Earlier Transkid Transitions Leading To Earler Trans Access Rights Fights

One of the things that continues to put an exclamation point on my comment that trans people aren't going away or back in the closet is the fact that transpeople are coming out and transitioning at earlier ages.

Instead of delaying transition until mid to late adulthood, we now have in the early 21st century transkids coming out as early as elementary school.  That means the access battles we used to see play out with the primary venue being the workplace because of those mid to late adulthood transitions now occur in elementary, middle, high school and the collegiate level with the corresponding ripple effects upon society.

If a kid transitions in elementary school, they'll now and do face transphobic bathroom issue fights at that level.  They're facing dress code wars at the high school level with transphobic school administrators or principals because they're wearing in their minds gender variant clothing or refuse to acknowledge their consistent gender presentation as the person they are now..

We also have to deal with bullying issues and as just happened in Colorado, what happens when a transgirl wants to join a Girl Scout troop or a transboy wants to join the Boy Scouts?

We've already seen battles at the high school level over homecoming king and queen courts and the differing reactions as to how it was handled pro and con.  We're starting to see school districts as a result add gender identity and expression language to their non discrimination policies and their codes of student conduct.   

The NCAA in the wake of Kye Allums and others coming out as trans collegiate athletes has already moved to change its rules to accomodate trans student athletes so trans kids who desire to do so and have the talent can compete.  Since many state high school sports associations like Texas follow NCAA rules, there hopefully will be a trickle down effect so that when these elementary school age transkids get to high school, they won't have to fight a legal battle just to play.

So far from seeing these diminish, we're probably going to see more of them until the human rights of transpeople are respected and protected by law. .

Rangers Manager Nine Innings From Baseball History

Ron Washington became the first African-American to manage the Texas Rangers in 2007, and so far he's led his team to back to back World Series appearances in 2010 and 2011. 

He's not however, the first African-American baseball manager to do that.  Cito Gaston was the first and did so with the Toronto Blue Jays in 1992-1993.

Gaston's Blue Jays also won back to back titles in the process.   Dusty Baker when he managed the San Francisco Giants in 2002 became the second to take a team to a World Series but unfortunately lost to the then Anaheim Angels in seven games.  New Orleans native Ron Washington is the third African-American manager to take a team to the World series..

With the Rangers taking a 3-2 series lead into Game 6, Washington is nine innings away from becoming the second African-American manager to win a World Series, and after the foul tweet from Tony LaRussa daughter Devon about him, I'm rooting for him to do so.

Congrats Dr. Stryker!

You longtime TransGriot readers know I have much love and respect for Dr. Susan Stryker, who is one of the people ensuring that rainbow community history and the trans contributions to it are preserved and not erased as they have been.

I was pleased to hear that Dr. Stryker, who was an associate professor of gender studies at Indiana University-Bloomington is now the director of the University of  Arizona's Institute of LGBT Studies.

Dr. Stryker is an author, filmmaker, archivist and activist whose 2005 documentary, Screaming Queens, the Riot at Compton's Cafeteria tells the story of the first known instance of collective militant resistance to anti-TBLG police harassment in US history.  The 1966 Compton's Cafeteria Riot in San Francisco was led by transsexuals and drag queens and preceded the more widely known Stonewall one by three years. 

She held visiting professor faculty positions at Harvard University, the University of California-Santa Cruz, Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, BC and Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. 

She was the executive director of the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco from 1999-2003 and her most recent book Transgender History mentions some blogger y'all know and love. 

Congrats Dr. Stryker, and may you have much success in your new position.