Lynda Carter To Caribou Barbie: You're No Wonder Woman

TransGriot Note:Philadelphia magazine recently interviewed Lynda Carter about her three week show at an Atlantic City casino. The interviewer asked a question about the comparisons that Repugnicans are making to Palin and the Wonder Woman character she played back in the 70's.

Needless to say Ms. Carter has very definite opinions about that.


PHILADELPHIA: Okay, last question. I'm sure you've seen all the comparisons in the media and among Republicans of Sarah Palin to Wonder Woman. How do you feel about that?

CARTER: Don’t get me started. She’s the anti-Wonder Woman. She’s judgmental and dictatorial, telling people how they’ve got to live their lives. And a superior religious self-righteousness … that’s just not what Wonder Woman is about. Hillary Clinton is a lot more like Wonder Woman than Mrs. Palin. She did it all, didn’t she?

No one has the right to dictate, particularly in this country, to force your own personal views upon the populace — religious views. I think that is suppressive, oppressive, and anti-American. We are the loyal opposition. That’s the whole point of this country: freedom of speech, personal rights, personal freedom. Nor would Wonder Woman be the person to tell people how to live their lives. Worry about your own life! Worry about your own family! Don’t be telling me what I want to do with mine.

I like John McCain. But this woman — it’s anathema to me what she stands for. I think America should be very afraid. Very afraid. Separation of church and state is the one thing the creators of the Constitution did agree on — that it wasn’t to be a religious government. People should feel free to speak their minds about religion but not dictate it or put it into law.

What I don’t understand, honestly, is how anyone can even begin to say they know the mind of God. Who do they think they are? I think that’s ridiculous. I know what God is in my life. Now I am sure that she’s not all just that. But it’s enough to me. It’s enough for me to have a visceral reaction. And it makes me mad.

People need to speak up. Doesn’t mean that I’m godless. Doesn’t mean that I am a murderer. What I hate is this demonization of everybody but one position. You’re un-American because you’re against the war. It’s such bullshit. Fear. It’s really such a finite way of thinking about God to think that your measley little mind can know the mind of God. It’s a very little God that way. I think that God’s bigger. I don’t presume to know his mind. Or her mind.

Debates-Round Two

In a few hours Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama will conduct their second round of debates from the campus of Belmont University in Nashville, TN. While it's a town hall format and McCain's favorite debate format, the stakes couldn't be higher on the heels of a week in which the Dow dropped below 10,000 for the first time in four years and Sen. Obama starting to build an eight point overall national lead.

Most ominous to the McPalin campaign in addition to the lead that Obama's built up in the critical battleground states of Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania is that some of the GOP 'Solid South' is starting to slip. Virginia and North Carolina are beginning to lean to Obama in addition to Florida.

Other states that Bush took in 2004 such as Missouri, New Mexico, Colorado, Indiana and Nevada are either leaning Obama's way or are uncomfortably close



McCain's campaign is reeling thanks to his party's mismanagement of the economy, his attempt to rebrand himself and his intellectually challenged running mate as 'mavericks' has failed, and hot on the heels of his pullout in Michigan he's now resorting to a 'ramp up the negative attacks' strategy.

And every time the worst president in US history goes on TV, it helps Democrats everywhere.



While the trends are looking good for Team Obama, we still have four agonizing weeks to go. They also realize that another solid performance in this debate and the next one at Hofstra University on October 15 could set the stage for a Democratic landslide.

While I'll be stuck at work for this one, I will get an opportunity to watch the replay later.

Michelle Bruce Unanimously Wins Lawsuit

TransGriot Note: I had the pleasure of meeting Michelle at the 2004 SCC, and I was disappointed when she didn't get reelected to her Riverdale, GA city council seat. Michelle has the distinction of being the first open transgender person ever elected to public office.


Georgia Supreme Court rules in favor of transgender politician Michelle Bruce

Transgender Ga. official wins legal battle

Ga. transgender politician wins lawsuit that said she misled voters by running as a woman

GREG BLUESTEIN
AP News
Oct 06, 2008 12:47 EST

Georgia's top court ruled in favor of a transgender politician who was slapped with a lawsuit by two political opponents who claimed she misled voters by running as a woman.

The Georgia Supreme Court's unanimous ruling on Monday found that the two political opponents who filed the lawsuit failed to produce evidence of fraud, misconduct or illegal action after claiming that Michelle Bruce bamboozled voters by identifying herself as female.

"This is a great victory for me and anyone who believes in equality," Bruce said in a statement. "It gives me hope that the Georgia Supreme Court did what was right and did not buy into hate-based politics."

Bruce, who was believed to be the state's first transgender politician, landed one of four council seats in Riverdale, Ga. in 2003. Running unopposed, she pledged to attract more jobs and residents to the struggling town 12 miles south of Atlanta.

Last year, however, three people signed up to run against her, and she failed to capture enough votes to avoid a runoff against second-place finisher Wayne Hall.

The third-place finisher, Georgia Fuller, and a candidate in another race, Stan Harris, filed a lawsuit after the primary that identified Bruce as "Michael" and sought a new election.

It's unclear whether most voters knew of Bruce's transgender status before the lawsuit was filed. She has declined to say whether she has had surgery but said she has always identified herself as transgender.

"I'm Michelle," she said when the suit was filed. "I'm the same Michelle they elected four years ago."

Hall won the runoff, and Bruce blamed the lawsuit for her defeat.

Meanwhile, the complaint made its way through Georgia's legal system. In its decision Monday, the court ruled for Bruce and concluded that "none of these alleged irregularities is specific enough to cast doubts" on the election.

Gay rights groups said the lawsuit appears to be a first in the country.

"I am not aware of any other case involving the issue of whether a transgender candidate is defrauding the citizens," said Cole Thaler, an attorney with Lambda Legal, a gay rights group.

Bruce's attorneys said they felt vindicated by the ruling.

Michael King, the attorney for the plaintiffs, said he was disappointed and surprised by the decision.

"We think there were significant irregularities and misconduct to reverse the election," he said.

Bruce, meanwhile, said she is now taking courses at an online law school and hopes to again serve the public as an elected official.

"I still have a dream to serve my community," she said. "And I'm not giving up."

___

On the Net:

Georgia Supreme Court: http://www.gasupreme.us

Republicans ARE Racists

If you Republicans are wondering why you had only 38 African-Americans out of 2080 delegates to your recent convention in St. Paul, while the Democrats had an all time high of 1500 at their convention in Denver (including the first African-American transgender delegate), just look in the mirror when you take your pointed hoods off.

While I know there are some good Republicans who are appalled and ashamed about this sorry state of affairs, you need to own your failure to stop the negative behaviors that were going on in your party apparatus.

If there was any question that the Republican Party stands for racism and bigotry and has for decades, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland's (R-GA) recent 'uppity' statement should have removed all doubt.

Party of Lincoln? More like the party of Jefferson Davis.

Now that the McPalin campaign is showing signs of going down in flames, their party's economic mismanagement chickens are coming home to roost sooner than they planned. Since their 'Guns, God and Gays' attacks aren't resonating with the public any more, and people are more 'scurred' of the economy than McPalin bellowing 'terrorist' at every speech, the only thing left in the GOP electoral dirty trick bag short of suppressing votes is hatin' on black people.

So why would any rational, proud, free thinking African-American (or any other person) consider joining this party?

I said rational, proud, free thinking African-Americans, not sellouts.

While I agree that African-Americans aren't monolithic in our thinking and need to be engaged in both parties, the historic agenda of lifting up all African-Americans come first, not selling out your people for your own personal gain.

And no, Condoleezza Rice, Clarence Thomas, Alan Keyes and Thomas Sowell don't count as African-Americans. They can shuffle on back to the conservative plantation and serve their massas like they have for the last decade or so.

But back to the post.

Ever since Richard Nixon and the GOP concocted the 'Southern Strategy', GOP pols keep showing us their inner Klansman and keep making racist statements on a seemingly monthly basis.

That GOP racism keeps them in a perpetual state of barely disguised hostility that has them consciously and subconsciously acting in negative ways toward minority communities. Their arrogant, non-compassionate governance style generates policies, procedures and campaign tactics that are insensitive and harmful to minorities as well.

Even non-whites within the party, in their zeal to be 'more conservative than thou' are infected by the racism of the predominate ethnic group in the GOP. New Mexico's Bernalillo County GOP chair Fernando C. de Baca had to resign after making the now infamous 'Hispanics consider themselves above Blacks and won't vote for Obama' statement.



So no, you Republicans can't hide or spin this. Racism became part of your party's DNA when you clutched the Dixiecrats to your bosoms after the 1964 elections. If you'd been paying attention to my party's history with the Dixiecrats, you would have been leery of being associated with them. You wanted to win one for the conservative movement so badly you threw away your moral compass to do so.

Until the good Republicans get control of your party and turn it back to the principles that made it the 'Party of Lincoln', you will continue to see the numbers of African-Americans in your party ranks precipitously dwindle.

So if the white sheets fit GOP boys and girls, wear them.

You're Welcome, Sis

I was excited and happy to see as I checked my e-mail this morning one from Isis.

She thanked everyone for their support as she worked her butt off to win Cycle 11 of America's Next Top Model.

She mentioned that she'd had someone forward the open letter I wrote to her, had just read it and thanked me for writing it.

Well, sis. You're welcome. You are an inspiration to not only me, but the entire community. While we were disappointed in the outcome, it also taught us a bigger lesson.

We need to be proud of who we are and push to make our dreams come true. The more we just live our lives, the more that we'll roll back the negativity and ignorance that characterizes our relationships with the world.

We especially needed our fellow African-American people to see you and Laverne Cox. It lets people know that the stereotypes that are bandied about concerning African-American transwomen are predominately based on inaccurate and ignorant assumptions.

We African-American transwomen are beautiful, intelligent, proud of our heritage and wish to do our part to not only live quality lives but uplift our people as well.

Thanks to you and Laverne, that message may finally be getting through.


TransGriot Note: For those of you who are interested, here's the link to Isis' MySpace page.

Last Day To Register to Vote

Today is the last day you can register to vote in this historic and critically important election. If you're not registered to vote, please do so.

If you are, double check your registration, especially if you are in a state or jurisdiction with GOP registrars or secretaries of state to insure you haven't been involuntarily purged from the voter rolls.

And if you're lucky enough to be in an early voting state and have made up your mind about this election, vote.

Stuck On Stupid

One of the things that I have been frustrated as hell to watch over the last two decades is the GOP attack on intelligence for political reasons.

As someone who is a proud TK (teacher's kid), graduated from a gifted and talented high school and went on to college, I'm cognizant of and place high importance on education and my leaders being intelligent enough to handle the challenges of governing our country at the federal, state and local levels.

But one thing that has irritated me is this anti-intellectual strain that has been a cornerstone of the GOP rise to power over the last 20 years.

The Right Wing Noise Machine has convinced some Americans in their typical Orwellian way that being smart is bad and that being stupid qualifies you to occupy the highest office in the land. If anything, the last eight years have proven the folly of that pretzel logic.

George W. Bush brags about being a thank you lawdy C student at Yale. Sen. John McCain, who wishes to succeed him, graduated 894 out of 898 people in his 1958 Naval Academy class. Sarah Palin went to five colleges before getting her degree. Not only did she admit not knowing what the vice president does, she doesn't know much about geography, is ignorant about Supreme Court decisions, believes that dinosaurs walked the earth with humans and blames the 'liberal media' for making her look bad in her interviews.

And y'all want to know why our country and our economy is so jacked up?

That's why I'm ecstatic about having Barack Obama, a grad of Columbia, a summa cum laude graduate from Harvard Law and a constitutional law professor running for president.

I'm looking forward to seeing an Obama administration chock full of the best and brightest people our country has produced working to solve our nation's problems that have been allowed to fester and have gotten worse under GOP misleadership.

I'm looking forward to having a reality based foreign policy, reality-based information and reality based scientific research coming out of government agencies not dominated by neo-Luddites or GOP Know-Nothings.

If the last eight years have proven anything, it's that the 'there's no difference between the two parties' red herring has been thoroughly debunked. It has proven the value of having people in governmental positions based on knowledge and merit, not loyalty.

As the old saying goes, with great power comes great responsibility. As a superpower, we should have been focusing more attention when it comes to electing a president about how smart they are, not whether we can drink a beer with them.

Frankly, instead of trashing people who run for public office, we need to go back to the old school way of defining it as the highest, most honorable calling for public service. Perhaps if we started paying more attention to peeps records instead of how telegenic they look, who ran the most negative campaign commercials or other superficial BS, then we'll get more intelligent folks to consider running for office

It's past time that we started encouraging our best and brightest people to get involved in government service. We need the 'A' students to start running thangs in the United States once again instead of people like the McPalin's of the world who are stuck on stupid.

A Day At The St. James Art Show

One of the things that I missed about home was the Westheimer Colony Art Festival which took place in the spring and fall in Montrose.

Back in 2001, I'd only been in Louisville for two weeks, was severely homesick, job hunting and depressed about my situation. Just to get me out of the house and change my routine, since it was the first weekend in October, Dawn and AC took me to Louisville's version of it, the St. James Court Art Show.

I got to wander around the several blocks of art, crafts and food vendors ensconced in this Old Louisville neighborhood and for a few hours forgot about my problems and how much I missed home.

When I attended the 2002 St. James I discovered another element of it. Since upwards of 200,000 people are walking around the area and it happens four weeks before election day, if you're running for political office, it's a must attend event. For several hours you get to press the flesh, meet the constituents, and have your staffers pass around stickers and sign up volunteers. You also get to chat with a wide demographic of peeps from Louisville and the surrounding area.

So since it was a gorgeous, sunny, cloud free 80 degree fall day, I decided to get out of the house and attend the 52nd annual edition of the show since I didn't go last year. I got out of bed, threw on my Obama shirt and jeans and rolled to Old Louisville to check out this year's edition of the St. James Art Show.

It's a prestigious, judged event that over 750 artists travel to Da Ville to participate in and sell their crafts. I didn't have any cash budgeted to buy stuff this year, but did for snacks. I ran into more than a few friends wandering around and the armies of volunteers working on behalf of the local, state and national politicians running for office.

As I ambled through the art show I noted I was getting either positive comments or thumbs up from a wide ethnic cross section of people about my Obama shirt. I also noted that the majority of people supporting the McPalin ticket and wearing Anne Throwup stickers were predominately white.

Anne Northup is trying to get back the congressional seat she held for ten years before she got her butt kicked by John Yarmuth in 2006. We've gotten light-years better representation in Congress since we got her Bush anus kissing butt out of there.

Dawn left the house at noon to attend the St. James and told me after I got back home that both were there in full effect.

I'd missed them by the time I arrived around 2 PM, but I killed two hours taking a leisurely walk around the hundreds of booths,sampling much of the wide variety of food available before I finally had enough and headed back to my Crescent Hill hood.

I am looking forward to next year's edition of the show and hope the weather is just as beautiful as it was today.

Happy 16th Wedding Anniversary Barack and Michelle!

On October 3, 1992 Barack and Michelle got married. 16 years and two adorable kids later Sen. Obama suspended his campaign for a day so that he could take his wife out to dinner in Chicago Saturday night to celebrate their 16th wedding anniversary.








Happy anniversary Sen. and Mrs. Obama! May you be celebrating your 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th wedding anniversaries at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

October 2008 Villager's Black Blog Rankings

It's a new month and that means it's time to head over to Electronic Villager, sit under the virtual baobab tree and wait for the Villager's October BBR's to come out.

As you regular TransGriot readers are aware, I've set the goals of cracking 150 on my Technorati ranking and being a BBR Top 50 ranked blog by January 1 (the 3rd anniversary of the TransGriot blog).

Then it's on to my 2009 goal of cracking the BBR Top 25 Blogs.

Speaking of the Top 25, Congrats to Renee, one of my regular commenters here and her Womanist Musings blog. She's on the verge of cracking the BBR Top 25 with this month's BBR ranking of 26.

So how did I do this month?

At the time the September BBR's were compiled, TransGriot was at Number 67 with a 133 Technorati ranking.

This month, out of the 1440 blogs that were part of the October BBR rankings, as of October 1, 2008 when these rankings were compiled, TransGriot is at number 70 with a 136 Technorati ranking.

Pam's House Blend is still the number one ranked Black blog.

I knew it was a matter of time before my meteoric progress toward the BBR Top 50 would slow down. I lost three spots BBR ranking wise, but did gain 3 points on the Technorati rankings. Being without Internet access for a few days didn't help either.

So instead of interpreting this situation as a negative, I'm looking at this as a glass half full scenario.

I'm only 20 spots away from cracking the BBR Top 50 and 14 points from reaching my goal of a 150 Technorati ranking.

Oh well, back to the drawing board. I have a historic presidential race coming down to the wire to comment on. I'm going to be headed to Denver next month to be the keynote speaker at a gender conference on the CU campus in Boulder, and who knows what other exciting stuff is going to pop up in my life I can comment on.

And I still have twelve weeks to hit my goals.

Trans For Obama Effort

It's been past time for us to take the next steps in securing our rights. Lobbying legislators is only one part of that. You also have to reward your friends and defeat your enemies.

Since Sen. Barack Obama has stated over and over again his support for an inclusive ENDA, we need to donate cash to him so that he can successfully finish this last leg of the journey to the White House.

I've already started doing so by purchasing Obama gear directly from the campaign. No disrespect to you peeps trying to make a living with the cool street Obama shirts, but I want whatever dollars I spend on Obama gear to go straight to whipping McPalin behinds.

A campaign kicked off Monday organized by Helen Boyd and the Stonewall Democrats in which we transgender peeps and our allies have been donating funds to this ActBlue page for the Obama campaign. As of this writing it has garnered 283 donors and $13,145 dollars.

But we could always use more.

When the Purple One says 'we haven't been educating Congress', what he means in Washingtonspeak is that the transgender community hasn't been handing them checks for their reelection campaigns.

Yo Barney, when you quit cutting my people out of ENDA you might see some of this 13K on the regular that's going to Obama. We reward friends, not 'frenemies'.


So if you could just give up $5 or whatever you can spare, it would go a long way toward ensuring your civil rights and send the message that we're not only here, we support our friends as well. For our allies, you send the vitally important message that you believe that civil rights for your fellow transgender citizens is important as well.

One Month To Go

We are 30 days away from the most important presidential election in my lifetime. This election will basically set the tone for how things will go in the Unites States for the next four years.

The choices haven't been this stark since 1980. We can either elect Barack Obama and begin to reverse the horrible Bush policies of the last eight years and restore our tarnished reputation in the world, or we elect John McCain and continue the path to also ran status as a nation.

Fortunately the reality based part of the American electorate is leaning toward Obama. Even hard core Republicans are repulsed at just how badly this country has fared under Bush and are now feeling it in their wallets thanks to the economy tanking.

It has laid bare the failures of conservatism and Republican laissez faire policies for all to see.

Early voting has begun for people in several states, and I hope to see lines on election day as long as the ones South Africans stood in for their 1994 elections that catapulted Nelson Mandela to the presidency.

I also hope and pray that Nelson Mandela is blessed to see we Americans elect an eminently qualified man of African descent to become our leader as well.

But we still have a month to go and two debates left. The GOP isn't going to go down without a mudslinging, vote suppressing, dirty tricks laden fight. This next five weeks is going to be the hardest and most nerve racking part of this historic journey.

What keeps me motivated is visualizing November 4 and imagining what will happen when the announcement is finally made on Election Night when he has passed the magic 270 electoral vote mark and there is a sea of blue on a map of the USA indicating he's won.

Shoot, I already know what will happen. We'll be partying like it's 1992.

Where Africa?

From African Path - Minneapolis, MN,USA
October 02, 2008 08:23 AM

By Mia Nikasimo

Africa, my Africa! Where are the people of the LGBTIQ of African origin be that Africans in Africa or those in the Diaspora? Wherever you are, this clarion call is what has led me to create the trans-group known as, "Transafro," which can be found on Facebook.

Although the continent of Africa seems caught up in a "conditioned consumerist mindset" there is more to the continent than this narrow extrapolation of the rich and diverse continent. One of the daily attacks on African transpeople is the regular attempts by our own kin to erase our experience out of hand. Instead of trying to understand us as part of the diversity of African life, they wantonly exclude us.

Why? If some comments I received off the back of Trans-homosexuality are anything to go by, then I'd say because lots of Africans do not know much about human sexuality beyond their own experience which is often hetero-normative in form. What about us? I remember telling an acquaintance that I am a translesbian once and she mouthed the insult, man! I still find this laughable even today. If you think that a
transperson that has transitioned from being male to female is a man any more than one that transitions from being female to male is still a woman? You will be appallingly wrong. The correct specifications are: Mtf=woman and Ftm=man; it is time to rethink the delusion of conditioned usages of language. Although this is not an academic thesis it is helpful to contemplate the impact of this kind of language from the simple standpoint of existential expression/narrativ e and how we are all affected by its use.

I have to say that I have not been in Africa for over two decades or so now. Although, I feel connected to my trans brothers and sisters both in Africa and those, like me, caught in the Diaspora for a plethora of reasons one of which is our actual trans-status and or our sexual orientations (gender identity and sexual orientation are not the same thing, contrary to what so many people assume!) Our status makes it difficult for us to return to the old continent if we value our own wellbeing or even our lives in most cases.

I transitioned first verbally as early as four years old albeit without knowing what gender identity was about because the gender-script we were given had such rigidity enshrined in it. However transition did not end there. At the age of nine I came out to my brothers whose shock minded me of the dangers of talking freely about my gender identity in Africa. I took solace in silence… This does not mean I gave up on my conviction nor did it have anything to do with how I dressed or how I expressed myself.

The next time I broached the subject, I was thirty five but I soon found even Europeans were not fully aware of gender identity as oppose to fixed gender roles. My psychosexual therapist prejudiced in her conditioned stupor forgot the integrity of her profession and said, "go back to those friends you moved away from, get a girl pregnant and get on with it!" to my consternation.

It took me another eight years to talk to anyone about my intentions. During that time, I did a Masters of Art degree in Creative Writing and gradually found the courage to speaking again albeit through the medium of writing. "I'm going to change my sex," I said to a girlfriend of mine back then -an Asian Muslim woman secretly scared of an impending arranged marriage that awaited her. I felt for her but had to respect her need for life somewhat complicated by the cultural demands. Could I do otherwise, she was respecting of my needs without knowing the first thing about transsexuality not to mention how we fit and embrace our evolving sexualities. At the time, I was still unaware of the trans-lingo but I remained adamant that I was going to transition physically. She thought I was courageous to tell a person I
hardly knew that I intended going through with such a life changing procedure but I had to tell someone. A year later, I spoke to my GP about my intension and he made an appointment for me to see a counsellor.

Eventually, I ended up at the York clinic with a simple question: "what is the demographic uptake of transitioning? " The response I got was insulting. The consultant merely fobbed me off by the suggestion that an African psychiatrist would be made available to me. What's new there, I thought?

However, the response to my question has not dampened my interest in finding an answer to it. Rather it has helped me hone my interest in African transitionees. The question I ought to have asked was this: "Are there any transpeople of African descent? What support measures are there? If there are any African transpeople, how can I best make contact with them?" I know the answer to these questions now. I do not think we need to wait for the advice of the psychosexual elite to tell us how we must love, dress and socialise. I'm hoping with time TRANSAFRO will aid us in our efforts to change attitudes.

Four or five years later, with a healthy cocktail of oestrogen and real life experience which involved wearing what are traditionally assumed to be women's clothing in which I felt comfortable I found my own gender expression. Africans might call it "unisexed" but I call it androgynous. On the 24th of June, 2005, I went under the surgeon's scalpel. When I woke up from the heavy sedation I had returned home.

There was nothing to hide any more. I was a woman from that moment on.
I kept my hair short as always and on my final day on the now defunct ward eight, I decided to wear some make up and dress femininely for a change. Some of the people that had distanced themselves from me as I recovered saw the woman I was and warmed to me. Was I seeking that sort of approval? Not quite, let it suffice to say I knew what they wanted to see, and their responses only went to confirm my suspicions.
However, in the end, I have to be the person I am, giving into bullies has never done it for me.

Watch this space…

Copyright © 2008 African Path. All rights reserved.

KK Logan Case Moves Forward

Remember transgender Gary, IN high school student K.K. Logan, who was barred from the senior prom by the principal for wearing a dress after wearing female attire during her entire junior and senior year at West Side High School?

On December 12, 2007 K.K. filed a lawsuit with the help of Lambda Legal. The case will now go to trial after defense motions to dismiss the case were denied in federal court.


GARY, IN — Late last week the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana denied Gary high school’s motion to dismiss a case brought by transgender former student K.K. Logan, a feminine male who was barred from prom because he wore a dress.

“We are thrilled that K.K. Logan will have a day in court, and that the school’s discriminatory policies can be challenged,” said Jim Madigan, Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal’s Midwest Regional Office in Chicago.

The court held that Logan may challenge the dress code policy as a violation of the First Amendment rights of all Gary students.

In December 2007, Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit on behalf of K.K. Logan challenging a Gary School Corporation policy barring clothing that advertises sexual orientation or indicates that a student’s gender is different from the student’s sex. Logan argues that the policy violates students’ First Amendment freedom of expression. Logan also claims that his exclusion from prom constitutes discrimination on the basis of gender. West Side High School filed a motion to dismiss the case in February 2008 leading to today’s ruling.

Students and teachers knew that K.K. Logan was gay for years. During his senior year, Logan attended West Side High expressing a deeply rooted femininity in his appearance and demeanor. At school, Logan wore makeup, accessories and clothing typically associated with girls his age.

However, on May 19, 2006, Principal Diane Rouse stretched her arms across the door of the senior prom, blocking Logan’s entrance because Logan was wearing a dress. Classmates and friends rallied to Logan’s defense to no avail—even though a female student was allowed to attend dressed in a tuxedo.

Principal Rouse enforced a Gary School Corporation policy that forbids any clothing or accessories that “advertise sexual orientation” or “portray the wearer as a person of the opposite gender.”

The case will proceed to trial in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Indiana.

The case is Logan vs. Gary Community School Corporation et al.

Jim Madigan, Staff Attorney in Lambda Legal’s Midwest Regional Office in Chicago and Cole Thaler, Lambda Legal’s Transgender Rights Attorney are handling the case with co-counsel from the law firm of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal LLP in Chicago.

VP Debate Blowout?

Tonight we get to watch the only vice presidential debate from the campus of St. Louis' Washington University. And if expectations hold to form, it will be Sen. Joe Biden taking Gov. Sarah Palin to school on the big leagues of national politics.

The Rethuglicans are already trying to lower the bar for their not ready for prime time political Barbie doll. They're trying to whine that Gwen Ifill, tonight's moderator for the debate is biased. They're trying to paint the picture that mean ole Joe Biden and the 'liberal media' is gonna ambush and beat up on poor little Sarah.

Spare me that bull feces, okay?

The bottom line is that the conservative darling and paragon of 'small town values' is George W. Bush in drag. She's a politician who left her high heel pump prints all over her Alaskan GOP rivals and I don't underestimate her. She needs to be smacked down and shown to be the unprepared, unfit for national office fundamentalist idiot she is.

Palin may be a representative for conservative white women, but I would submit that there are sizable segments of the American population that look at her and are appalled by what they see.

Sen. Biden on the other hand has to be careful not to come off as condescending or arrogant while he rips her butt to shreds with a smile on his face every time she makes a gaffe.

But as a sports junkie I'm aware that predictions don't necessarily play out when you play the game. Ask the New England Patriots about that.

Whatever happens, people will be watching. 52 million tuned in for the first presidential debate between Sen. Obama and Sen McCain. This one has the potential to become the most watched vice presidential political debate since 57 million people watched the faceoff between George H.W. Bush and Geraldine Ferraro back in 1984.

So I'm popping the popcorn, have the pop chilling in the refrigerator and will have the TV tuned in to watch the debate that starts at 9 PM EDT.

What Obama Running For President Means To Me

TransGriot Note: The post I wrote for 'Trans For Obama' Blog week.


We are less than 33 days from Election Day and I'm cautiously optimistic that I will see a historic event take place on November 4.

But this journey for me has been (and still is) a mind blowing, emotional roller coaster ride as a proud, politically aware transgender African-American. I'm saddened that my grandmother Tama isn't here to witness it, but I'm savoring every delicious historical moment as it unfolds.

Almost 400 years after the first Africans arrived here in North America, a man who is the son of a continental African may be on the verge of becoming the first United States president of African descent. And as Dr. King foresaw it, the African-American vote will play an important, if not decisive role in that happening.

For the first time in my life I have seen someone of my ethnic heritage run and have a legitimate shot at taking the oath of office on January 20.

Yes, Rep. Shirley Chisholm, Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, Rev. Al Sharpton and Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. have run and paved the way for this moment in time, but this presidential run with Sen. Barack Obama is fundamentally different.

It's one time I will happily say (and will write the post on November 5 if it plays out) I was wrong about an issue. I've always told friends that I believed the United States was too obstinately racist to ever put in my lifetime an African-American man in the Oval Office. I've always believed for that reason the first African-American president would be a woman rather than an African-American man.

Enter a first term senator from Illinois with a funny name who began this race with far more support from white Americans that he had from African-Americans. I myself only made my decision to support him in the Democratic primary on January 1, only a few days before the Iowa caucuses.

I watched Sen. Obama's 2004 Democratic convention speech in Boston and began to do research about him at that time. The more I read and heard about him, the more I liked him. As someone who grew up being represented by great orators with substance like Rep. Barbara Jordan and Gov. Ann Richards, I was hungry for that type of visionary, morally principled leadership once again. I also longed to have a leader that I could unconditionally be proud of. I wanted a leader that represented me in which I didn't have to cringe every time he or she opened their mouths or expressed pride at being anti-intellectual.

Basically, I support Barack Obama not because he shares my ethnic heritage, it's because I was hungry for and wanted someone smarter than me in the Oval Office to handle the serious problems and challenges this country faces. Hell, intelligence is a primary criteria in ANY politician I elect to office.

This race, if it continues to a successful conclusion on November 4, will also fundamentally alter the way that African-Americans look at ourselves and our long tortured relationship with this country. It has already had a positive effect on some African-American men in that they're standing a little taller these days. Black women and girls see in Michelle Obama, the potential First Lady, someone like themselves.

If he pulls this off with the help of the reality-based thinking electorate tired of the last eight years of Bushit, no longer will an African-American kid have to wrestle with the contradiction of being told that you can be anything you want to be in this country, then be told in the same breath you can't be president.

Political junkie that I am, I get excited about but don't get too emotionally invested in many political campaigns. But when I saw this race unfold and realized that this man actually had a legitimate shot at win the Democratic nomination, win this election and move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, I got jazzed and excited about a candidate in a way I haven't since Jesse Jackson's 1984 presidential run and Lee Brown's 1997 run for Houston mayor.

I cried tears of joy the night I watched Sen. Obama's nomination acceptance speech in Denver and if the positive trends continue, my tear ducts are in for an additional workout between now and January 20.

This race has already helped foster frank cross cultural discussion that we have long needed to have in the States about various issues including race.

It has helped begin to tear down some of the centuries old stereotypes that are being disproven every time Barack stands there at a podium giving a stump speech, is thoughtfully giving an interview or holding his own in a debate. It's also cool that he has by his side in Michelle a strong, proud, educated, statuesque African-American woman from Chicago's south side with two adorable kids. That's blowing away stereotypes about Black women and the Black family as well

I believe that Barack Obama has that rare combination of skills, abilities and life experiences that give him a chance to be an outstanding president at a time when our nation sorely needs one. This is a man who not only graduated from Columbia and cum laude from Harvard Law, he taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago. His time as a community organizer and growing up with a single mother gives him an insight and sensitivity to the issues that ordinary working class Americans face. Being biracial also gives him insights into both sides of the racial divide in this country as well.

As a trailblazer who was the first Black president of the Harvard Law Review, and now the first African-American to win a major party presidential nomination, he understands the unique pressures and attention that being a 'First Black' can bestow upon you and the magnified expectations they bring.

And most importantly to me as a transgender African-American, he wants an ENDA that is fully inclusive. It was the decisive factor in why I chose to support him over Sen. Hillary Clinton.

It's also been quite a while since we've had an American leader who has captivated and caught the world's attention. It makes me exceedingly proud when I read the accounts from all over the globe that various world leaders like him and that citizens of other countries (and our own) are hoping and praying this man, one who shares my ethnic heritage, becomes the 44th president of the United States.

It's not only African descendants here in the States who are standing a little taller these days, but our pride in how well he's doing also extends across the African diaspora to Kenya and across the African continent

A presidential campaign is a marathon, and to borrow a metaphor from the Boston Marathon, we're now approaching Heartbreak Hill. We have two more presidential debates and the vice presidential one left to go along with 30 plus days of hard fought campaigning. While I'm nervous about how the rest of this month will unfold, I'm cautiously optimistic as well. I'm beginning to have the audacity of hope that he will be standing on the Capitol steps on January 20 taking the oath of office as president.

It's been a long time in the African-American community since we've produced this type of leader. I and other African-Americans are hoping and praying that we'll happily get to share President Obama with America and the rest of the world for the next four years and beyond.

Happy Birthday NASA!

Today is NASA's 50th birthday. A Cold War baby spurred by the October 4, 1957 launch of the Russian Sputnik satellites and their progressively heavier siblings, it spurred congressional hearings and the rapid consolidation of a coalition of scientific, military, and political leaders for the establishment of an agency to coordinate space activities in the United States.

On October 1, 1958 the agency opened for business after the passage of the National Aeronautics and Space Act by Congress and it being signed into law by President Eisenhower on July 29, 1958.

Section 102 of the Space Act laid out the goals for the nascent organization:

1. The expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the atmosphere and space;

2. The improvement of the usefulness, performance, speed, safety, and efficiency of aeronautical and space vehicles;

3. The development and operation of vehicles capable of carrying instruments, equipment, supplies, and living organisms through space;

4. The establishment of long-range studies of the potential benefits to be gained from, the opportunities for, and the problems involved in the utilization of aeronautical and space activities for peaceful and scientific purposes;

5. The preservation of the role of the United States as a leader in aeronautical and space science and technology and in the application thereof to the conduct of peaceful activities within and outside the atmosphere;

6. The making available to agencies directly concerned with national defense of discoveries that have military value or significance, and the furnishing by such agencies, to the civilian agency established to direct and control nonmilitary aeronautical and space activities, of information as to discoveries which have value or significance to that agency;

7. Cooperation by the United States with other nations and groups of nations in work done pursuant to this Act and in the peaceful application of the results thereof;

8. The most effective utilization of the scientific and engineering resources of the United States, with close cooperation among all interested agencies of the United States in order to avoid

NASA has not only fulfilled those objectives, it has done so in sometimes spectacular fashion. Only 11 years after NASA's birth Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were walking on the Moon.

If there's one consistent thread in my life, it's NASA. Being born in Houston, I'm a rabid space junkie because the space program has always been a presence in my life on one level or another.

Alan Shepard's May 5, 1961 suborbital flight happened 364 days before I was born. The Mercury and Gemini missions happened during my infant and toddler years. Thanks to the Apollo program I was an excited soon to be third grader watching on July 20, 1969 with the rest of the planet Neil Armstrong take his first steps on the Moon and had a few Saturday morning cartoon watching sessions interrupted by subsequent moon missions. I can't count how many field trips I took or times we took out of town relatives with regularity to the Johnson Space Center down in Clear Lake.

Skylab was the thrust of the program during my teen years and after writing and being one of my junior high school's winners of a NASA sponsored essay contest, I had the pleasure of meeting the first group of African-American shuttle astronauts.

I've watched the ups and downs of the shuttle program during my college and young adult years from the tragedy of two shuttles being lost in 1986 and 2003 to the launch of various space probes, the Hubble Space Telescope and the building and expansion of the International Space Station.

It's interesting that as NASA turns 50, we have another Communist nation aggressively pushing to establish itself in space. The Chinese launched their first manned mission in 2003 and have a goal of building a space station by 2012 and putting a man on the moon by 2020. They just recently completed a three man mission that featured a taikonaut emerging from their space capsule to do their first spacewalk.

In the meantime, the Space Shuttle will be retired in 2010 and its successor won't even be flight tested until 2015. NASA is considering building a moon base, but the question is will the anti-science Luddites in the GOP even allow funding for it?

Maybe competition from the Chinese will be just the tonic NASA and elements of the American public need to remind us that we didn't become the preeminent scientific power by being timid about space exploration, and that much of the technology, improved satellites, scientific knowledge and medical advances that we enjoy now came out of NASA research and the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs.

Competition is always healthy, and if it gets NASA off the sidelines and back in the game of manned spaceflight pushing for manned mission to Mars and beyond, then that's all good too.

For the human race to survive and thrive, we will have to start exploring and establishing habitats on other worlds, and the sooner we do it, the better.