Viola Desmond-Canada's Rosa Parks

Almost ten years before that fateful December 1, 1955 day that Rosa Parks sat down on a Montgomery, AL bus that was headed home and jump started a movement, Viola Desmond did the same for African-Canadians.

Viola Desmond (1914-1965) was a young Halifax businesswoman and beautician who owned and operated a beauty school there. On November 8th, 1946, she was on her way to Sydney, NS for a meeting when she got caught in a blizzard in New Glasgow, NS and her car broke down.

When a mechanic told her he couldn't fix the problem until the next day she found a place to stay for the night. Desmond decided to pass the time with a movie at the local Roseland Theatre. She asked for a ticket for house seats, but the teller sold her a ticket for the balcony, which was where Black people had to sit in that town.

When she sat in the lower "Whites Only" house seats, the manager ordered her to sit in the balcony, which was designated for Black patrons. When she refused, he called the police and she was arrested. Desmond was dragged from the theater and thrown in jail overnight. Bruised and angry, she sat upright all night and for the next 12 hours on the hard jail bench while wearing her white gloves.

In the morning she was charged by the magistrate with "attempting to defraud the Federal Government" based on her refusal to pay the one cent amusement tax difference between the 3 cents charged to those sitting in the balcony and the 2 cents charged to those sitting downstairs. Even though she had offered to pay the difference in ticket price, she was convicted of failing to pay the tax on the downstairs ticket. After a short trial, Viola was sentenced to a fine of $20 plus court costs and 30 days in prison.

Viola Desmond's arrest galvanized the Afro-Canadian community into action. The new Nova Scotia Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NSAACP), founded only a year earlier by William and Pearleen Oliver, raised the money to pay her fine and fight her conviction. Carrie Best, the founder of Nova Scotia's first Black owned and operated newspaper publicized her story. Best was familiar with Desmond's situation. She'd been thrown out of the Roseland Theater herself four years earlier for refusing to sit in the balcony and unsuccessfully filed a damage suit against the theater's management.

Desmond's lawyer took the case to the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia, but her appeal lost on a technicality. She reappealed the case and won on a technicality. The case helped topple segregation laws in Nova Scotia and the provincial government repealed them in 1954.

Tres Chic

The dictionary definition of chic reads: smart elegance and sophistication especially of dress or manner. That's a dead-on target description of one of my favorite bands of the 70's.

Chic's music like most of the stuff I grew up listening to has proven to be timeless and ground breaking as well. I fell in love with their amalgamation of deep bass guitars, the lush strings courtesy of the Chic Strings (Cheryl Hong, Karen Milne and Marianne Carroll) and funky rhythms. Sometimes it was at a disco pace. Other times it was pure 70's funk with some cool soulful ballads and instrumentals thrown in just for good measure.

While Dad introduced me to Parliament-Funkadelic, I discovered Chic on my own. I opened the package of promo albums that got mailed to the house one day back in 1977 from Atlantic Records and noticed Chic's debut album. It was the self titled one that contained what would become their first hits 'Dance Dance Dance' (Yowsah Yowsah Yowsah) and 'Everybody Dance'.

Dad sometimes used me to screen albums because I tend to be analytical about the way I listen to music. The lyrics are extremely important for me. I'm into great guitar players, sax players who can blow and great producers. I got spoiled listening to peeps produced by Holland Dozier Holland, Gamble and Huff, Maurice White, Quincy Jones, et cetera. In Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards they already had the quality producers and musicians.

Norma Jean Wright started out as Chic's front singer. They decided after a year of touring to support the first album they needed another female singer to expand what they could do in the live show and musically. Norma Jean suggested her friend Luci Martin. When Norma Jean Wright was forced to leave the band because of her contractual solo career obligations. Alfa Anderson, who sang backup on the second album C'est Chic was moved up to replace her in 1978. Norma Jean did get to sing some vocals on the monster Sister Sledge 1979 We Are Family LP.

C'est Chic got released in late 1978 with 'Le Freak' as the lead single and sold six million copies. Risque was released the next year. It contained a a song that would help propel a new music genre to prominence. That song was 'Good Times' and it became the basis for the Sugarhill Gang's breakthrough hit 'Rapper's Delight' and a host of other rap records that sampled it throughout the 80's. The basslines were sampled by rock, rap and R&B producers as well.

C'est Chic was supposed to contain the song 'He's The Greatest Dancer'. While producing Sister Sledge's album they decided that this song was a better fit for them and swapped it with another song. The song they exchanged it for that ended up on the Risque album was 'I Want Your Love'. They also featured an up and coming commercial jingle and session singer by the name of Luther Vandross on several of their albums. Luther hit it big singing lead vocals on Change's 1979 album featuring the hit singles 'The Glow Of Love' and 'Searching' and set the stage for his debut Never Too Much LP in 1981.

Nile and 'Nard also produced Diana Ross' hit singles 'Upside Down' and 'I'm Coming Out' for her 1980 Diana LP.

They struggled to get airplay in the early 80's and disbanded. They did produce Madonna's 1984 breakthrough album Like A Virgin album and scored some successes producing other artists.

After a 1992 party in which Nile and 'Nard played old Chic tunes along with Paul Shaffer and Anton Fig to thunderous applause they organized a reunion of the band and produced CHIC-ism. It not only charted but received critical acclaim and airplay all over the world.

In 2005 they became three category inductees in the Dance Music Hall of Fame. They have received nominations for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003, 2006 and 2007 but have yet to be elected.

Here's hoping that someday they'll be enshrined there as well.

A Tale of Two Transgender TV Characters

In the last two months we've had transgender characters appear on two ABC network shows. One of them is on ABC's flagship soap All My Children . The other is on Ugly Betty.

Both shows stated they wanted to treat the subject with respect and dignity. The early returns are in from the transgender community. One has gotten rave reviews while the other is getting panned.

I've been a longtime fan of All My Children. I arranged my college schedule around it and the Young and the Restless back during its 1980's heyday. I was excited at first when I heard that AMC was going to tackle a transgender storyline with actor Jeffery Carlson playing Zarf. AMC has had a history of tackling tough and controversial subjects throughout its 36 year run that range from abortion to Bianca being a lesbian.

Then I watched the initial show featuring Zarf. To quote Blaine and Antoine from In Living Color: "Hated It!"

Now fast forward a month later to Ugly Betty and the way it has handled Rebecca Romijn's insertion into the show as Alexis Meade. For several weeks she appeared as a shadowy mystery woman plotting with Wilhelmina Slater. The mystery woman's identity is revealed a week before the Mode fashion show. (See the 'I'm Coming Out') Ugly Betty episode.

In the last two shows I have see Alexis since the reveal describe the alienation from friends, discuss family issues and be slapped with the discrimination and bigotry we face in a sports bar scene.

Ugly Betty gets two snaps up. Somebody was doing their homework on this one. Maybe the Ugly Betty writing team needs to have a chat with the AMC one and give them some tips on how to build a transgender character.

The difference to me and the transpeeps I've talked to online is the realistic way that Alexis has been portrayed versus the disappointingly schlocky way that Zoe has been portrayed so far on AMC. I know that Jeffrey Carlson wanted to do the character in a way respectful to the transgender community.

As with all TV shows it's all about the script writing. Hopefully they will get it together on AMC and get Jeffrey the material that he needs to make this character better.

While having genetic female actresses playing transwomen is a sore point with some peeps in the community, I don't have any complaints about a supermodel playing a transwoman if it's done well.

News flash to some of you: In some cases the surgery results ARE that good. If you have the cash as Alexis did, you could conceivably look convincingly feminine when you're done, especially if you have the right body build to start with. Rebecca's 5'11" height adds an even more realistic touch to it.

Granted, I'd love to see more transwomen actresses get those roles and I'm beyond ready to see another person who looks like me playing a transwoman. (No, Tyler Perry's Madea doesn't count)

Until somebody else gets the cojones (pardon the pun) to create a transgender character that's not killed off in the first five minutes of the show I'll have to enjoy these two.

James 'Sweet Evening Breeze' Herndon

When I first moved to Kentucky I began to hear the stories from Dawn and other Lexingtonians about their legendary transgender resident 'Sweet Evening Breeze'. I stumbled across this article while doing research one night for another column.

"Sweet Evening Breeze"
by Jeff Jones

James Herndon was born in Scott County, KY and was the youngest of John and Kate Herndon's eight children. According to Leigh Angelique,local entertainer, drag queen, and friend of the late Mr. Herndon, James was born in 1889, one year prior to Leigh's grandmother.

In his many decades living in Lexington, KY he was widely regarded as the city's most colorful character, and there are numerous stories (both true and legendary) about Herndon. In fact, few Lexingtonians really know him as James Herndon. He is more widely known by his nickname, "Sweet Evening Breeze," or "Miss Sweets."

He often wore make-up, occassionally performed or appeared on Main St. on Saturdays in drag, and was apparently quite effeminate. Long before there was RuPaul, Lexington's Sweet Evening Breeze was titallating and gaining respect from locals.

For most of his long life, Sweets worked at Good Samaritan Hospital. Taken to the hospital for an eye injury by his uncle as a child, he was left overnight there. Details are obscure, but apparently the boy was basically left at the hospital. He became friends with Miss Lake Johnson, the hospital superintendent, who gave him a room there. He eventually began delivering the hospital mail and playing his ukulele for patients. Through his late childhood and teen years spent living and working in the hospital, he finally learned the profession of orderly, a career that he followed for 40 years at Good Sams. He was widely regarded as the best orderly in the hospital and usually trained new orderlies.

Eventually moving to Prall Street, a part of a hundred year old African-American neighborhood across from UK behind Alfalfa's and Bourbon St. Cafe, he filled his home with antiques and kept it spotlessly clean by all reports. Considering that Herndon lived in the era of segregation, his job as an orderly gave him a relatively high income for African-American Lexingtonians during the early part of this century.

Stories about Herndon are numerous. Some of the authenticated include:

-Herndon was considered in his day to be an excellent cook. During World War II he would meet troops passing through Lexington at the train station and give them his homemade cakes. His fruitcake... the irony not being lost here... was considered his crowning culinary achievement.

-His most notable drag performance apparently was at the Woodland Auditorium where he was lowered from the ceiling in a basket dressed in "feminine frills" and danced the "Passion Dance of the Bongo Bangoes."

-Decades before Ziggy Stardust and David Bowie gave new emphasis to gender-bending, Miss Sweets would spend his Saturdays visiting with friends and acquaintances on Main Street. Upon seeing RuPaul on TV, one elderly woman in Harrodsburg told my friend Marc that Ru was nothing new. She reminensced fondly of trips with her fiance (later husband)long ago into Lexington to shop on Saturdays. The couple always made a point to stop and visit with "Miss Sweets." As Sweet Evening Breeze, Herndon might appear in a range of dress that might include a suit plus lipstick and eye-liner.

-When the doctors and nurses at Good Sams would play each other in basketball, Sweets was the cheerleader.

-Every year during the Bluegrass Fair, Herndon would hold a large banquet for his family coming in from Scott County. He also regularly sent or would take gifts back to his family and old neighborhood there.

-For many years he was a member of historic Pleasant Green Baptist Church. Upon his death, he apparently left a considerable amount of money to the church.

-There are also conflicting tales over a legal episode in Sweets' life: At some point circa 1960, a teenaged Leigh Angelique, another local African-American drag queen, was arrested for violating Lexington's ordinance against cross-dressing except on Halloween. One story holds that Sweets bailed Leigh out of jail and subsequently defended her in court. When the case was brought before the judge, Sweets supposedly pointed to a woman in the courtroom and told that judge that if it was a crime to wear makeup, then the woman should be charged equally to any man. The judge then threw the case out on the grounds that the ordinance unfairly punished one sex for behavior accepted for the other as well as on particular holidays.

Leigh Angelique herself claims, however, that actually both Sweets and herself were jailed. While in jail they even performed a mini-drag show for the curious guards who even went so far as to tip the "girls" for their act. Either a jailor or other prominent friend of Sweets spoke to the judge on their behalf. Sweets spoke up against jailing men for makeup and not women, and the case was dismissed.

With this judgement, Lexington's ordinance against public drag was apparently overturned.

-On the more risque side, older gay men in town remember that Sweets could be seen on occassion frequenting the bathrooms of the Phoenix Hotel and Union Station for "tearoom trade." His home on Prall Street according to these accounts also served as a meeting place for gay people and a sometimes sexual outlet for a number of otherwise closeted UK students.

-Whether Sweets ever settled down and found a partner is difficult to say. Local legends do not mention such a man, but his obituary does hold this tantalizing sentence: "He is survived by... a host of great-nieces and nephews; close friends, INCLUDING HUGH STERLING (emphasis added), and his church family." Perhaps this Hugh Sterling was Herndon's partner?

Through the Depression, World War II, and desegregation, Herndon cut a path as an openly gay man, drag queen, and possibly even a transgendered person. Legend holds that Herndon was accepted in part because he was a hermaphrodite whose will donated his body to UK for scientific study. Nothing I have yet uncovered, however,
substantiates this donation or supposed hermaphroditism. Sweets' many friends described him as sensitive and kind. They relate that he was often deeply hurt and enraged when people would make fun of him.

Herndon died on Friday, Dec. 16, 1983, at the Homestead Nursing Center. He was thought to be in his 90s and was survived by many loving friends and family. For his achievement of being himself against the odds, the Royal Sovereign Imperial Court of All Kentucky named its highest honor the James Herndon Award. Last year the Lexington Men's Chorus also named its small singing ensemble Sweet Evening Breeze in his honor as well.

If one does research on Lexington's gay and/or African-American communities, there is very little information on individual lives before the 1950s. There is, however, an entire slim file in the Kentucky Room on none other than the man that several writers have called Lexington's most memorable and colorful character:

James "Sweet Evening Breeze" Herndon.

Roberta Angela Dee

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

Roberta Angela Dee was an early voice of the African-American transcommunity for several decades. She challenged the medical community through her intelligent articles on psychology and gender and thoughtful online writings.

Roberta was born in Brooklyn, NY in 1950 and grew up on Long Island. She graduated with a degree in journalism and at age 25 began living as a woman.

Although much of her writing was on medical issues, she was an accomplished fiction writer who wrote several novellas on trans issues. She also wrote columns for Jo Ann Roberts' TG Forum website in addition to founding the Women on the Net (WON) website -- an early transgender resource for women of color. She also ran a Yahoo discussion group called TG Woman until her death in 2003.

I was a member of TG Woman from its inception. Roberta created a place that was different from the average transgender group. There wasn't the whiny, 'woe-is-me' tone that tends to permeate some transgender groups. We talked about issues beyond just transgender ones and it had over 2000 members at one point. When I started Transsistahs-Transbrothas on New Year's Day 2004 I patterned my group on that TS Woman model.

Roberta was a no-nonsense reality based kind of girl that never shied away from expressing her strong opinions about many subjects. I loved that about her.

She's also an inspiration to me as a writer as I endeavor to polish my skills and take them to the next level.

She transistioned but opted not to have SRS. As she once said, "I'm a woman in mind, heart and spirit. That's all that matters. They can cut things off, paste things on, or reconfigure my body parts. If you're a woman, you're a woman. Period"

You're so right about that Big Sis. You are definitely missed.

Black Canadian Snapshot

According to the 2001 Canadian Census, there are 593,335 people who identify as Black and of that number 70,000 also claim European ancestry.

78.4% of Black Canadians are clustered in five cities: Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Halifax and the Canadian capital city of Ottawa. 70% of the Canadian Black population is further concentrated in Montreal and Toronto.

Black Canadians are not recent arrivals. The first African to arrive would be navigator Mathieu da Costa, a free man who was hired as a translator for Samuel de Champlain's 1605 excursion. Unfortunately in 1628 the first enslaved ones would arrive in Canada as well.

While the folks in Halifax and the provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia trace their heritage to our escaped ancestors and loyalists who settled there after the Revolutionary War, many of our peeps who arrived in Canada via the Underground Railroad eventually settled in Windsor, Chatham, London, Hamilton, Collingwood, Toronto and other rural areas in southern Ontario. Others trace their heritage to Nigeria or the Caribbean and half of Canada's Black population is of Jamaican origin.

While Black Canadians have had major impacts on Canadian history, politics, the media and the arts in their country, they have also influenced the culture and history of their southern cousins as well.

The NAACP's progenitor, the Niagara Movement was the result of a 1905 meeting held in Niagara Falls, Ont. The first woman publisher in North America, Mary Ann Shadd moved there after the Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1850 and later became the first woman to attend Howard University's law school. Inventor Elijah McCoy was born there.

The influence is even more pronounced in the entertainment world. Singers Tamia Washington-Hill, Deborah Cox and Evangelist Denise Matthews (aka Vanity) are respectively from Windsor, ON, Toronto, and Niagara Falls, ON.

A Motown group called Bobby and the Vancouvers discovered Gladys Knight. Bobby also brought the Jackson 5 to Berry Gordy's attention after the J5 performed as an opening act for them. Another interesting tidbit from Bobby and the Vancouvers is that Tommy Chong was their guitar player (yes, of Cheech and Chong fame and daddy of actress Rae Dawn Chong). Actresses Cree Summer, Tonya Lee Williams and Kandyse McClure of Battlestar Galactica fame were either born there or have a Canadian parent. Melyssa Ford, the current poster model that almost every Black male and rapper drools over is from Toronto along with novelist Kayla Perrin.

Baseball fans of my era remember Chicago Cubs Hall of Fame pitcher Ferguson Jenkins, who was from Chatham, ON. Before Ben Johnson, the most famous Canadian sprinter was world record holder and three-time Olympian Harry Jerome. Donovan Bailey won the 100m gold medal at the Atlanta Games.

The best hockey player on the planet is considered to be Calgary Flames captain and 2002 Olympic gold medalist Jarome Iginla of the Calgary Flames. Hall of Famer Grant Fuhr tended the nets for the four time Stanley Cup champion Edmonton Oilers. ESPN analyst John Saunders is Canadian as well.

Like their southern cousins African-Canadians have also faced faced discrimination and prejudice. In some cases their experiences eerily mirror ours.

In an incident that galvanized civil rights forces in Canada, on November 6, 1946 Viola Desmond was arrested for sitting in the 'White's Only' section of a theater in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia and charged with tax evasion. The NSAACP supported her as the case rose all the way to the Nova Scotia Supreme Court, which declined to hear the case.

In 1954 Blacks visiting rural Dresden, ON were denied service in two restaurants there. The Toronto Telegram sent Black testers to those same restaurants that confirmed the discrimination and published the the story. It confirmed what Black Canadians had suspected all along even though the provincial government only ten years earlier had passed the Racial Discrimination Act on March 14, 1944.

Civil rights activists would persuade the Canadian government to dismantle the odious immigration polices designed to keep Blacks out of Canada. Anti-discrimination laws and policies subsequently were enacted that ended Jim Crow-style laws there and put Canada on the road to acquiring its world-renowned reputation as an oasis of diversity and tolerance.

It's a reputation that we in the States would do well to emulate.

That reputation drew Michaelle Jean's family to Canada from Haiti. She was born there in 1957 but her family relocated to Montreal in 1968 to escape the Duvalier regime. She grew up to become a journalist and commentator for the CBC and Radio-Canada and the first Black Governor General of Canada. She was nominated by former prime minister Paul Martin and assumed the office on September 27, 2005.

Black Canadians continue to make their marks on the world stage inside and outside their country. We're proud of our shared history with our Canadian cousins as part of the African diaspora. We Americans need to exert more effort on the southern side of the border to familiarize ourselves with Canadian Black history since it's another chapter of our story as well.


TransGriot note: photos-Her Excellency the Rt. Honorable Michaelle Jean, the Governor General of Canada, Mathieu da Costa artist's rendition, Mary Ann Shadd, Melyssa Ford, Jarome Iginla, Viola Desmond, Michaelle Jean throne speech.

Why Can't We Be 'Just Americans'?

TransGriot Note:
This one started as a response in a Think Progress blog thread discussing Tom Tancredo's (R-CO) disengenuos desire to amend the House rules and abolish the Congressional Black Caucus. Several people agreeing with Tancredo used the conservative buzz words 'why can't we hypenated folks be 'just americans?'

Some of you ask the question why we African-Americans can't be 'just Americans?'

Because for 400 years y'all have refused to let us be 'just Americans'.

You brought us here in chains and refused to compensate us for the 246 years of chattel slavery. Every time we sucessfully built up our own neighborhoods, towns, institutions and economies without your help you started race riots on false pretexts and swooped in to burn those very neighborhoods down.

You organized gangs of white-hooded terrorists to invade our neighborhoods and homes and engage in an orgy of lawlessness, rape and murder designed to intimidate, brutalize and 'keep the Blacks down'.

You lynched us by the thousands and called it 'entertainment'. You discriminated against us, jacked with our voting rights and refused to let us participate in making the laws that affect us even though it stated in the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments of the Constitution that you couldn't do that to fellow American citizens.

You have called us 'stupid and ignorant' when it is my people who have created many of the inventions, medical procedures, scientific advances and processes that have enriched this country and improved life for all of us.

You have called us 'lazy' when it is our labor that built Washington D.C., the railroads and much of this country's infrastracture.

You have mocked our beauty and called us 'ugly' even as your women rush to spend thousands of dollars to bake their skin under ultraviolet light and surgically acquire the features that African-American women possess from birth.

You have called us 'Unamerican' even though we have fought and shed our blood in EVERY war this country has been involved in and come home from battle to have the rights and freedoms we fought to extend overseas to others denied to us on American shores.

You have repeatedly denigrated and disrespected my people and my culture even as you secretly admire our creativity and seek to emulate it.

You have never apologized for the centuries of pain and suffering that you have inflicted upon my people, but have the nerve to tell me to 'get over it'. Why can't you humble yourself to say to my people "I'm sorry?'

Why can't we be 'just Americans'? I don't know. Why don't you answer your own question for me?

The Man and the Story of The Black National Anthem

On February 12, 1900, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” also known as the Negro National Anthem and the Negro National Hymn was sung publicly for the first time at the Stanton School, a Jacksonville, FL school for African-Americans.

It was written by James Weldon Johnson with music composed by his brother J. Rosamond Johnson. The song was written for a celebration of Abraham Lincoln's birthday at the school.

He and his brother had forgotten it, but the students who heard it that day didn't. They taught it to their children and other children throughout the South. The song became so popular that the NAACP offically adopted it as the Negro National Anthem in 1920.


Lift every voice and sing
Till earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us,
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun
Let us march on till victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears have been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
Till now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, Our God, where we met Thee;
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand.
True to our GOD,
True to our native land


The man who wrote it, James Weldon Johnson led quite an interesting life. Attorney, teacher, poet, diplomat, novelist, Broadway lyricist and civil-rights leader.

He was born in Jacksonville, FL in 1871 during the heady optimism of the Reconstruction period. His mother was a schoolteacher at the Stanton School, his father a head waiter at one of Jacksonville's numerous resort hotels and young James and his brother grew up with middle class backgrounds. After completing the eighth grade he was sent to Atlanta, GA to attend the college prep school and university divisions for Atlanta University since there were no high school at the time in Fhis hometown for African-Americans. After graduating from Atlanta University in 1894 he returned home and became the first African-American attorney in Florida since Reconstruction.

He soon tired of practicing law and became principal of his alma mater the Stanton School. Thanks to the influence of Booker T. Washington in 1906 he was appointed by President Theodore Roosevelt as consul to Puerto Cabello, Venezuela. In 1909 he moved to a more significant consular posting in Corinto, Nicaragua but left the consular service in 1913 after the election of Woodrow Wilson to the presidency.

He joined the NAACP in 1917 and as a field secretary established local chapters througout the South and increased overall membership from 10,000 to 44,000 by the end of 1918. In 1920 he became the first African-Ameerican secretary (CEO) of the multi-racial NAACP and held that post until 1931.

He was also continuing his literary efforts and was more renowned as an writer than a civil-rights warrior. During this time period he'd moved to New York, gotten married and played an active role in the Harlem Renaissance. He served as a mentor to writers Langston Hughes and Claude McKay and urged others to draw upon everyday African-American life as inspiration for their creative works.

He was deeply commmited to exposing the brutality and injustice heaped upon African-Americans and eliminating it. He pushed hard to get the Dyer Anti-Lynching bill passed that would have made lynching a federal crime. He not only worked successfully to get the NAACP on a firm financial footing but was responsible for the NAACP becoming a clearinghouse for civil-rights court cases. He worked with noted attorneys of that time in litigating a series of cases that attacked the legal pillars propping up segregation and worked closely with W.E.B. DuBois and Walter White (the man who succeeded him) to coordinate strategy.

He became a professor at Fisk University in 1931 and spent the remainder of his life teaching creative writing, American and African-American literature and writing. He was killed in an automobile accident near Wiscasset, Maine in 1938.

Johnson acknowledged in 1926 that he didn't originally set out to write a unifying national anthem when he penned the words to 'Lift Ev'ry Voice' and admitted that he'd let the song pass from his mind. But as songs sometimes do they take on a life and meaning of their own.

Thank you James Weldon Johnson, for all that you've done to uplift our people.

2003 Louisville Transgender Day of Remembrance Speech

TransGriot Note:photo is of the late Amanda Milan, who died in June 2000 after having her throat slashed at the NY Port Authority terminal.

In 2002 and 2003 I was asked to be the keynote speaker for the local TDOR event in Louisville. This is the text of the speech I gave that night.

Giving honor to God,
I am pleased to have the privilege of speaking to you on the occasion of the 5th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance. This is the second annual observance
that has been held here in Louisville on the LPTS campus. I'd like to thank Mary Sue Barnett, More Light, and The Women's Center here at the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary for their hard work in putting this event together and honoring me with another invitation to speak so that I can make more people mad on the Internet after this speech gets posted.

I'd like to give you a brief history on how this event began. It honors Rita Hester, an African-American transgender woman who was found brutally stabbed twenty times in her Boston apartment on November 28, 1998. When Rita's death was announced in the gay and straight newspapers she was disrespected to the point where transactivists in Boston picketed the news outlets. It led to the Associated Press revamping their guidelines in terms of how they refer to transpeople in news stories. It was also the impetus for Gwen Smith to start the Remembering our Dead Project.

The Transgender Day of Remembrance works on several levels. It raises public awareness of hate crimes against transgender people. It allows us to publicly mourn and honor the lives of our brothers and sisters who might otherwise be forgotten. We express love and respect for our people in the face of national indifference and hatred. It's a reminder to non-transgender people that we are your sons, your daughters, your relatives, your parents, your lovers, and your friends. It allows you an opportunity to stand in solidarity with us and gives the transgender community a chance to thank our allies and friends.

Last year I spoke to you on the steps of this chapel as a dark night gave way to a beautiful late November fall morning. When you think about it, there was some interesting symbolism to last year's observance. The early morning chill gave way to the warmth of the sun rising to start a new day. Well, this year's speech has its own symbolic touch. The ceremony for this year's vigil has moved from outside Caldwell Chapel to indoors. To me, it's a powerful statement of the commitment of the progressive elements of the Presbyterian Church, More Light, LPTS, and elements of other faiths to include its transgender children in its mission. They are oases of inclusiveness in a sweltering desert of intolerance and it couldn't have come at a better time.

President John F. Kennedy stated during a televised June 11, 1963 speech on civil rights that ‘Every American ought to have the right to be treated as they would wish to be treated, and as one would wish his children to be treated. Sadly, that is not the case.'

Forty years later, it's not the case with transgender Americans and our brothers and sisters around the world. We are being demonized by fundamentalists so that they can pursue political power. The Roman Catholic Church recently banned transgender people from serving as lay ministers, priests or nuns. There are some African-American and other Baptist churches that have cast out their transgender members at a time when we as Christians need to be INCLUDING transpeople into the fold and not EXCLUDING them.

We are here tonight because of hate violence directed toward my people that has snuffed out thirty-nine more lives. Once again we are adding people to a somber list that is approaching 300 names. That's a little over one killing a month since this project started tracking those stats in 1999. The thirty-nine individuals that we are remembering tonight represents the highest number of people that we have ever honored at a Day of Remembrance vigil. Once again we are gathered to hear about the causes of deaths of people who are simply struggling with trying to live their lives and being killed because of it. The sad part about it is that in many cases people either don't care or are unwilling to see the perpetrators brought to justice.

I mentioned earlier that I received some e-mailed criticism from some transpeople after my 2002 speech was posted on several transgender Internet lists. Most of the e-mails I received agreed with what I said in last year's speech, but objected to me calling out conservatives and fundamentalists as the root cause of some of the violence being expressed toward transpeople. They cited the October 5, 1999 televised 700 Club comments of Pat Robertson stating that ‘transsexuality is not a sin’ as evidence that conservatives weren't the bad guys in terms of what's happening to our people. I pointed out to those folks that some of the people involved in the transgender bashing proudly call themselves conservative.

I reminded them of Pat's silence as Jerry Falwell sat by his side and blamed GLBT people for the 9-11 terrorist attacks on his TV show. I also reminded them of Pat Robertson's sorry history of opposing civil rights, so if the white sheet fits, too bad.

I've noticed over my lifetime that when conservatives get elected to office, society seems to descend to a mean spirited Darwinian tone and attacks on people that they don't like start happening with increasing frequency. It's as though the bigots feel that it's safe to slither out from under their rocks and openly act on their prejudices, since they see their politicians and ministers openly attacking GLBT people. They feel it's okay to do whatever they want to ‘those' people and get away with it.

It happened in my birth state of Texas once the conservatives got control of the governor's mansion and state government in 1994. The intolerant attitude cultivated over the last ten years has contributed to a rise in hate violence that led to the James Byrd dragging death in 1999. Two of tonight's people that we memorialized here come from my hometown, and although Kentucky as of yet has not lost a transperson to hate violence, I fear that it will happen soon. The bigots have already started to verbalize their feelings since the recent November 4 election.

The recent incident I was told about upset me. A married non transgender woman with a short haircut was confronted downtown near Kinko's by several young males cruising Market Street. They hurled anti-gay slurs at her, and when the woman showed her tormentors her wedding ring, one of them responded, "Aww, you're probably married to one of them blankety-blank F to M transsexuals."

The interesting thing about this incident is that the woman in question is a student at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. They have been taught down the street and at their churches over the last twenty years that GLBT people are the enemy. Now that one of their own has been confronted with the hatred that we face, some of the students on that campus are starting to see the light.

Society needs to see the light, too. All that I and any other transgender person wants is to be able to use our God-given talents to make a decent living for ourselves and uplift our society. I was not put on this Earth to become a target for people who are upset at their how their own lives have turned out, are insecure about their own gender identity or sexual orientation, or want to use transpeople as bogeymen to scare people into donating to their pet political causes. Treat me and other transpeople as you would wish to be treated.

What needs to happen is that society needs to send a message that it will no longer tolerate its transgender citizens being brutally killed. We need to be included in hate crimes legislation at the state and federal level, and prosecutors need to start giving murderers of transpeople the maximum penalties under the law, and not plea bargaining them down to minimal probation terms.

I'm going to close this speech by quoting the Rev. Pat Robertson from that October 5, 1999 700 Club show:

‘God does not care what your external organs are. The question is whether you are living for God or not. Yes, He loves you. Yes, He forgives you and He understands what is going on in your body.’

Enough said.


TransGriot note;
On May 22, 2005 the fear that I expressed at the TDOR came true when Timothy Blair, a 19 year old transgender youth who was in drag at the time, was shot to death at 28th and Magazine Streets as he walked home from a bus stop.

Phyllis R. Frye

photo-IFGE's Denise LeClair, me and Phyllis Frye at the 2006 IFGE Convention in Philadelphia.



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

What can I say about the Phyllabuster?

She's a dear friend, a fellow Texan, my activist mentor and one of the first people along with Sarah DePalma that welcomed me into the Houston transgender community with open arms. Phyllis is a major reason why Houston not only has a large transgender community, but why so many of us from there have leadership roles at the local, state and national levels in it.

She was born the second of three children in San Antonio and was an Eagle Boy Scout, her high school’s ROTC Commander, a multi-scholarship university student at Texas A&M, a member of the Aggie Corps of Cadets, a career military officer, a licensed civil engineer, a husband and a father.

She began to address the transgender issues that she'd tried to bury since age six in the early 1970's. She was not only bounced from the military but ended up getting divorced from her first wife. She remarried, but had a tough time finding a job in the macho world of Houston's engineering firms and decided to go to law school.

Phyllis Frye spearheaded the successful effort to overturn the Houston anti-cross-dressing law in 1980. (the story of the events that led up to it is on the blog). In 1979, 1981, 1983 and 1985 Phyllis was elected as an out transgender delegate to the Texas Democratic Party Convention. She was instrumental in persuading the Party to adopt a gay rights plank in 1983.

She also served, as an out transgender woman, as an elected director and later a vice president of the Houston League of Women Voters. In 1998 she was also appointed by the State Bar President to the Committee for Legal Matters Concerning the Indigent in Criminal Matters. In 1993 she was honored with the highest award giving by the transgender community to one of its own -- the Virginia Prince Lifetime Contribution Award from the International Foundation for Gender Education.

She's a founding partner in the Houston law firm Nechman, Simoneaux and Frye. She has been not only at the forefront of fighting for GLBT civil rights but has been a supportive and outspoken ally about pushing the GLBT community to include people of color in leadership roles. She's still married to her second wife Trish and was recently honored in 2006 by being voted as grand marshal for the Houston Pride parade.

She also plays a mean guitar ;)

I firsr heard about her when I was a freshman at UH and she was a law school student at the time. Ironically our paths didn't cross until 1997. My old gender clinic in Galveston has a twice yearly meet-and-greet event in June and December in which past and present (and sometimes future) clients get together to talk about issues and how our lives are going. That's where I met her, Sarah DePalma (Mommy Sarah I call her) and the late Dee McKellar. At the December 1998 one she and Sarah were there.
Right after she overheard me agreeing to do an interview on 'After Hours', a Houston GLBT themed radio show on KPFT-FM that I later co-hosted with Sarah and Jimmy Carper for two years, Phyllis challenged me to show up in Austin for the TGAIN lobby day that was in the final planning stages at that time.

I did and had the honor of walking into several legislative offices with her at my side. She's one of the people I call or e-mail when I need a historical perspective on things or I get homesick. I've even clashed with her strong-willed behind on occasion (hey, we're Texas women and we ain't wimps. She's an Aggie, I'm a Cougar. What can I say?)

I admire her creative legal mind and have much love and respect for her. She's taught consumer law at TSU's Thurgood Marshall Law School, written numerous law review articles and been a featured speaker at a wide array of events from gender, civil rights and legal conferences to the 1993 March on Washington.

She's gone through some drama like we all have on one level or another. But one of the lessons that she taught me and everyone one else is when you get punched by life, get off the canvas and don't let anyone jack with your civil rights without a fight.

Other lessons I learned from her is that transition shouldn't stop us from full participation in society. We transpeople need to get out there and get involved with mainstream organizations. We also need to have fun doing the things that you like to do. She was a shining example to me when I needed one about being out and proud of being transgender.

She's still got it going on.


TransGriot Notes:
For more info on Phyllis, click on her name to see her website http://www.transgenderlegal.com/

Lorrainne Sade Baskerville

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


As Lorrainne puts it, she said, "I did not come out to this community. I stepped on the scene as Lorrainne Sade. No way I ever considered myself a man!"

She grew up in the Cabrini-Green housing projects of Chicago as the eldest of seven children. She said that since early childhood, she "self-identified as a girl. But I had to search [for information]. I thought I had a mental illness. I was always very feminine acting. I grew up with a father missing from the family. My mother was a very strong person. I learned from her."

She left home at 17 and started working every kind of job to make ends meet. Lorrainne began her transition by doing research at the library and connecting with other people like herself.

She has also noted like myself and Dawn the cultural differences betwen white and black transpersons and how it affects transition.

"White transgender people have a risk involved," she said, while African-American people like herself, often battling poverty and discrimination, have less at stake. "That's why we start out early dealing with gender at 13 or 14.

"Look what happens [to white transgenders]: They suppress everything, go in the Army, do all the stuff society says. At a certain age, they're married, kids, picket fence and the volcano erupts."

Baskerville eventually decided to resume her education and in 1994 earned a bachelor's degree in social work from Northeastern Illinois University.

In the 1970s, she became familiar with sex workers' conditions and sometimes was forced to confront a city ordinance of the times that prohibited her appearing in public while wearing female clothing. When AIDS struck a member of her family in the mid-1980s, Baskerville took its health threat seriously. She began to work as a volunteer as a volunteer at organizations such as the Howard Brown Health Center
and Horizons Community Services.

In the 1980's Baskerville became a social worker and founded TransGenesis in 1995, a social service agency for transgenders in Uptown. One of her major goals was to reach out to transgender youths, who often drop out of school because of verbal and emotional abuse and end up on the streets.

She also had a goal of starting a health clinic for transgenders and a fund to award grant money for surgery. She also shares my concerns about young transwomen who undergo dangerous silicone injections from "unqualified, incompetent providers underground," at 'pumping parties' in an attempt to feminize their bodies. She's seen the consequences that r4esult from the multiple use of unsterilized syringes that include everything from gangrene to HIV infections.

In her community activism since 1986, Baskerville has served on the board of Test Positive Aware Network (TPAN), in the Chicago HIV Prevention Planning Group (HPPG), and in the Chicago Police Department's 23rd District Gay and Lesbian Advisory Group.

In 1997, Baskerville received the Greater Chicago Committee's first Georgia Black Award for service to the transgender community. She chaired the Youth Events Committee for the Chicago Black Pride 2000 conference. She was selected by the AIDS Foundation of Chicago and the 13th International AIDS Conference to lead a panel on transgender issues at the conference that was held in Durban, South Africa in July 2004. She is also an advocate for transgendered victims of hate crimes and
violence and was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame in 2000.


TransGriot Notes:
Lorrainne is married and living in Thailand now, but I do have hopes of finally meeting her in person one day. We trade e-mails from time to time.

Cathy Hughes

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

As a child who grew up around radio stations, Cathy Hughes is someone I have much love and respect for. If it weren't for her your local Black radio stations probably wouldn't exist or much less have the intense community oriented focus that the 71 Radio One stations in 22 markets nationwide pride themselves on.

Born in Omaha, NE in 1947, the founder and chairperson of Radio One, Inc is considered one of the most powerful women in Black America. Essence Magazine named her one of '100 Persons Who Changed the World'. Radio Ink lists Hughes as one of the “20 Most Influential Women in Radio”. She and her son Alfred C. Liggins III, Radio One's President & CEO run the largest African-American owned and operated broadcast company in the nation. She's also made a lot of history in the process.

Radio One is the first African-American company in radio history to dominate several major markets simultaneously. Hughes also has the distinction of being the first woman in radio history to own a number one ranked major market station. In 1995, Radio One made broadcasting history again when the largest transaction between two Black owned companies occured when it it purchased Washington, D.C. WKYS-FM for $40 million.

In May 1999 another milestone historical moment occurred. When Cathy Hughes and her son took their company public, it made her the first African-American woman with a company on the stock exchange. In 2000, Black Enterprise named Radio One, “Company of the Year”, Fortune rated it one of the “100 Best Companies to Work For,” and Radio One was inducted into the Maryland Business Hall of Fame.

Her goal of building a broadcast empire with a solid foundation in the African-American community has come to fruition. Radio One’s value is currently in excess of $2 billion, and with that increace in revenue opportunities for minorities and women in the white-male dominated radio buisness have increased as well.

Hughes currently has more than 1,500 Black broadcasters on staff at Radio One, Inc. the seventh largest radio corporation in the United States. Radio One stations reach over 18 million Black listeners daily in 15 states and just celebrated its 25th anniversary last August.

Her dedication to minority communities, entrepreneurial spirit, pride in our heritage and mentoring of women are proudly manifested in her work and life. It has earned her many awards, including an honorary doctorate from Howard University.

She's been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Washington Area Broadcasters Association, The Seventh Congressional District Humanitarian Award. In 2001, she received the National Association of Broadcasters’ Distinguished Service Award and the Advertising Club of Metropolitan Washington’s Silver Medal Award. Hughes was presented with the coveted Golden Mike Award from the Broadcasters’ Foundation; the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters; and a 2002 Essence Magazine Award.

She moved to Washington, D.C. in 1971 and became a lecturer in the newly-established School of Communications at Howard University. She entered radio in 1973 as general sales manager at Howard University’s WHUR-Radio, increasing station revenue from $250,000 to $3 million in her first year.

In 1975, Hughes became the first female vice president and general manager of a station in the nation’s capital and created the "Quiet Storm" format. It is the most listened to nighttime radio format and is currently heard in over 50 markets nationally. Purchasing her first station in 1980, Washington D.C.'s WOL-AM she pioneered yet another innovative format -- “24 hour Talk from a Black Perspective.” With the theme, "Information is Power," WOL became the most listened to talk radio station in the nation’s capital.

Radio One’s newest venture is TV One, Inc., launched in partnership with Comcast on January 19, 2004. TV One caters to the adult lifestyles of African Americans offering quality programming such as “B. Smith with Style,” and an array of original programming. Hughes is on the board of TV One, is the Executive Producer of “The Gospel of Music with Jeff Majors,” and also hosts TV One’s interview show, “TV One on One.”

Radio One also owns REACH Media, Black America web.com, and The Power, a 24/7 satellite radio channel on XM radio 169 devoted to talk about social, political and economic issues from an African American perspective.

She went though some trials to get to that point. She was all set to go to college in 1965 until the discovery that she was pregnant put an end to those plans. She was a divorced single mother when she made 32 presentations to banks trying to get the loan she needed to purchase WOL-AM. The 33rd presentation to a new Latina loan officer at Chemical Bank garnered her $600,000 of the $1 million she needed with the remainder coming from venture capitalists.

That was only the beginning. When Hughes took possession of the station she discovered that the previous owner fired the entire staff and they responded by trashing the station. She had to bring LP's from her personal collection to play on the air. In addition during those lean years she had to sell a family heirloom white gold watch made by slaves that belonged to her great-grandmother for $50,000. When her house and car were repossessed she slept in a sleeping bag in the station for 18 months. She and her son persevered and six years later WOL turned its first profit.

So the next time you're listening to the Quiet Storm on your local radio station or are checking out TV One on cable, say a word of thanks to Cathy Hughes and her son for not only making history, but keeping Black radio alive in the 21st century.

The Washington Post had it right. In D.C. Hughes was called 'The Voice of the Black Community' from her days as an outspoken talk show host at WOL-AM with deep roots in it. She's now expanded that reach to cover the entire nation.

Tavis' State of the Black Union 2007'' This Weekend

By Denise Watson Batts, The Virginian-Pilot
© February 6, 2007

WHEW, A WHOLE 10 minutes on the phone with Tavis Smiley. That's a coup considering how swamped he is, he says, serving his people.

Time magazine has called Smiley, now 42, one of America's top young leaders. There's his foundation for young people, books, including his work with "The Covenant With Black America," a New York Times best-seller last year, not to mention his down-home hell-raising.

He's known for his shows on Black Entertainment Television, National Public Radio and PBS, and the popular (national)radio program "Tom Joyner Morning Show"

Smiley and Joyner's on-air crusades to mobilize listeners are the stuff of legend, including a successful campaign to get major retailers, such as CompUSA, to advertise more in black-owned media outlets.

Smiley visits the area this weekend for discussions at The College of William and Mary on Friday and for his annual "State of the Black Union 2007" symposium at Hampton University on Saturday. The theme of the latter ties in with the Jamestown 400th anniversary; more than 11,000 people from across the country have registered for the free event, according to organizers.

From California, Smiley recently answered questions from The Virginian-Pilot and readers about the prospect of a black president, Jamestown and his own agenda. His answers have been edited for length.

Q. What can people expect at the Saturday event?

A. A conversation about the significance of the African American imprint on America. In addition to that conversation, we'll be talking about the new book, "The Covenant in Action," which is the follow-up to "The Covenant With Black America." The first book essentially addressed the "what" question of our agenda. This is the "how to," how you take the Covenant and put it into action. It's really a conversation looking back over the last 400 years, vis-a-vis the Jamestown settlement, and then also looking forward. So it's going to be a wonderful and comprehensive conversation, ultimately about one thing: How to make black America better. If you make black America better, you make all of America better.

Q. I listened to you earlier on the "Tom Joyner Morning Show," and you mentioned not forgetting the funk. Can you explain that?

A. Jamestown reminds us that we are approaching 400 years since our ancestors first arrived - of course, the first arrived in 1619 - so when you look at the timeline in the book, you see all of the funk, all of the hell, that we have had to endure. From the Dred Scott decision to the Newark riots... there's just so much we've had to endure to arrive at this place where we can be celebrating two brothers in the Super Bowl.

We can never, ever forget from whence we have come.... When we talk about the American experience, people typically want to talk about Ellis Island. Nobody talks about Jamestown; everybody didn't come through Ellis Island, certainly not our ancestors. Ellis Island is a much more sexy story - give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses. We didn't come here as immigrants.

Q. I asked some people in the community for questions. This is from Lindsay Powell, an 18-year-old in Virginia Beach: "There is a possibility that a black man might be elected in the 2008 election. Do you think that America is ready for a black president?"

A. I think America might be ready. The question is, is Barack Obama the right person?

For example, when you look at the polls now, he is trailing Hillary Clinton two-to-one inside of black America. Here's a guy who black America is, at the moment, skeptical about. Could that change? It could.

The other thing is that Barack Obama has not had the quintessential black experience in America - raised in Hawaii, spent time in Indonesia, biracial family. He didn't grow up in Mississippi or the South Side of Chicago. Most black folk got to know Barack the same way white folk got to know him - two years ago when he gave that speech at the Democratic Convention. Barack Obama is no Jesse Jackson. For that matter, Barack Obama is no Shirley Chisholm. When Shirley Chisholm ran in '72, when Jesse ran in '84 and '88, they had long-standing relationships with the black community.

So there's some courting here that Barack is going to have to do. I don't know whether or not, after the courtship, if black America is going to decide that we're going to date, much less be wed to him.

I personally don't like the idea that the majority community is basically telling us who our candidate ought to be.... The point here is that there is not a black groundswell, at the moment, saying, "Run, Obama, Run." You follow me?

And I know Barack well - he's a friend, a personal friend. I'm just answering your question honestly, that there is a courtship that needs to happen.

Q. Here's a question from Delceno Miles, Virginia Beach businesswoman: "Many people of color continue to come to this country with very little in terms of possessions or wealth yet seem to find a way to succeed in business and education by sheer determination. What lessons can be learned from them that can be applied to the black community?"

A. I'd flip the question and say that those are the lessons they have learned from us.

I understand the point, but at the end of the day, again, that's what this Jamestown conversation is all about. We have taught this country more lessons than anyone about hard work, about discipline, about self-reliance, about self-respect.

And so I think it's not about us learning from them as much as it is one recognizing that we taught them; we wrote the book on overcoming. The second part of that would be, if anything, we need to go back to our own playbook. It's not about reading somebody else's playbook. Nobody in this country has had to endure what we've had to endure, and we're still standing 400 years later.

Q. This one is from local minister Carlton McLeod of Calvary Revival Church Chesapeake:"How should we address consumerism and materialism in our community?"

A. That's a good question. Every year, the focus of these conversations change. Last year, the focus was on economics, and you can go to the Web site (www.covenantwithblackamerica.com) for more information.

The short answer is that we blame other folk, talking about economics, for coming into our communities, taking our money, yadda, yadda, yadda. You can't blame other folk for 98 percent of your problems and give them 100 percent of your money. We have to recycle dollars in our own community.

Number two, we have to focus on not just spending but on saving. We have to stop living above our means. I say all the time the problem with us is too many of us spend money we don't have, to buy stuff we don't need, to impress folk we don't even like.

Q. O.K., I'm going to try to get this question in. Much has been said about the shortage of eligible black men in America. You're still single?

A. I am.

Q. When are you going to do your part in addressing this problem?

A. (He chuckles.) The minute I find some time. I'm one of 10 kids, so I love family and look forward to the day when I can perhaps have my own. The short answer and the truthful answer is that I have been so wed to the cause of our people that it makes it challenging.

I think people sometimes don't truly grasp how much energy and effort goes into trying to make all this happen. Even for people who were married and had families, you read their books, listen to them and they will tell you - Jesse Jackson, never home. Dick Gregory, never home. Dr. King, never home.

Somewhere in there, they found a way to get married and make some babies, but the struggle of our people, when you love our people and when you are in service to our people, it takes a lot of energy. And, then again, that's not to say that for me it won't happen at the right time....

But it is on my agenda, if I can put it that way.

Q. O.K., so there's an agenda for America, and there's an agenda for Tavis?

A. (Laughing more.) Yes.

Reach Denise Watson Batts at (757) 446-2504 or denise.batts@pilotonline.com.

NBJC Black Church Summit in Philly

Saturday, March 10 promises to be a hot time at the historic Mother Bethel AME Church in Philadelphia, PA when the National Black Justice Coalition sponsors their second annual Black Church Summit. They will pick up where they left off last year in terms of their discussion on homophobia in the Black Church.

Over three hundred people from across the nation will gather to debate the issue of homosexuality and its role within the Black Church as well as provide solutions on how to create a welcoming and gay-affirming church.

Unlike last year's inaugural event in Atlanta, this year there will be GLBT and anti-GLBT ministers in the same room. Anti-gay ministers such as Bishop Eddie Long and others were invited last year but declined to participate.

Somne of the confirmed attendees are Rev. Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, Bishop Harry Jackson (Maryland), Bishop Yvette Flunder (San Francisco), Rev. Eugene Rivers (Boston), Dr. Kenneth Samuel (Atlanta), Rev. Deborah L. Johnson (Santa Cruz, CA), and Rev. Irene Monroe (Boston).

One of the reasons this event was created is because of concerns about HIV, anti-gay violence and emotional depression within the Black gay community. The Black Church is either ill equipped or refuses to adequately address these issues. Too many times their response to these problems is to ignore it or hurl vitriolic rhetoric from the pulpit that is not only divisive but exacerbates the problem.

This year’s event will once again attract nationally prominent clergy, civil rights leaders, and many opposed to and also affirming of homosexuality. Our goal is to assist the Black Church on how to embrace their lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender friends, neighbors, family, and members of their congregations.

The continued silence of the Black gay community on issues dealing with homophobia has left the entire African-American community vulnerable to the divisive tactics of those who do not have the community’s best interests at heart.

The stated goal of the summit is to assist the Black Church in formulating strategies on how to embrace their lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender friends, neighbors, family, and members of their congregations.

Another goal that the NBJC hopes to accomplish at this event is to expand the ranks of the Black Church Social Justice Community Action Network. It is a national coalition of gay-affirming Black churches and clergy who are actively working to end homophobia and discrimination in the Black church.

They will also address concerns that the continued silence of the Black gay community on issues dealing with homophobia has left the entire community vulnerable to the divisive tactics of those who do not have our community’s best interests at heart.

The sponsor of this event, the National Black Justice Coalition is a nationwide Black gay civil rights organization headquartered in Washington, DC. Its mission is to end racism and homophobia within the Black communities across America.

For those of you who wish to attend, registration is $75 and can be processed online at www.nbjc.org. The address for Mother Bethel AME Church is 419 S. 6th Street in Philadelphia and the summit is scheduled to take place from 9am - 5pm.

Hope this one gets C-SPAN coverage like Tavis' State of the Black Union.

Tony! Tony! Tony!

Nice guys do finish first.

Congratulations to Tony Dungy for officially becoming the first African-American head coach to win the Super Bowl as the Indianapolis Colts beat the Chicago Bears 29-17 in Miami.

He's been saddled with the label of the coach who couldn't win the big one. He took Tampa Bay to the playoffs numerous times, made it to the NFC championship game in 1999 but fell short 11-6 to the St. Louis Rams thanks to a questionable call. After becoming head coach of the Colts in 2002 they had to deal with the agony of having their seasons end at the hands of the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship in 2003, losing to them the next year and the Steelers in the 2005 divisional round of the NFL playoffs. Today's Super Bowl XLI win ended that frustration for him.

"I'm proud to be representing African-American coaches, to be the first African-American coach to win this," Dungy said as he accepted the Vince Lombardi Trophy in the postgame ceremony. "That means an awful lot to our country."

Dungy also became the third coach to win a Super Bowl as a player and a coach following Oakland's Tom Flores and Mike Ditka in accomplishing that feat. He was a safety on the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1978 that won Super Bowl XIII, ironically which was played in Miami.

The 'Soul Bowl' was an entertaining game from start to finish, if you're a Colts fan. My roomie Dawn was born in Chicago and is a rabid Bears fan. She was very happy after Devin Hester's 92 yard kickoff return to open the game. I said to her, "Ohio State started the BCS Championship game with an opening kickoff return, too. That championship trophy is sitting in Gainesville, FL right now."

The Vince Lombardi Trophy is headed to Circle City and it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Congrats to the Chicago Bears and another class act from the Lone Star State, coach Lovie Smith for a wonderful season.

Justina Williams-The 1979 JET Magazine Article

photo-Justina Williams

From the November 1, 1979 Jet Magazine article written by D. Michael Cheers. Deep thanks to Roberta Black for scanning it. Note how OUR media used the correct pronouns several decades before the 2001 AP Style Book mandated it, and treated Justina with respect.


Justina Williams always knew that she was different.

Ms. Williams, 30, was born Johnny Williams, a man with a gender disorder. She said that although she had a man's genitalia, psychologically she was a woman. Further, she had glandular bust tissue, and chromosomally and hormonally she was female.

"From my early childhood years I was more feminine than masculine. I just naturally assumd that I was a girl," she told JET. "I used to fight with my sister to see who would comb the doll's hair. I never played with games or toys associated with boys."

While on sick leave two years ago from her job as an assembly line worker for General Motors' Cadillac Motor Car Division in Detroit, she went to New York and was admitted to Boulevard Hospital for a sex reassignment operation..

Two months later she legally changed her name to Justina. Fifteen months later, after 10 years of seniority at General Motors she was terminated.

Ms. Williams filed a lawsuit last month in Wayne County Circuit Court where she claimed her termination was illegal, and that she suffered from unlawful employment practices and other forms of discrimination because of her sex. GM says they plan to answer the suit within a month.

Among the charges listed in the complaint, Ms. Williams alleges that she was "repeatedly harrassed, tormented and humiliated with verbal abuse with the intention of making her workplace conditions so unbearable that she would be forced to terminate her employment for her physical and mental well-being."

"I tried to be a man." said Ms. Williams, who now supports herself on general assistance and food stamps. "From 1970 to 1974 I even grew a mustache, tried to generate an interest in girls, but I could not become interested in them. We could only be friends. I never dated a girl in my life. I never had sex with a woman, nor have I ever engaged in any homosexual activity.

"When I was 13 I read a magazine article about an entertainer who had a sex reassignment operation. I knew then that there was hope for me. My prayers were answered." she continued. "In 1969 I started taking hormone shots to soften my skin and develop bust tissue. I even dressed like a woman, but only when I wasn't at work.
"Now I am totally a woman and content with my body. I have sex, have orgasms and really enjoy macho men," she added. Ms. Williams said that she cannot have children because she does not have any ovaries or a uterus.

As for her future, "What I really want to do is study cosmetology and move to another location so that I can get on with my life. I want to form an organization to help other women who have gender dysphoria and have suffered like I have. But for right now I want to concentrate on being female. I haven't had time to do that yet," she said.


TransGriot Notes:
Ms. Williams lawsuit against GM was never settled, but she did fufill her dreams of becoming a cosmetologist. She also went to school and became a legal assistant. The organization she formed, the National Gender Dysphoria Association helped many people in the Detroit area transition and lead happier, healthier lives. NGDS provides gender counseling, electrolysis, legal advice and SRS guidance.
They can be reached at:

National Gender Dysphoria Organization
PO Box 02732
Detroit, MI 48202
(313)842-5258

How Young Is Too Young To Transition?

photo-slain Washington DC transgender teens Ukea Davis (left) and Stephanie Thomas

Kim, 12, has always fought a male identity; she began hormones before puberty and will soon have surgery in a controversial step her doctors think more humane.

Kim is believed to be the youngest person to begin gender reassignment.

Biologically male and originally named Tim by her parents, Kim was diagnosed officially as a transsexual two years ago and has been undergoing hormone treatments. However, following an extensive mental and physical examinations, German doctors have been given the go-ahead. The child's parents have also expressed enthusiasm to begin immediately.

When the news broke about Kim's case in Germany it reawakened an old debate in the transgender community. How young is too young to transition?

We had a TSTB discussion thread on the topic and we couldn't come to a consensus on the right age to do so. We did agree that American attitudes on the subject of early transition lag far behind the rest of the world. In Thailand and Mexico for example, female hormones can be bought over the counter and the trend in other nations is increasingly leaning toward teenage transition.

My thoughts on it have evolved as the evidence continues to mount that the earlier a male to female transitions, the better. I used to believe that 18 was the right age to transition. I currently think that it needs to happen around 15, the start of the high school years. Many children develop a clear sense of whether they are boys or girls between the ages of 18 and 30 months. After that point gender stabilizes and the child adopts gender specific behavior in terms of mode of clothing, the toys they play with, et cetera.

Children with GID issues react in a different way. They will persistently insist that they belong to the opposite gender and show signs of discomfort with their body. Boys may exhibit a preference for cross-dressing, playing the female role and be disgusted with their penis. Girls may adopt masculine clothing, be drawn towards rough-and-tumble games and hide their breasts and vagina. GID kids want their unwanted body parts to disappear as they grow older and have strong preferences for friends of the opposite sex.

Shoot, sounds like my replay of my childhood.

In Great Britain and the United States, doctors follow the The World Professional Association for Transgender Health (formerly the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association) Standards of Care. They generally avoid gender reassignment surgery until the patients are 18.

WPATH guidelines state that "surgical intervention should not be carried out prior to adulthood" and that hormones should not be given to those under 16.

It is well known that early transition for male-to-female transpeople has more benefits than downsides. Testosterone is a powerful hormone and the earlier you can stave off its post-puberty effects the better for the transwoman to be. Teen transitioning allows your body to develop with feminine gender characteristics. More importantly there's not as much testosterone buildup to overcome and you avoid the testo-induced vocal cord thickening that produces a masculine timbered voice.

The major benefits are social. Families have a way of projecting their expectations for your life based on gender. A young transitioner would have the benefit of not only healthy self-esteem from having their body develop in the gender matching their brain's hardwired and self-perception, but the family would also see that. They would then develop a parental life expectation projection based on the female role, not the gender role you're leaving.

For example, if you're male, you're expected to 'carry on the family name' by marrying and having kids and doing better career wise than your father.
The later you transition in life, the harder it is for the family to let go of the 'old person' and those dreams. It lends itself to a situation in which the family can come to resent the 'new one' that took over the 'old person's' body.

That's why we often stress that a transgendered coming out is different from one of a gay or lesbian person. A gay or lesbian person inhabits the same body and gender that the family grew up with. Once a transperson comes out that old person is gone forever.

If the option had been available to me would I have taken it? You damned skippy I would have. I believe that had I done so at 15 my quality of life and familial relationships would be much better than the decade long isolation that I'm painfully trying to overcome right now in my nuclear and extended families.

As far as my body was concerned I have no problems passing. I was fortunate to be blessed with a wiry body build, smooth skin, limited body hair growth, feminine features and a rather androgynous voice. HRT basically enhanced and improved what I was given. My only regrets about transition is that I didn't do it sooner. The feelings I've had have been present in my life since I was 5.

If a young person has been insistent for years that they are in the wrong body, have gone through counseling and there is no change in their perception they are a member of the opposite gender, then why shouldn't society allow them to make the transition moves that will ensure a happier, healthier and more productive life for them?

Even if they came to that conclusion at age 12 or sooner.

Ugly Betty

photo-America Ferrera as Betty Suarez

I started watching Ugly Betty when I was channel surfing one Thursday night and happene to see Vanessa Williams on the tube. When it was over I went to ABC's website to get more information about the show and get caught up on all the episodes I'd missed.

It was adapted from a popular Colombian telenovela Yo Soy Betty La Fea and is executive produced by Salma Hayek. They've had some big name stars doing guest spots on the show like Lucy Liu, Judith Light and others.

I have fallen in love with this show. It's well written, well acted and you enjoy rooting for Betty and her family. Even the antagonistic characters like Vanessa's delightfully backstabbing Wilhemina Slater shows a vunerable human side that makes you not hate her as much.

The show is already garnering awards. It recently won a Golden Globe for Best Musical or Comedy Series and America Ferrera won a Gloden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy. I have a feeling these won't be the last awards this show gets before it's done.

The basic plot of Ugly Betty is that a ordinary girl from Queens gets hired at a high fashion magazine by Bradford Meade as an executive assistant to his son, playa-playa Daniel Meade. Daniel has become chief editor in the wake of his brother Alex's mysterious death as the result of a skiing accident.

Bradford's thoughts are that she's the only woman in New York that he won't sleep with and he'll focus on the job at hand. Daniel initially resists, but is won over by Betty's bright ideas, sweet personality and intelligence. They discover that together they are an unbeatable team.

They need that togetherness. They are opposed by Wilhemina, who is still upset that she got passed over for the editor-in-chief position by Bradford after the mysterious death of their editor Fey Sommers, her toadying assistant Marc and the scheming receptionist Amanda. The Terrible Trio are always plotting and looking for opportunities to set them up for failure. Betty does have a friend at Mode in terms of the inhouse seamstress Christina, who knows everybody's dirty little secrets. She has also garnered the romantic attention of Henry the accountant.

Betty's home life isn't glamorous either. Her dad Ignacio and older sister Hilda constantly worry that she's setting herself up for a fall. Her show tune loving nephew Justin enthusiasically pushes his aunt to go for her dreams even as he criticizes her sense of fashion. She's still getting visits from her nerdy ex-boyfriend Walter despite her lukewarm attempts to convince him to stay away.

The plot just got thicker with the arrest of Bradford Meade, the appearance of his mother Claire who started drinking heavily after Alex's death and return of his brother with a twist. Alex is now his sister Alexis, played by supermodel Rebecca Romijn and has launched a hostile takeover bid backed by Wilhemina to gain control of Mode Magazine. It has been blunted for now by an injunction filed by Daniel.

Judging by the way that they've been handling the show so far, Ugly Betty will continue to surprise and delight me as the season unfolds.

February 2007 TransGriot Column

Honoring Black History Month
Copyright 2007, THE LETTER


“Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history.”

Dr. Carter G. Woodson (1875-1950), Father of Black History Month

February is the month when the nation takes 28 days (29 during a leap year) to focus on the contributions of African-Americans thanks to the Herculean efforts of Dr. Carter G. Woodson. (who spent several semesters at Berea College working on his bachelor’s in Literature). On February 7, 1926 he founded Negro History Week, the precursor of what would later become Black History Month.

As I’ve mentioned in previous columns, I have a deep love of history and agree with Dr. Woodson about the importance of knowing what your predecessors have accomplished in order to chart a better future. One of the reasons that Black History Month exists is because despite the fact that we’ve been on American shores since 1619, for too long the contributions of African-Americans in the building of our nation were either overlooked or deliberately covered up.

It’s to your benefit to know, for example that Garrett Morgan invented the gas mask. There’s the unmatched combat record of the Tuskegee Airmen or the exploits of the Buffalo Soldiers to peruse. Get to know Benjamin Banneker, the mathematician who was part of the survey team that helped lay out Washington D.C. and put together a best selling almanac that was widely read in the 13 colonies.

Those accomplishments even apply in our current time. Philip Emeagwali not only built the world’s fastest computer in the early 90s but came up with a process that allows for more crude oil to be recovered from drilled wells. He is the gentleman responsible for the increasing accuracy of weather forecasts you see on the local news. Those are just tantalizing examples of the historical buffet awaiting you.

“Our song, our toil, our cheer and warning have been given to this nation in blood brotherhood. Are not these gifts worth the giving? Is not this work and striving? Would America have been America without her Negro people?”

W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk, 1903

The same could be said about GLBT African-Americans as well. Our contributions to the American family quilt are numerous. Gay writers like Zora Neale Hurston and Countee Cullen were major forces in the Harlem Renaissance. Many of the major civil rights events, including the 1963 March on Washington were organized by Bayard Rustin, a gay man who helped Dr. King co-found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Speaking of the Harlem Renaissance, that planted cultural seeds that decades later allowed Alvin Ailey to found his world famous dance troupe. The Harlem Renaissance also gave birth to the Harlem drag balls that morphed into the ballroom culture depicted in the movie ‘Paris Is Burning.’ Chicago had their own version on the South Side called the Finnie’s Ball, named after its founder Alfred Finnie.

We were there at Stonewall. One of the plaintiffs in the Lawrence v. Texas case that overturned sodomy laws was an African-American by the name of Tyron Garner. One of the seven couples in the Goodridge v. Massachusetts Dept. of Public Health case that made marriage equality a possibility has an African-American lesbian in it. We GLBT African-Americans are still making contributions today fighting for GLBT civil rights and building the GLBT community

Black History Month is not just a FUBU (For Us By Us) production. Yes, it helps my people better understand where they’ve been, where they are going and build pride and self-esteem in our kids. It’s vitally important for other cultures to know what we have contributed not only to American society, but the world as well. Black history does not start and stop with slavery, Martin Luther King, the creation of jazz, achievements in sports or the Civil Rights Movement.

It is much more than that. It is American history.