30-7 Texans Win A Costly One

I got to watch a little Texans history as my fave NFL team rolled over the San Francisco 49ers in a Saturday preseason romp at Candlestick Park.  It was the first time ever in their ten years of NFL life they have started 3-0 in the preseason.  

Yeah, yeah I know preseason games don't mean squat, and the Texans were supposed to make the playoffs last year.   Bit I'm cautiously optimistic because this is the most depth I've seen on both sides of the ball in a while and we could be in for a very special season here.

The game got off to a rough start.  The opening play of the game was a screen pass from Matt Schaub to Arian Foster that was picked off by linebacker by Ahmad Brooks.   He said thank you very much for the 13 yard early Christmas gift pick six that put the Texans in a 7-0 hole a mere nine seconds into the game.

After that Schaub and the Texans offense went to work as the improving defense pitched a shutout.  Troy Nolan picked off two passes, one of which he returned 73 yards for a TD.   The Texans defense held San Francisco to 105 total yards as the Texans rolled to a 30-7 victory that could have been worse had the offense not turned the ball over three times.

One major concern is NFL rushing champion Arian Foster tweaking his hamstring in the first quarter which makes him doubtful for the September 11 NFL opener at Reliant against the Colts.  Fortunately for the Texans they are deep at that position.

Their last preseson game is Thursday against the Minnesota Vikings, and it'll be the last chance for the bubble rookies to imprss the coaches before they cut the rosters down to 53 players.    

It's Michael Jackson's Birthday

Today would have been the 53rd birthday of the King of Pop, who was born in Gary, IN on this date in 1958

He's gone, and his fans still love and miss him.  One thing is certain is that there won't be another artist like him to grace our lifetimes and his music will live on forever.  

But forgive me if I wished we could have gotten to see if MJ could have pulled off the 'This Is It' tour and what it would have done to revive his then stalled career.

That's all speculation now.  

Oh well, time to pull out the CD's.   Rest in peace King of Pop.

Happy Birthday Pam and Judge Vicky

One of the cool things about your birthday is that you find out who some of the well known or historically famous people you share it with.

I find it deliciously interesting that two trailblazing transwomen, author Pamela Hayes and California Superior Court Judge Vicky Kolakowski share the same birthday, and I wasn't missing the opportunity to give them both the TransGriot birthday shout outs they deserve.

Pam's musings appear on TransGriot from time to time, and I wanted to take a moment to not only thank her for providing her take on various trans and other issues as she sees them, but for allowing me to share her words with you readers in the first place.

Pam, may you have a happy, low stress birthday full of blessings and may you have more of them    

And keep those words of wisdom coming.

If you're wondering where you've heard that name before, Judge Vicky Kolakowski made history during the 2010 election cycle by becoming the first open transperson elected to a judicial trial court bench.

That happened in California, and Judge Vicky after the initial crush of well deserved media attention is settling into her duties and serving the people of Alameda County well..   

I'm hoping that trailblazing Judge Vicky is also enjoying her birthday as well.  May she have many more of them, and may she be reelected by the people of Alameda County to continue serving them.

Off Duty DC Cop Shoots At Transwomen

As I've stated more than a few times on this blog and had it demonstrated in various incidents, Officer Friendly is at times less than friendly when it comes to protecting and serving, much less respecting the civil and human rights of transpeople.

Don't even get me started talking how they feel about the human rights of transwomen of color.

Once again we get to shine a spotlight on Washington, D.C. and another incident in which transwomen minding their own business interact with an off duty DC cop and it ends up with negative consequences for the transwomen.

This time the perp was 20 year DC veteran po-po Kenneth Furr.   The August 26 incident started when the inebriated Furr approached a transwoman inside a northwest Washington DC CVS store at 5:25 AM EDT and solicited her for sex.   She turned him down and he kept hounding her until he was told by a man accompanying her into the store to leave her alone.  

The unidentified transwoman said in a Washington Post interview, "His eyes were bloodshot,” she said. “I could smell the liquor on his breath. He told me he wanted to pay me to have sex with me. He kept trying to get me in his car.” 

The woman and her friend left the store and got into a car with two other transwomen and a male friend and drove off.   At the corner of First and Pierce Streets NW they were hit from behind by a hostile Furr, who jumped out of his car with his Glock 9 gun drawn, jumped onto the hood of their vehicle and fired shots through the roof into it.

One of the transwomen was struck in the hand, another was grazed by a bullet while the brother of one of the transwomen sustained an injury serious enough to where he is in critical condition at George Washington University Hospital according to Transgender Health Empowerment's Jeri Hughes.

Washington DC Mayor Vincent Gray released a statement about the incident that that resulted in Officer Furr being stripped of his police powers.  He is also facing an investigation by MPD's Internal Affairs Division and the Force Investigation Team

Furr was arrested, charged with assault with a dangerous weapon and driving while intoxicated after blowing a .15 during his breath test.


"I am deeply troubled by the apparent circumstances surrounding this incident and await the results of a full MPD investigation,” Mayor Gray said. “These are serious charges, and they are particularly disturbing to have been brought against one who is sworn to protect and serve.”

The disturbing early morning incident led to a 6:30 PM rally organized by THE.and the DC Trans Coalition that was attended by Mayor Gray, local TBLG activists, MPD deputy chief Diane Groomes and 70 people at the First and Pierce Streets location where it occurred..

It was a miracle that as serious as this latest incident was, no one died.  But something transphobic has been brewing in the MPD police culture for some time and Chief Cathy Lanier needs to get to the bottom of it.

If she can't or she's getting resistance, then maybe the Department of Justice needs to get busy taking a look at what's going on in MPD and start cleaning out the transphobic rotten apples.

Transphobia is bad enough in the general population.   It's even worse and can have potentially fatal consequences when it's hiding behind a badge.

A New Orleans Trans Evacuee's Story

Many people in the wake of Katrina's devastating landfall in the New Orleans area were evacuated to Houston and other places in the metro area.

New Orleans also has a large cluster of transpeople who were also affected by 80% of the city being flooded in various ways.   Some of them found themselves transported out of the city as evacuees and spending time here in the Houston metro area.

One of those evacuees was then 20 year old Sharli'e Dominique Vicks, who was working as a substitute teacher when she began her transition in January of 2005.

Sharli'e's story begins after the levees failed and she and her two cousins sought higher ground than their downtown neighborhood.   One of the cousins was 18 year old cis female Rolanda Grisham, and Rolanda's 16 year old sibling was a trans female in the early stages of transition .  

In Sharli'e's case, because she's 5' 7", was taking hormones and was a little further along the feminine body development path in her transition she blended in a bit easier than her slender 6 foot tall trans cousin. 

Over the next five days Sharli'e and her cousins found themselves navigating a real life edition of Survivor: New Orleans.  

They walked and swam 1.5 miles to the New Orleans Convention Center where they spent two harrowing and uncomfortable nights there before leaving it and spending two hot, uncomfortable and hungry days on an I-10 overpass. 

She and the Grisham siblings finally made it to the Superdome, where they received help and a bus ride to Houston enroute to the shelter that had been set up in the Astrodome.

When the bus arrived at the Dome a few hours later it was turned away and redirected to College Station and Texas A&M University northwest of the city.   A shelter had been set up at Reed Arena on the A&M campus and after the bus spent another two hours in transit to Aggieland from the Astrodome area Sharli'e and her cousins arrived there at 1 AM on September 3.

The shelter was under the command of then A&M Corps of Cadets commander John Van Alystine and after Sharli'e talked to a volunteer about her and her cousin's trans status, she expressed her desire to take a shower.  She also expressed her fear about showering with men for obvious reasons.

The volunteer didn't have a problem with it since the shower facility set up for women in the Reed Arena shelter was curtained off.  It was the early morning and she and her trans cousin did so with no problem.

They also took two more showers in the women's facility without incident.   But somebody had a problem with Sharli'e and her trans cousin using the female showers and reported it to John Van Alystine, who warned them not to use the shower again.  

Sharli'e and her cousin after being inoculated against diseases and hearing the briefing about what they had swam and waded through, wanted to take another shower.   But with Van Alystne's warning reverberating in their heads and fearing what would happen if she used the men's shower, got permission to do so from a shelter volunteer before heading back to the facility again.

After emerging from it, they were arrested on Sept 4 by Texas A&M campus police on criminal trespass charges.  The trans cousin of Sharli'e was hauled off to a juvenile facility and later released to the custody of her sister Rolanda, but Sharli'e found herself being hustled off to the Brazos County Jail under a $6000 bond for taking a damned shower.

Sharli'e spent a stressful four days locked up there until Bryan-College Station Eagle reporter Laura Hensley stumbled across her case while researching another one.  She got in contact with Sharli'e, interviewed her at the Brazos County Jail, published her story in the Eagle and then the fun began.

The story got national attention, outraged national TBLG groups and a certain Aggie alum and Houston trans attorney named Phyllis Frye.  She was also in the Corps of Cadets during her time on the A&M campus.   She was hired to represent Sharli'e and was about to train her legal sights on Brazos County when then prosecutor Jim Kuboviak declined to press charges in the case..   

As Phyllis said in a Houston Chronicle interview about Sharli'e plight, ""Six thousand dollars is a hell of a big bond for criminal trespass with no allegation of violence," she said. "I mean, she had to to shower someplace."

Bryan resident Claudette Peterson, who has years of experience working with TBLG people was moved by the story and picked up Sharli'e from the Brazos County Jail.  She took Sharli'e to her home for the evening and during their long conversations she broke it down about her trans issues and informed Sharli'e about the organizations that could help her.

The Houston TBLG community was getting mobilized as well after hearing about Sharli'e's case and another Houston suburban shelter incident involving a trans evacuee who had been harassed at a Conroe shelter.  

They discovered that Sharli'e's mother Djuana was at the shelter set up in the George R. Brown Convention center, and the Montrose Counseling Center booked two rooms at the swank Hilton Americas Hotel next to the George R Brown for mother and trans daughter. 
 
The Chronicle story ends with Sharli'e, her mom, sister Antoinette, niece and cousins considering a move to Houston.

As of now don't know if the story ended that way or they eventually moved back to New Orleans like some of the evacuees who were evacuated here but missed the Big Easy did.

What Sharli'e situation did do was galvanize us in the Houston trans community to set up every hurricane season a Transgender Foundation of America maintained list of people in this community who would be willing to take in trans evacuees.

Whatever happened, do hope life got better for Sharli'e, her cousins and her family.   I also don't ever want to hear or write about ever again a transperson spending five days in jail because some transphobic idiot had a problem with then taking a shower in an emergency shelter.