2012 Olympics Watch-Team USA 4-2 Comeback Win!

The 2012 women's Olympic soccer tournament started play today with the defending Olympic champions facing off in a Group G match against France, the nation all our conservafools love to hate in Glasgow, Scotland.

They had more reasons to hate after the first 14 minutes.  A sluggish, nervous start led to scores from Gaetane Thiney in the 12th minute and Marie-Laure Delie two minutes later that put Team USA in an 0-2 hole.

This was not a good sign for those of us who have watched Team USA in Olympic play over the years because they had never come back to win from an 0-2 deficit.


After the French wake-up call was delivered, Team USA struck back in the 19th minute with an Abby Wambach goal off a Megan Rapinoe corner kick to begin the comeback and Alex Morgan sprinting to catch up to a long Hope Solo punt that led to the tying goal at the 32 minute mark.

It was broken open in the 58th minute by Carli Lloyd's blast that rocketed past French goalkeeper Sarah Bouhaddi and found the back of the net.   Alex Morgan scored again in the 66th minute on a open net tap-in to cap the comeback, get three valuable points and the 4-2 win against their toughest opponent in the group.

Team USA plays Colombia on Saturday before finishing Group G play against North Korea on July 31. 

Now If Julie Only Called Out Their Racism, Too

Julie Bindel isn't exactly one of my fave people since she is part of the trans oppressor clan, but had to chuckle when even the Radfem Hub KKKrowd was too much for her.

Seems like some drama has built up between her and the Whyte Radfem Womyn Gone Wild

Break out the popcorn.

2012 Olympics Watch-US Women's Soccer Team Starts Play

The opening ceremonies for the London Games aren't until Friday, but the FIFA world number one ranked US Women's national soccer team begins their quest for an Olympic threepeat at 12 noon EDT.

In case you're wondering TransGriot readers how the USA women's team has done in Olympic opening matches, they are 3-1-0 all time. 

The USA defeated Denmark 3-0 in their first Atlanta Olympic match in 1996 and eventually won gold in the inaugural women's Olympic soccer tournament.  Four years later they defeated Norway 2-0 in their first Sydney 2000 match but lost the rematch in the gold medal match in sudden death overtime 3-2.   In 2004 they defeated host Greece 3-0 in their first game in Athens to began another gold medal run.   In 2008 Team USA dropped their first Beijing match 2-0 to Norway, but still went on to win the group and eventually the gold medal over Brazil in the final..

They take the pitch at Hampden Park in Glasgow, Scotland in their opening Group G match against FIFA number 6 ranked France in their first ever meeting in Olympic competition.  

It's also the first ever match France has played in Olympic women's competition and will probably have revenge on their minds.  Team USA beat France 3-1 in last year's FIFA Women's World Cup semifinal in Germany and have a 12-0-1 all time record against France.   

The match will be telecast on the NBC Sports Network and the NBC Olympic Soccer Channel and if you're not near a television right now you can follow the match via ussoccer.com’s MatchTracker and on Twitter @ussoccer_wnt

Following today's match against France, the US Women's national team continues Group G play against Colombia at 12 PM EDT on Saturday, July 28, at Hampden Park and will then travel to Old Trafford in Manchester, England to face North Korea at 12:15 PM EDT on Tuesday, July 31.

Your Point In This Misgendering Kara Article Is?

While perusing the Net for some interesting stories to comment on, I stumbled across this one about Kara Nicole Hays, the 26 year old trans Britney Spears fan who has spent $70,000 in surgeries, hormones, et cetera to look like the pop singer.   

Kara asserts in the NY Daily News article she hasn't had any work on her face because she fortunately resembles Spears.

While I have more productive uses for $70,000 if I were blessed to get that kind of money to stick in my bank account, if it makes her happy to look like Britney, I ain't mad at Kara for living her life to the best of her ability.   But what I didn't appreciate along with the transphobic remarks in the comment sections was the misgendering of  Kara.   

But then again I long ago ceased to expect quality journalism about #girlslikeus in a town with a tabloid in the New York Post that routinely stoops to the ignorant common denominator when it comes to writing about our trans lives.  The paper of record in the NY Times isn't much better lately when it comes to writing about trans people and now here comes the NY Daily News in the misgendering sweepstakes.. 

That doesn't mean I'll give up the fight to have journalists live up to the AP Stylebook standards when it comes to reporting and writing about transpeople and insisting they be followed to the letter

That's a nice segue into me calling out the author of this piece, Lindsay Goldwert.  
.  
Yo Lindsay, a 'transgender man'  is a transman.  Kara is a 'transgender woman' or transwoman.  The title of the article you wrote was also borderline insulting..

It also isn't a new thing for me to see someone go through surgical procedures to look like a celebrity.  In Houston back in the 80's and early 90's we had a female illusionist named Rhonda Blake who loved and resembled Cher, and had surgical enhancements done to perfect her look.  Unfortunately one of the things she had done on her road to to achieving Cher perfection was silicone pumping, and a botched procedure killed her.

But back to the post.
 
I have to ask Lindsay Goldwert what was the point in writing this article?  So Kara is a trans Britney Spears fan who has the genetics, ability, cash flow and desire to look like her idol.  At least she chose a living person to emulate.  

That's more than I can say for 51 year old Sarah Burge of Great Britain, who spent over $500,000 to look like Barbie and her competition in 21 year old Ukranian Valeria Lukyanova   

Burge is now handing surgery vouchers to her now 8 year old daughter and Botox shot to her 15 year old one. 

If by writing the post you were attempting to suggest that having surgical procedures to look like a celebrity is a transgender thang, it isn't.   I've already given you two examples of ciswomen who did so just to emulate a plastic doll and ciswomen also have plastic surgery to look like women they idolize, too.

And let's not forget about all the Michael Jackson impersonators who kept plastic surgeons in business during the 80's and 90's.

Eyewitness To LGBT Foundation

TransGriot Note: Guest Post by Denise Norris

I want to share some eyewitness history about the founding of LGBT and the original meaning of Transgender. As some of you know, I participated in the formative events back in the early 90s in New York City.

A Transgender Nation

The word transgender dates back decades, well before it was used by Virginia Prince in the 1980s. Overtime, it has been used to represents all types of people who transcend society’s definitions of gender, from episodic crossdressers to transsexual woman. It was first publicly re-purposed in its modern incarnation by Anne Ogborn when she started Transgender Nation in 1993 which she modeled on Queer Nation, a predominately LG radical young activist organization that arose out of the AIDS crisis and lack of civil protections for Queer people. More and more people began to substitute the work transgender when referring to themselves to avoid the stigmatization associated with ‘transsexual’ Over time, this has lead to many cis-people thinking that transgender only applies to people who have, are or intend to change their sex.

That being said, Transgender is actually an umbrella sociopolitical term intended to cover all aspects of non-conforming gender. It is not a medical term, it is not a condition, it is not something to pathologize. It was adopted to represent all the people who face discrimination because they have a non-conforming gender in the eyes of society.

So why was it important that the term was so broad? Simply put, we realized that all the groups under the umbrellas (including drag, intersex, crossdressing, butch women, fem men, transsexuals, etc…) alone lacked the numbers to effectively reform society to stop discrimination and achieve equality.

But even then, we still lacked the numbers to effectively press forward an agenda for equal rights and stopping discrimination.

Enter LGBT

While transgender was slowly becoming an accepted term within the Queer world, there was still great resistance with the older gays and lesbians who represented a majority of G&L community. Trans people were frequently frozen out of G&L support centers or we were tolerated, but a member of the family.

Things soon came to a head. 1994 was the 25th anniversary of the riots at Stonewall in NYC and we found ourselves completed excluded from the Huge Pride March that year. We were told we would have a place in the alternative march. Even worse, in the slew of Gay history books that appeared at that time, the role of what we now call transgender people in the riots was completely excised. Needless to say, we fought back and won inclusion in the parade. I recommend http://books.google.com/books?id=KmMEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PP1&ots=YuNwga5SVH&pg=PA59#v=onepage&q&f=false to those who want to get a better understanding of the dynamics of the times.

Getting the G&L community to back down and include us acted a seed crystal in a supersaturated solution. More and more of the progressive G&L thinkers reconsidered the demands of bisexuals and transgenders for inclusion. Many people were pushing for the adoption of a word like queer, but for many, it was too loaded with negative history and as a result, Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender was adopted, building on the existing Gay and Lesbian theme. Eventually this was changed to Lesbian, Gay Bisexual and Transgender to place more focus on the needs of woman and so, LGBT was born.

It was never intended that LGBT stop at Transgender. The original intent was for a rainbow of people, celebrating diversity and inclusion, while fighting against discrimination and for equality for every one under that rainbow. According to Gilbert Baker, creator of the rainbow flag, this rainbow included everyone.

Forward to the Future

Eventually, I believe that we will find a better moniker than LGBT to describe our rainbow, but like the old G&L guardians that sought (and still seek to exclude) T, there will be people who have found safety in the identity of LGBT who will resist the changes still necessary to have equality for all people in our spectrum. I, for one, look forward to true equality for all people who don’t comply with the gender binary, be they gay, lesbian, bi/omni/pan, trans, intersex, questioning or any other member of my family.

Sherman Helmsley Moves To Deluxe Apartment In The Sky

Another one of the iconic actors of my youth has passed on.   I also had the pleasure of meeting him during my airline days, so I was doubly sad to hear this news.  

Actor Sherman Helmsley, who played George Jefferson on that iconic CBS show The Jeffersons, Deacon Ernest Fry on NBC's Amen and was the voice of Earl Sinclair's boss BP Richfield on the ABC animated series Dinosaurs was found dead in his El Paso, TX home at age 74. 

Helmsley's George Jefferson started out as the counterpart neighbor to Archie Bunker but moved on up to his own groundbreaking lead actor sitcom role in 1975 along with television wife Isabel Sanford who passed away in 2004.  The show earned Helmsley Emmy and Golden Globe nominations and The Jeffersons was the first show to feature an upscale African-American couple.  It was also the first to feature an episode with a Black trans character.  

When it was canceled ten years later, it not only at the time was the longest running sitcom on television, it led to his role on 'Amen' from 1986-1991 

Dinosaurs was a guilty pleasure for me when it was on, and I was pleased to discover that Helmsley was doing the voice of BP Richfield..  

Helmsley's death has also caused me to reflect on how much better television was in the 70's and 80's and early 90's in terms of not only entertaining you, but leaving you with a social message as well.  It's something we really need to get back to.   

Rest in peace Mr. Helmsley.  Thanks for the long career in which you made us laugh and entertained us.  Enjoy that rest you've earned in that deluxe apartment in the sky.

Muppets Kick Chick-Fil-A To The Curb

The repercussions of Chick-Fil-A coming out of the closet as a rainbow oppressor continue.

The Jim Henson Company that has the copyright for the popular Muppet characters, have provided Muppet toys that have been included in Chick-Fil-A children's meals.  

It announced via its Facebook page that it is severing its relationship with Chick-Fil-A specifically because of Dan Cathy's comments in the Baptist Press interview.  The even more delicious (pun intended) part of this story is that the check that Chick-Fil-A sent to the Henson company was forwarded as a donation to GLAAD.

"The Jim Henson Company has celebrated and embraced diversity and inclusiveness for over 50 years and we have notified Chick-Fil-A that we do not wish to partner with them on any future endeavors. Lisa Henson, our CEO is personally a strong supporter of gay marriage and has directed us to donate the payment we received from Chick-Fil-A to GLAAD."

Bigotry doesn't pay Chick-Fil-A.   But then again you'll learn that lesson soon enough.

NBJC Out On The Hill 2012 Registration Open

The third annual National Black Justice Coalition Out On The Hill Leadership Summit will take place September 19-22 in Washington DC.   I had a wonderful time meeting other Black LGBT leaders and allies during the time I was up there for the 2011 event and have blocked off those dates on my fall calendar so I can be in DC again for it.

Registration is now opening for the 2012 edition of Out On The Hill, and you might wish to get busy taking advantage of the conference discounts and early bird registration for those of you who qualify for them.

Will also keep you TransGriot readers posted about OOTH 2012 news as I receive it.

TransGriot Nuke A Troll 28-Gold Medal Olympic Troll Nuking

Since we are less than a few days from the start of the London Olympic games, decided to hold off on eviscerating this troll properly until now. 

Deena wrote this comment on the Andreas Krieger post I put up in reaction to my comment introducing the New York Times article I linked to. 

i think it's unfair that you make it into a race thing. the big difference between the east german athletes doped during those days and the marion jones controversy is that she KNOWINGLY took drugs to enhance her performance. the east german athletes had no idea. in many cases, they received oral-turinabol and other testosterone-laced drugs in their early adolescence and continuing during their teenage years. this was systematic abuse of trust and they had no idea what was being done with them. this is why the medals are not being taken away or the records erased. those athletes were innocent victims. marion jones was NOT.
on another note, i'm glad i found your blog! it's definitely a great site and an important one.

5...4...3...2...1..Launch

It's a race thing Deena because the IOC not only took away Ben Johnson's medal in 1988 and Marion Jones' 2000 Olympic medals, they took away the medals of three American women on the 4x100 relay team she ran with who weren't taking drugs and had no knowledge of what Jones was doing, but punished them anyway.   

So Deena, the question I asked is a valid one.  Why is the IOC not snatching up the medals of every East German athlete, but has no problem taking them away from athletes of color? 

It doesn't matter if the East German athletes knew, didn't know or ignored the signs they were part of State Plan 14.25, the massive state-sponsored doping program.  The bottom line is that state sponsored cheating happened to help them get those medals and knowledge of that program extended to the highest levels of the East German government and sporting apparatus. .

There is no fracking way the East Germans went from their pedestrian performances in Munich in 1972 to a near domination of the pool in Montreal a mere four years later without somebody suspecting that something was amiss.  People in the international sporting world in the 70's and 80's either knew or suspected it..

Shirley Babashoff and others called out the East German wundermadschen swimmers about the overly muscular bodies and deep voices and were vilified for it until the truth came out after the Wall fell and reunification happened in 1990. 

The IOC has already set the precedent in taking away the medals of everybody Marion Jones was involved with in the 4X100 meter race.  Fair is fair, the same standard needs to be applied to former East German athletes and their medals need to be taken away and given to the persons who really won them..   .

Or in your vanillacentric privileged mind does that standard only apply for non-white North American athletes?

Umm hmm. 

Duck and cover fool, and don't look at the flash when the troll nuke explodes. 

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.