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.




   

Shut Up Fool Awards- Moni's Moving Edition

After a drama filled run to get to this point,  I finally moved out of the place I've called home for the last six months yesterday.

I'm still trying to find a new landing spot, and after moving my belongings to a storage facility, I'm spending the next few days at a friend's house destressing from the events of the last month while working on trying to find a new place without that time pressure bearing down upon me.

Thanks to Dee Dee Watters and Nikki Araguz Loyd for their help on Wednesday and Thursday getting the process started.  I also thank all of you who have contributed to my moving fund which is just $300 short of the target and those of you who have offered multiple places to choose from to stay while I find a solution to my housing situation.

Still time to donate and I thank you for doing so.  On the let side of the blog is a tip jar button that goes to my PayPal.

Dee Dee and I have some leads on a new place to call our own, and hopefully they will pan out in an expeditious manner.

Now, enough jibber-jabber about me, I know what y'all surfed over here for.   It's Friday, and while I was contemplating where I wanted to live, I also was contemplating what fool, fools or group of fools would be getting called out in this week's edition of the TransGriot Shut Up Fool Awards.

So let's get right to it shall we?

Honorable mention number one goes to every kneegrow who tried to defend Rachel Dolezal's fake Black feminine alleged bisexual behind.

Her 15 minutes of fame have long since expired.  Time for you to have several seats and a nice steaming cup of shut the hell up.

Honorable mention number two is a group award for everybody in Conservaworld tapdancing around another domestic terrorist attack and hate crime committed by a Real American like them, avoiding any mention of the systemic racism and anti-Black rhetoric they inflame conservasheeple like Roof with, trying to blame the victims and spin it as an 'attack on Christianity'/

Oh yeah, it most certainly is.  Another example of the centuries old historic pattern of white supremacists attacking Black churches and the people who attend them.

Honorable mention number three is LMPD Sgt Dave Mulchler, the president of the local FOP branch in Louisville who stupidly sent out an open letter threatening retaliation against any citizen who questions police actions in the wake of a fatal police shooting that has inflamed local tensions

He was rebuked by Mayor Greg Fischer (D) hours after releasing it.

“I appreciate that emotions are high after the tragic event of last week,” he said. “This letter does not reflect the sentiments of me or the vast majority of Louisville’s citizens, who know that we are all on the same page, working to build safe and strong communities for all of our families. We are in this together — police who put their lives on the line to keep us safe while building strong relationships of trust, and community members, who must be engaged citizens involved in our efforts to create a compassionate, thriving Louisville. Rather than incite anger and distrust between the police and the community, my administration will continue to work to build those critical relationships and the trust they create.”

Of course, Mulchler is now zipping his lips and not saying jack to the media after opening mouth and inserting badge in it.

Honorable mention number four is another group award for the nine GOP Kansas legislators who filed a complaint against Valdenia Winn (D-Kansas City) an African-American legislator who called them out on their racist anti-immigrant legislation.

A special Uncle Ruckus Award goes to the two kneegrow Republicans who allowed themselves to be used as sellout human shields so the white Republicans would appear less racist for what they are trying to pull

Honorable mention number five is FOX Noise' Erick Erickson, who blamed the Wednesday terror attack at Emanuel AME Church on transgender people.

Honorable mention number six is Alveda King.  She was cooning it up on FOX Noise trying the blame the Charleston terror attack on legalized abortion.

Damn, isn't your 15 minutes up yet?

This week's winner is Pope Francis, who every time he takes one positive step forward, takes another two backwards by saying something jacked up

Once again the toxic anti-trans hatred Paul McHugh injected into the Vatican ranks reared its ugly head yesterday when he wrote as part of a 184 page encyclical that "transpeople should accept their God given bodies  and not seek to manipulate them."

Hey Your Transphobiness, don't know what McHugh has been telling you, but transsexuality is not a sin.  

That's also why medical professionals have called for society to stop attacking transpeople and embrace them as the church you head should be leading the way in doing, but tragically fail at.

And I accept my beautiful trans body that was created by God along with the millions of other transpeople on the planet who are sick and tired of your attacks on our humanity.

Since you are a man of science, why don't you consult with experts in the field of transsexuality instead of a discredited quack?   And yes, I'll remind you that trans people are part of the diverse mosaic of human life

Have several seats in St Paul's Cathedral and shut up fool

Moni's 2015 NCAA Men's B-Ball Prediction

I absolutely love March Madness except when they show video of a certain 1983 NCAA title game,. 

Since 2007 I have posted my NCAA men's brackets for the whole world to see.

Because my schedule has been so packed full of events combined with breaking news that had a must write about priority, just wasn't able to sit down long enough to put together my 2015 NCAA bracket post before the First Four games started on Tuesday.

Oh well, with all the upsets yesterday my 2015 bracket would have been trashed anyway.  And darn it, I'll be out of town when the South Regional Final happens at NRG Stadium March 29

And assuming our stupid azz GOP controlled state legislature doesn't pass any hate legislation, the NCAA Men's Final Four is scheduled to return to NRG Stadium in 2016.

Just in case you're curious, here's the brackets for 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014

All I have time to do unfortunately is predict who will win the men's NCAA title this year when they cut down the nets in Indianapolis on April 6

That team will be undefeated Kentucky

Yep, I'm predicting that they will run the table, get those six tourney wins they need  and finish as the first undefeated.team since Indiana did so back in 1976.   Ironically this year's title game will be played at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Will the Cats do it?   We'll see as the 2015 edition of the NCAA tourney unfolds.