Early Voting For Texas Primary Runoff Elections Begins Today

Lone Star State voters, early voting for the primary runoff elections begins today and runs through Friday.  If you don't get it done this week at a location of your choice and wait until July 31, on that date you'll have to go to your precinct location to cast your ballot.

Remember all you'll need to cast your ballot is your yellow voter registration card, the Texas Voter Suppression law is NOT in effect.  

For those of you who live in State Board of Indoctrination Education Districts 2, 10 or 12, you may have an SBOE runoff race on your ballot.   Very important considering the GOP controlled SBOE majority in the last five years censored what students will learn in their history classes, rejected established science and ignored the recommendations of teachers and respected scholars while doing so.

Since redistricting happened in 2011, all 15 seats on the SBOE were up for reelection this year.

In addition to the Sate Bord of Education, there are other local races in your area that require your attention.  The candidates involved would like for you and need you to do your civic duty and participate in the process.

So handle your electoral business and use your ballot power before the Republicans take it away from you.

HBCU's Better Recognize Black TBLG Students Exist

One of the issues we discussed during the just concluded Texas Transgender Non-Discrimination Summit was the lack of LGBT centers on Texas colleges and university campuses.   There's one at Texas A&M, UT-Austin, and a part time one at the University of Houston and they narrowly survived an attempt by our conservafool legislators to cut their funding.

However sad that data point is of three TBLG collegiate centers in the Lone Star State, the reality is there are more on campus LGBT centers in red state Texas than in all of the 105 Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU's) put together.  That's disgusting considering it's not a 21st century phenomenon that Black GLBT students exist. 

There are two major HBCU's here in Prairie View A&M, just northwest of Houston which is part of the Texas A&M University system and Texas Southern University here in H-town.  PVAMU doesn't have one and neither does TSU, which is mere blocks from the University of Houston main campus despite increasing numbers of LGBT students on their campuses.  .       . 

Out of the 105 HBCU's across the nation, only one has opened an LGBT center on its campus and that just happened this year.  

The university that made this interesting piece of Black history happen is Bowie State University in Bowie, MD.   After working on it since 2007 BSU opened its Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex and Allies (LGBTQI and Allies) Resource Center.on April 2.

It's not like HBCU's have existed in the 20th and early 21st centuries without chocolate rainbow people matriculating on their campuses.  All of them at one time or another, including elite HBCU campuses such as Morehouse, Spelman and Howard are aware they have or had SGL students in their midst and TBLG alums they solicit for donations.  

Ignoring the issues that impact current SGL and trans students on those HBCU campuses won't make them go away, get those GLBT alums and their supportive allies to write those donation checks or help them draw future Black GLBT students to their campuses.    

Morehouse College sadly has been a poster child for the head in the sand approach on TBLG issues.  Throughout  the 80's and 90's it was on the Princeton Review's Top 20 Most Homophobic campuses list, had an ugly 2002 on campus gay bashing incident ,had two employees fired after homophobic e-mail rants surfaced  in reaction to a gay wedding photo and passed a controversial phobic dress code

The Robert Champion hazing death case that blew up on the Florida A&M campus in November 2011 has caused the resignation of its president, resulted in third degree felony indictments of 13 students and caused its world famous Marching 100 Band to be placed on indefinite suspension.

As National Black Justice Coalition Executive Director/CEO Sharon Lettman-Hicks noted in a press release discussing the Champion case and HBCU's, "These institutions develop many of our future leaders but fail to create safe and nurturing environments for all of our young people to thrive. Combined with legal protections, cultural shifts on these campuses are needed to literally save lives. Our work doesn’t end here.”

Be interesting to see what NBJC has planned in order to help HBCU's get up to speed protecting our TBLG young people who proudly attend these institutions. 

The Champion case is also a warning to HBCU's that they need to get busy proactively tackling the issues of homophobia and transphobia on their campuses.  If they don't, they will discover that ignoring those issues will cost them serious money down the line either in lawsuits or lost revenue because SGL and trans students aren't going away or in the closet.

As bad as HBCU's have been on gay and lesbian issues, gender identity and trans issues on HBCU campuses have probably moved at a glacial pace since Sharon Franklin Brown's well publicized 1995 case.   In light of the fact their white collegiate counterparts are making consistent strides on transgender issues, it's past time for HBCU's to get in the game and get up to speed on trans issues as quickly as possible.  

HBCU's can begin that recognition process by not only opening LGBT centers on their campuses, they can add sexual orientation, gender identity and expression language to institutional non-discrimination statements and employment policies.   Most importantly once they do so, they need to be enforced. 

HBCU's need to send the unmistakable message to their faculty, current and future students, alumni, and the communities they serve that discrimination against LGBT students on HBCU campuses will not be tolerated, they have inclusive and welcoming campuses, and they are willing to include LGBT students in their ongoing missions to uplift the race through educational achievement.

Lt. Gov. Carroll: How Dare You Denigrate Me and My Beautiful Black Lesbian and Bi Sisters?

TransGriot Note: I had my say about Florida Lt. Gov  Jennifer Carroll's jacked up comments about my Black lesbian and bi sisters, and now I'm pleased to signal boost for my readers this post from the NBJC blog and from NBJC Communications Director Kimberly McLeod

July 16, 2012   06:26 PM

Florida's Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll is on the defensive (and has apparently lost her mind) after former staff member Carletha Cole claimed that she caught Carroll and her female travel aide in a compromising sexual position in Carroll's capitol office. In an absurd attempt to deflect questions about the alleged same-sex encounter, Carroll told a local news outlet that Black lesbian and bisexual women don’t look like her.

“My husband doesn’t want to hear that. He knows the type of woman I am for 29 years. I’m the one that’s married for 29 years. The accuser is the one that’s single for a long time,” Carroll continued on camera while chuckling. “Usually Black women that look like me don’t engage in relationships like that.”
What exactly do Black lesbians and bisexual women look like, Lt. Gov. Carroll, since you seem to know so well? And what “type of woman” have you been for the last 29 years that by default makes you not lesbian or bisexual?

Actually, don’t answer that. Because who knows what more ignorance and utter word vomit you can further spew. As a self-identified Black lesbian who embraces and celebrates her femininity, allow me to answer that for you.

At the core of Carroll’s problematic statement is the misconception that people “turn” gay because they are unattractive, cannot meet someone of the opposite sex and out of desperation “switch teams.” Being gay isn’t our “Plan B.” It is part of our identity that isn’t dependent on our physical features or “success rate” with men. Someone’s marriage to a man, good looks, or femininity isn’t evidence of anything related to their orientation.

There is nothing “wrong” or deviant about being a lesbian. In fact, the lesbians I’ve met personally, as friends, co-workers, lovers, partners and mentors, are some of the most radiant Black women – inside and out -- I’ve been blessed to know. They are mothers, sisters, daughters, community organizers, spiritual leaders, artists, wordsmiths, CEOs, doctors, and more. Their brilliance and beauty is undeniable. These women engage in some of the most loving and committed relationships I have witnessed.

What “type” of woman exactly are you, Lt. Gov. Carroll? You seem so keen on differentiating yourself from me and my Black lesbian and bi sisters. And what makes your relationship with your husband so different from the thousands of Black women raising children together? Inquiring minds would like to know.

The fact that Lt. Gov. Carroll went out of her way to specify that Black lesbians and bisexual women don’t “look like her” implies that non-Black lesbians and bi women are entitled to more a fluid gender expression. This is yet another problematic notion of female sexuality so many Black women, and women in general, have internalized from the patriarchal policing of Black female sexuality.

To add insult to injury, then there’s Lt. Gov. Carroll’s jab at single Black women. As if those single for extended periods of time have somehow gotten the short end of the stick, or, gasp, are gay. Heaven forbid there are Black women who are single by choice or who are happily single for long lengths of time.
For the record, this is what a Black lesbian looks like. They look like me. They look like comedian Wanda Sykes, actress Jasika Nicole, model Az Marie, singer Tracy Chapman, activist Angela Davis, poet Staceyann Chin and others. Many, Lt. Gov. Carroll, look just like you.

You can defend your marriage without dissing Black lesbian and single women. You can protect your reputation without revoking Black lesbian femininity.

That is why I am standing with the National Black Justice Coalition, the nation’s leading Black LGBT civil rights organization, and with Black lesbians, bisexual women and our allies everywhere, demanding that Lt. Gov. Carroll retract her statement immediately.

Tweet your photo to @NBJContheMove to show Lt. Gov. Carroll and others what Black lesbians look like. Use the hashtag #whatablacklesbianlookslike.

Kimberley McLeod

Kimberley McLeod serves as NBJC's Director of Communications.

Moni's Aurora Shooting Rant

While I was preparing to get my learn on at the 2012 TTNS, some fool decided he'd use the lax gun laws to buy some weapons, multiple rounds of ammo and shoot up a movie theater in the early morning hours of July 20..

12 people are dead, including a six year old girl, 58 wounded because the NRA has stifled any rational discussion of gun control laws in the United States because of their racism, paranoid conservafool political stances and their overzealous interpretation of the Second Amendment.

Granted, the waste of DNA James Holmes is in jail now awaiting justice, but that's of little comfort to the families of the people he killed, the lives of others he disrupted, and the peace and tranquility of the lives of the citizens of Aurora, CO he shattered with this senseless act.

Society will also be denied the talents and potential contributions these persons could have made if their lives hadn't been violently cut short.

I can't stand the National Rifle Association because of their racism, vanillacentric privileged conservative political stances, and the rabid foaming at the mouth opposition to even the most minor common sense gun laws.   Wonder how they would feel if the gun violence was tearing apart their communities and affecting their loved ones?

But the NRA doesn't care about the entire country or any community that's affected by the gun violence, that's been obvious for decades.  They only care about a certain vanillacentric conservaslice of the electorate.  The NRA doesn't care about people who live in the urban communities who have had to deal with the consequences of the flood of guns their lax laws help enable in the name of 'protecting Second Amendment rights', especially if those folks don't look like them.

All that comes out of the mouth of NRA apologists is that tired bull feces spin line that 'if everyone in that theater (or fill in the blank area) had been armed, it would have stopped this shooting.'  

Yeah, right.  There were armed people at the Tuscon shooting and that didn't stop Jared Loughner.  Armed people wouldn't have stopped this fool either since he was wearing a bulletproof vest.  .

Every time one of these mass shootings happens (Columbine, Virginia Tech, Tucson) we hope this will finally be the tipping point event that starts a serious discussion about enacting serious gun control laws here only to fade away until the next mass shooting happens and we have the next one in which people are burying loved ones. 

How many more people have to die, be wounded or crippled in the United States, Canada and Mexico before y'all stop tripping and allow some common sense gun laws in this country that ban assault weapons, extended magazine clips and people with mental health issues getting their hands on weapons that kill mass quantities of human beings?

I'm not holding my breath that the needed discussion will happen, especially with less than 120 days to go until an election day.

Transgender Studies Quarterly Call For Submissions

TransGriot Note: When I had dinner with Dr. Stryker during my University of Arizona speaking event back in February we briefly talked about this upcoming project and a lot of other subjects.  Glad to hear the TSQ journal is finally ready to roll out and happen in 2014 and may have to put something together for it.

SQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly
Announcement of Publication and First Call for Submissions

Announcement of Publication
General Editors Paisley Currah and Susan Stryker are pleased to announce that TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly will be published by Duke University Press, currently planned for launch in the first quarter of 2014. TSQ aims to be the journal of record for the interdisciplinary field of transgender studies, and to promote the widest possible range of perspectives on transgender phenomena broadly defined. Every issue of TSQ will be a specially themed issue that also contains regularly recurring features such as reviews, interviews, and opinion pieces.

The first four themes have been selected to highlight the scope and diversity of the field:

• TSQ 1:1 will be a collection of short essays on key concepts in transgender studies, “Postposttransexual: Terms for a 21st Century Transgender Studies.”

• TSQ 1:2, “Decolonizing the Transgender Imaginary,” will explore cross-cultural analysis of sex/gender variation, and bring transgender studies into critical engagement with ethnography and anthropology.

• TSQ 1:3, “Making Transgender Count,” co-edited with the Williams Institute’s GENIUSS group (Gender Identity in U.S. Surveillance), will tackle such issues as population studies, demography, epidemiology, and quantitative methods.

• TSQ 1:4 “Trans Cultural Production,” will be devoted to the arts, film, literature, and performance.

CFPs for TSQ 1:2-4 will be issued in the months ahead. Proposals for issues starting with TSQ 2:1 (2015) are welcome at any time, and will be reviewed on an on-going basis. Please send inquiries to tsqjournal@gmail.com.

Call for Submissions for TSQ 1:1 (2014)

We invite submissions of short pieces (250-1500 words) for the inaugural issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, “Postposttransexual: Terms for a 21st Century Transgender Studies,” to be published by Duke University Press and planned for launch in the first quarter of 2014. Our intention is to showcase a wide range of viewpoints on the present state of the field by bringing together fresh thoughts and informed opinion about current concepts, key terms, recurring themes, familiar problems, and hot topics in the field. Each piece should have a title consisting of a single word or short phrase describing its content; the volume will be organized alphabetically by that title.

Articles may be written in the style of a mini-essay, as in Raymond Williams’ classic Keywords; as a factual encyclopedia-style article such as might be found on Wikipedia; as a capsule review of transgender-related developments in a particular field (archeology, musicology), geographical location (Iran, Taiwan), or a topic (pornography, psychoanalysis). Creative interpretations of the required form are also welcome. However, each article must address the topic under discussion in relation to some aspect of transgender studies or transgender phenomena.

Contributors are free to propose topics of their own, or to choose from the following suggestions of key terms and concepts: ability, abject, activism, administration, aesthetics, agency, aging, affect, anarchy, animal, anti-heteronormativity, architectonic, archive, asexual, assemblage, authentic, becoming, bureaucracy, binary, biology, biopolitics, biotechnology, bisexual, body, body part, border, built environment, burlesque, capital, castration, children, choice, class, clinic, colonization, color, commodity, commons, community, condition, construction, cosmetic, cross-dressing, cut, dance, death drive, decadence, decolonize, deconstruction, degenerate, desire, deterritorialization, diagnosis, diaspora, difference, digital, disability, discipline, discrimination, diversity, drugs, embodiment, empire, employment, epistemology, erotic, error, essence, ethics,  ethnology, ethnic, ethology, etiology, eugenics, exception, exotic, experiment, fake, fantasy, fashion, feeling, feminist, fetish, film, forensics, freedom, fundamentalism, futurity, gay, gender, gender-variant, genderqueer, genetic, genitals, gesture, global, habit, haptic, hate crime, haunting, health, HIV/AIDS, homophobia, homosexuality, hormones, hybrid, hygiene, ICD, identity, indigeneity, information, incarceration, institutionalization, interdisciplinary, intersex, jouissance, joy, justice, LGBT, labor, lack, language, law, lesbian, liberation, man, Man, marriage, materiality, media, medicine, memory, migration, misogyny, modernity, monster, morphogenesis, movement, murder, mutilate, necropolitics, network, NGO, non-Western, normal, object, objectification, occupy, ontology, open, organ, origin, original, originary, paradigm, pathology, pedagogy, performativity, performance, pharmaceutical, phenomena, phenomenon, posthuman, policy, political economy, popular culture, population, pornography, poverty, power, practice, premodern, progress, privilege, prostitution, psychiatry, psychoanalysis, psychosis, public, queer, race, racialization, reality, reform, religion, resistance, revolt, revolution, representation, reproduction, reterritorialization, rhizome, rights, riot, ritual, sacrality, science, science fiction, segregation, sense, sensorium, separatism, sex, sexuality, smell, somatechnics, sound, space, state, sterilization, subaltern, subject, surgery, surveillance, swarm, taste, technique, temporality, terror, third, toilet, touch, trafficking, trans-, transgender, translation, transphobia, transnational, transspecies, transsexual, transversal, transvestite, underground, victim, virtual, vitality, visuality, violence, voice, WPATH, whiteness, will, woman, work, X, xenotransplantation, youth, zoontology.

To be considered for publication, please submit a one-paragraph proposal to tsqjournal@gmail.com, stating the term or concept you’d like to write on, the estimated length of the article, a brief indication of your approach or main idea, and a brief identification of yourself and your qualifications for addressing the topic.

Inquiries are due by Tuesday September 4, 2012; submissions will be due by December 3, 2012, and final revisions will be due by March 4, 2013.

Happy Birthday, George!

The George I'm giving a TransGriot birthday shoutout to is probably looking for the Mothership to land instead of a birthday cake.   

Funkateers, raise those hands high and flash the P-funk sign in honor of George Clinton, who was born on this date back in 1941.

Couldn't let this day pass with giving a shout out to the man who kept me and my peers dancing through our  high school and college years. 

He also wrote some lyrics and songs that while sounding nonsensical to the peeps who were faking the funk, were dropping serious knowledge on those of us who knew how to spell psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop and were on the alert for any appearances of Sir Nose D'voidoffunk.

My high school class considers Parliament's Flash Light it's unofficial class song.

And I can't count how many step shows in the early 80's I attended that didn't have the local Omega Psi Phi chapter doing their step routine to the Que Dog National Anthem, AKA Atomic Dog.



Happy birthday, George.

2012 Team USA Has More Female Olympians Than Men

It's fitting that in this 40th anniversary year for the groundbreaking Title IX law , for the first time ever the United States will send an Olympic team to the Games with more female competitors on it than their male counterparts.  We transfolks were hoping we'd get a man on it, but he fell just short of making his Olympic dream happen.

But this post is all about the sporting ladies. Out of the 530 people that will march into London's Olympic Stadium for Friday's opening ceremonies in their Made in China Ralph Lauren gear, 269 will be women and 261 will be men.

To highlight what US Olympic CEO Scott Blackmun called a 'true testament to the impact of Title IX', the oldest and youngest US Olympians are also women.  54-year-old equestrian rider Karen O'Connor will be the oldest US Olympian while the youngest is 15-year-old swimmer Katie Ledecky. 

The USA sporting girl power will be evident as American women are medal threats in both team and individual competitions from our world number one ranked basketball and soccer squads to gymnastics, volleyball, athletics.and other sports on the Olympic program.

And yeah, just thought I'd remind you peeps my favorite tennis playing siblings Serena and Venus Williams will be back on British soil playing in the Olympic tennis singles and doubles competitions that will be contested at 'Williams'-don starting July 28-August 5   The Williams Sisters are the defending 2008 Olympic doubles gold medalists and 2012 Wimbledon doubles champs
..
The FIBA number one world champion ranked USA women's b-ballers are seeking their fifth consecutive gold medal and start Group A play on July 28 against Croatia.

The USA women's soccer squad is seeking its third consecutive Olympic gold after their heartbreaking penalty kick shootout loss to Japan in the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup final in Germany with play starting on July 25 versus France.

We even have US women competing in the first ever women Olympic boxing competition.   One I will have my eye on during the upcoming games is my Houston area homegirl Marlen Esparza from Pasadena, who is a medal favorite and Cover Girl makeup spokesmodel in the inaugural women's boxing flyweight competition.

You Are A Jerk

Been a while since I've done one of my infamous song rewrites, and it's been past time for RuPaul Andre Charles to get whacked by one.   I haven't liked him ever since he started slumming with a certain rotund drag queen with oversized vanillacentric privilege who thinks it's cool to do a blackface minstrel show and RuPaul stupidly defends him.

Now that one of his Drag Race winners Sharon Needles is following in his clueless footsteps, time to light his azz up.  

Y'all know the drill.  Fire up the iPod's and sing along with Moni's remixed lyrics.




You Are A Jerk
(sung to the tune of Supermodel You Better Work by RuPaul)

Once upon a time, there was a little drag queen
Who used to be liked by everyone
Until he sold out his people
By supporting a blackface drag minstrel show
Now he has a hit Logo TV show
But he's still a jerk .

RuPaul's a jerk (you dissed trans girls)
Not a trans girl (you make me hurl)
Sellin' out for the Logo money

Jerk (stupid business model)
Dissed the t-girls (of the world)
Wet your lips, look at the Drag Race camera

Jerk, turn to the left
Jerk, now turn to the right
Jerk, Sashay shante

Jerk, turn to the left
Jerk, now turn to the right
Jerk, Sashay shante

It don't matter what you wear
Your jacked up comments hit the air
And it don't matter what you do
Transphobia don't look good on you... stupid business model

RuPaul's a jerk (dissed t-girls)
Not a trans girl (you make us hurl)
Sellin' out for the Logo money

Jerk (stupid business model)
Dissed the t-girls (of the world)
Wet your lips, look at the Drag Race camera


Jerk, turn to the left
Jerk, now turn to the right
Jerk, Sashay shante

Jerk, turn to the left
Jerk, now turn to the right
Jerk, Sashay shante


I see your picture everywhere
Wanna kick you in your derrière
And when you walk into a room
The people you insulted can't stand you... and your business model

Tyra Sanchez (Work mama!) Sharon Needles (She ain't fierce!)
Chuckie Knipp (keep his butt way out of sight)
Ongina (I can feel it!) Carmen (Sell the garment!)
Jujubee (Work the runway, sweetie)

I have one thing to say, Won't watch Drag Race today  no way no way no way no way no way
I have one thing to say, Won't watch Drag Race today  no way, no way, no way  no way, no way

It don't matter what you wear
Your jacked up comments hit the air
And it don't matter what you do
Transphobia don't look good on you... stupid business model


Jerk (dissed t-girls)
Not a trans girl (you make us hurl)
Sellin' out for the Logo money

Jerk (stupid business model)
Dissed the t-girls of the world
Wet your lips, look at the Drag Race camera

Jerk, turn to the left
Jerk, now turn to the right
Jerk, Sashay shante


Jerk, turn to the left
Jerk, now turn to the right
Jerk, Sashay shante

I have one thing to say ... You are a jerk!

2012 TTNS-Day Two Recap

It's Saturday, and once again I got up at 6 AM in order to get dressed and head down I-45 south with Professor Baggett to take part in the Day Two activities of the 2012 Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summit on the UH-Clear Lake Campus.

Unlike TTNS Day One, which is a mix of festive opening day ceremony and activity before we get to the business end of the conference, once we finish our continental breakfast and Jenifer Rene Pool delivers the housekeeping announcements, we go straight to the concurrent seminars.

Professor Baggett and I were joined for the Day Two Bayou Building happenings by Erick, one of her students I'd met when I took part in HCC-Southeast's gender conference a few months ago

After the Day Two welcome was delivered by UH-CL's Linda Contreras-Bullock, it was time for the Saturday's concurrent sessions to begin.

It was a choice between Transgender Legal Issues by Angela Oaks, one of the partners of Frye, Steidley, Oaks and Benavidez,  a continuation of Josephine's Day One session entitled Role Play for Ethical Strategic Applications and TENT's Katy Stewart in the one that appealed to me as the child of a retired teacher in Discrimination In Education-State of Affairs and Implementation of Solutions.

Katy's seminar was a nicely paced blending of statistics and  interactive discussion focused on the discrimination that trans people face in the K-12 and university settings.  One of the interesting stats pointed out a remarkable resilience of gender variant students who were harassed in K-12 settings going on later to enroll in higher education and get degrees.   

Further study is needed to clarify that to determine if the higher prevalence of  gender variant student in higher ed is also a function of the crushing unemployment we face and so we have time on our hands to strengthen our educational credentials.

Break time came far too soon at 10:20 AM.   As always it's a lot of information and thoughtful discussion but the clock is ticking, so it was back to the Garden Room to listen to Jenifer's into of our Saturday keynote speaker Dr. Genny Beemyn of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst's Stonewall Center, the Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals and the Transgender Law and Policy Institute.

Dr Beemyn, Antrece, Erick and I were already engaged in an interesting discussion about Texas politics before it had to end it in a 'hold that thought' moment to do the keynote

Dr Beemyn started off by asking the assembled TTNS audience some multiple choice questions that highlighted the fact that governments and Fortune 1000 businesses are doing a better job of protecting the human rights of transpeople than the academic world, but not by much.

Beemyn also pointed that the Internet was a game changing development for the transgender community in terms of breaking the isolation many transpeople felt, beginning the conversations to tackle how we identify ourselves and think about these issues and build community. 

After leaving some time at the conclusion of the speech for questions and answers, it was time for lunch and for me Dr Beemyn, Antrece and Erick to finish that conversation we started before the speech.

At 12:55 we went into the final concurrent session for TTNS 2012 in which we had a choice between the Transgender Case-Law one from Darrell Steidley,  another one of the partners from Frye, Steidley, Oaks and Benavidez  or Making Space for the T in the LGBTQ Organizations, a subject near and dear to my heart by Kimberly Jorgenson  from Texas Woman's University.

Jorgenson's summit was an interactive one as well that generated a lively discussion amongst the participants in Rm 2234 on such topics as the invisibility of transpeople in organizational spaces, media stereotypes, historical whitewashing and erasure, inclusion of POC voices and the importance of doing so and suggestions of practices and ways to foster that inclusion.

Once again a lively seminar which ended far too soon at 1:50 PM and meant we had to go back to the Garden Room to hear our Closing Plenary speaker in Houston area Equal Employment Opportunity Deputy Director Martin Ebel.   

I'd seen Deputy Director Ebel speak at the Houston Transgender Unity Banquet back in April, so it was a treat to see and chat with again.  

After eliciting a laugh with the 'he's from the federal government and he's here to help' opening line of his speech, he got serious and pointed out the ways that the Obama Administration EEOC was aggressively on the case for the LGBT community and apologized for the EEOC not being in previous years a muscular advocate ferreting out employment discrimination aimed at our community.

Elections matter people, because one of the new EEOC commissioners is someone I met back at Creating Change 1999 in Chai Feldblum.  She was appointed to the EEOC by President Obama  .

But back to my post     Deputy Director Ebel made it clear that the EEOC position is that LGBT people are covered under 'sex' in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.   He talked about the history of the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Price Waterhouse v Hopkins case, the Mia Macy case and even brought up one I'd personally experienced in Denny's attempts to ethnic cleanse their restaurants in the 1980's-early 1990's.

I'd shared with the TTNS audience one of Denny's reprehensibly racist tactics in trying to charge $5 cover just to get in.

After closing the speech he took questions for the audience before our mistress of ceremonies Jenifer Rene Pool spent a few moments asking the 'What Is Next questions.  

She yielded the mic to Josephine Tittsworth for the 2012 TTNS closing remarks.  It was at times an emotional moment for her in terms of being back on the UH-CL campus where she received her undergrad degree and fought her first battle in 2003 get gender ID and expression included in the UH-CL nondicrimination statement and policies.     Josephine also pointed out that everyone in the room was an agent of change and that we get busy making it happen.  We still have much work to do to make the Lone Star State inclusive in its college and university systems.  


We had a lot of first time attendees such as Professor Baggett in the room this year.  Many are eager to come back for TTNS 2013 wherever it's held in the Lone Star State.   We have several colleges and universities wishing to host the event inside and outside the Houston area and the TTNS desire to have it not be just a Houston-centric event. 

Thanks again to the TTNS committee that did a womderful job organizing and executing another well organized and seamlessly run conference.

As to where TTNS 2013 will be held, as soon as the TTNS board tells me, y'all will know as well.   But you can bet that wherever that location is, I'll do my best to be there and report on what's happening there.
.

Patti Shaw Suing DC Police and US Marshal's Service

I talked about what happened to Washington DC transwoman Patti Shaw back in May 2010 and promised to keep you TransGriot readers updated in terms of what transpired in this case.

Shaw's lawsuit alleges according to the Washington Blade that she was improperly placed with male prisoners following her 2009 arrest and that MPD violated their own 2007 procedures

D.C. Metro Police in 2007 adopted a policy that states trans arrestees must remain in a holding cell by themselves. Personnel are required to remain cognizant of a detainee’s gender identity and expression, and immediately notify their commanding officer if their record indicates a different gender than the one that they present at the time of their arrest.  The policy further states that MPD staff should pass this information along to the U.S. Marshals Service or other law enforcement agencies that may transport a prisoner.

What they did to Patti was bad enough, and it could have escalated into an even uglier incident.

And like Queen Emily, I agree that had Patti possessed a lot less melanin in her skin, it wouldn't have gotten this far our of control in the first place.

Back To TTNS For Day Two

I'm back on the picturesque UH-CL campus as you read this for the 4th Annual Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summit taking place at UH-Clear Lake. 

If you think I'm kidding about that, this campus is the bomb.  It's wooded, has a bayou winding through it and saw a deer as we left yesterday. 

Still not too late for y'all to join us in the Bayou Building and get your learn on.   There's more exciting seminars on tap for today, you get to chance to network with some wonderful people, get CLE credits, and they even feed you.

You also get a chance to discover what you can do to advance the cause of trans human rights in Texas academic settings.
  

In the meantime, here's what happened yesterday at the 2012 TTNS.

If you can't join us, I'll still be there today to take notes and later recap TTNS Day Two.

Black Butterfly

I talked about the significance and the symbolism of the butterfly to the transgender community in a previous post.

As I compiled it I immediately thought about one of my favorite songs by Deniece Williams called 'Black Butterfly'..

When I reread the lyrics to it and listened to Deniece sing it again, I realized that the song perfectly encapsulates the melding of pride for our heritage as Black trans people and pride in being trans people.

It's something we need to think about as we 21st century transpeople of African descent are trying to build lasting community along with TPOCC, the Trans People of Color Coalition and countless others.

Frankly, I could see this becoming an unofficial inspirational theme song for our African descended trans community (with Deniece Williams' permission of course). 

***

Morning light, silken dreams take flight
As the darkness gives way to the dawn
You’ve survived, now your moment has arrived
Now your dream has finally been born

Black butterfly, sail across the waters
Tell your sons and daughters what the struggle brings
Black butterfly, set the skies on fire
Rise up even higher so the ageless winds of time can catch your wings

While you slept the promise was unkept
But your faith was as sure as the stars
Now you’re free and the world has come to see
Just how proud and beautiful you are

Black butterfly, sail across the waters
Tell your sons and daughters what the struggle brings
Black butterfly, set the skies on fire
Rise up even higher so the wind can catch your wings

Let the current lift your heart and send it soaring
Write your timeless message clear across the skies
So that all of us can read it and remember when we heed it
That a dream conceived in truth can never die, butterfly

'Cause now you’re free and the world has come to see
Just how proud and beautiful you are

Black butterfly, sail across the waters
Tell your sons and your daughters what the struggle brings
Black butterfly, set the skies, set them on fire
Rise up even higher so the ageless winds of time can catch your wings
Fly butterfly, yeah, yeah



Fly Black butterflies.  Spread your wings with pride, dream big dreams, show the world how beautiful you are and then take flight.  Never let the world forget how beautiful and talented you are either.  

Something else we should never forget is our transsisters who only had a short time to spread their wings and fly as the people they were born to be before those lives were tragically cut short.

2012 TTNS- Day One Recap

Ever since I returned home to the Lone Star State, I've made certain that one of the activism events I attend is the Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summit.  

This year's event is being hosted by the wonderful folks at UH-Clear Lake's Intercultural and International Student Services and Women and LGBT Services.   It's the first time since 1979 that I'd been on their picturesque campus..

There was a traveling exhibit of Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party  that year and the Houston stop for that tour was on the UH-CL campus.  My high school Vanguard English class got the opportunity to do a field trip to see it.  I also looked a little different the last time I was on this campus as well.

But back to compiling the TTNS Day One report.

I told a few friends about this event and one of them was Antrece Baggett, my homegirl who also happens to be the Africana and Women and Gender Studies director at HCC-Southeast. 

She decided to join me for the fun this year and after we arrived at the Bayou Building, greeted a few people including some of her HCC colleagues, picked up our info packets and partook of our continental breakfast  before we got started in the Garden Room a little after 9 AM with Josephine Tittsworth introduced  Dr Darlene Biggers, who welcomed us to the UH-Clear Lake campus.

After Dr Biggers speech, Josephine gave an overview of the progress that has been made since the first TTNS occurred in 2009.  She pointed out the three large Texas school districts (HISD, DISD and FWISD) , increasing numbers of colleges and universities in the Lone Star State and around the country that have added 'gender identity' or 'expression' language in their non-discrimination policies or non-discrimination statements, with examples of them in our registration packet.

Lorraine Schroeder of the UH LGBT Center got a chance to update us on additional progress that was happening at my alma mater policy wise beyond the Izza Lopez Letter, and we also discussed the recent positive news that happened at Texas A&M.

Josephine also relayed some news from Rafael McDonnell (who couldn't make it this year) about an interesting development in the Tarrant County College District.  They had been resistant in adding that gender identity and expression language in their non-discrimination policy,.  As you probably guessed TransGriot readers, some transphobic discrimination happened on that campus to a former employee, the TCCD was  sued, ended up embroiled in a discrimination lawsuit they lost and cost them and the Tarrant County taxpayers $160,000 to fight that losing legal battle..

Josephine yielded the mic to our TTNS MC Jenifer Rene Pool and after some housekeeping duty, brought Julie Smith front and center to lead us in an icebreaker exercise for a few minutes that called for us to move around The Garden Room tables from the people we knew and take ten minutes trying to find common threads between you and the new peeps you sat down with.   We all got good laughs out of that exercise before the floor was yielded to Jenifer.

She introduced our keynote speaker Dr. Jean Latting, the author of the book 'Reframing Change'   Ironically in one of those small world moments, Dr. Latting had sent m an e-mail yesterday asking for permission to use a TransGriot blog post.

Yep, she loves my blog.   

During her speech, she discussed how we get to the point of creating the conditions on college and university campuses for advancing inclusionary policies.   She discussed it in terms of the 'jaguar vs educator' advocacy models, with a jaguar representing pounce and destroy emotional mode.

She pointed out in the university and collegiate setting, if we want long term systemic change, it was going to have to be more of of the educator mode that would carry the human rights day.

We broke for lunch (yep, they feed us people) before heading into the first of our concurrent sessions at 1:20 PM.   TTNS participants had the choice of Transgender Legal Issues, presented by Sal Benavidez and Tracy Jackson of  Frye, Steidley, Oaks and Benavidez  or UH-CL's Safe Zone Ally Program Ethics, Successes and Limitations presented by IISS's Julie Smith.

I went for the legal presentation while Antrece attended the UH-CL Safe Zone.

The legal presentation had Benavidez handling the first half of it, and he discussed the 6 essential legal documents that everyone should have

1.  Will
2.  Statutory Durably Power of Attorney
3.  Medical Power of Attorney
4.  Directive to Physicians, Family or Surrogates
5.  Declaration of Guardian
6.  Appointment of Agent to Control Disposition of Remains

He pointed out why they were important for LGBT people to have these documents, and if you're single, not only do you need those documents as well, make sure they are updated and leave a copy with a trusted friend or relative who you have discussed this with.

Ms. Jackson discussed employment and labor law, and focused on Title IX, Section 1893 of the Equal Protection Act, the EEOC trans ruling and how they impacted the community.

That hour ended much too soon, and after our snack and chocolate break it was time for Concurrent Session 2 with three seminars to hoose from in this 2:40-3:40 PM block  

There was Transgender Legal Issues with Judge Phyllis Frye,  Josephine's Understanding Ethical Engagement Strategies, and Intersex 101 by Kimberly Jorgenson 

Antrece and I both attended the Intersex 101 seminar and we weren't disappointed because it was an hour packed with information.   It covered the history of the intersex moment, pointed out there are a variety of conditions that fall under the intersex label that in many cases aren't discovered until later in life

It was one of those seminars we needed more than a hour for and it still wouldn't have been enough time to cover it.

We returned to the Garden Room to wrap up TTNS Day 1 with the Closing Remarks in which TTNS attendees get to make announcements and ask questions about the TTNS past, present and future.  One question that came up was about why the move of the 2011 TTNS from the Texas A&M campus back to UH which she and another TTNS board member addressed.

We called it a day on the UH-CL campus and headed back to Houston for the BBQ at the the TG Center.  Antrece had other commitments, so she dropped me off at my undisclosed location before I headed back to the Center with the Netroots Nation memorabilia from the June panel discussion. 

I'd promised Cristan I'd donate that Netroots Nation panel stuff to our history archive and we'd been missing each other with our hectic schedules   Killed a few hours at the TG Center before I headed back home to compile this post so you'd have the record of TTNS Day One to peruse.

And yes Lowell Kane, you are missed.  

Time for me to get some sleep because 9 AM will be here before I know it.  

Shut Up Fool Awards-2012 TTNS Edition

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I'm with my Houston and Texas rainbow crew and our allies getting my learn on at the UH-Clear Lake campus and reporting on the happenings for the 4th Annual Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summit.

That post will come later today

But you longtime TransGriot readers know what happens at 12 PM CDT every Friday without fail.  It's Shut Up Fool! Awards time.   I take a moment to shine a bright spotlight on the fool fool or group of fools that have said or done something so monumentally stupid that I got to call them out on it

This week's SUF nominees are in our group category, the Republican Party, The Texas Republican Party, Fox Noise, The Drudge Report, Chik Reicher-Fil-A, the NRA and the NFL's Arizona Cardinals. 

Our individual nominees are Dan Cathy, Cathy Brennan, Mitt Romney, Sean Hannity, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Rep Eric Cantor (R-OH), Ron Paul, Jimmie JJ Walker, John Sununu, Joe Arpaio, Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, Megyn Kelly, James O'Keefe, Greta Van Susteren and Ed Gillsepie

Honorable mention goes to Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll (R) who has never heard of the term lipstick lesbian and seems to think that attractive Black women don't engage in 'relationships like that'  that in many cases are longer than her 29 year marriage.  

Honorable mention number two goes to Rep. Michele Bachmann  (R-MN) , who I had to pull out of 2011 SUF Lifetime Achievement Award hibernation for her attempt to smear Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's top aide Huma Abedin that she's apparently doubled down on.  

Oh well, being a vanillacentric privileged conservafool means you never back down on the Islamophobic bigotry, no matter how stupid and ignorant it makes you look.   It's so bad even Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is crying foul on this.

But this week's winner is George Zimmerman, who went on Fox Noise to proclaim that it was 'God's plan for me to kill Trayvon Martin", and he wouldn't do anything differently if he had a do over.

Really?  God's plan?   What god condones the killing of an unarmed 17 year old African-American teenager?  Conservagod?

Hope it's in God's plan to have a jury of your peers convict your trifling ass and send it to prison where you'll be ducking and dodging a bunch of incarcerated pissed off brothers who would like to do unto you what you did to Trayvon Martin.

And the possibility you may be an alleged child molester on top of that only will heightens their desire to hand jailhouse justice to you. 

All together TransGriot readers:  George Zimmerman, shut up fool!

4th Annual TTNS Starting Today

At this moment I'm on the beautiful UH-Clear Lake campus getting my learn on and covering the 4th annual Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summit.  As usual, I'll be chronicling the proceedings over the next two days and getting feedback about the pre-conference event that took place yesterday.

Had blog related and other person stuff to take care of that prevented me for being there and reposting on what happened in conjunction with TENT's  Trans Health Summit.

So check back on the blog a little later this evening for the recap of the day one TTNS events, and if you have time on your hands you can still join us for day two of the Texas Transgender Nondiscrimination Summit tomorrow.

Why The Butterfly To Represent Trans People?

As you've seen on these electronic pages, you've seen the trans flag, the trans symbol and the trans symbol with a butterfly flying from or near it   So what's the meaning of the butterfly and its connection to the trans community? 

Glad you asked inquisitive TransGriot reader.

What the butterfly symbolizes is transformation or metamorphosis.

Basically a butterfly starts life in one stage, cocoons itself and while in that cocoon transforms into the beautiful insect that breaks out of it and becomes the winged creature you see fluttering around.

In a sense the transitions of transpeople are analogous.  We start our lives in our birth gender presentation and body configuration, go through transition, and then exit the other side of our transitions as the beautiful people we always were with the gender identification and body finally matching.for us to happily live our lives.

Many times you will see those butterflies in the trans community publications being pink, blue or purple with pink being the color. that symbolizes femininity and blue for masculinity and purple being a blending of the two.

Semenya To Carry South African Flag During Olympic Opening Ceremony

When the 2012 Summer Olympic Games kick off on July 27, one of the parts of the ceremony I look forward to is the Parade of Nations and which athletes have been given the honor of carrying their nation's flag into the Olympic Stadium.

When the South African team marches into London's Olympic Stadium, the South African flag will be carried by now 21 year old Caster Semenya, who beat out double amputee 400 meter runner Oscar Pistorius for the honor. 

"It's such a privilege for me to do such a big thing like that," Semenya said in an audio message. "To carry the flag for the team, it's such a big thing."

Yes, it is considering the drama she went through three years ago when she exploded onto the world scene and won the 800 meter world championship in the fifth fastest time ever run in Berlin.

She was sidelined for 11 months as the IAAF ran controversial gender tests on her, and she fought through injuries to win silver at the 2011 IAAF World Championships in Daegu last year.  

She's considered one of the favorites to take home a gold medal from these games, and after all the drama she went through, I'll be rooting for her to do just that.

Trans Pride Event In Chicago Next Week

TGIF (Trans, Gender Non-Conforming Intersex Freedom) , the first ever trans pride event in the Midwest according to its founders will take place on July 29 at Union Park in Chicago. 

It was put together by KOKUMOMEDIA in collaboration with other local Windy City organizations such as the Dyke March, Affinity, Southwest Youth Collaborative, the Center on Halsted, the Broadway Youth Center, About Face Youth Theater, and YEPP with financial support from the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, Berlin Nightclub, Queerer Park, the University of Chicago, and Lambda Legal.

TGIF will feature music, performances, speak outs, poetry, skits, beauty parlors and more in addition to a keynote speech from Kylar Broadus, the executive director of TPOCC, the Trans Persons Of Color Coalition.

KOKUMOMEDIA is the entrepreneurial company founded by KOKUMO, a 23 year old African descended transwoman whose 'artivism' includes a one act play I talked about on the blog last April called 'The Faggot Who Could Fly'.   She was recently honored with a 2012 Esteem Award.in the Outstanding Service Youth category. and her name translates to literally mean 'this one will not die'

She wants to create the world she didn't grow up in and has noticed like all non-white trans people do the progress disparity between us and our white trans counterparts.
“[Transgender, gender non-conforming, and intersex] people are definitely making strides, but when it comes to black and brown TGI people, we’ve got a long way to go,” said KOKUMO. 

For those of you TransGriot readers in the Chicago area, you may wish to observe history in the making by checking out and supporting the first annual TGIF event and give my TPOCC brother some love.

Transgender People Are Patriots,Too

TransGriot Note:  I used to write a column (called TransGriot BTW) for a monthly Louisville based GLBT paper called The Letter.  I just discovered a file in which I saved my copies of those final drafts of my columns before I sent them to my editor.    So from time to time I'll share with you those early TransGriot the Newspaper Column musings.    This one is circa July 2004. 

Since our country turned 228 this month, I wanted to say thank you to transgendered veterans for their service.  I have much love, respect and admiration for them as a student of history.  You haven't heard much about them, but they do exist and proudly served in all branches of our armed forces.

To give you an idea just how prevalent the transvet phenomenon is, the first internationally renowned transperson, Christine Jorgenson, was a World War II Army vet.  Phyllis Frye, my activist mentor back in Houston served in the Army.  I have T-friends who did tours of duty in Vietnam as combat pilots, tunnel rats, and Green Berets.  Monica Helms, the current president of the Transgender American Veterans Association is a former Navy submariner.  I have a T-girlfriend who was in the Air Force, and my best T-girlfriend was a Gulf War I carrier pilot. I have another T-friend who was in the special forces during that same conflict. Even Calpernia Addams, the T-girlfriend of slain Fort Campbell soldier Barry Winchell served in the Navy.
           

So why all the transvets?  Many transpeople try to escape their feminine gender traits by working in the most masculine profession that they can find, such as police officers or engineers. Military service tends to draw the lion's share of people to its testosterone charged ranks. The reality is that instead of resolving the suppressed gender conflict, the hyper masculine world of military service exacerbates it.

TAVA recently coordinated a May 1 march in which fifty transvets and their supporters traveled to the various Washington military memorials to honor their fallen comrades.  They were a multiethnic group ranging in age from 27 to 77, and they served during World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, Gulf War I, and the peacetime interludes between those conflicts. 

They started at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the Mall, traveled to the newly opened World War II Memorial, visited the Iwo Jima Memorial, and finished the day with a trip to Arlington National Cemetery. They participated in a tearful wreath laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier by an honor guard of TAVA members. Once the precisely structured ceremony concluded, they returned to the hotel for dinner and to share their insights about the historic day.

One person who shared her thoughts was NTAC Chair Vanessa Foster.  She stated that "Beyond the  historic implications of the laying of the wreath as well as the march itself, the ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was devastatingly touching. The irony of the moment with the current war in Iraq was not lost on one. What was truly heartwarming was the lack of snickers, remarks, double takes, and other reactions from the non-transgender crowd when the wreath laying occurred.  The reaction was no different, no less reverent than for any other enlisted person. That is exactly as it should be."   
 
You're absolutely right Ms. Foster.  The TAVA march allowed transvets the opportunity to show non-trans folks that they also put their lives on the line to defend our country in war and peace.  They are patriots who deserve our respect and support, and transvets took those leadership lessons learned in the military and became successful advocates for our community.

Thanks for everything you've done to make this country a better place to live.

POTUS Predicts Texas Will Soon Be A Battleground State

Somebody must be reading TransGriot at the White House, because I've been saying this for years that sooner or later Texas would become a battleground state. 

If someone inside I-495 or at DNC headquarters would get their heads out of their behinds and use some visionary thinking, they would realize it would be to their electoral college advantage to set up a situation in which Texas becomes a swing state in every presidential election cycle.

Once that swing state political party starts happening and you put those now 38 electoral votes in play every presidential election cycle, the GOP is screwed in terms of presidential politics.

And that's a major reason why the Republifools passed that racist voter suppression law during the 2011 Texas Legislative session because they know that as well.  They also know that Texas since 2000 has been a majority-minority population state.

President Obama made these swing state Texas remarks during a San Antonio fundraiser attended by San Antonio mayor Joaquin Castro (D) and Eva Longoria (yep, she's a native Texan).



From a selfish point of view, it would be nice to see presidential candidates from both parties have to fight over my home state in order to get to the magic 270 electoral vote mark.

We also need the national Democratic Party to stop using this state as a political ATM machine so we can use those local resources to build Democratic party infrastructure at the county level.  .We also have to get more white liberal progressive Texans to run for office and consistently win as Democrats so that we have even more diversity represented in our Democratic legislative officeholders.    

Frankly, I'm tired of my birth state, which once sent statesmen and stateswomen to Congress such as House Speaker Sam Rayburn, President Lyndon B. Johnson, Rep Albert Thomas, Sen Ralph Yarborough, Sen Lloyd Bentsen, Sen. John Tower (R), President George H.W. Bush (R), Rep Barbara Jordan and Rep. Mickey Leland now being represented on the national scene by nekulturny jerks jokes for leaders such as Sen. John Cornyn (R), Rep. Louie Gohmert (R), and Rep Jeb Hensarling (R).

At the state level I went from governors like Dolph Briscoe, Mark White, and Ann Richards to GW Bush and Rick Perry. 

Now that Texas is worth 38 electoral votes, it's even more important that it happens, especially since the Lone Star State has been a majority-minority population one since 2000.. 

It's past time that the nation, the conservafool movement and the Lone Star State gets used to the reality that the Texas Democratic Party exists.   It's also past time the resources get invested in the TDP so they can build a Blue Texas that allows us Democrats to compete and win here.