Damn Denny's And 'Errbody' Else, Let My People Pee

Spartanburg, SC based Denny's Inc. is a 1,749-restaurant chain which is one of the largest restaurant companies in the United States.

Back during the 80's Denny's had a corporate 'ethnic cleansing' policy in which managers were under orders not to allow too many Blacks to congregate in their restaurants. I saw firsthand in the 80's the ridiculous extremes that Denny's peeps went to in order to keep their restaurants free of African descended people.

One night when me and my friends went to a Denny's by the Astrodome, they tried to charge us $5 cover just to get in. At another location they tried to make us prepay for food as we watched Whites get seated first without prepaying. Another time at that same Astrodome location me and two Black friends waited for our food while numerous whites who came in after us got in, ordered their food and got out before we saw a single plate hit our table.

The discriminatory culture was so ingrained that on the very day in 1993 a federal court ordered the chain to stop discriminating against Black customers, a Maryland Denny's was sued by Black Secret Service agents for glacially slow service. The class action discrimination lawsuits were eventually settled by Denny's in 1994 for $54 million, but not before a boycott of the chain by African-Americans and countless worldwide retelling of stories similar to mine.

I'm taking this trip down Moni Memory Lane again because those images of past discrimination were on my mind when I heard about the Maine Human Rights Commission case involving Brianna Freeman.

The commission ruled on Monday that an Augusta, ME Denny's franchisee store was guilty of discrimination when it barred Ms. Freeman, a regular customer of the restaurant, from using the women's restroom until she had surgery.

Okay, I and the rest of the transgender community are beyond sick and tired of this bull feces 'bathroom predator' meme the Forces of Intolerance and other ignorant folks who hate on transpeople are pimping these days because they have no logic based argument they can us to deny transgender people their civil rights.

The anti-civil rights peeps have dipped into their old school playbook and recycled the centuries old tactics of deception, fear and lies over the bathroom. The same arguments being used to stir up anti-transgender bathroom passions are the same ones the haters used to justify separate 'white' and 'colored' bathrooms back in the bad old Jim Crow days.

Bottom line, you already share public bathrooms with transpeople and have done so without incident for decades.

I can't tell you how many times at concerts and ball games I saw ciswomen pop into the men's restroom before transition to use it because the lines in the women's restrooms were too long.

The first thing on the minds of many transpeople when we enter a public bathroom is how fast can we shimmy out of our clothes before the pee stream starts, and when we've handled our business washing hands and getting out of there.

We ain't trying to start any static, but too many haters are trying to start World War III with us over peeing in a damn restroom. I transitioned 15 years ago and I'm not going to a men's room where I risk a beatdown or worse because your faith-based ignorance about transgender people makes you uncomfortable.

Deal with it.

In some cases cisgender women are getting caught in the crossfire because of your idiocy.

And let's smack down some more right wing lies while I'm at it. If a predator wants to heaven forbid, sexually assault you in the bathroom, they won't be crossdressed to do it.

As far as the 'pervert' charge, you've got more to worry about from your local priest, 'christian' pastor or straight white males, who commit 98% of the molestation cases against children than you do with your friendly neighborhood transperson.

So to all the haters out there, let my people pee!

Moni's Excellent Memorial Day Weekend

So what did y'all do on Memorial Day weekend?

This year I didn't sit around the house waiting for a late invite to a barbecue or be bored out of my mind watching the Indy 500.  I accepted the invitation of Alice Serna-McDougald, Chris Valdez and United We Dream to join them and Latinx people from five states (AZ, NM, FL, NY and MD) plus Washington DC in Austin to protest SB 4.

After an enjoyable Sunday drive to the ATX with Alice to be there for the fun that was starting at 9:00 AM on Memorial Day,  I was sitting with Alice as we witnessed the silent filling of the House gallery by over 200 people clad in red Fight Back NO SB 4 T-shirts ruining the GOP House majority's self congratulatory back slapping as the clocked ticked toward the sine die moment of the 85th Texas Legislative session

At approximately 10:30 AM chants of 'SB 4 is hate! 'Hey hey ho ho, SB 4 has got to go' , 'Here to stay!' and 'This is what democracy looks like' erupted in the House gallery along with banners being unfurled stating 'See you in court' and 'SB 4 is hate' as simultaneous chanting from the assembled masses on all four floors of the Capital rotunda occurred at the same time.

It was fun watching the shocked, embarrassed and bewildered looks on the faces of the GOP legislators on the House floor who probably thought they were going to escape Austin and head back home without being held accountable for passing that racist law.

Um no, GOP boo boo kitties.  Y'all were not escaping facing the consequences for your racist act on behalf of your party.   I hope they have the same bewildered looks on their faces after the November 6, 2018 election.

Many of the legislators since it was sine die day, had their families with them and probably had to lie to their kids about why they passed the unjust and racist SB 4.

Pro tip to the Texas GOP:  If you don't want to face protests in the Texas capitol, them stop passing unjust and racist laws that will piss people off .

The Texas House leadership reacted by ordering the House gallery cleared as the chanting continued while being herded out of the chamber by DPS state troopers.

Once the gallery was cleared, Texas state Rep. Matt Rinaldi (R-Irving) let his inner bigot out by threatening to shoot a fellow Latinx legislator and telling a group of Latino legislators watching the demonstration from the House floor that he'd called ICE on the protestors.  

Um GOP dude. your pointed hood is showing.  Many of the protestors in that House gallery are American citizens.   You also proved a point I repeatedly make that the most dangerous bigots are the ones who have legislative power.

It's also a bad political move in a city that is 40% Latinx, and you barely won election to your Texas house seat in 2016 anyway.

I also received the honor of getting to make a little speech before the thousands of huddled masses yearning to breathe free from Texas GOP tyranny at the rally on the south steps of the Texas Capitol. .
I loved what Julieta Garibay, one of the co-founders of United We Dream had to say about the Memorial Day SB 4 protests:

“Today was a historic moment in Texas  as brown and Black freedom warriors took over the Capitol to make sure that as Republicans looked up into the gallery that they would forever remember every signal space filled with the beautiful and determined faces of Texans who refuse to be driven out and refuse to be intimidated. This is our state, this is our home and we are here to stay! Today is a turning point in Texas politics — from El Paso to McAllen to Dallas to Houston to Austin we are organizing to create spaces where all people of all backgrounds can survive and thrive. We will resist the Republican attack and we will win!”

Yes ma'am we will, if we work together across the Lone Star State to do so and bumrush the polls on November 6, 2018  to flush the TX GOP out of power.

How (Not) To Write About Black Trans Women

Karnythia of the Angry Black Woman blog had an interesting post I ran across entitled How To Write About Black Women in which she slammed all the tropes, memes and blanket statements aimed at Black women when others outside our community write about us. 

One group she didn't mention is Black trans women, and here's where I was inspired to pick up the baton and happily run with it where Karnythia left off. 

(Moni cracks knuckles) 

Let's get started with this post, shall we?

Only acknowledge the existence of Black transwomen when we are murdered or the victim of a crime, salaciously involved in some scandal or news story you wish to highlight, during the November 20 Transgender Day of Remembrance, you wish to pump up your Nielsen ratings during sweeps week or you wish to use us to insult Black cis women you hate.

Ignore the African descended trans activists who have toiled for decades to represent our community or have eloquently written about those issues for years because only white transwomen do that.  Don't bother quoting Black transwomen on issues of importance to the rainbow community at large, write positive stories about them speaking on trans issues or believe there are engaged Black transfeminine leaders involved in fighting for the human rights of their community and others.        .

Use a sellout Black gay male drag queen, white trans activists at inside the beltway Gay, Inc organizations or local rainbow community orgs to speak as 'experts' on Black trans lives.

Violate the AP Stylebook guidelines on covering transgender people by misgendering Black transwomen at every opportunity.  When known, mention their old male names even if it isn't germane to the story in order to other them and reinforce the point they weren't originally born female.  

If a Black transwoman is a victim of a hate crime or discrimination, you take the police spokesperson or the right wing anti-trans organization word as gospel truth without questioning if the 'man' they are describing in their press conference is actually a transwoman..  Inject the 'deception meme' into the story, add any criminal record your research may have uncovered if they have one and make certain you use either the mug shot or an unflattering picture of her.  Throw in for good measure without any evidence to back it up shady commentary or your presumption the transperson in question was soliciting

Quotes of family members or neighbors misgendering that person work for the story as well.   .


When in the process of rebutting a critique a Black transwoman has written, call her 'angry', 'obsessed about race', take digs at her education and demand she produce dissertation level citations to prove her points. If that doesn't work, call her a racist.  If all of the above fails, call her a 'man'.

If you're a cis female or radical feminist do all of the above, flaunt your ability to menstruate, birth them babies and add misogynist to your list of charges. If you're a white transsexual separatist, obsess about surgical status in addition to doing all of the above.

Position the Black transwoman as the 'unwoman' juxtaposed to cis women and non Black trans women you have anointed with honorary cis privilege.  The Black transwoman doesn't exist except to fulfill the 'tragic transsexual' meme or as martyrs to use in order to fundraise for Gay, Inc organizations.  

They are also handy for browbeating Black civil rights legacy orgs into supporting same gender marriage, taking Black legislators to task to garner support for getting marriage equality laws passed for GL people or ramrod through unjust trans rights laws without public accommodations language.

If Black transwomen object to the erasure or the misuse of their fallen transsisters lives and histories in that manner, accuse them of being divisive, refuse to engage with them, microaggressively engage in tone arguments or lob sexist, bigoted and misgendering comments at them while doing so..

Presume that your cis privileged life and your observations based on collegiate gender theory classes trump the lived experiences and everyday lives of a Black transwoman.  Dismiss it when she states that race matters and aim pre-1963 Dr. King quotes at her while chiding her for not being colorblind   Obsess about the Black transwoman's sexuality and make blanket statements and presumptions that her only interests in life are partying, getting high, getting pumped and turning tricks. 

Make blanket statements and assumptions that she is neither concerned about nor intelligent enough to discuss the human rights issues that affect all transpeople or that she has spirituality, hopes, dreams and aspirations in life just like any other human being on the planet. 

Chill With The 'Gayjacking' Of Trans Lives For Your Gay Agenda

One of the things that is infuriating to trans people is the 'gayjacking' of our lives and our stories in order to serve your agenda.

From the ultimate gayjacking of the Stonewall Rebellion to falsely characterizing relationships that transwomen are involved in as same-gender ones, it is a persistent pattern of GL peeps, the gayosphere and the Gay Media that continues to piss us off.

Hot on the heels of the misgendering and mischaracterization of the Tiwonge Chimbalanga and Steven Monjeza relationship in Malawi as a 'same-sex' one by the gay and straight media, now comes the story out of Pakistan that an attempted marriage to a transwoman was broken up by Pakistani police.

42 year old Malik Muhammad Iqbal and 19 year old transwoman Rani were arrested May 26 in Peshawar. She and the 43 other guests assert they were celebrating her birthday and Iqbal was just a friend. Police are claiming otherwise.

Pakistan is a Muslim country in which gay sex is punishable by a ten year prison sentence.

As the story unfolds, like clockwork the Advocate and some gayosphere blogs continue their ongoing patterns of misgendering Rani and other transwomen to pimp the story as a gay marriage issue.

The transphobic comments of Advocate readers don't help either.

News flash: Contrary to public opinion, there are transwomen who are not only strikingly beautiful, they have no problems attracting male companionship whether they have undergone SRS or not.

Being attracted to or in a relationship with a transwoman does not automatically make a cismale gay. Rani is and identifies as female, so this is a heterosexual marriage assuming the facts in the case bear out it wasn't a birthday party.

If you think Moni's selling woof tickets about the gender identities of transwomen repeatedly being erased and gayjacked for GL political and policy agendas, class is now in session.

In July 1999 PFC Barry Winchell, who was in a dating relationship with transwoman Calpernia Addams, was killed by fellow Ft. Campbell soldier Calvin Glover.

The trans community was royally pissed Calpernia was misgendered by gay organizations in order to push the 'gay relationship' meme and finger anti-gay hate and the DADT policy as the trigger for Winchell's murder.

This ain't just Moni's interpretation of it. The May 28, 2000 issue of the New York Times magazine said the same thing in its article entitled 'An Inconvenient Woman'

"In order to turn the murdered soldier Barry Winchell into a martyr for gay rights, activists first had to turn his girlfriend, Calpernia Addams, back into a man."

It happened last year with Jason Stenson and Kimah Nelson. They were married May 26 at the New York City Clerk's Office ten days after receiving their marriage license.

But unfortunately, the marriage license was revoked and their marriage invalidated after the news broke that Kimah is a transwoman.

And how did the Advocate and the gayosphere blogs such as Towleroad report this situation? In their usual manner of erasing the transwoman's identity in order to pimp the story as a 'gay marriage'.

Rod 2.0 beta was one of the few GLBT blogs that got the story right.

Now that the history lesson's over, class is dismissed. We now return you back to your regularly scheduled blog post.

We are getting beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of the Advocate, the gayosphere, and gay organizations misgendering and gayjacking transpeople's identities to fit their agenda bullet points.

It reeks of white privilege when you do so, and helps feed into the perception by transpeople and people of color gay and straight that the only thing the GL movement cares about is attaining 'Almighty Whitey' status and the ability to oppress others.

Top 5 Texas Trans Moments of 2015

One of the things that irritates me about Top Five or Top Ten lists for trans issues is that far too often, they ignore stuff that doesn't happen on I-5, I-95 or inside I-495.  FYI to the rest of the country, liberal progressive people do exist here inside the borders of the Lone Star State and some of the 35 million people who live here inside my bigger than France state are trans people.

I need to remind you once again that Texas, and especially Houston based trans activists have helped spur much of the progress of the modern trans rights movement, and far too often we get ignored for doing so.

So in order to address that bi- coastal and inside the beltway imbalance, I'm going to do a 2015 Top 5 trans moments list with a Texas twang to it.

1.  All four anti-trans bathroom bills die in the Texas Legislature.

As part as a major attack on the human rights of Texas TBLG people, the hatemongers in the GOP controlled Texas Legislature rolled out a slate of 20 unjust bills.   Four of those bills (HB 1748, 1749, 2801 and 2802 targeted the Texas trans community.

These bathroom bills sought to not only criminalize being trans for adult trans Texans, but attack our trans kids matriculating in Texas schools.  

HB 1748 and HB 1749 were filed by suburban Houston Republicans Rep. Debbie Riddle of Tomball and would have made it a misdemeanor crime punishable by fines and jail time for Moni and every trans Texan to poop and pee in public restrooms. HB 2080 and 2082, filed by Rep. Gilbert Pena of Pasadena, targeted Texas trans kids.  It incentivized snitching on and bullying trans kids for using the potty for cash.

We were given little to no chance by outside of Texas groups to kill any of that negative legislation, but that's exactly what happened.   Trans Texans in conjunction with our allies got mad, rolled up our sleeves, and showed up in Austin for three lobby days.   We talked to our legislators under the Pink Dome, lobbied and denounced the unjust bills and successfully got them killed.

But you can bet that when the 2017 session starts, we will once again need to be ready to roll to Austin to defend our human rights again.  


2.  HERO Repealed

You've seen a lot of posts on this blog about the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance and the fight in 2014 to pass it.  Passing the law was the easy part.  The hard part as we knew when we started this human rights battle was going to be being able to keep it in the City Code of Ordinances.

Due to a massive disinformation campaign, a devastatingly effective ad, Houston media not doing their job combined with a mistake ridden HERO defense campaign, the Forces of Intolerance led primarily by out of town anti-LGBT activists and the Texas GOP, the Forces of Intolerance won by a 61-39% margin.

And yeah, I had a lot to say about the failure of the Houston Unites campaign to defend the HERO against this debunked trans predator meme and recycled Jim Crow talking points.

3.  Dallas strengthens trans protections

As we were suffering a devastating human rights defeat on our end of I-45 and getting pilloried in the national media for it, on the northern end of it in Dallas they were strengthening their trans protections.

One week after the HERO repeal, the Texas Values haters, fresh off their victory in Houston, tried to replicate what they had done in Dallas.

They failed as the Dallas City Council by a unanimous vote clarified their trans human rights protections that had been on the books since 2002 and the Dallas media tore their spokeshaters to shreds.

This is one time I can't (cough, cough) hate on Dallas.

4. Nikki Araguz Loyd wins her trans marriage case

After a nearly six year battle to do so, Nikki Araguz Loyd finally prevailed in the Delgado v. Araguz  trans marriage legal fight that killed the odious 1999 Littleton v Prange trans marriage case.

It not only reinstated her marriage to the late Capt. Thomas Araguz III and gave her the recognition back as his widow, it set a positive precedent for trans marriage rights in the Lone Star State

And how apropos the final ruling in the case happened on November 20, and the transphobic judge Randy Clapp (R)  that ruled the wrong way back in 2010, was the one that had to sign the order reversing his incorrect one.

5. Texas loses two trans women.

Unfortunately two of the record 20 trans women murdered in 2015 were Lone Star State residents in 24 year old Ty Underwood and 20 year old  Shade Schuler.

24 year old Ty Underwood was killed in Tyler, Texas in January by her boyfriend Carlton Ray Champion, who was convicted of the crime and sentenced to life in prison after bragging he'd be back on the streets on the day he was convicted.

The other trans woman we lost was in Dallas.   The decomposing body of 22 year old Shade Schuler was found on July 29 in a field near the Dallas medical district.

Unfortunately her killer has yet to be found and justice has yet to be served in this case, but it's hopeful that it will happen for her, her family and all who love her in 2016.

A reminder to the rest of the country.  We have some kick butt trans activists here in the Lone Star Sate who despite what y'all think on the coasts, are making stuff happen that benefits trans kind.

Going to be interesting to see what we accomplish in 2016.