Virginia Trans Attack Update

Update in the trans hate attack aimed at a 32 year old transwoman in Fredericksburg, VA outside a local 7-Eleven convenience store.

18 year old Laqueta Webb has already been arrested and charged with malicious wounding by mob.   Her 19 year old boyfriend Farkeem French  hasn't been arrested yet, but he is also facing the same charges once he turns himself in to the Fredericksburg po-po's.  

 Two other men who participated in the attack on the unidentified transwoman are still at large and one has been tentatively identified due to eyewitness accounts .

In case you're wondering about Virginia's hate crime law, it doesn't cover sexual orientation or gender identity.  It only covers hate crimes motivated by the victim's race, religious conviction, color or national origin.

And since both houses of the Virginia General Assembly are under GOP control with a GOP neo confederate governor and a right wing fundie attorney general in Ken Cuccinelli II, good luck in seeing any changes to the hate crimes law in favor of our community any time soon.

Elections matter, people.

Will keep y'all apprised on any new developments in this case.

Oprah's Last Broadcast

After 25 years and over 5000 shows, today is the day that Oprah fans all over the country have dreaded since she made the announcement that 2011 was going to be the last year of this show.

This is the day her last show will be broadcast.

I remember the first time I was introduced to Oprah Winfrey.     It was in August 1986, and I was in Chicago for the funeral of my great uncle Leon.     My Aunt Ruth told us while me and my family was sitting down eating breakfast told us about a sister talk show host she said we just had to watch called  AM Chicago.

We did, fell in love with the show and like everyone else in Chicago watched until it was time for us to fly back to Houston.  The sister hosting that local talk show was Oprah Winfrey

Well, you know the rest of the story.  Former beauty queen from Mississippi after stops in Nashville and Baltimore ends up in Chicago.    The show me and my family watched one month later gets syndicated,  renamed the Oprah Winfrey Show, does its first broadcast on September 8, 1986 and blows up.

Oprah makes enough cheddar to become a billionaire, build a studio on a street renamed for her, buy a magazine, start her own network and become an icon.

She's been a major influence on our culture, our lives, and our politics.   Writers are thrilled when they are selected for Oprah's Book Club because they get a ginormous boost in sales.   A certain African American resident of Hyde Park and his family are now living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue because of her endorsement.

Michael Jackson made a 1993 appearance on her show watched by 62 million people in which he revealed he had vitiligo.  Ellen DeGeneres came out in 1997 on Oprah.  The Little Rock Nine on her stage confronted the white students who heckled them back in 1957.  Recently her stage was the venue for a 50th anniversary reunion of the Freedom Riders.  

Of course she has her critics and straight up haters.   There are some right wing women still mad at her because she strictly enforced her 'no political interviews until after the election' rule and wouldn't do one with Sarah Palin in 2008.   Some rappers can't stand and still hate on her.

While I like her and the show, I still had problems with the fact that when Oprah finally started doing shows tackling the topic of transsexuality, she hasn't interviewed transpeople who looked like her and wrote open letters to her and a few blog posts on that topic.

Despite the fact that we African descended transpeople weren't included in the long list of guests who have appeared on her show over the last 25 years, like everyone else in this country I'm going to be tuned in to the last show.

According to sources, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith will be the last people to ever sit on Oprah's interview couch and close a historic and remarkable Emmy winning television run.

Trans Hate In Rad Fem Thought

If you're wondering why I and a lot of transwomen have a problem with feminism, much of the roots of our dislike of it stem from the disco era hateraid of rad fems

That radical feminist trans hate and the embrace of it by the WWBT's is why many of us have zero love for them either and consider them self hating rhymes with snitches.

but lets focus on the rad fems for a moment and give you some background.


 

Say Hello To Congresswoman Hochul!

The special election in NY-26 became a major electoral test of the Rep. Paul Ryan Kill Medicare budget.    

Democratic candidate Kathy Hochul opposed it while Republican candidate Jane Corwin supported it.   Both sides poured in $6 million in cash and tons of robocalls.   Speaker Boehner and Eric Cantor flew in to try to save the day along with Karl Rove and the GOP special interests.

But it was all for naught.   Kathy Hochul, who two months ago was looking like just another Democrat who was going to lose this district, seized on her opponents blunder to win the special election to fill the seat that just a few short months ago elected Republican Chris Lee by a 73-27 margin before he was forced to resign in a scandal.  

She will become the first Democrat ever to represent this district, and it reduces the number of seats the Democrats need to take back the House to 24.

Congrats Congresswoman elect and give 'em hell in Washington.

Nikki Araguz Update 23-'Marriage Is Void'

Judge Randy Clapp has just announced his verdict in the Delgado v. Araguz case.  

Judge Clapp (R) said that because Nikki Araguz was born a man, Thomas Araguz was not married on the day he died, and any marriage – formal or informal – is void.

Of course the Delgado camp is happy.  

 

It's definitely going to be appealed.  

Herman Cain, Take Your Own Advice

One of the things I can't stand about the conservafools is their foaming at the mouth ignorance is strength mantra.  They call anyone with an informed opinion about the issues a 'librul'. (and I'm proud of being one, frack you very much).  They sanctimoniously claim to love and revere the constitution, or more precisely the 2nd and 10th amendments to it, but won't acknowledge the other 25 amendments on that 'goddamned scrap of paper' as the previous occupant of the Oval Office called it..

Was chuckling when I heard about the recent presidential campaign kickoff event in which Herman Cain, one of my recent Saturday Sellout profiles, made an embarrassing gaffe.

While lecturing people to 're-read' the constitution, he made this statement:

We don’t need to rewrite the Constitution of the United States of America, we need to reread the Constitution and enforce the Constitution,” Cain said. “And I know that there are some people that are not going to do that, so for the benefit of those that are not going to read it because they don’t want us to go by the Constitution, there’s a little section in there that talks about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

“Because that’s when it says when any form of government becomes destructive of those ideals, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.” 

Um dude, 'the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness' statement is part of the Declaration of Independence.  So is “when any form of government becomes destructive of those ideals, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.”


You conservapeeps are so busy trying to rewrite and misinterpret the Constitution to fit your ideological point of view and selfish gain you not only haven't been reading it, you don't know the meaning of any amendments other than the 2nd and 10th, and you're loud and wrong on those, too.

Herman Cain, take your own advice and re-read the Constitution.   Start with the 13th 14th and 15th Amendments, take copious notes and work your way around to the other 24 as well.

This video should also help you as well.

Another Day, Another Trans Assault

We haven't even reached Memorial Day yet and the signs are accumulating that it's going to be a long, uncomfortable summer for transpeople.

If it isn't the po-po's jacking with us, it's some fool who has self esteem issues that wants to take them out on us to make themselves feel more like a man or woman.

As the legal process continues to move forward in the wake of the Chrissy Polis McBeatdown in the Baltimore burbs, word of another transperson being attacked in Fredericksburg, VA is racing across the Transophere.

The 32 year old victim was leaving a convenience store near her home at 3:30 PM on May 21 when she was surrounded by two cis males and a cis female, taunted, and then assaulted.   The attackers fled in two vehicles  and the victim was able to get the license plate numbers of both vehicles.

View more videos at: http://nbcwashington.com.

The victim suffered numerous facial injuries and bruising of the hands and knees during the assault

18 year old Laqueta Webb was later arrested for malicious wounding by mob and is in jail without bond.   The two male suspects involved in the attack have yet to be arrested, but have been identified..

Virginia does have a hate crimes law on the books, but it doesn't cover sexual orientation or gender identity.

It figures.

But long story short, this bull feces is getting old.   I'm just waiting for the day when these wastes of DNA who get their jollies beating on transpeople runs into the wrong one.  

One who is more than prepared to defend themselves with either boxing or martial arts training or simply busts a cap in them.

Happy Birthday Patti!

Today is the birthday of iconic Grammy winning singer and actress Patti LaBelle, who in 1944 was born on this date in Philadelphia, PA.

The career of the 'Godmother of Soul' spans several decades and she is an iconic presence in the African American community.

She's especially loved in the rainbow African American one.    Back during the 80's and early 90's the two most popular people my FI friends used to emulate were Diana Ross and Patti LaBelle.    She's also loved in the African American TBLG community for her advocacy work that earned her a GLAAD Media Award in 2007. 

She's not only an Apollo Legends Hall of Famer, she was listed by Rolling Stone magazine as one of 'The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time'.  Her voice is the one that Oprah used for her show's theme song from 1996-1998



And those of us who were (and still are) fans of the groundbreaking  television series A Different World can't forget her recurring role performances as Dwayne Wayne's mother Adele Wayne.

Happy birthday Patti!   May you have many more!

Who's Gonna Win NY-26?

When Congressman Christopher Lee (R-NY) got ensnared in his Craigslist scandal that forced him to resign this seat, little did we know at the time it would set up the first political test since the Paul Ryan Kill Medicare budget was rolled out by the Republifools.

NY 26 is a congressional district that has been in GOP hands since the Civil War  It has stayed in GOP hands despite various Democratic presidents taking New York State's electoral votes.  It was the late Jack Kemp's district.   It has a huge GOP registration advantage and lots of seniors.   .

But thanks to the Ryan budget, a Tea partier siphoning off votes, and a smart, competent Democratic candidate in Kathy Hochul who has hung that albatross of a budget around Jane Corwin's neck,  Hochul may have a shot at taking this district away from the Republicans.

They have been scrambling to find a way to spin their Kill Medicare budget now that they have been reminded once again why Medicare and Social Security are called the third rails of American politics.

The last poll that came out has Hochul up six points.   Will that lead hold up?   Will we be addressing her as 'Congresswoman Hochul' in a few hours?      

The polls open at 5 AM CDT my time.   We'll know in a few hours if she pulls it off.