Gender Drama At The 1936 Berlin Olympics

Since this has come up repeatedly once again in the context of international sport, thought it was time to point out the history behind why Caster Semenya and other women throughout the 20th and early 21st century have undergone gender testing.

The watershed year for the paranoia behind men competing in women's international sporting events is 1936.

Nazi Germany wanted the Berlin Olympics to be a political showcase for the Third Reich. They set the goal of surpassing the 21 total medals Germany won in the 1932 Los Angeles Games, and one way they sought to do that was sneaking their 'supermen' into the women's events.

To accomplish that goal, the Nazis forced Hitler Youth member Hermann Ratjen to live and compete for three years as Dora Ratjen.

While Nazi Germany did lead all nations in winning 89 total medals and 33 golds at the Berlin Games, one medal they didn't get was in the women's Olympic high jump. Ratjen finished fourth in the event. At the 1938 European championships in Vienna Ratjen did set a then women's world record of 5 feet 5.75 inches in the high jump.

Dora was busted while traveling in Germany after the European championships. While wearing feminine attire Ratjen was spotted at a train station with five o'clock shadow on his face. A doctor was summoned, and the truth about Dora's actual genitalia was revealed. Ratjen was barred from competing in international athletics and went back to his life as Hermann.

Hermann Ratjen told his story in 1957, then faded from the spotlight until his death in April 2008

The 1936 Berlin Games also brought us the drama between bitter rivals Helen Stephens and Stella Walsh.

Walsh set the then 100m world record of 11.7 seconds in 1934 and was the defending Olympic champion. But starting in 1935 Stephens served noticed that she was the up and coming running phenom.

At Stephens' first meet, she not only beat the 'world's fastest woman' in the 50m dash, she tied the world record. Stephens also set a new world record for the 200 meters, a new world record in the standing broad jump, and won the shot put event.

When spectators congratulated her on being the new 'fastest woman in the world' and for beating Stella Walsh, she asked, "Who is Stella Walsh?" That comment got back to Stella Walsh, pissed her off and it was on like Donkey Kong between the two women after that.

In the 1936 Games Walsh chose to run for Poland just as she did at the 1932 Games. It didn't change the fact she was having trouble beating Stephens in the States.

During their careers, Stephens never lost to Walsh in their head to head matchups, and the 1936 100m Olympic final was no exception.

Stephens not only beat Walsh, but ran it in a 11.5 second time that broke Walsh's two year old world record.

Walsh, angry about being beaten by her rival, promptly threw 'that's a man' shade at Stephens which the Polish press amplified. She protested to officials that Stephens was really a man falsely running as a woman because no woman could run that fast.

German officials examined Stephens, pronounced her female, and the protest was disallowed.

This incident was ironic in light of Walsh's tragic December 4, 1980 death at age 69. She was struck by a stray bullet in the wake of a robbery attempt of a Cleveland, OH discount store while unloading her shopping cart to her car.

Her autopsy revealed she had mosaicism, which meant that, chromosomally, she was mostly, but not all, male but had androgynous looks to live her life as and be raised female.

So you can thank Nazi Germany, a bitter rivalry between two sprinters and subsequent eastern Bloc cheating for the current gender testing drama that's occurring now.

I Got E-Mail!

From time to time I get e-mail about some of the 1,800 plus posts here at TransGriot that have touched you in one way or the other.

Whether it's thanking me for tellin' it like it T-I-S is about one issue or another, just dropping me a line, inquiring about my availability to speak or sometimes asking me for advice on on trans related topic or another, I read them and try to respond to them in a timely fashion.

I get anywhere from 50-200 e-mails a day, so please be patient. If I don't respond as expeditiously as you'd like, bear with me. I stay busy between work, board meetings, living my life and compiling posts for you to peruse here.

Every now and then I get one that makes me smile and reaffirms why I started this blog in the first place.

Two years ago I was moved to write a tribute post to an old friend of mine on the occasion of her birthday who passed away far too soon.

A few days ago I received a comment from her husband Kenneth. He advised me that his daughter had been surfing the Net and found the post I'd written.

He thanked me for my kind words about his late wife.

You're welcome Kenneth. Monica was a classy, wonderful person. The world is poorer because she no longer is here to brighten up any of our days, use her God-given talents to heal the sick and teach our future physicians.

E-mails like this remind me of how widely read TransGriot is. Every time I feel like a lonely voice in the cyberwilderness and that no ones paying attention to what I have to say, I get a 'no you're not' reminder of just how silly that thought was.

Just clicking on my hit counter should tell me otherwise, but hey, I'm human.

The e-mail and comments you send let me know how much you dear readers appreciate what I write.

And for those of you who send the hate mail that I delete, y'all keep me motivated to continue speaking truth to power.

Germaine Greer- Still Hatin' After All These Years

The conventional wisdom is that people mellow out in their golden years and get more thoughtful and flexible about issues they were intractable about during their youth.

Well, judging by this comment, Germaine Greer still hasn't learned jack despite thirty plus years of research on transgender people blowing her disco-era transphobic screeds to shreds.

Peep the comment she slipped in on a Guardian commentary she wrote on the Caster Semenya dustup.

Nowadays we are all likely to meet people who think they are women, have women’s names, and feminine clothes and lots of eyeshadow, who seem to us to be some kind of ghastly parody, though it isn’t polite to say so. We pretend that all the people passing for female really are. Other delusions may be challenged, but not a man’s delusion that he is female.

And y'all wonder why I can't stand radical feminists who worship at the altar of Greer, Daly, Raymond et al?

The only 'ghastly parody' here Germaine is you.

Didn't you get the memo? Hatin' on transpeople is so 20th century.

Perez Hilton may call himself the 'Queen of Mean', but he's just a pretender to the throne. The real queen of mean is Her Royal Hater Queen Germaine I.

All hail the Queen of Mean. May her reign of ignorant, intolerant transphobic meanness mercifully come to an end as expeditiously as possible.

The Penguins Of Madagascar

When I watched the original Madagascar movies, I fell in love with the antics of Skipper, Kowalski, Rico and Private.

Those lovable action oriented penguins made both movies even more entertaining for me than chuckling over the antics of Alex, Gloria, Melman, Marty and King Julien.

I was thrilled to find out that Nickelodeon gave them their own animated series called The Penguins of Madagascar.

After their globetrotting adventures in the two Madagascar movies, they're back at the Central Park Zoo. Unfortunately for Skipper and the gang King Julien, Maurice and Mort are next door at the lemur house. They've also added another character in Marlene the otter, whose habitat is next door to the penguins as well.

As the stories evolve you occasionally see the monkeys and other zoo denizens as Skipper and the gang conduct their various hilarious missions inside and outside the zoo.



King Julien and Skipper cross swords every now and then because he annoys Skipper, but every now and then the penguins come to his rescue and bail him out of some jam Julien's bombastic personality gets himself himself into.

It's a guilty pleasure of mine that I'll probably add to my DVD collection along with the two Madagascar movies I already own as soon as they release it.

Why The Dearth Of Black Canadian Political Power?

There are as of the 2006 Canadian Census 783,795 people that describe themselves as Black Canadian. One of my dear Timmy's Icecap drinking friends proudly identifies herself as such.

That translates to 2.5% of the Canadian population being Black Canadian.

The five largest provinces in which Black Canadians are predominately clustered are in order Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia.

The municipalities with the highest numbers of Black Canadian citizens are Toronto ON, Montreal QC, Ottawa ON, Calgary AB, Vancouver BC, Edmonton AB, Hamilton ON, Winnipeg MB, Halifax NS, and Oshawa ON.

Preston NS, (near Halifax) is the city that has the highest percentage of Black Canadians residing in it at 68.4%

One of the questions I've pondered as I've looked north is why the dearth of political representation for my Black Canadian cousins?

Renee, myself and other Black Canadians have had some long midnight oil burning discussions about why this situation in the Great White North amongst our peeps has evolved.

Yes, Michaelle Jean is the current Canadian Governor General and head of state, but bear in mind that's a position appointed by the prime minister.

Of of the 308 seats in the House of Commons, there are currently only two held by a person who identifies as a Black Canadian. On the Canadian Senate side you have Sen. Donald Oliver from Nova Scotia.

That makes it a little tough to have a Canadian Obama when being a member of Parliament is a primary prerequisite for becoming the Prime Minister of Canada.

I have to admit we have a few advantages on our Canadian cousins besides larger population numbers. We make up 13% of the US population versus their 2.5% slice of the Canadian one.

We African-Americans were forced after emancipation to continuously band together for our own protection and survival against terrorist organizations like the KKK and their vanilla-flavored sympathizers.

That along with living in segregated neighborhoods fostered a collective 'we're all in this together' mindset irregardless of our physical location in the United States. The Great Migration out of the South in the late 19th-early 20th century also spread our population out to various portions of the country in which we make up strategic voting blocs today.

The early 20th century saw the emergence of national advocacy organizations such as the NAACP, and the formation of numerous cultural organizations such as fraternities and sororities. Those organizations reinforced pride in ourselves and pushed economic self help and collective responsibility messages. Education was also stressed as the road to equality and uplift to a better future.

Dr. Carter G. Woodson's tireless efforts to promote and teach Black history in the States added to our emerging pride in ourselves combined with a succession of leaders who stressed Black pride.

There was importance placed on ballot box access along with a strategic use of collective political power and grassroots protests to push social change and uplift the race at the same time.

While it's cool that African Americans have extremely close cultural, historical and in many cases familial links with African Canadians, it has led to a mindset in which they forget the border exists. It's never far from my mind that if I want to visit Renee or any of my Black Canadian homeboys and homegirls a US passport must be in my possession before doing so.

It also means that whatever gains we African-Americans make stop at the US-Canadian border. You can take inspiration from them, but to achieve similar success means you'll have to handle your political business to replicate them on the Canadian side of the line.

Black Canadians to their credit realize this. They are taking critical looks at their place in Canadian society. They are beginning to do the work of identifying causes of their lack of power and tackling the problem.

But to emulate their south of the border cousins social and political success will take an ongoing long term sustained effort to build up to that level.

Black Canadians have those basic building blocks in place in terms of having a section of the country in Nova Scotia that proudly celebrates its Black Canadian heritage. The Black Canadian population is spread across multiple provinces and clustered in major cities across the nation.

What's missing is the will to do it and a national level organization similar to the NAACP advocating for them. There needs to be an emergence of nationwide pride in being a Black Canadian along with the teaching of Black Canadian history at home and in the schools. Black Canadians need to be as fluent in their Black history and proudly tell those stories as much as we do here in the States.

A multifaceted Canadian 'Black Power' collective political strategy needs to be discussed, formulated and executed. It should be a grassroots based locally oriented one that acts and thinks regionally, provincially, nationally and globally in addition to being sensitive to the concerns of the rest of the African Diaspora.

Black Canadians should put emphasis on getting involved and organized to interface with the Canadian political process as part of the national strategy to empower Black Canadians.

So what will it take for our Canadian cousins to do so? Maybe it will take an Emmitt Till scale event happening to a Black Canadian child to galvanize them. It could be a minor slight that causes Black Canadians to rise up in anger, say 'enough' and jump start what I've laid out in this post.

Maybe it'll be as simple as Black Canadians being sick and tired of not seeing themselves represented in their national legislative body, wanting more input on national policies and how their tax 'loonies' are spent.

All we African-Americans can do is make suggestions, point out our mistakes and give other helpful advice to our Canadian cousins as they embark on this long term political project.

But in the end this will have to be an all African Canadian production.

50th Anniversary Of The Founding Of The American Football League

Fifty years ago today an event occurred which changed the face of professional football forever in the United States.

On August 14, 1959 Lamar Hunt, after several futile attempts to purchase the Chicago Cardinals (now the Arizona Cardinals) or get an NFL expansion franchise for Dallas, held an organizational meeting in Chicago that led to the founding of the American Football League. It was on this date that they chose the official name of the league.

The original AFL franchises granted were the Dallas Texans, the Denver Broncos, the Houston Oilers, the New York Titans, the Los Angeles Chargers and a team for Minneapolis-St Paul.

The 'Foolish Club', as the initial AFL principal owners were derisively called was now complete.

The then 12 team NFL, now realizing its mistake in stubbornly refusing to grant the AFL founders franchises, reversed themselves on expansion and extended an offer for the Minneapolis-St. Paul group to join the NFL. The ownership group promptly withdrew from the AFL and started play in 1961 as the Minnesota Vikings.

The Minneapolis-St Paul group was replaced in the AFL by the Oakland Raiders. The Buffalo Bills and the Boston (New England) Patriots joined later to round out the initial eight team AFL line up.

The AFL eventually added expansion teams in Miami and Cincinnati, while the NFL countered by adding teams in Dallas, New Orleans and Atlanta and allowing the transfer of the Chicago Cardinals to St. Louis.

The AFL started play in 1960 with my beloved Oilers, thanks to signing 1959 Heisman Trophy winner Billy Cannon and George Blanda, playing in the first three AFL title games and winning the first two. The Oilers bid to threepeat in 1962 was spoiled by the Dallas Texans in a championship game that spanned two overtime periods.

The AFL spawned many innovations that modern football is based on. They adopted the two point conversion, had more colorful uniforms and creative team logos, began keeping the official game time on the stadium clock, put names on the back of player jerseys, a 14 game schedule and the first professional soccer style kicker.

The AFL invested heavily in recruiting and signing African-American players from HBCUs and had scouts tasked to find the best players.

The AFL also pioneered the practice of sharing gate receipts and a cooperative television plan. The AFL league office negotiated the initial five year ABC-TV contract, and divided the proceeds equally between the league and AFL member clubs.

Instead of two TV cameras parked on the 50 yard line as was the practice for CBS broadcasts of NFL games, the AFL television broadcasts employed multiple television cameras covering the game, a roving sideline camera and miked players,

While none of the AFL teams folded, there was franchise movement and ownership changes in the early years of the league.

The Los Angeles Chargers moved to San Diego after the 1960 season. The Dallas Texans, fighting the Dallas Cowboys for fans departed for Kansas City in 1963 despite being more successful on the field than their NFL expansion rivals.

The Oakland Raiders lost $500,000 the first season battling the San Francisco 49ers for fans but stayed afloat thanks to a personal loan from Bills owner Ralph Wilson. After a new ownership group bought the New York Titans, they changed the team colors and the name to the Jets.

After a while NFL fans, GM's, players, media and their supporters were forced to stop sneering at the upstart league and realize that it was eating their lunch.

AFL attendance increased as fans became attracted to the league's wide open, pass happy offensive style of play. It was a marked contrast to the three yards and a cloud of dust conservative NFL style of play.

The AFL from its earliest days made a serious dent in signing collegiate talent and free agents as witnessed by the AFL New York Jets winning the bidding war for Joe Namath. Earlier college signees such as John Hadl, Billy Cannon and Lance Alworth amongst others became stars in the league. So-called 'NFL rejects' such as Jack Kemp, George Blanda, Cookie Gilchrist, Babe Parilli, Frank Tripucka and Len Dawson became AFL stars as well.

When the AFL signed a new $36 million TV contract with NBC in 1964 it acquired the cash to seriously go toe to toe with the NFL and did. Combined with the earlier ABC contract, the proceeds from those contracts stabilized the league and gave it time to establish itself as a worthy rival and alternative to the NFL.

Al Davis becoming AFL commissioner in 1966 and aggressively going after established NFL stars, combined with escalating player salaries led to secret talks between Lamar Hunt and Tex Schramm initiated by the NFL to merge the two leagues. The AFL-NFL Championship Game, which later became the Super Bowl was a result of those talks.

The AFL even had their own civil rights controversy as well.

In January 1965 the AFL All-Star Game was slated to be played in New Orleans. On the eve of the game, several African-American players visited the French Quarter. They were refused admittance to two clubs, several restaurants and had problems getting taxis.

The incensed players attended a five hour meeting organized by AFL icon Cookie Gilchrist. It resulted in 21 African-American players leaving town and an ultimatum backed up by future vice presidential candidate and Gilchrist's Buffalo Bills teammate Jack Kemp. They demanded that the game either be moved from New Orleans or face a player boycott. The AFL All-Star Game ended up being moved and subsequently played in Houston.

Any post about the AFL wouldn't be complete without mentioning the 'Heidi Game'.

It was a November 17, 1968 game played in Oakland between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders. Both teams were leading their respective divisions at the time with identical 7-2 records and the game was a slugfest.

The Jets were up 32-29 with only 1:05 left in the game, so NBC programmers, in their zeal to maintain their television programming schedule, switched off the ostensibly-decided game at 7 PM in the Eastern and Central time zones in order to start the movie Heidi on time.

Unfortunately for NBC they did so as the Raiders were executing the game winning drive. The Raiders eventually scored 14 points in that final 1:05 to win 43-32.

Fans who missed the comeback were so irate the switchboard ceased to function after blowing out 25 circuits. NBC was forced to apologize for the blunder several days later.

As a result of the 'Heidi Game' NFL television contracts include a stipulation stating local games must be aired to their completion regardless of the score. The 'Heidi Phone', a direct line from game producers to network execs also exists to ensure it doesn't happen again.

The decade of AFL competition came to an end in 1970 with the merger of the two leagues into a 26 team NFL. The two leagues were split into 13 team conferences, the American and National with three divisions.

Three NFL teams, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Cleveland Browns and the Baltimore Colts joined the ten teams of the AFL to form the AFC Conference, with the remaining NFL teams forming the NFC Conference.

The last official AFL game played was the AFL All-Star Game played in the Astrodome on January 17, 1970. The Western All-Stars, led by Chargers quarterback and AFL All-Star Game MVP John Hadl, defeated the Eastern All-Stars 26-3.

The legacy of the AFL is still strong in the NFL today. Many current or legendary NFL coaches have ties to Charger coach Sid Gillman. The long down field bomb that is a weapon in NFL offensive arsenals today was a play popularized by AFL teams.

The 50th anniversary of the AFL will be recognized with Legacy Weekends in which NFL games matching up former AFL teams will be contested with the players wearing throwback uniforms.

This year's NFL Pro Football Hall of Fame game that took place August 9 featured the Buffalo Bills and Tennessee Traitors playing in throwback uniforms.

And no, I'm never going to let it go. forgive, or forget that Bud moved my team to Nashville.

At least I'll have the pleasure of watching several Traitors games this season in which they'll have to wear the old Oilers uniforms.

But it's a testament to the success of the AFL that not only did all of its teams get absorbed into the NFL, the bigger league adopted, with the exception of the two point conversion that it resisted until 1995, many of the innovations spawned by the younger one.

Giving The 'Purple One' His Props

Some peeps in the transgender community have a longstanding love-hate relationship with Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA). He has been at times a major impediment to transpeople being included in ENDA.

Many of us, myself included still haven't forgotten and are still pissed about the 2007 ENDA debacle in which he was a major player.

So I was a little taken aback when I heard that the Democratic congressmember who smacked down conservaidiocy at his recent health care town hall meeting was none other than the 'Purple One' himself.



I've been one of his more vehement critics here at TransGriot and elsewhere over the last decade because of the ENDA debate.

I have to give Rep. Barney Frank his props on this one. This is the way that ALL Democrats should have been calling out the conservafools when this faux outrage at their town hall meetings first started.

Shut Up Fool! Awards-Dissing Sistah Athletes Edition

August 19 marked the 75th birthday of Dr. Renee Richards, the transsexual tennis player of the 70's who fought the USTA for the right to play professional tennis on the women's tour during my teen years.

Dr. Richards comes to mind because I've been monitoring the situation with South African runner Caster Semenya, who ran the fifth fastest 800m time in history to capture the gold at the IAAF World Track and Field Championships being held in Berlin.

But because she doesn't look stereotypically female, the IAAF is insisting she take a gender test. I wonder what would have happened if she'd been European with blonde hair and ran that same time?

Now that I've gotten that mild rant off my C cup chest, it's time to segue into this week's Shut Up Fool! Awards.

What individual or group let their inner fools out and earned this week's award?

As always, there were many worthy candidates. It would be too easy to give Rush Limbaugh this award, seeing he says something stupid every week. Germaine Greer was in the running for her obligatory trans bashing while commenting on the Semenya story in the Guardian. Glenn Beck, Tom DeLay and Michele Bachmann (R-MN) were some of the finalists for this week as well.

But this week's Shut Up Fool! Award goes to People For The Ethical Treatment Of Animals or PETA.

While their cause is a good one, I have been turned off by their unrepentant racist, sexist and boorish behavior in their advocacy. Whether it's posting fat shaming billboards, throwing paint on people's fur coats, wearing Klan garb outside the Westminster Dog Show, or making asses of themselves hounding Michael Vick, PETA never fails to piss somebody off.

I'm made it a point that every time they engage in racist, sexist...you get the drift behavior, I stop at my nearest KFC (one of their protest targets) and drop them some cash.

PETA, shut up fools!

19.19

Usain 'Lightning' Bolt strikes again.

He wore a practice t-shirt with the words 'Ich bin ein Berliner' on it, and he wasn't joking. Berlin has definitely been his town over the last few days.

Fresh off of breaking his own world record in the 100m final a few days ago, he set his sights on eradicating his one year old record in the 200m that he set during last year's Beijing Games.

And just like in the 100m meter final, he lowered the record by .11 seconds.

This may have been the stadium in which Jesse Owens triumphantly won four gold medals in 1936, but Usain Bolt and his Jamaican track teammates are turning it and these World Track and Field Championships into their own personal playground.

In addition to setting five world records in his last five major races, Bolt is the first and only track athlete to simultaneously hold the Olympic and world records in the 100m and 200m.

The only question left for the world now is whether he'll win the 100m and 200m in the same record breaking fashion in London two years from now.

Black Female Athlete Dominates Competition-Gets Gender Identity Questioned

One of the depressingly tired memes of elite level athletic competition is that almost every time a Black woman rises to become the best at her sport, she is either dissed, suspected of cheating or has her gender identity questioned.

The latest episode of this sorry meme is evolving right now in the wake of Caster Semenya winning the 800m world championship in Berlin with the fifth fastest run of all time.

Since she doesn't look stereotypically female, has short cropped hair and a deep, raspy voice, that's enough 'evidence' for the IAAF gender police to haul her in for gender testing.

Wonder if Caster had been a blonde haired blue eyed European runner who ran that same time? Would the IAAF react the same way?

Probably not.

Semenya's best revenge should she pass the gender test will be to keep kicking their asses until she's standing on the top step of the 800m run victory platform at the 2012 London Games. She and her family can smile while they're putting a gold medal around her neck and playing the South African national anthem.

But this crap has played itself out over and over again throughout my lifetime. The Williams sisters have battled that BS in addition to being insultingly called transwomen as they spent the 2K's merrily dominating the women's professional tennis tour.

WNBA and college basketball players constantly battle this meme as well.

Ice skater Debi Thomas was described by commentators during her competitive rivalry with Germany's Katarina Witt in the 80's as 'athletic and powerful'. Conversely, Witt was described as 'artistic and graceful'.

The same crap was said about France's Surya Bonaly a few short years later. She was a world champion gymnast who was the only figure skater in the world who could perform a back flip and land on one skate. But that athletic ability probably cost her a world figure skating championships as well in 1994.

Even Florence Griffith-Joyner, the woman who brought fashion and glamour to the track world had her problems with that meme.

Flo Jo ran world record times in the 100m and 200m meters that haven't been matched by any current female runner enroute to her four medal winning performance at the 1988 Seoul Games.

Because of Flo Jo's slightly muscular frame and her running style, she dealt with rumors throughout her career that followed her to the grave she was on steroids. This despite the fact she never failed a post race drug test.

After Brazilian runner Joaquim Cruz held a press conference accusing her of precisely that, a reporter famously remarked, "If Flo Jo's on steroids I'm buying some for my girlfriend."

As the Nigerian Super Falcon womens soccer team proved last year, women will even cattily throw the 'that's a man' shade at each other to cover up their own lousy performance.

In the 2008 African Women's Cup Tournament they spent more time complaining and questioning the gender of two of Equatorial Guinea's players than handling their own business. The Super Falcons eventually lost to Equatorial Guinea 1-0 in the semifinals and finished third in a tournament they up until that point had never lost.

But this plays into a larger meme of ignorance and preconceived notions about what is and isn't feminine. The fact that Black women have historically been saddled with the baggage of being considered less than female vis a vis the vanilla flavored beauty standard only adds to this drama.

Add archaic and stereotypical notions about what athletic feats a woman is capable of producing, throw in a little borderline racism and you have a recipe for negative behavior and judgmental commentary to come out of people's mouths.

If it coincides with what the 'experts' consider as 'too rapid' athletic performance for a woman, she may find herself being subjected to a battery of embarrassing and invasive tests just to prove to cynical skeptics that she's 'woman enough' to compete in elite sports with other women.

Reclaiming My Inner Diva

Many times we women become so wrapped up in doing things for others that we sometimes forget to take time out to do something for ourselves.

One of the things I love to do is hit my local nail shop for a manicure and pedicure at least once a month.

Because of the recession and hour cutbacks at work it was one of the first things I did to cut the fat out of my personal budget.

But what I failed to realize in doing so was that the nail and hair salon trips were a little noticed but important part of the psychological maintenance of my femininity.

When I step out of that nail shop (and the beauty shop), it's a piece of the myriad things I do as part of projecting my feminine image to the world and a part of maintaining healthy self esteem.

Granted after 15 years of toil and struggle and having the slings and arrows of numerous haters hurled at me, you have to have a diva's attitude and serious intestinal fortitude just to survive transition and operating in the world as a transperson.

But cultivating your inner diva is an important part of maintaining your femininity in a marginalized body.

In a world in which whiteness thrives and the beauty ideal for women is a petite, thin, hourglass waisted, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, slim buttocked and narrow hipped body, women of color, and especially Black women are constantly positioned as the unwomen.

You see it when Black female athletes who dominate their sports such as the late Florence Griffith-Joyner and the Williams sisters have their femininity questioned at international events or are challenged to take gender tests to 'prove' their femininity.

Sometimes the shade is cattily thrown by other women who lost because of their own piss poor sporting performances or failures to work as hard as the person who defeated them.

If they are tall and excel in their sport, they have 'that's a man' shade derisively spat at them.

In many cases as a Black woman, you don't even have to be an athlete or an entertainer to have your gender identity questioned.

If you are a Black transwoman, you get even more negativity hurled at you by society as well both inside and outside the race. That negativity can make it challenging at times to have a positive attitude about being the best person you can be.


So because of that heightened negativity, it's important for me as a transwoman of African descent to remind myself at regular intervals that I love me some Monica, I'm a Phenomenal Woman, a proud Transwoman and I'm a beautiful, spiritual person both inside and out.

When I apply my makeup, do my hair, put on my clothes, slip on my heels, and after checking myself out in my full length mirror, I have to feel and believe that I'm the sexiest woman alive.

I have to have the attitude as I interact with the world at large that I can hang with the best supermodels in the world and blow them off the catwalk.

I have to develop and have the self confidence to believe that I could walk onto a Miss Universe pageant stage and walk away with the crown.

Yes, there are times like any woman I feel 'unpretty'. But as long I as do the hard solid thinking about the type of woman I want to project to the word, pray about it, spend the time and effort into reclaiming my inner diva and making it happen, those unpretty days don't seem to last long.