Trans Does Not Equal White

One of the things that continues to fascinate the public is documentaries and interviews with trans people.

Last weekend CNN rolled out the Anderson Cooper Chaz Bono interview and the Susan Stanton documentary to boost those television ratings and clock those advertising dollars.

Can you guess what group was NOT represented in this smorgasbord of transgender programming?

Can you say trans people of color?

While people are fond of saying the trans community is a diverse bunch, you couldn't back that statement up by the monochromatic programming that was being offered last weekend,

White transpeople were once again predominant as the faces of the transgender community while prominent transwomen of color's phones continue to remain silent or they fail to receive e-mail from the producers of these shows.

Maybe it escaped you documentary or news feature producers that 13% of the United States population is African American, 15% of it is Latino/a and 4% of it is Asian. The 2010 census that's currently being conducted will confirm that our shares of the US population are increasing.

Contrary to all the vanilla flavored trans programming that dominated your television sets last weekend, there are African descended, Latino/a and Asian transpeeps successfully living their lives inside the United States.

If you bother to look or even talk to us, we too have compelling stories to tell beyond the stereotypical or the tragic trans victim.

But as has been the case for the last 50 plus years, when there's a documentary to be done on transpeople and you tune in, you can almost bet without even looking at anything but the preview for it that it will involve a white, middle to upper middle class transperson.

Attention media. Trans people come in all shapes, sizes, classes and ethnic groups. How about taking a moment to broaden the trans narrative to reflect that?

I doubt that the situation will improve before the May and July sweeps period either.

We Have To Be Good Sisters, Too

I wrote about the importance of having a sister to help you sort out some of the issues concerning femininity. Sisters and a sister circle in general also help you evolve into being the quality woman you wish to be.

Just as important as we transwomen finding a sister is being a good sister as well when you have the opportunity to do so.

It's hard to find those special women who become a long haul part of your life, will love you unconditionally and will honestly check you when you need it.

For us transwomen, it's tougher still for us to find them, and when we do we need to treat them as the rare and precious diamonds they are.

There are ciswomen who wish to bond and stand with us. Some of them have taken the next step and have stretched out their arms to some of our transisters to embrace them in friendship.

However, some transwomen who have been blessed enough to get the opportunity have botched it with nekulturny behavior to the point where those women will never give another transwoman a chance to build that type of relationship with her ever again. It's sad when that happens because those types of friendships are win-win opportunities for both parties.

As transwomen we have unique insights into how men think and interact with each other since some of us got to observe that on the other side of the gender fence.

The ciswoman has been immersed in femininity since birth. If she is a mother or in a relationship, she can also tell you what that experience is like in addition to sharing her personal joys and concerns with you.

She can also school you about the highs, lows and how to navigate being an estrogen based lifeform in a male dominated culture.

So when you discover you click with someone on that potentially deeper friendship level, remember for a moment that whether you like it or not, you are an ambassador for the trans community in everything you do, and that includes your personal interactions with other people.

Just be that sister she needs in her life.

So yes, if we want to find sisters, we have to be a good sister as well.

Don't Forget To 'Spring Forward'

Daylight Savings Time starts early Sunday morning, so don't forget to move your clocks up one hour at 2 AM.

I'll also be making sure I'm not farting around on the computer at that time like I have been the last two years. We're losing an hour, so I'll probably crawl into be an hour earlier than I normally do to make up for it.

So remember peeps in the States, Daylight Savings time starts tonight.

'Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel' Upcoming Trans Sportswriters Show

Trans themed shows have been the rage over the last few days with the CNN Susan Stanton one and Anderson Cooper's recent multi part interview of Chaz Bono.

Turns out the late Christine Daniels wasn't the only trans sportswriter. On March 16 HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel will profile and interview trans sportswriters.

And no, the TransGriot won't be part of this discussion, even though on occasion I let my inner sports junkie out on the blog.



Should be an interesting discussion

UH Coogs Going Big Dancing!

For the first time since 1992, my favorite college basketball team is going to the NCAA tournament!

They beat the C-USA regular season champs and number one seeded UTEP Miners 81-73 to end their 16 game winning streak and take the 2010 C-USA Tournament conference championship for the first time in school history.

They did so despite a 4 for 20 shooting day from NCAA scoring leader Aubrey Coleman

Interestingly enough, my Coogs handed UTEP their last loss back in January at Hofheinz Pavilion.

This one was sweet for us long suffering UH fans. Our program has a proud history with now 17 NCAA tournament appearances and five NCAA Final Four appearances in 1967, 1968, 1982, 1983 and 1984. We played for the NCAA title in 1983 and 1984. It has had some exceptional players wear the red and white such as Hall of Famers Elvin Hayes, Hakeem Olajuwon, and Clyde Drexler.

This year's Coogs overcame a 43-38 halftime deficit and Coleman's ugly shooting day thanks to 28 points from Kelvin Lewis and holding the Miners to 32 percent shooting in the second half.

This is the fourth team that Tom Penders has taken to the NCAA tournament. In another piece of irony, the last time we played in the NCAA tournament we took out a Penders coached Texas team in the Southwest Conference tournament to get there.

Probably one of the many reasons why UT's 'scurred' to play UH in any sport now.

Congratulations to the Cougar men's ballers and may you have a long run in the tournament. Here's hoping it's the beginning of the return of UH to elite level basketball status on the men's side.

The party is definitely starting on Cullen Boulevard and with UH alumni everywhere.

For the first time in 18 years, I'll be paying very close attention to the NCAA tournament selection show.

Houston hosts the South Regional final at Reliant Stadium and it would be nice to see the Coogs go on a long run and crash the party should they be placed in the South Region. It'll also be nice if we get a matchup with Chicken Rick and the UT Wronghorns who've been ducking and dodging us for years.

Eat 'em up!

Shut Up Fool! Awards- Basketball Madness Edition

It's Championship Week, the prelude to that orgy of college basketball on the men's and women's side we call March Madness. As usual, I'll post my NCAA men's and Women's Basketball brackets.

I'm also happy that my beloved University of Houston Cougars have made it to the finals of the C-USA Tournament and will be playing regular season champ UTEP again.

While I'm counting down to the early morning start of tomorrow's game, let's take a moment to see who exhibited their own version of March Madness and championship level stupidity.

This week, it's not even close. Glenn Beck wins it. The Mormon convert pissed off EVERY church liberal and conservative and even his own Mormon one by attacking churches that practice social justice by calling it "code language for Marxism".



Social justice is a core tenet of many faiths, including the Black church.

Glenn Beck, shut the hell up fool!

TransGriot Heading To SUNY- Oneonta

If there are any loyal TransGriot readers in the vicinity of the SUNY Oneonta campus, I'll be heading to New York on March 22 to speak about African American trans issues.

SUNY Oneonta is the alma mater of NASA astronaut Ron Garan, actor Bull Pullman from 'Independence Day', ESPN NFL reporter Sal Paolantonio, MLS Commissioner Don Garber and New York State Court of Appeals Judge Victoria Graffeo.

As always, I'm thankful for the kind invitation to grace the SUNY-Oneonta campus. My presentation will be starting at 7 PM in the Morris Conference Center - Room 104 and run until 9 PM. It'll be a great opportunity to talk to Red Dragons about another facet of the trans community that you don't often hear from.

I'm looking forward to interacting with the students and faculty on campus. I find it ironic that I'm going to be arriving there as GENDA is now in the NY state senate after being passed by the New York State Assembly by a lopsided margin for the third consecutive session.

If you're not aware of it, I'm available for speaking engagements, conferences or other events in which people want to be informed about the issues of African descended trans people.

If you wish to have the TransGriot visit your campus, or speak at your event, just drop me an e-mail with the proposed dates. The Fall 2010 slots for you collegiate folks won't stay open long, and neither will the 2010 Transgender Day of Remembrance in November.

See you in ten days, SUNY Oneonta!

Hey, Where All My Taurons At?

As many of you long time readers know, I'm a huge Battlestar Galactica fan. I own all four seasons on DVD and eagerly awaited the start of Caprica when it kicked off back in January.

If I'm at home on Friday nights I'm parked in front of the television checking out the action in the BSG prequel series set 58 years before The Fall of the Twelve Colonies.

One of the interesting things about the Twelve Colonies as us BSG junkies know is that all of the planets are named after the signs of the zodiac.

Of course, being the proud Taurus I am, I immediately identified with my peeps on Tauron. The residents of that colony seem to have played major roles not only in BSG but the stories and backstories of the BSG/Caprica universe.

Admiral Helena Cain was from there, and as we're discovering, Admiral Adama has Tauron roots. His father Joseph and uncle Sam emigrated to Caprica as a result of the Tauron Civil War and the deaths of their parents.

Since Caprica is more terrestrial driven, you're actually getting more of a feel for Colonial life as seen through two families, the Graystones and the Adamas.

It's been fascinating to watch the Taurons as the story arc develops in the show. They are a proud, determined people who face racism and discrimination on Caprica.

It's interesting to watch the interplay between proud Tauron Sam and his brother, who is trying to be more Caprican than the natives, even going so far as to change his name so he'd fit in. It's also fun to see the future commander of the Battlestar Galactica as a teenage boy.

It also explains why the adult Adama liked to box so much.

I'll definitely be staying tuned in to see more of my Tauron peeps as the show progresses.

In Search Of A Sister

'A sister is a friend who loves you unconditionally and will always tell you the truth even if it hurts' Deborah Cox

The second many of us transwomen begin transition, we begin the search for a sister.

Not the biological ones which many of us have, and in some cases, fit the role described by Deborah Cox, but another kindred spirit who is just as important in shaping your growth and development as a woman in our society.

Due to the societal slings and arrows Black women face, it's critically important for transwomen of African descent to have a sister (or two or three) in her corner as well.

That sister can be either cis or trans, the same age, younger or older, just as wise or wise beyond her years. But the most important qualification is that she has your back.

I've been fortunate at different stages of my life to have such women in it and in my post transition life. They have helped me sort out issues, helped me get my act together in terms of my personal style and presentation, helped me get over 'unpretty' days, been that sympathetic ear as I vented my frustration about various issues or another, taken me to task when I have been giving less than one hundred percent in pursuing my goals and aspirations I have for myself and helped me tap into that inner diva.

Looking back at the early days of my transition to the Phenomenal Transwoman I am now, I can see how necessary it was to have a sister in my life and why I felt so out of sync until my first sister came along.

Until I had those sisters in my life and assembled that sister circle of spiritually tuned women around me, it was a bumpy ride in going from zero to femininity.

Some of those women I still call my friends. Others have faded out of my life and returned, while others have done so after teaching me the lessons I needed to learn at that particular juncture.

And sadly, some I've had in my life for a moment, and they have moved on.

But having those sisters in my life, past, present and future, is vital to Monica being and continuing to evolve into the best woman she can be.

'Jumping The Broom' In DC!

Monday was the first day that same gender couples could legally get married in DC despite the efforts of go to sellout Bigot Harry Jackson to stop it.

Well, well, looks like it was two sistahs, Angelisa Young and Sinjoyla Townsend who were the first couple to legally 'jump the broom' in th District of Columbia.



HT to Womanist Musings for the video.

I'm happy for you SGL peeps and I co sign who what my Canadian sis said in her post.

Laverne Cox On TJMS

My sis Laverne Cox has an upcoming VH1 reality TV show starting March 15 called TRANSform Me that she's starring in with her co-hosts Nina Poon and Jamie Clayton.

More about that later.

Laverne was interviewed by Jacque Reid this morning during Jacque's 'Inside The Story' segment on the Tom Joyner Morning Show about the show and trans issues in general. It's significant because the TJMS has a syndicated national audience of 11 million predominately chocolate flavored people on stations in 29 states and the US Virgin Islands.

And thanks to Buffalo, NY station WBLK 93.7 carrying the show, listeners in southern Ontario can catch the TJMS as well

The interview was going well until Laverne mentioned her show cohosts and J. Anthony Clown (oops Brown) decided to try to make a joke out of Nina Poon's last name.

The interview will post later today if you wish to check it out.

The Other Black 'Unwoman'

Yesterday was International Women's Day. I spent it talking to some of the women that matter in my life and contemplating what and how transwomen fit into this day.

One of the things I thought about was how Black women are considered by society as the 'unwoman'.

Black women aren't considered beautiful vis a vis the vanilla tinged beauty standard. We're considered 'angry ' just for speaking our minds, less than intelligent despite having advanced degrees earned with summa cum laude grades, and when we excel in athletic endeavors we're presumed to have either cheated or it's dismissed because of 'natural ability'.

Even Black men are ignoring us when it cones to choosing their life partners.

That burden of the 'unwoman' is also shared by African descended transwomen as well.

If you look at the lists of transwomen who are considered beautiful, the discussion doesn't include us. We have to deal with not only the same baggage that is hurled at our cis sisters, but have the additional baggage of dealing with being trans as well.

It's time to destroy that paradigm that considers us the 'unwoman'. It's something that we can work on with our cissistahs as we strive to become the phenomenal women we are despite spending time one the other side of the gender fence.

Dallas Peeps-Call To Action On DART Transphobia

Dallas has been challenging Austin for being the most TBLG friendly city in Texas, and cemented it with the narrow loss of an openly gay councilomember who ran for its mayor's chair two years ago.

However, native Texans are also aware of the fact that the third largest city in the Lone Star State one upon a time was Republican turf. As evidenced by Dubya moving there to live post mispresidency, still has that fundie GOP undercurrent despite the Democrats taking control of Dallas County politics at all levels in 2006

Nevertheless, I was stunned to find out courtesy of the Dallas Voice along with the Dallas area trans community that attorneys of DART (Dallas Area Rapid Transit Authority) for some inexplicable reason decided to go to court to get the gender marker change of a 20 year post operative DART employee reversed.

The identity of the person involved is being concealed to protect her, but this case is taking some interesting and disturbing twists.

The judge that granted the reversal, 301st Family District Court Judge Lynn Cherry, received the Pink Pump Award from the Stonewall Democrats of Dallas in 2009 for being an ally to the group.

There will be a DART board meeting taking place Tuesday, March 9 from 6:30-9:30 PM to press the DART board to expand their anti-discrimination policies to cover transpeople in light of this jacked up situation.

The meeting will take place in the DART Headquarters Akard Station Board Room, and the address is 1401 Pacific Ave in Dallas, TX.

Okay DFW Metroplex, time to stand up for a trans sister and help yourselves at the same time. If DART did this to an employee with a clean record because someone in DART has their hate on for transpeople, who's next?

So give 'em hell Dallas trans community and get justice for our sister.

Someone in Dallas County also needs to be seriously contemplating a run against Judge Lynn Cherry as well.

The Envelope Please...

I know some of y'all are probably tuned in to the Oscars right now, but I promised to give y'all the winner of the first annual Shut Up Fool! Lifetime Achievement Awards tonight.

The nominees were peeps who say something stupid or ignorant on such a regular basis, for a year or for a decade, I have to justify at times NOT giving them a weekly SUF award.

So let's do this.

The nominees for the 2010 Shut Up Fool! Lifetime Achievement Award are:

Rush Limbaugh
Glenn Beck
Michele Bachman
Bill O'Reilly
Ann Coulter

The envelope please:

The winner for 2010 is...Rush Limbaugh

We'll be doing another SUF Lifetime Achievement Award winner on Oscar Night 2011.

Cards Send Out Freedom Hall In Style

Freedom Hall is located on the grounds of the Kentucky Fairgrounds just 5 miles south of downtown Louisville and not far from the U of L Belknap campus.

The building has been the basketball home of the University of Louisville Cardinals since 1956 and seen a lot of sporting history. It has hosted six NCAA Final Fours between 1958-1969, Muhammad Ali fights, NCAA tournament regional finals, conference tournaments and the Kentucky high school state basketball championship from 2001-2003.

With the impending fall opening of the new downtown arena today's game against Syracuse was the last to be played at Freedom Hall.

The Cards have won 82% of the games played in this building, including a January 2004 game I and Polar watched my Cougars play against U of L during the Cards last season in C-USA before they left for the Big East Conference.

He left happy that night, I didn't.

Just as the Cards won their first game in Freedom Hall, an 85-75 win over Notre Dame, they closed out this building in style by beating number one ranked Big East rival Syracuse 78-68 for home win number 683.

It was the second beatdown they have administered to the Orange, Syracuse's first road loss, an emotional 20th win of the season for U of L and may have put the Cards in the NCAA tournament as well.

It didn't come without a struggle. The Cards trailed by eight points at the half, but rode the 4 for 4 three point shooting and 9 of 11 overall of sophomore Kyle Kuric to erase the deficit.

Kuric's career high 22 points ensured that the Cards last game in front of a record Freedom Hall crowd ended with a Cardinal victory.

The new 22,000 seat downtown arena will open this November, and Cards fans are hoping the home wins keep coming in the new building as prodigiously as they did at Freedom Hall.

Shut Up Fool! Awards Oscar Weekend Edition

The 82nd Academy Awards take place on Sunday.

I'm looking forward to seeing if it will be a historic night for the movie Precious, Mo'Nique, Gabby Sibourey, Morgan Freeman and director Lee Daniels.

It's Friday and I'm putting on the formal wear this week, stepping on the blogopshere red carpet and shining a bright spotlight on the foll or fools this week that earned our illustrious award.

I'm also going to start a new TransGriot feature. From now on, as suggested by several regular readers, I will start inducting people on Oscar night for our Shut Up Fool! Lifetime Achievement Award.

Check TransGriot on Oscar night to see who our first honoree is.

Now to current business.

This week's SUF winner is Walt Baker, the CEO of the Tennessee Hospitality Association He sent out a 'joke' e-mail that compared the First Lady to Cheetah, the chimp in Tarzan, comolet with unflattering pic of the FLOTUS.

Ha ha. But nobody but the Teabaggers are laughing.

As usual in cases of a white male behaving badly, he's already issuing apologies after the fact, yadda yadda yadda.

What is with the Hateraid for the racist Hateraid of the First Lady and Tennesseans?

Walt Baker, Shut Up Fool!

Reagan On The $50 Bill? Hell No!

Once again our conservafools are trying to memorialize the late Ronald Reagan, and their feverish attempts to do so before his 100th birthday in 2011 are becoming more irritating.

A proposal to put him on Mt. Rushmore was laughed out of existence, and he already has his name attached to Washington National Airport (which I still refuse to call Reagan National), an aircraft carrier and one of the largest federal buildings in DC.

Personally I'd put JFK or FDR on there before Reagan.

In addition to the conservaplanning for a yearlong 100th anniversary birthday celebration, efforts are underway in California and Nevada to name mountains after Reagan. I can guarantee you that those 2011 celebrations of his birthday won't see anything but Black sellout faces at them.

Now Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC) wants to put Ronald Reagan's face on the 50 dollar bill.

He has introduced legislation which would redesign the 50 dollar bill to replace President Ulysses Grant with Reagan. McHenry's rationale for it is claiming every generation needs heroes and it is time to honor President Reagan by placing him beside Presidents Roosevelt and Kennedy.

He may be yours and white conservative America's hero, but as an African-American, I have no love for Reagan's racist behind. That distaste for Reagan was cemented when he made that infamous 1980 'I believe in state's rights' speech during his presidential campaign in Philadelphia, MS.

McHenry goes on to say Reagan transformed our nation's political and economic thinking.

Damned sure did, for the worst. Do the words 'voodoo economics', 'trickle down economics' and 'trillion dollar deficit' ring a bell?

The bill has been sent to the House Financial Services Committee, and Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) isn't ready to jettison Grant for "someone whose policies are still controversial."

"Our currency ought to be something that unites us." said Rep. Sherman.

Neither are the people who still admire Grant for helping to win the Civil War

Thus isn't the first time the GOP has tried to stick Reagan's face on our currency. When they had control of Congress, in 2005 they tried to put Reagan on the $50, but the bill never made it out of the House Financial Services Committee.

They attempted to replace Franklin D. Roosevelt with Reagan on the dime, but Democrats rose up and nixed that proposal.

A proposal to put Reagan's mug on the $20 bill drew objections from Tennessee lawmakers who didn't want Andrew Jackson removed from it.

In a letter to his congressional colleagues, McHenry wrote, "President Reagan is indisputably one of the most transformative presidents of the 20th century. Like President Roosevelt on the dime and President Kennedy on the half dollar, President Reagan deserves a place of honor on our nation's currency."

No, he doesn't. Rep. McHenry. Vanilla flavored peeps that share your political philosophy may believe that nonsense, but much of the American public doesn't share the same warm and fuzzy feeling about Ronald Wilson Reagan as you do.

I and many people saw his 'transformative presidency' in the 80's as a less than pleasant time in which the United States became more mean-spirited, more bellicose, more racist, and more divided politically and socially.

So no, definitely don't want Reagan's mug on Mt. Rushmore, much less any US currency.

NY State Assembly Passes GENDA For Third Time!

Will the passage of GENDA for the third straight time finally be the charm in the wake of Gov. David Paterson's recent executive order to ban discrimination based on gender identity and expression for state employees?

Or will GENDA die another painful and very public death in the NY state senate with a governor standing by who is willing and patiently waiting to sign it into law?

Wednesday the NY State Assembly passed GENDA on a 100-43 vote. Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) stated in a press release:

"No New Yorker should face the day-to-day harassment experienced by so many transgender people who have lost their jobs or apartments because of their gender expression. "For transgender individuals, GENDA provides equal protection under the law and provides legal recourse for those who have been denied access or harassed for their gender identity. The Assembly has long supported protections for all groups of people and, this critical bill is another indication of that commitment."

Currently 13 states and Washington, D.C., have laws to protect transgender people from employment, financial, public accommodation, and housing discrimination.

In New York state several cities and counties, including Rochester and New York City, have standing GENDA laws.

Okay NY Senate, now it is up to you. Will you step up to the plate, do the right thing and stand up for the rights of your fellow New Yorkers, or will you continue to surrender to cowardice?

And citizens of NY state who value fairness, will you step it up and loudly tell your senators it's time to do the right thing and pass GENDA?

The Black GLB Community Needs To Do A Better Job Of Trans Inclusion

One of the things I have consistently complained about ever since I started this blog on New Year's Day 2006 is the GLBT community's glaring lack of inclusion when it comes to African descended transpeople.

My own people can be just as bad. Just as you're sick and tired of being ignored and dissed by the white led GLB community, me and my trans brothers and sisters are sick and tired of being sick and tired of being ignored and dissed by our own chocolate flavored GLB peeps.

As Womanist Musings editor in chief Renee wrote in a piece called 'My GLBT Brothers and Sisters Are My Family', you cannot claim to love Blackness or Black people, if you do not love openly all of its manifestations.

For too long you have ignored the 'T' part of the African descended GLBT community. News flash to the GL end of it: some of your trans brothers and sisters happen to be same gender loving people, too.

It's also past time to realize that we can contribute far more to the building and life of the African descended GLBT community than only calling the female illusionists when you want to do an HIV/AIDS benefit show.

Some of us are blessed with skill sets that allow us to be capable of organizing one as well.

Female illusionists, pageant divas or the femme queens of the ballroom community aren't the only part of the chocolate flavored 'T', nor are we defined by our brothers and sisters who have lost their lives to anti-trans violence

There are gainfully employed college educated trans men and women who make up a large chunk of it. We are engaged, politically aware and proud people who are more than willing to step up to leadership roles in this community if given the chance to do so.

I don't want to hear the BS excuse I heard last year when I slammed the trans free 33 Black GLBT leaders list that had no trans people on it that they don't know any trans activists.

Some of you who peddled that weak crap have been too busy partying to get to know ANY GLB activists, much less trans ones. We're out there and it's past time that we start working together to not only help our chocolate flavored GLBT community, but the African descended one as well.

Your trans brothers and sisters take enough crap from society at large and elements of the white run GLBT movement. We don't need it from the GLB people that share our ethnic heritage, too.

With us being three months into the start of a new decade, I hold out hope that my GL community will lead on this issue and finally give us chocolate trans people the recognition, affirmation, help and love that we need from our own people.

Me Time Today

Taking the day off from TransGriot to recharge my creative and personal batteries.

I'm battling writer's block in addition to prepping for two Trans 101 discussions. I also am dealing with a chaotic week doing interviews for local candidates vying for our GLBT PAC endorsement.

So yeah, need a break today.

Will get back to you loyal readers with some fresh content tomorrow or if some inspired thought, idea or some fool pissing me off moves me enough to write about it.