GLAAD Spotlights The EBONY.com Article

I met GLAAD's Communities of African Descent Field Strategist Kimberley McLeod during last year's Out On The Hill conference in Washington D.C.

I was talking to her at one point about my frustrations about the lack of coverage of African-American transpeople in the media and my desire to get the conversation started in our iconic media outlets like EBONY, Jet and ESSENCE like it was starting to happen for Black SGL people 

I guess Kimberley remembered that conversation because she asked me to write a piece for GLAAD during Black History Month that became the genesis for the article that appeared at EBONY.com   

She was also very happy to learn about EBONY.com publishing my piece on their website and let the folks at GLAAD.com know about it.

Thanks Kimberley for the invitation to write a Black History Month post, and hope I and other Black trans writers get to tell our stories in more of our iconic magazines and news outlets so that we can continue to break down the disinformation and outright lies circulating about trans people in elements of the African-American community.

And thanks to everyone who continues to show me love on that piece.

Dreams Can Come True For Transpeople, Too

Today I've had one of my dreams as a writer come to pass that when I started my transition back in 1994, seemed to be about as farfetched from happening as the LA Clippers becoming an NBA title contender.

The Clippers are on pace to make the playoffs and I got published at EBONY.com

When I started seriously focusing on my writing in 2001, it has been a dream to one day I would have something I wrote published by two of the iconic magazines in our community, ESSENCE and EBONY.

It's the online version to be sure, but still, it's EBONY magazine and I'm ecstatic it happened.      

A lot of hard work, long hours and effort went into getting myself ready and in position to take advantage of my break when it happened.  Even so I was still stunned when I received the e-mail letting me know they were interested in the piece.

So thanks to everyone who has been blowing up my Twitter feed, Facebook page and e-mail inbox congratulating me for making this happen.   All I did was pick up the torch Roberta Angela Dee carried for our community until she passed on in 2002.  

I'm trying to do my part to live up to her legacy and the standard she set in being an African-American trans writer while adding my distinctive touches to it and expanding the boundaries of what we talk about so that we simply are discussed as writers. 

Janey Mock will and is already exceeding what I do as the editor of People.com   I know when I can no longer carry that torch, we'll be in good hands

One of my writing dreams has come true (take that haters and KMBA) so now I get to move on to the next writing dreams and goals I have in mind.   I'd love to see my writing eventually appear in print in addition to other online sites.  

But today is also a concrete example to my transpeeps that your dreams don't have to die just because you transitioned.   With some determined effort, they can, do and will come true as well.

A Look At African-American Trans Traliblazers

TransGriot Note: Hey TransGriot readers, while I'm not writing at the Huffington Post (yet), this is about a big an honor as you can get as an African-American writer.   I've been published by the iconic EBONY magazine.  It's their online version, but still, we're talking about EBONY. 
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Though February has passed, there is never a bad time to get reacquainted with African American history makers- the events that shaped our lives, our heroes and “sheroes.” Over the last few years we've been paying closer attention to the accomplishments of Black gay and lesbian people such as Bayard Rustin. But there is another group of African Americans who have shaped our people's history: transgender people.
Transgender African Americans have been active contributors to history, even though they have often been overlooked.

Their presence and contributions are not a recent development, but can be traced back through the centuries. Consider the story of Lucy Hicks Anderson, who was born in 1886 in Waddy, KY. She made it quite clear that she was a girl and insisted on wearing dresses to school.  The term “transgender” didn't exist at that time, but the doctor who examined her advised Lucy's mother to raise her as a girl.
As an adult, Lucy eventually got married and divorced twice while en route to Ventura, CA via Pecos, TX.  Her second marriage-to soldier Reuben Anderson in 1944-introduced legal complications that led the Ventura County district attorney to prosecute her for perjury after it was discovered that she was born biologically male.  He asserted that Anderson committed perjury when she signed the marriage license application and swore that there were 'no legal objections' to the marriage. Lucy expressed her conviction in her gender identity to reporters during the trial. "I defy any doctor in the world to prove that I am not a woman,” Anderson said. “I have lived, dressed, acted just what I am, a woman.”  The jury convicted her of the perjury charge, but the judge sentenced her to ten years’ probation rather than send her to prison.

In 1953, while much of America focused on the story of Christine Jorgensen (a White woman who was the first person widely known to have undergone sex reassignment surgery) JET Magazine readers learned about Carlett Brown's attempt to become the "First Negro Sex Change." Transgender African Americans actively participated in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, incorporating tactics from those efforts into their own work toward liberation. The gender non-conforming African American youth in Philadelphia, PA who kick-started the Dewey's Lunch Counter Sit In and Protest in April and May of 1965 were a prime example of such involvement. It was the first protest specifically organized around and concerning trans issues, and preceded both the 1966 Compton's Cafeteria Riots and the better known 1969 Stonewall Riots in which African American transgender advocates such as Miss Major and Marsha P. Johnson (pictured) were involved.

In 1967, civil rights and transgender advocate Lady Java stood up against discrimination and struck the blows that eventually brought down the odious codes used by the LAPD to harass her and other LGBT people in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, the Johns Hopkins Gender Program in Baltimore opened its doors and welcomed one of its first patients, an African-American transwoman named Avon Wilson. In the 70s, 80s and 90s, Black transpeople played key roles in the emerging trans advocacy movement.  A. Dionne Stallworth helped organize and sign the incorporation papers of GenderPac. The late Alexander John Goodrum was not only a founder of TGNet Arizona, but sat on the City of Tucson's LGBT commission.  Lorrainne Sade Baskerville became an award winning leader in Chicago, a role which was eventually picked up by the late Lois Bates.

Dawn Wilson and I were part of a team that founded the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition (NTAC) in 1999, a multicultural trans advocacy organization.  Zion Johnson became the first African-American chair of FTMInternational, while Trans People of Color Coalition (TPOCC) founder Kylar Broadus became the board chair of the National Black Justice Coalition. We also can't forget the people like Justina Williams, Patricia Underwood, KK Logan, Diamond Stylz, Patti Shaw, Diana Taylor, and countless others who stood up for their human rights when they were trampled on by others.  They have advanced the movement toward equality for transgender people.

On a sadder note, we can never forget our fallen transpeople. Rita Hester's 1998 murder was the impetus to organize the now worldwide memorial service we call the Transgender Day of Remembrance. And yes, Black transpeople were (and still are) making breakthroughs inside and outside the LGBT community.  Currently four of us, Dawn Wilson (2000) Dr. Marisa Richmond (2002), myself (2006) and Rev. Earline Budd (2010) have won the IFGE Trinity Award, the trans community's highest award for outstanding service in advocacy. We IFGE Trinity winners, along with countless other heroes and sheroes organizing locally, continue to serve the trans community in various ways and make trans history in the process.

Read the rest of my EBONY.com article here.

Wendy Williams Attacks Viola Davis' Natural Hair

After all the times I've called out Black gossip blogs for misgendering Wendy Williams, she does some foul crap like this to another Black woman.   Renee of Womanist Musings calls her azz out on it. 

And Wendy, the next time the Black gossip blogs decide to have fun disrespectfully calling you a man, the t-word or masculinizing your name, I'm staying out of it.
 


I refused to watch the Oscars because I could not stand the idea of having to watch as a Black woman received an award for playing a maid in the year 2012.  To this date, I have not seen The Help, nor do I have any attention of doing so.

As you might imagine, it has been impossible to avoid coverage on the Oscars.  I was happy to see that Viola Davis chose to put her wigs aside and wear her natural hair at such a public event. What I was less pleased about was Wendy Williams response.  According to Madame Noire, Ms. Williams remarked, that she doesn't want to see “Room 222″ look on the red carpet."  For those who are unaware, "Room 222 refers to a show from the late ’60s and early ’70s, about a history class taught by a black man". This to me implies that Williams was not only suggesting that there is something inherently wrong with natural hair, but that a woman choosing wear her natural hair looks like a man.

I am not at all pleased with the implications.  Williams has long been referred to as a trans slur by many Black entertainment blogs - yes, I'm looking at you Bossip.  She has to know first hand how terrible it is to question someone's gender identity in order to smear them.  It is extremely transphobic and it is something that is constantly thrown at cis Black women in order to support the cruel unwoman meme. For Williams to then turn around and engage in the same damn ish is disgusting. 

Wendy might be fine toting around her wigs everywhere she goes, and boiling under the weight of them under the hot summer sun, but not all women feel that way, and none of us should be shamed for refusing to conform to a racist, sexist expectation of us.  Viola looked beautiful - even if the dress was ugly as hell. There was certainly nothing wrong with her hair, and that Davis felt confidant enough to be herself on her big night (despite how I feel about The Help) sends a strong message about how comfortable she is in her own skin.  It will further serve to encourage Black woman to believe that they don't have to be a slave to the creamy crack.  Even though she was just one woman wearing her natural hair, each time something like this happens, it's a step towards depoliticizing this issue. 

Anywhere a Black woman is welcome to take up space, is an appropriate venue for natural hair.  We already have enough issues with White people thinking that they can pet us, and shaming us for our natural hair, without Black women playing colluders and joining the attack.  What Williams did was grade A sell out behavior, with transphobia thrown in for extra seasoning.  I think we should give Williams an award for managing to fit in so much fail in one sentence.

Wendy, I am going to have to ask you to have a huge mug of shut the fuck up.  Life is hard enough for trans women of colour, trans women and Black women without your insensitive, thoughtless commentary.

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