2010 Wimbledon Williams Watch-Busy Day

Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth II made her first Wimbledon visit in 33 years and met the current Queen of Wimbledon's Ladies' singles, Serena Williams amongst other current Wimbledon champions.

While John Isner was going through his record breaking Survivor: Wimbledon three day five set first round match with France's Nicholas Mahut that started on Tuesday and ended with a 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 70-68 win on Thursday, it seemed like Serena was trying to set the record for fastest tennis match played.

She headed to Court No. 2 and dispatched Russia's Anna Chakvetadze 6-0, 6-1 in 49 minutes to move on to the third round.

Chakvetadze was once ranked Number 5 in the world, but her ranking has cratered to Number 118. This match basically let her know how far she has to go to get back to playing upper echelon tennis.

The first set took Little Sis only 23 minutes, and 26 minutes later Serena was headed to the clubhouse with a straight set victory and passage to a third round meeting with Slovakia's Dominika Cibulková.

Canadian Earthquake

When you turn on the news, you expect to hear news about earthquakes in familiar fault zones such as California, Turkey, China, Iran, Indonesia, Mexico, Japan, Chile and other places along the Pacific Rim.

But central Canada?

A 5.0 magnitude earthquake centered eight kilometres east of Val-des-Bois in southwestern Quebec, about 60 kilometres northeast of Ottawa struck the area at approximately 1:45 PM EDT.

It shook not only the Canadian capital, but was felt in Toronto, Montreal, Windsor, southern Ontario and as far south and west as Cleveland, Chicago and upstate New York.

It was the largest quake to hit the area in 20 years, and I need to check in with my homegirl in Niagara Falls to get her take on it.

It's Reading And Hard, Solid Thinking Day

Been too long since I picked up a book and did some reading, so I'm going to take a pause from the blog cause and do precisely that.

I also have as Dr. King called it, some hard, solid thinking I need to do about various issues inside and outside the community as well.

Of course if I'm moved to write about some issue, breaking news story or both, I'll put the post together and get it up on the blog as quickly as possible.

Dana Beyer 2010 Campaign Kickoff

Dr. Dana Beyer will kick off her 2010 run for the Maryland House of Delegates that we hope will end in victory with an event this Saturday.

if you're in the Washington DC metro area and wish to attend, it will take place in Silver Spring, MD on Saturday June 26 at Wheaton Claridge Park from 10:30 AM EDT to 1:00 PM EDT.

Dana is seeking to make trans history by becoming the first transperson elected to a state legislative body.

As always, Dana could use some help for her campaign, so if you can donate time ot cash, you can do so at her website.

If you're planning to attend, so that they can have a solid head count, please RSVP Dana's Field Director, Jena Grosser at: jena@fieldworks.com or call (202) 905-7921.

2010 Wimbledon Williams Watch-Movin' On In Singles And Doubles

My fave tennis playing sisters played their opening doubles match at Wimbledon yesterday. They are ranked number one in the world in doubles and in this tournament as well.

They started their quest to defend their Wimbledon Ladies' doubles title by beating fellow American Julie Ditty and the Czech Republic's Renata Voracova. They went down in straight sets 6-4, 6-2.

The number one doubles seeds will face Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland and Tathiana Garbin of Italy in the second round.

Big Sis handled her Centre Court business in her second round singles match versus Russia's Ekaterina Makarova. The tournament second seed took out Makarova 6-0, 6-4 and will face another Russian, Alisa Kleybanova in her third round match.

President Obama's Remarks At 2010 LGBT Pride Reception

TransGriot Note: As usual, not feeling much pride about a reception that appears to have once again, shut out transwomen of color. Will need to peruse the guest list to determine how pissed off I should be about it, so consider the USS Monica in DEFCON 3 status until I confirm what I already suspect happened again.

Then I will unleash the rhetorical Tomahawks...

In the meantime, enjoy President Obama's remarks from another LGBT pride event that had a melanin free transgender contingent.

2010 World Cup USA Watch-Dramatic Late Goal Wins Group C!

Lucky for me I grew up as a Houston sports fan. I'm used to nail biting, high pressure, dramatic games.

The USA suffered another disallowed goal by the referees, and missed point blank chances in both halves with the knowledge that the English had already scored a goal against Slovenia that was going to send them home.

A 20th minute goal by my Lone Star homeboy Clint Dempsey was erroneously disallowed by a phantom offside call by the linesman. The Cardiac Kids shook off the frustration of the disallowed goal and kept up the offense pressure.

They missed several chances to get the initial goal and clearly outplayed Algeria but the goal that allowed them to make a little World Cup history came in extra time in dramatic fashion.

In the 91st minute the counterattack against the Desert Foxes began that sent the USA men to the round of 16 for the first time since 2002.

A long throw to Donovan, a pass to Altidore who takes it quickly to the Algerian end and crosses it to the box. Dempsey is there to meet it, but so is the Algerian goalkeeper Rais M'Bolhi. The ball squirts out and a streaking Donovan buried it into the net for his 44th and most important international goal of his career.

The goal gave the USA Group C with a 1-0-2 record and scoring more goals than the runner-ups, England. They won their group for the first time since 1930.

They'll get the opportunity to make some more US World Cup history and attempt to go where no US men's team has gone before, deep into the knockout round.

They play the second place team in Group D on June 26 which will be either Germany or Ghana.

'Oppressed People Cannot Remain Oppressed Forever'

Those were words that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. composed while sitting in a Birmingham, AL jail cell on January 16, 1963.

Those words still have significance for us in the second decade of the 21st century.

As we fight, claw, protest and petition our legislators to grant us the civil rights we are due under our constitution, we review the lessons from history. We smile and gather courage from reading about the long lists of oppressed peoples who gained their precious freedoms.

While the oppression we labor under and the people we study who freed themselves from their bondage may have nuances due to the political winds at the time, severity of it and other variables, the key to winning is still consistent across time.

The oppressed have nothing to lose because the situation already as far as they are concerned is at rock bottom. They win with great leadership, unceasing labor, strategic vision, planning, prayerful contemplation, determination, and a determined indomitable will to achieve it.

As they are 'ripening the time' as the late Dr. Dorothy Height said, they are also patiently building for the future while putting unrelenting pressure on the oppressor.

DART Trans Protections Passed By Unanimous Vote

After ten members of the Dallas TBLG community addressed the DART board during its 30 minute comment period before the vote, the Dallas Area Rapid Transit board approved a nondiscrimination policy that protects trans people by a unanimous vote in front of a packed board room.

“A word is standing between us, and the word is ‘except,’” Stonewall Democrats of Dallas President Erin Moore told the DART board, adding that everyone has a sexual orientation and a gender identity. “All of these things also include you. Why not include us?”

The contentious 'except' word was removed prior to the vote, but Dallas area GLBT peeps understandably want confirmation that the language in the new policy does exactly what it is supposed to do and protects present and future DART BTLG employees from discriminatory behavior.

The Dallas TBLG community was outraged after various LGBT legal experts concluded after last week's DART committee of the whole meeting that the 'except' word inserted by DART board member Raymond Noah not only would gut the proposed policy, but rescind the sexual orientation policy passed by the DART board in 1995.

After the unanimous vote, the packed board room responded with a standing ovation.



Getting the policy passed was the easy part, as contentious as that process was. Now comes the hard part of implementing and ensuring DART complies with it.

America 's High Tech 'Invisible Man'

TransGriot Note: Another instance of an African-American inventor not getting major credit for an invention that changed our lives.


By Tyrone D. Taborn

You may not have heard of Dr. Mark Dean. And you aren't alone. But almost everything in your life has been affected by his work.

See, Dr. Mark Dean is a PhD from Stanford University. He is in the National Hall of Inventors. He has more than 30 patents pending. He is a vice president with IBM. Oh, yeah. And he is also the architect of the modern-day personal computer. Dr. Dean holds three of the original nine patents on the computer that all PCs are based upon. And, Dr. Mark Dean is an African American.

So how is it that we can celebrate the 20th anniversary of the IBM personal computer without reading or hearing a single word about him? Given all of the pressure mass media are under about negative portrayals of African Americans on television and in print, you would think it would be a slam dunk to highlight someone like Dr. Dean.

Somehow, though, we have managed to miss the shot. History is cruel when it comes to telling the stories of African Americans. Dr. Dean isn't the first Black inventor to be overlooked. Consider John Stanard, inventor of the refrigerator, George Sampson, creator of the clothes dryer, Alexander Miles and his elevator, Lewis Latimer and the electric lamp. All of these inventors share two things: One, they changed the landscape of our society; and, two, society relegated them to the footnotes of history.

Hopefully, Dr. Mark Dean won't go away as quietly as they did. He certainly shouldn't. Dr. Dean helped start a Digital Revolution that created people like Microsoft's Bill Gates and Dell Computer's Michael Dell. Millions of jobs in information technology can be traced back directly to Dr. Dean.

More important, stories like Dr. Mark Dean's should serve as inspiration for African-American children. Already victims of the "Digital Divide" and failing school systems, young, Black kids might embrace technology with more enthusiasm if they knew someone like Dr. Dean already was leading the way.

Although technically Dr. Dean can't be credited with creating the computer -- that is left to Alan Turing, a pioneering 20th-century English mathematician widely considered to be the father of modern computer science -- Dr. Dean rightly deserves to take a bow for the machine we use today. The computer really wasn't practical for home or small business use until he came along, leading a team that developed the interior architecture (IS A systems bus) that enables multiple devices, such as modems and printers, to be connected to personal computers.

In other words, because of Dr. Dean, the PC became a part of our daily lives. For most of us, changing the face of society would have been enough, but not for Dr. Dean. Still in his early forties, he has a lot of inventing left in him.

He recently made history again by leading the design team responsible for creating the first 1-gigahertz processor chip. It's just another huge step in making computers faster and smaller. As the world congratulates itself for the new Digital Age brought on by the personal computer, we need to guarantee that the African-American story is part of the hoopla surrounding the most stunning technological advance the world has ever seen.

We cannot afford to let Dr. Mark Dean become a footnote in history. He is well worth his own history book.

2010 Wimbledon Williams Watch-Little Sis Moves On

Number one tournament seed Serena Williams opened the defense of her Wimbledon championship with an opening round match on Centre Court versus Portugal's Michelle Larcher de Brito.

It took her an hour and three minutes to cruise to a 6-0, 6-4 victory over Larcher de Brito. She served 15 aces enroute to the win and extended her streak of first round Grand Slam wins to an impressive 43-0

Little Sis faces Russia's Anna Chakvetadze in the second round.

She teams up with Big Sis to open the defense of their doubles title with an opening round match versus fellow American Julie Ditty and Renata Voracova of the Czech Republic.

Dr. Angela Davis' Remarks on Judith Butler

Dr. Angela Davis was asked about the refusal of Judith Butler on June 19 to accept the Civil Courage Prize from Berlin Pride because of an issue I and other GLBT people of color have been talking about for years: Racism in the GLBT community.

Showdown At Akard Station

The eyes of Texas and the national TBLG community will be focused on Dallas later today.

The Dallas Area Rapid Transit board will be meeting at 6:30 PM CDT to consider a non discrimination policy which if adopted, will wipe out protection for GL people that originally passed in 1995 and still allow discrimination against transpeople.

For those of you in the Dallas area, this meeting will take place at DART Headquarters at 1401 Pacific Ave. It can also be reached on the DART light rail line by getting off at Akard Station.

This story has been percolating since early March when thanks to a hole in the current DART non-discrimination policy, Ms. T-DART, a 20 year employee was harassed by her supervisors.

Efforts to correct this injustice were thwarted by DART board member Raymond Noah, who inserted language in the proposed policy that gutted it and if passed tonight will ALLOW discrimination against BTLG people.

It all comes down to what is sure to be a contentious DART board meeting tonight.

2010 Wimbledon Williams Watch-Big Sis' Successful Opening

Venus turned 30 on June 17 and gave herself a belated birthday present today by successfully navigating her opening round match with Paraguay's Rossana de los Rios.

The five time Wimbledon champ handled her business in straight sets. She took 5-0 leads in each set before cruising to a 6-3, 6-2 victory to reach the second round.

Big Sis is now 47-3 over her career in opening matches at Grand Slam tournaments.

Venus has played in eight of the past 10 Wimbledon finals, and won the 2000, 2001, 2005, 2007 and 2008 Ladies' singles championship.

Her second round singles opponent will be Russia's Ekaterina Makarova.

Hate The Smell Of Vanilla Scented Privilege

One of the things that is maddeningly infuriating to transpeople of color when we try to interact in groups dominated by white people is the mischaracterizations that result when we speak our minds.

A POC transperson speaks their mind about a hot button issue du jour, and their critics inevitably hurl the words, 'divisive', 'verbally violent', 'angry' or 'polarizing influences' bull feces at them or whisper it to other white friends behind the POC's back.

Conversely, let a White transperson speak their mind, get mad, vent or say the exact same thing a POC transperson may have just verbalized about the issue, then it's considered 'refreshing honesty'.

Can you smell the vanilla scented double standard and privilege in the air?

Thought you could.

One other thing, I do get sick of hearing the patronizing 'watch your tone' BS. There are times when I write posts or say things critiquing various issues that you may presume I was 'angry', but actually was as calm as President Obama in a meeting with angry Republicans.

When I'm pissed off, you'll know it.

2010 Wimbledon Williams Watch-Checking Out The Draw

The draw for The Championships as 'Williams'-don is referred to across The Pond took place Friday and we now know two things.

The first is that Big Sis and Little Sis are on opposite sides of the Ladies' Singles bracket (thank God). If both win all their matches, they could meet in the Ladies' singles finals for the third consecutive year.

2004 Wimbledon champ Maria Sharapova is in Serena's section of the draw and they could potentially meet in the third round. She also has Justine Henin and Kim Clijsters on her side of the draw as well.

Venus has 2010 French Open Champ Francesca Schiavone on her side of the Ladies' singles draw with a possible meeting in the quarterfinals.

The road to Serena's fourth Ladies' single championship starts with Number one seeded Little Sis playing Michelle Larcher de Brito of Portugal.

Number two seeded Big Sis starts her quest for her sixth Wimbledon title with an opening round match against Paraguay's Rossana de los Ríos.

In the Ladies' doubles the Williams sisters are seeded Number one and will open their defense of their doubles title against the duo of fellow American Julie Ditty and the Czech Republic's Renata Voráčová.

If they capture this title, they would only need to win the US Open doubles crown to complete the calendar year doubles Grand Slam.

Happy Father's Day

A month ago we celebrated our mothers and the mother figures in our lives, now today is the day you pay tribute to fathers and the father figures in you lives..

Today is Father's Day, so if you still have them around in your life, take a moment to give them a call or visit. you'll be glad you did.

And to all my TransGriot readers who are fathers or help act as a father figure or a mentor in someone's life, may you have a blessed and wonderful day.

10th Anniversary of Amanda Milan Murder

Today marks the tenth anniversary of the viciously brutal killing of transwoman Amanda Milan at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York on June 20, 2000.

It's been ten years since that night that then 20 year old Dwayne McCuller used a knife borrowed from then 26 year old Eugene Celestine to slash the throat and jugular vein of Amanda Milan.

The New York trans community was outraged, especially after the murder wasn't prosecuted as a hate crime. McCuller pled guilty and was sentenced in November 2002 to 17.5 years to life in prison for Amanda's murder.

An emotional and well attended memorial service was held July 23 in which her friend, the late Octavia St. Laurent used her eulogy of Amanda to rip into the media, the ignorant, sexist, and the African-American community.

"Amanda was a transsexual. She was killed because she was a transsexual. Her neck was slashed and her story went unreported because she was Black and a transsexual." .

"The Black community is the worst," she said. "They who have suffered from prejudice in this country have treated us worse than any other people.

"White people have rights, Black people have rights. Gay people have rights. Animals have rights. Transgenders have no rights."

"People refer to us as `it,' `thing' and `that.' They call us he/she. They say, 'What was that?' Being gay is O.K. They are on TV. How many will have to die before they recognize we are not expendable? We are transgenders."

Octavia's question asked during that July 2000 memorial service sadly has gone unanswered. Black transpeople ten years later continue to be murdered for who they are. Unlike Amanda's killer who is still rotting in jail, many of those people brutally taken from us have yet to see their killers be brought to justice.

Black transpeople are still waiting for our government to recognize them as human beings deserving of civil rights protection.

Octavia stated during that memorial service eulogy, "Death will not be the last word for Amanda Milan."

She's absolutely right in that regard. As long as TransGriot and other trans themed blogs that cover African American transpeople are around, we will make certain that something positive comes out of it and Amanda's death never fades from our collective memory.

Trans Woman Running For Judge In California

One of the things I have long been adamant about is that qualified trans people need to begin running for public office.

In this political cycle we already have two people running for their state legislatures in Oklahoma and Maryland.

Victoria Kolakowski is seeking to make elective history as well. However she wishes to do so as the first transgender trial court judge.

She's running for Alameda County Superior Court judge, and while Kolakowski is cognizant she'll be making history if she's triumphant this November, she wants Alameda County voters to focus on her 21 years of judicial experience.

She has served as a private practice attorney, a corporate attorney and a current administrative law judge for the California Public Utilities Commission.

"It's not like I'm going to be elected and be 'the transgender judge," she said in a SF Gate interview. "If I'm not going to be able to represent the entire community or have the skills for the job, I don't want people to vote for me."

In California's June 16 primary Kolakowski came close to winning outright. She earned 67,000 votes, 45 percent of the total. Since she didn't get the 50% she needed to win, she is a fall runoff with John Creighton, who picked up 22% of the vote.

If you want to learn more about her or donate to her campaign, you can check out her website.

Best of luck, Victoria. I hope you get the opportunity to serve the residents of Alameda County and make history at the same time.

President Obama's Juneteenth Statement

TransGriot Note: Today is the 145th anniversary of Juneteenth, and the POTUS released this statement about it.

Statement by President Obama on the Observance of Juneteenth

On this day 145 years ago, the people of Galveston, Texas, received word from members of the Union Army that those slaves who remained captive were now indeed free. More than two years after President Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation, the order read by Major General Gordon Granger made plain that the relationship between “former masters and slaves” would now be one of “employer and free laborer.”

General Granger’s pronouncement was one step in our continuing effort to perfect our union and live out the ideals of our Founders. While we know it would be many years before African descendants in America achieved the full rights offered through Lincoln’s proclamation, that day in Texas, former slaves were offered the hope of embracing the American Dream as their own.

This occasion, which became known as Juneteenth, is now celebrated here in America and around the world and is a time not only to celebrate the rich heritage and many accomplishments of African Americans in our country, but also a time to reflect on the common values and ideals that we share as Americans.

Our nation is stronger because of the generations of struggles for equal rights and social justice, and our culture is richer because of the contributions of African Americans throughout our history. This is why Juneteenth, while rooted in the history of a people, can be celebrated by all Americans.