be Black women policing the femininity of other Black women using 'that's a man' shade.   

If you think I'm kidding about that, check out the Black gossip blogosphere and see the comments that get aimed at Wendy Williams, Fantasia, Brittney Griner and Joseline Hernandez

If Black cis women are getting their femininity disrespected, what hope is there for Black transwomen to even have ours acknowledged by the greater Black community?   Until we girls like us are recognized as the beautiful women we are inside and out, it's going to be difficult to bring down the levels of anti-trans hate violence the transmisogyny fuels inside our community.. 

Bottom line Black community is you need to cease and desist with aiming transmisogyny not only at us, but at Black cis women.   It's not cool, and the off the charts anti-trans violence directed toward is is spilling over to affect the lives of cis Black women .  

     .  

Why This Janet Mock Photo Is More Important Than You Think

My sis Janet Mock has been piling up the frequent flyer miles lately with recent trips from New York to the University of Louisville and The Ohio State University to talk about our issues.  But it's the Ohio State trip that raised my eyebrows, especially after I saw her photo with the legendary bell hooks.

I called Janet Saturday to catch up with her and get her impressions about meeting the iconic Ms. hooks.   She was on the Ohio State University campus as part of a discussion entitled,  "Gender Policing and the Politics of Defining Womanhood." organized by OSU's Office of Diversity and Inclusion and the Multicultural Center

They met in their Columbus hotel before the actual event and Janet gave bell an advance copy of her soon to be released book Redefining Realness. 

Janet was elated to discover the next day that Ms. hooks not only stayed up all night to read it, she was quoting passages from it during their discussion. 

Last night, upon our first meeting, I gave bell my book Redefining Realness, and she surprised me at breakfast this AM by having read the entire book. She actually read passages to the audience! It was a transformative experience for both of us, as black women from different generations and experiences to share stories, insights and thoughts.

One of the things we African-American trans women have needed African American cis women to understand is that trans women are women.  We are just as down for the cause of uplifting Black womanhood if just given the opportunity to do so.  We have also needed cis Black women to understand that some of the issues we Black trans women face walking around in a Black female body are the same cultural and societal issues Black cis women face with the additional challenges of anti-trans discrimination and off the charts violence we have to deal with on top of it.

So yeah, that picture of Janet and bell hooks is a Big Fracking Deal.  So are the Black Trans Revolution Will Not Be Televised (or blogged about) conversations Janet had with her once the just as important one during the OSU event was completed.   

Sistahs, Let's Stop Hatin' On Each Other

Guest post from Robin Bonner

Okay, so I walk in and you see me. You see that my hair is done, my outfit is fierce and I carry myself like a lady. I smile at you but you roll your eyes at me, then, turn your head and whisper something to your girl. Why you hatin'

Okay, so maybe I'm a new employee and this is my first day at work. I almost thought I would be the only sistah in the joint until someone introduced us to each other. I smile and extend my hand, happy to know I won't be here alone. You smile and shake my hand but there's insincerity in your eyes and your hand is limp. You seem guarded.

What's wrong Ma'?

Okay, so maybe my man and I have been having problems. And since you've been my best friend for years I confide in you that I think he's cheating on me. You offer your support. Until I find out that he's been cheating on cheating on me....with you! Why would you hurt me like that?

I found your knife, girl.....it's in my back!

As women we battle daily. We battle keeping our families together, keeping our men happy and maintaining our presence in the workforce. With all that battling going on why in the world should we have to battle each other?

Now I'm not saying every sistah has a knife but some of you do and you know who you are. Why is it that a woman can't get her glamour on without you having a problem? Why can't I get a blonde weave without you having something to say?  If I'm working myself to death in the office trying to climb the corporate ladder why am I suddenly a sellout?  If I leave the room for a minute why can't I trust you around my man? Smiling in my face, but gossiping all my personal business behind my back?

You now have permission to consider yourself trifling!

Inferiority Complex. It makes us feel that in order to be someone special we have to put everyone else beneath us. Are we so insecure in ourselves that we can't feel good until we pull someone else down?

There's something wrong here. We've come to envy those who've accomplished in their lives what we've only dreamed of having for ourselves. And when we fear we will never be able to get what we want - we steal it.

There is a serious self-worth issue going on here. We're in a day and age where we should be encouraging each other and holding each other up.

Sisterhood should not end when Oprah goes off. Truth be told, there will always be someone prettier, sexier, stronger, and smarter. I'm sorry Boo - that's just the way it is. But that's ok.....just do you!

I don't care how good Beyonce' looks - if she walks into the same room I'm in, it doesn't make me any less of the diva I already am! I love admiring hairstyles...but there's no need to be jealous. Honey, nowadays there's enough hair for 'err-body'.

I have goals in life. There are things I strive to attain. Yet I seek out successful sisters because they keep me motivated.

Life is so much more than who looks the best, who dresses the best and who makes more money. So when you see your sister going for hers let it inspire you .... To do you

Sen. Wendy Davis Filibuster For Texas Abortion Rights

For you folks who think progressive Democrats are extinct in Texas, au contraire.   I'm one of them. 

When a draconian unjust anti-abortion bill was proposed by the GOP oppressors, the Texas Democrats in the House and our allies used any means necessary to slow down and stop its progress.

We also got an assist from Gov. Goodhair because he added the abortion issue to the special session agenda late in the session, thus giving the Democrats a way to stop the bill and putting the Teapublicans under time pressure to pass it.

There was the 'people's filibuster' in which 700 opponents signed up to speak against the bill at a Thursday Austin hearing and dragged it out to 3:45 AM Friday morning despite State Affairs committee chair Byron Cook (R) trying to shut it down after midnight.  

The House Democrats showed up late to deny a quorum, used the rule book and basically did everything they could to frustrate and slow down the passage of that unjust bill.  The drama in the house led to the major gaffe by Rep Jodie Laubenberg (R-Parker) not knowing what a rape kit is for   

When it finally passed the House on a 97-33 vote,  Sen Wendy Davis was lying in wait to filibuster it, which started at 11:18 AM CDT this morning. 

And as a TransGriot public service and my effort to #StandWithWendy, I've got the live feed of the filibuster up in this post. 

She has to stay on her feet, stay on the bill topic, take no bathroom or food breaks and keep talking until midnight when the special session ends and killing the bill..




Governor Goodhair can simply call another special session, but the legislative process on that unjust bill has to start all over again.

And I would love to see Sen. Davis run for governor someday or the US Senate and replace either one of the two worthless excuses for senators we have desecrating them now. 

TransGriot Update:  Lt Governor David Dewhurst tried to stop Sen Davis filibuster at 10:03 PM claiming that her discussion of the sonogram bill they passed in 2011 wasn't germane to SB5.  That triggered a procedural floor fight by Democratic senators that lasted until  midnight and the Republicans having to wade through several procedural votes before they could even clear the decks to stage a vote to pass SB 5 which they attempted to do.  But since that SB 5 vote started after midnight, the bill was dead for this special session.
  

Pregnant Turkish Woman With Uterine Transplant Draws Interest In Trans Community

Jazz in a recent interview expressed the hope and desire to become a mother.   If medical events in Turkey continue to be positive, she and other girls like us might get the chance to have her own child with a transplanted womb.

Back in August 2011 doctors successfully transplanted a donor uterus from a deceased woman into now 22 year old Derya Cert, a Turkish woman born without one but who had functioning ovaries.   Being born without a uterus affects one in every 5000 women and until this procedure came along meant that the woman in question would be childless. 

A uterus transplant has been attempted once before by a medical team in Saudi Arabia back in 2000.  The womb came from a live donor but failed after 99 days due to heavy blood clotting and was removed from the patient receiving it.    Medical centers in Sweden and the United States are also working on perfecting uterine transplant medical technology and the medical procedures and drugs necessary to prevent the body from rejecting the transplanted organ.

Cert became the first woman in the world to have a successful transplant from a deceased woman, which raises the hopes of women that are in a similar situation to hers that they could one day undergo the procedure once the techniques are refined and give birth to their own biological children.

On April 1 Cert had an embryo implanted into her developed from one of her own eggs.  It has been confirmed that she is now pregnant    The embryo should it countinue to develop will be delevered by Ceasarean section.

Where the interest comes from in the trans feminine community is on multiple levels.  We know that Lili Elbe's death was caused by a uterine transplant done on her back in 1931 because she wanted to be able to have children. 

There are trans teens like Jazz who would love to someday become mothers, and if this technology is perfected by the time they reach adulthood, we'd have one of those situations we brainstormed about and we saw once upon a time as an impossible dream now becoming a possibility due to modern microsurgical techniques. 

We've long wistfully expressed the sentiment in transworld if only trans men and trans women could swap body parts.  It's becoming increasingly possible that a trans man when having the hysterectomy could designate it be donated to a trans woman for implantation.

But if they did so, this is a situation in which cis privilege would aggressively assert itself.  If that trans man donated their uterus, it would probably get prioritized toward being given to a cis woman without one.   Trans women would be extremely far down the transplant list despite the desires of some of us to be fruitful an multiply.    

That research is also geared at this time toward helping infertile couples, not giving trans women the ability to give birth to biological children of their own

But that shouldn't stop us from doing hard solid thinking about reproductive rights issues, procreation and the potentially game altering way that uterine transplant medical technology that hones its procedures and becomes as common as heart and other organ transplants could one day be applied to trans women. .

The trans community definitely needs to be having these conversations about where we fit in this equation and think about what happens if they perfect uterine transplants.  Could testicular ones be on the horizon next? 

In the interim, cis and trans world will definitely be watching developments in Turkey as Derya Cert's historic pregnancy comes to a hopefully successful conclusion.

Smith College's Trans Hypocrisy

Transteen Calliope Wong being rejected for admission twice by the prestigious all women's* school Smith College located in Northampton, MA has blown up and caused conversation all over the Net.  It wasn't grades or her SAT scores that caused the collegiate application rejections for this high school senior, it was her trans feminine status. 

Smith's admissions office told Wong the FAFSA designation makes her ineligible based on Smith's policy that applications and supporting papers consistently reflect that the student is female.


Wong's paperwork to Smith, including transcripts and references, identifies her as female.  But the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form from the U.S. Department of Education marks her as male.   The state of Connecticut will not allow her to change the gender code on her birth certificate unless she has GRS, and she can't  change the gender code on the FAFSA form until her birth certificate is changed. 

Can you say Catch 22 boys and girls?  As Bet Power wrote in a March 20 Advocate comment thread on this story, "Trans people should not be compelled to undergo sexual reassignment surgery in order to change our gender ID legally to our proper gender! Our bodies are NOT the point. Our MINDS are."  


Needless to say the Whyte Womyn Gone Wyld trans oppressors are jumping up and down about it spouting their usual hateful claptrap.  In order to keep your blood pressure from rising when you read it I won't waste my time or yours linking to their hateosphere to highlight the usual vanillacentirc privileged potpourri of virulent transphobia. 

But the rejection of Wong by the college looks even more hypocritical in light of the fact that Smith College allows transmen to stay on campus if they transition after enrollment.

It's also galling in the fact that Smith has a social justice mission to educate women, but yet continues to deny that trans women are part of that mission and bar access to trans women who are qualified to go there.

"No one should have to go through what I went through, Wong told the NewYork Daily News via email. “Schools should be focused on building our next generation of leaders, not discriminating against them."

Smith has admitted only female students since it opened its doors in 1875 due to the lack of higher education opportunities for women.  Wong, elements of the trans community and our allies believe Smith seized on the FAFSA code as their excuse to deny Wong admission. 




Calliope published an email exchange on her Tumblr with Jon O’Bergh, Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of the US Department of Education, which appears to bolster her's and the trans community's perception of events and challenges Smith's decision.  It stated that “The FAFSA sex reported is only used for Selective Service purposes. Neither FAFSA nor the Department of Education cross-checks sex information with Social Security,”.

“Smith College could choose to accept me or at least process my application, if the administrators wanted to. Smith is not bound by any kind of federal mandate…Thus, Smith College’s decision not to process my application based on my FAFSA sex marker is at Smith’s sole discretion. Their hand was not forced; they chose this. Smith College is fully capable of reviewing my application and making an admissions decision for me based on my credentials. Just—it’s so simple, really. This is obvious discrimination on Smith’s part.”

Of course Smith says otherwise.   Laurie Fenlason, Smith's vice president for public affairs, said the school does not comment on the status or admissibility of individual applicants. But she added, "Every application to Smith is treated on a case-by-case basis, and application materials must reflect female identity."

Fenlason is claiming the school has legal concerns over changing its admissions policies and concerned they could lose federal funding under Title IX, a law that bans sexual discrimination in education but exempts single-sex institutions.

"Title IX is an important factor in our consideration but not the only one," she said. "Smith is focusing on the broader policy challenge of how to be inclusive and supportive of transgender students while being faithful to the mission of a women's college."

Yeah Smith, we get the point that applicants to Smith need to be female bodied and presenting as female.  That's not in dispute.  But for Smith to seize on the FAFSA form as your reason for twice denying Calliope Wong's application makes the school look hypocritical and shady not to mention transphobic.   It's also morally repugnant that Smith appears to be using the groundbreaking Title IX law as your excuse to exclude qualified transwomen admittance into the school.

Smith alums don't like it and neither do we trans women and our allies.  In addition to a supportive photo project that has popped up, a Facebook group has been created called Trans Women Belong At Smith College for supportive alums, trans people and allies who support the admission of trans women on campus.  .  

This issue isn't going away.  Trans people are transitioning as early as ages 5 and 6.   Those trans kids will grow up to become trans teens who one day will matriculate on someone's college campus.  Some of those trans teens may be trans feminine students who could be prospective students wishing to attend your campus one day.

Calliope, transwomen and our allies are determined to continue fighting to ensure those transkids if they have the grades and wish to do so when it's time to select a college have that option to attend a college such as Smith..

So Smith College you have a choice.  Will you willingly work on changing your admissions policies so they aren't blatantly discriminatory to trans feminine students?  Or will you have to create them in the wake of losing a trans discrimination lawsuit?

It's your call.    

Jada Pinkett-Smith Questions Whether White Women Should Grace the Covers of Magazines Aimed at WOC?

Guest post from Renee of Womanist Musings

Like many women of colour I grew up looking at magazine racks with row upon row of White faces staring at me.  I would be lying if I said that it didn't have an impact upon how I perceived my race and gender growing up.  Things have not changed much and now I find myself wondering how this exact same circumstance is going to effect my niece as she grows up.  As a woman of colour, I cannot divorce my race from my gender.  This is why the row upon row of White women staring back at me from magazine racks continues to impact me. Even when I look past it and validate my own self worth, it does not mean that those I interact with see me as an equal, let alone human.  There can be no doubt that Whiteness continues to represent the idealized form of womanhood.  Sojourner Truth's Ain't I a Woman speech, is still highly applicable today.

On her facebook page, Jada Pinkett-Smith wondered if the best path forward to deal with the ongoing equality in magazine covers, is for magazines created for POC to be more open about having White women grace their covers.

There is a question I want to ask today. I'm asking this question in the spirit of thinking outside of the box in order to open doors to new possibilities. These possibilities may be realistic or unrealistic. I also want to make it clear that there is no finger pointing here. I pose this question with the hope that it opens a discussion about how we can build a community for women based upon us all taking a deeper interest in one another. An interest where skin color, culture, and social class does not create barriers in sharing the commonality of being... women. With love and respect to all parties involved, my question is this...if we ask our white sisters, who tend to be the guardians of the covers of mainstream magazines, to consider women of color to grace these covers, should we not offer the same consideration to white women to grace our covers? Should women extend their power to other women simply because they are women? To my women of color, I am clear we must have something of our own, but is it possible to share in the spirit in which we ask our white sisters to share with us? I don't know the answer and would love to hear your thoughts.

What Jada fails to acknowledge is that these magazines were created specifically because of the erasure of our experiences in the mainstream media. While her approach is well intentioned by allowing White women to grace the covers of magazines that have been created for women of colour, it reinforces the idea that there isn't a single place where Whiteness does not belong.  Historically, people of colour have always been asked to turn the other cheek and hold out an olive branch to Whiteness, even as it works daily to ensure that we remain second class citizens.  This olive branch which Jada suggests, will not force Whiteness to be more inclusive; it will simply reduce already limited opportunities for women of colour.

The truth of the matter is that we cannot pretend that we are simply a community of women.  This is the same argument that feminists have used for years, even as they try to erase the effect that racism has on the lives of women of colour.  It is naive to expect the White owned and run media to suddenly capitulate and work towards more inclusive coverage.  No powerful force in history has ever just handed over power, or even consented to share power and why Jada thinks that this would suddenly be the case, if only people of colour would consent to share our spaces is beyond me.

We cannot treat Whiteness as though it is some benign force, when it wages war against people of colour across the globe daily. The sales of the all Black Italian Vogue show that there is a market for inclusion and still yet these magazines refuse to capitulate.  Clearly, maintaining White hegemony is far more important than the bottom line.  Since this is a fact, I must ask, what reasonable sense does it make to open up the few spaces reserved for WOC to White women? If they cannot be motivated by their own financial best interest, why would our sacrifice cause a moral quandary?

What we need to do is act from a position of strength.  It's already bad enough that in many ways businesses that target Black people, have either been bought out by White run companies, or controlled by White management.  How much of our power can we afford to give away?  We have already seen that as a result of these actions nothing has changed. It's a foolish person who keeps repeating the same action, while hoping for a different result.

When integration occurred, the Black community lost institutions that have been our backbone for a very long period of time. We have seen as a result, less cohesion and less forward movement. This is not to say that integration didn't have positive results, but that it came with a cost. It was a compromise that never should have been made because Whiteness has no interest in the dissolution of its social, or institutional power. While I agree that we need new ideas moving forward, making room for White women is a backward step and nothing good can come of it.

Mississippi Tea Klux Klan Head Says Women Shouldn't Vote

As if I needed any more stuff to add to the Mount Everest sized pile of evidence that irrefutably points out there are major differences between the two parties, this Tea Klux Klan member just gave me another one.

Central Mississippi Tea Party president Janis Lane was part of a Jackson Free Press interview RL Nave conducted with her and two other with Tea Klux Klan members.   It was already bad enough until this Phyllis Schafly wannabe dropped this gem in the tail end of it.

Lane: I'm really going to set you back here. Probably the biggest turn we ever made was when the women got the right to vote.

What do you mean?

Lane: Our country might have been better off if it was still just men voting. There is nothing worse than a bunch of mean, hateful women. They are diabolical in how than can skewer a person. I do not see that in men. The whole time I worked, I'd much rather have a male boss than a female boss. Double-minded, you never can trust them.

Because women have the right to vote, I am active, because I want to make sure there is some sanity for women in the political world. It is up to the Christian rednecks and patriots to stand up for our country.

Everyone has the right to vote now that's 18 or over (who is) a legal citizen, and every person that's 18 and over and a legal citizen should be active in local politics so they can make a change locally, make a change on the state level and make a change in Washington, D.C.

God bless America.

Really?   You believe men aren't capable of being diabolical and in your words 'skewering a person'?  What planet do you live on?   Yeah, and I caught the dog whistle to the 'Christian rednecks and patriots.'

Thanks to the 19th Amendment and women voting some sanity reigns in our government  

While we all have the right to vote, and Teapublicans who share her jacked up views aren't suppressing it for non-whites, time we exercise it on November 6 or whenever early voting starts in your locale to ensure that these people don't see another nanosecond in power.

 

Title IX 40th Anniversary

"While the impact of this amendment would be far-reaching, it is not a panacea. It is, however, an important first step in the effort to provide for the women of America something that is rightfully theirs—an equal chance to attend the schools of their choice, to develop the skills they want, and to apply those skills with the knowledge that they will have a fair chance to secure the jobs of their choice with equal pay for equal work."

Sen. Birch Bayh (D-IN), February 28, 1972 Senate floor remarks during the introduction of Title IX


Today is the 40th anniversary of a groundbreaking piece of legislation that opened doors for American women in education and most visibly in sports.  It is the Patsy T. Mink Equality in Education Act, better known as Title XI and it passed Congress and became law 40 years ago today..

No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity   

In the second decade of the 21st century we take it for granted women getting advanced degrees, but in 1972 women only received 9% of all medical degrees earned nationwide, 7% of all law degrees and 25% of all doctoral ones. Title IX was designed to change that.

And it did. By 1994 those numbers exponentially increased to the point that American women received 38% of medical degrees, 43% of law degrees and 44% of all doctoral degrees earned at US collges and universities.
 
But it also had a profound effect on womens sports as we know by the WNBA now being in its 16th year of operation, the women's NCAA tournament getting the love that the guys do (at least from President Obama and ESPN), some of the pre-Olympic sporting spotlight being focused on female athletes and young girls growing up to compete in whatever sport they desire just as their male counterparts do.

Before Title IX, fewer than 300,000 high school girls played sports and there were less than 32,000 female athletes at the collegiate level. By 1974, just two years after the passage of Title IX, the number of high-schoolers participating in sports had skyrocketed to 1.3 million.

By the time I entered high school in 1977, HISD high school sports programs for girls such as basketball, track and volleyball were not only established down to the junior high school level, but starting to get some of the media attention the guys got.

Now there are more than 3 million high school girls who play sports and more that 191,000 females played NCAA sports in 2010-11. And unlike their mothers or grandmothers who often were limited to basketball, track and softball if they did get a chance to play, women now are participating in everything from squash to tennis, skiing, rugby to wrestling.  

Young boys post Title IX have grown up watching their mothers, sisters, female cousins, aunts and in some cases grandmothers competing in or coaching sporting events.  They don't have that distinction in their minds like my parents generation and some in mine did of male and female athletes.   

And yes, even the president's daughters are competing in sports with the proud POTUS and FLOTUS watching them do so.

“Title IX was the second-most important piece of civil rights legislation passed in this country,” said Debbie Yow, athletics director at N.C. State. “Had it not passed, the options and opportunities for women in this country and the world would be vastly different.”


Title IX changed life for American women not only in collegiate and professional sports, but there was a dramatic rise in the numbers of women who received college degrees post Title IX.  

Title IX was also the building block that set the stage for American women to enter corporate boardrooms, the media, politics, science, engineering and technology careers, be college professors,  become entrepreneurs, and even blast off into space  

Happy anniversary to Title IX, a groundbreaking piece of legislation that changed the lives of American women in my lifetime and made our country a better place for 51% per cent of the population.

Rachel Drops Knowledge On 'Meet The Press' Conservafools

Ever since David Gregory took over for the late Tim Russert on NBC's Meet The Press I have refused to watch the show because he leans too much in the conservafool column for my tastes, much less sucks as a moderator.

Rachel Maddow was on yesterday morning's edition of Meet The Press along with Hilary Rosen to confront Alex Casrtellanos and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) who the Republifools have been ttrotting out to spin their abysmal War on Women policies by going into denial about them.

But the best way to beat a conservafool spinning is drop megatons of facts on them.    They tried the tactic of cutting her off while speaking.   Rachel also calls Castellanos out for his misogny

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

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International Women's Day 2012-A Trans Woman's Perspective

Happy International Womens Day 2012!

To mark the 100th anniversary observance of International Women's Day last year I wrote a post about it from a trans perspective.  Now that 366 days have passed since the last observance, what is the state of international trans women since then?

I'm writing this post as an unprecedented assault on the human rights of American women is taking place.  Republican legislators are trying to roll back the entire 20th century in terms of the gains that women have made in reproductive choice and attacking anyone who calls them out on their bull feces.

Hope y'all remember that on November 6.   But back to where I was going with this post, talking about this day from a transwoman's perspective.

I do need to remind y'all that some of the women that we celebrate on International Womens Day are trans.

Since IWD 2011, we have had Poland's Anna Grodzka  elected to her national parliament with a Canadian transwoman contemplating a run as a candidate.   We have had people willing to speak up about how we live our lives and do the education to hearts and minds receptive to doing so.

We transwomen aren't taking any crap anymore from cis people who seem to think we exist to be a punchline for a joke or to bully to make themselves feel more secure in their own gender identities and sexual orientation.

Transwomen in Hong Kong, Malta and the USA are fighting pitched legal battles for their marriage rights.  Others are taking steps in various nations around the globe to have their human rights respected and protected in the laws of their nations.

Some have been successful iwhile other have had legal setbacks, but battle on they have. 

We transwomen also aren't just fighting to secure our own human rights, but are also battling for the human rights of others as well.

Transwomen around the world send the message to friend, frenemy and foe alike that the days of transpeople sitting in silent resignation as our human rights are repeatedly violated and our dignity disrespected are over.   To paraphrase Helen Reddy, we are transwomen, hear us roar.

While there are some positive things happening globally for transwomen, we are still fighting the same struggles to overcome transphobia, anti-trans bigotry, discrimination and violence aimed at our community.

While we are fighting to overcome the transphobic hatred and disinformation aimed at us, we also seek to continue discussions with our cis sisters as to where transwomen fit in the grand scheme of womanhood.  We're more than willing to do our part to help uplift all women cis and trans around the globe if we're respectfully given an opportunity to do so. 
 

So as we celebrate International Womens Day 2012 with our cis sisters, we deeply appreciate the increased willingness of our cis sisters to stand up for our human rights and in some cases work to make it happen.   We realize that we still have a long way to go on many issues before transwomen attain first class citizenship in our various nations and are regarded as nothing less as the women we are and strive to be. 

But we won't stop until it happens.