British Trans Tube Tragedy

In London our British trans cousins are dealing with a horrific situation in which 63 year old transwoman Sonia Burgess was pushed to her death at 6:30 PM local time yesterday under a London subway Piccadilly Line train while awaiting its arrival at the Kings Cross Station.

34 year old Nina Kanagasingham has been charged with her murder and as of yet, it is not being investigated according to Pink News UK as a hate crime.

Ms. Burgess was a civil rights attorney who leaves behind three adult children and grieving colleagues at her law firm.

And once again, the list of names we'll be reading for the upcoming TDOR ceremony grows.

World Series Homophobia

I was happy to see the Texas Rangers finally win the American League championship for the first time in their club history against the Evil Baseball Empire (the NY Yankees) last week.

Leading up to the initial game of the World Series last night I was torn between rooting for the home state team even if they do play in (yuck) the Dallas metro area and the National League champion San Francisco Giants.   Ranger manager Ron Washington is seeking to become only the second African-American manager to win a World Series title, team president Nolan Ryan used to be an Astro and I was leaning slightly in the Rangers direction.    But Giants manger Bruce Bochy once played for the Astros as well. 


But after some comments from some nekulturny Rangers fans branding this edition of the 2010 World Series as the 'Steers vs Queers' and this blog post letting fly with homophobic commentary aimed at the city of San Francisco and midterm election Teabagger rhetoric, I'm picking a side now.

Go Giants!

Noted in Game One the 'Steers' got beat by the 'Queers' 11-7. 

Karma rhymes with witch doesn't it?

One Step Forward-Two Steps Back

It seems like every time we make some kind of groundbreaking move forward in the trans community, we end up taking two steps backward.

Such is the yin and yang of trans life.

So how do we keep the forward momentum going in terms of the gains we have already made and avoid any regressive slippage?

First order of business is to vote, vote, vote.    You vote is your political voice.   Even if corporations and foreign entities are pumping truckloads of cash into this election cycle for GOP candidates, the foreign entities can't vote on November 2 and you can.

In addition to that the CEO of a corporation or a K Street lobbyist gets the same number of ballots you get as well when it's time to vote:  one ballot.

Next to voting is doing something to help move our community forward.   It can range form volunteering in an organization to sitting on the board of directors or just telling your story to friends and neighbors.     

We all have a part to play in doing what we can to turn the negativity directed at transpeople around and winning hearts and minds.
   

Transgender Law Center Investigating Offensive Anti-Trans Letter From DMV Employee

 The Transgender Law Center is outraged that a California Department of Motor Vehicles employee sent a letter to the home of a transgender woman calling her "an abomination" and telling her that she is going to hell.

Last week Amber Yust, a transgender woman living in San Francisco, went to the San Francisco Department of Motor Vehicles to change her name on her driver's license. With her court ordered name change and all of the DMV paperwork in hand, Amber was able to get a new driver's license in her new name. But her experience with the DMV did not end there.

Unbelievably, on Monday, Amber received a letter from the person who had processed her name change at the DMV. In the letter, which had been mailed to her at home, the DMV employee quoted from the Bible and stated that Amber had made a "very evil decision." The strongly-worded letter told Amber that she was "an abomination" and said that homosexuals should be put to death.

"I was shocked to receive this letter from the person who processed my paperwork at the DMV," said Amber. "I would never have expected that a DMV employee could use information from my name change application to reach out and personally attack me. This has been a traumatic experience for me and I want to ensure that nothing like this happens to anyone else."

The Transgender Law Center is investigating the incident.

"This was an egregious act committed by a government employee," said Masen Davis, Executive Director of the Transgender Law Center. "Transgender people deserve to be treated with respect at agencies like the DMV. What happened to Amber is despicable, and we intend to do everything we can to hold the responsible parties accountable and to prevent this from happening again."

2010 TDOR Events Update

The Twelfth Annual Transgender Day Of Remembrance's November 20 date is rapidly approaching and Ethan has recently updated the website for upcoming events and their locations around the world.

Here is the list so far of people being remembered at the 2010 event.

If you are planning or hosting a TDOR event in your locale and would like to have it listed, send Ethan the e-mail with the dates, location and details of your event to Radicalguy@gmail.com 


You can also keep up with TDOR information on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Transgenderdor

Notice to the Midland School Board Directors, Arkansas

TransGriot Note:  Guest contributor Maureen Hennessey points out to homophobic school board member Clint McCance  that he may have just exposed the school board he sits on to serious legal trouble if violence against a LGBT child happens in this district or a TBLG child attending school or living in the district does so


He wrote comments on his FB page in response to last week's purple wearing Spirit Day as saying gay kids should 'kill themselves'
***

Gentlemen of Midland, Consider yourselves placed upon notice 

Whereas a Director of your incorporated governmental unit has advocated for the death of LGBT students and whereas the deaths of LGBT students under dire circumstances as the result of policy and/or neglect by the directors and administrators of the responsible incorporated governmental units/school districts are a matter of public record and national concern, I hereby serve notice that any acts of violence against LGBT students or any action against LGBT students that result causally in self destructive acts shall be considered by myself and nearly every other litigator in the United States as the result of policy, desire and intent enunciated by one of the policy making directors of said incorporated governmental unit known as the Midland School District and that liabilities of a financial nature, both remunerative and punitive, are perforce substantially higher under USCA standards and applicable Federal case law, with a "Hate Crimes" modifier also attaching in terms of possible criminal remedies.

In other words, if anything happens to another LGBT student at Midland, you are all soooooooooo screwed.

Respectfully;
Maureen Eileen Hennessey LL.B., LL.M., PhD. Q.C.

Time To Learn How To Live

One of the things about being trans before we finally come out to the world is the shame and guilt aspect of it that has us at times living a life in the shadows.    In many cases that continues for some of us even after transition because we wish to avoid the drama of being out and confronting head on the nastiness of society.

Many of us do an excellent job of learning how to hide, who to avoid, what not to say around certain people, trying to live as clandestine as possible, et cetera.

But in the process of learning how to hide, we forget that we need to learn how to live as well. . We spend so much time wrapped up in perfecting keeping our trans lives on the down low that we unwittingly in some cases take a lot of those traits into our new post transition lives

The seriousness and fierce urgency we feel in terms of becoming and being the persons on the outside we know we are on the inside simply adds to the dilemma.

It's past time to exhale, take a deep breath and fearlessly take the plunge into learning how to live our post transition lives.  Once we make the gender based adjustments, get comfortable with our morphing bodies and adjust to the gender based societal roles we find ourselves in we have to do just as much or even more work on the internal workings of a gender change.

While we transpeeps always have to be combat ready advocates for our community at times, when we step off the societal gender binary battlefield, like any soldiers fighting a war, we need R&R.

We must take time to laugh, cry, hang out with friends and have some interests besides just dealing with trans issues and our personal transitions.

It's time for us to simply learn how to live