TBLG Americans For Obama Video

This video features rainbow community peeps such as Jane Lynch, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Billie Jean King, George Takei, Wanda Sykes, Zachary Quinto, and Chaz Bono discussing why they're supporting  President Obama and why Mitt Romney isn't the choice for them.

Jury Selection Starts In Kenneth Furr Trial

I been keeping up with the ongoing case involving former Washington Metro PD officer Kenneth Furr.

You'll recall TransGriot readers that back in August 2011 an off-duty and inebriated Furr got pissed because a trans woman ignored his disrespectful proposition to her at a NW Washington CVS store.

He chased them down, jumped on the hood of their vehicle and used his service revolver to fire shots at them.  Furr was iindicted on March 7 for that incident which left two trans women and their male companion with thankfully non-life threatening injuries.

Furr's trial started on Monday.   He plead not guilty and jury selection is happening now.  Will keep you posted on what happens in it and if the transwomen and the male friend involved get justice.  

Memphis Passes Inclusive Non-Discrimination Law

It wasn't looking good for this to happen last month after word leaked of an alleged secret deal to cut transpeeps out of the civil rights mix.

But the Memphis City Council did the proper civil rights thing and passed on a 9-4 vote an inclusive non-discrimination ordinance that has protections for disability, age, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation and ethnicity.

It was sexual orientation only until Councilwoman Janis Fullilove proposed an amendment to the ordinance that added protections on the basis of gender identity that also passed 9- 4.

The only "no" votes on the gender identity amendment and the main motion to amend the city's nondiscrimination ordinance came from Memphis council people Wanda Halbert, Bill Boyd, Kemp Conrad, and Joe Brown.

And thanks to all the hate calls conservative Councilmember Reid Hedgepeth received because he voted in favor of the ordinance last time, he voted for this one as well.   Hedgepeth told the audience that harassment and robo-calls from the amendment's opposition, the Family Action Council of Tennessee (FACT) had only strengthened his resolve to vote in favor of the amendment again.

"One e-mail said 'I hope you and your family burn in hell together.' How is that for Christianity?" Hedgepeth asked.

Thank you FACT haters for flipping a vote to our side.

It was delayed 30 days to get legal opinions on whether it would violate the city charter. City Attorney Herman Morris gave an opinion that the ordinance would not violate the charter because it would strengthen an existing policy to prevent discrimination while the City Council Attorney asserted the proposed ordinance was unnecessary.



The 9-4 vote in favor of the ordinance set off celebrations amongst the Memphis rainbow community while the haters of the Family Action Council of Tennessee slunk out of the chamber in defeat.

The arc of the moral universe is bending toward justice for the TBLG community in Memphis this morning and I couldn't be happier for my trans brothers and sisters who live there.    . 

Swedish Appeals Court Overturns Trans Rape Acquittal

In a case that horrified trans women around the world,  a 61 year old cis man was acquitted of brutally attempting to rape a 61 year old trans woman in July because in the words of the judge she still had male genitalia.

The attempted rape happened last summer.  The trans woman was visiting her ex-boyfriend when the rapist violently attacked her in front of his apartment building.  He tore off the victim's pants and grabbed at her crotch before discovering she didn't have the genital configuration he was expecting. 

The attack was foiled by the victims ex-boyfriend and the attacker was arrested.  

However, the attacker was acquitted in July of the attempted rape charges by the Örebro District Court, which deemed the allegations to be “invalid” and instead convicted for assault, sentenced to four months in prison and ordering to pay 15,000 kronor ($2,161) in damages to the victim..
“The intended crime never had the possibility of being fulfilled,” explained Judge Dan Sjöstedt to local newspaper Nerikes Allehanda at the time of the acquittal.
And I guess Judge Sjöstedt you haven't heard about how many rapes occur in prisons these days?

The victim appealed the jacked up ruling, and on Monday, the Göta Court of Appeal threw out the assault conviction and instead convicted the attacker of attempted rape, Sveriges Television (SVT) reported.

While the appeals court problematically agreed with the district court's ruling that the rape could never have been fully consummated because the trans feminine victim had a penis, the court found that the cis male attacker intended to carry out the rape.   Furthermore, the victim "looked like and dressed completely like a woman" and as a result, the rape attempt "is worth taking seriously".

"Looked like and dressed completely like a woman."  Um hello, she's a transwoman that has been on hormones and living her life for several years.       You damn skippy a sexual assault aimed at a trans woman is worth taking seriously because rape is rape.  

With the conviction, the man was sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay compensation of 40,000 kronor ($6,000). 

"It's a relief to get a conviction; the punishment is in line with what I had asked for," prosecutor Eva Grandestedt told SVT.  "This ruling shows that you can convicted for attempted rape regardless of the gender identity of the victim."

Which is what should have happened in the first place. 

Second 2012 Presidential Debate Wrap Up

When the high stakes second presidential debate started at Hofstra University Multiple Choice Moderate Mitt Romney was there. 

The problem for Mitt Romney was that 2007-2008 Obama was in the room and proceeded to spank that azz.

It was a town hall style format in which the questions came from the audience, and this time President Obama challenged Mitt Romney from the outset.   Romney also tried to run over moderator Candy Crowley like he did with Jim Lehrer two weeks ago in Denver and she wasn't having it. 

Neither was President Obama, who called Romney's butt out every chance he got and mentioned the issues he left on the table in Denver to the frustration of his base.  

The POTUS was on his debating A game last night while a flummoxed Mitt Romney made some unforced errors.   The critical one came when Mittens thought he had the POTUS cornered on a question pertaining to the Benghazi, Libya consulate attack and he was embarrassingly corrected not only by President Obama, but called on his lie that the president never called the Benghazi attack a terror one by moderator Candy Crowley.   President Obama also called Mittens butt out for playing politics with the issue as well and called it offensive his insinuation that the POTUS or any member of his administration would play politics with a situation in which 4 diplomats died.  




Mittens also got called on his immigration policies when the POTUS pointed out his campaign adviser was Kris Kobach, the author of the Arizona SB 1070 law Romney called 'a model for the nation'.

In the final question of the night Romney opened the door for the president to use the 47% comment against him and the POTUS whacked Romney with it in his closing statement as the debate ended..




President Obama was on a mission last night and he accomplished it.  He confronted Romney on his lies, vigorously defended his administration and his policies, fired up the base, and convincingly won this second debate.  Now we'll see not only how the conservafools spin this debate, but which way the polls go in reaction to this Obama win.   

They're already attacking Candy Crowley, so that means they think Mittens lost.

The October 22 debate in Boca Raton, FL with its focus on foreign policy will definitely be a fun and critical one.  Whether it determines the outcome of the election remains to be seen.  

GOP Voter Suppression Billboards Up In Ohio and Wisconsin

You just knew the Teapublicans in their racist desperation to defeat President Obama wouldn't put all their political eggs in the passing of voter ID suppression laws basket knowing there was a possibility they would get struck down in the courts. 

They had Plans B,.C and D as well in the works to accomplish their goal of making President Obama a one-term POTUS by jacking with the coalition of senior, students, non-whites and white liberal progressive voters that swept him into office in 2008.

The GOP cranked up their voter suppression machinery and prepared for the November 6 election by training and planning the deployment of partisan poll watchers looking for voter 'iiregularities'.  Their True the Vote vigilantes were filing lawsuits and browbeating election boards trying to challenge registrations.   In addition to training their True the Vote vigilantes to harass people in Black and Latino precincts, in other GOP controlled states such as Florida the were attempting to pass voter ID voter suppression laws and illegally trying to purge people from the voting rolls less than 60 days before this critical election.

Why?  In order to shave off enough votes to swing states to the Romney-Ryan ticket.

It fits with the Republican motto: If you can't beat 'em, cheat 'em.

The latest reprehensible Suppress the Vote activity is these billboards paid for by a shadowy foundation that are popping up in African-American and Latino neighborhoods in Ohio and Wisconsin.  They are designed to 'scurr' people into not casting ballots in this critical presidential election.



The billboards in question are owned by Clear Channel, a conservative leaning media corporation that has been owned by Bain Capital since 2008.  Clear Channel's radio stations right wing talkers Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and others..

It also shouldn't surprise you that fourteen directors of Clear Channel since 1994 have donated over $700,000 to Romney campaigns since 1994, with much of the money being donated in this current presidential election cycle..

ColorofChange has a petition up demanding the billboards be taken down, which they are refusing to do..

Stay tuned to see what happens with those billboards.  Speaking of those billboards, don't let them dissuade you or anyone else you know in your 'hood who is eligible in this election to bumrush the polls and cast your ballots to fire the Republicans who arrogantly tried to suppress your precious right to vote. 

Like Rev. Al said in his MSNBC commercials promoting his show, I stopped being scared of the boogeyman before I exited elementary school and I'm damned sure not 'scurred' of Republican True the Vote bullies trying to suppress my vote.   And may I remind you misguided conservapeople that harassment of voters is a punishable felony offense.

In fact the more you Tea Klux Klanners engage in this anti-American behavior the more you're pissing me off and ensuring I'm showing up to cast that ballot.  Take your soul to the polls and a few friends with you. 

But it's just another concrete example of why African-Americans and increasingly Latin@s have no love for the GOP.. 

Countdown To Texas Early Voting

October 22 can't get here fast enough for me. 

I've already made up my mind who I'm voting for.  All I'm impatiently waiting for is the opportunity to cast my ballot and I'm highly motivated to do so.

On that date I'm making a beeline for the nearest early voting center to the crib.  If any True the Vote peeps are at my particular early voting center when I arrive, warning you vanillacentric privileged oppressors now to stay the hell out of my way.

Once I get to the check in table all I will need to do thanks to Section V of the 1965 Voting Rights Act to cast my ballot is show the poll worker my yellow Texas voter registration card.   They will hand me my numbered slip after I sign the voter roll next to my name.  I'll take it, head to the nearest open electronic voting machine, punch in the code on that slip, grin, laugh and will commence to gleefully start firing Republicans for being arrogant enough to try to keep me from voting.

Yeah Texas GOP, I took it personally when you tried to pass that jacked up voter suppression law during the 2011 legislative session.

When you conservafools did that, I circled the date on the calendar for when I'd be able to pay you back for trying to frack with my ability to vote in my home state. .. 

So what if my vote isn't going to swing Texas to President Obama?   It's still needed for congressional races, state house and state senate races, the state board of education races, other state offices and judicial races. 

My vote is also required to decide the bond elections we're having here in H-town for HISD and Houston Community College, Harris County government races and Texas constitutional amendments.

I'm fired up, ready to vote, and ready to move this country, my state, and my county forward..  The Houston city elections happen next year when Mayor Annise Parker tries for her third and final two year term. 

Electoral revenge is a dish best served up cold in the voting booth and I can't wait until Monday..  . 

Rosie Perez Smacks Mittens In Video

"Being Latino wouldn't win you the election, but saying jokingly that you wish you were may actually lose it for you."  Rosie Perez

Rosie Perez in a new video calls out Mitt Romney for the joke he made that was caught on the infamous 47% video.

He joked he would have an easier time in this election if he were Latino and Perez humorously reminds viewers of all the "Hispanic presidents" from "Jorge Washington to "Jorge Bush, uno y dos."

"Oh my goodness, what if you were just a little bit gay, Mitt? Think of all the advantages that would provide. No, wait for it. What if you had a vagina? If you were a gay Latina this election would be in the bag for you. Unfortunately, for you Mitt, you were cursed with the hard-knock life growing up as the son of a wealthy governor and auto executive," says Perez, as she wipes away fake tears.

She also bluntly says why he has little support in the Latin@ community.   "Your policies suck."





You know Rosie, that's the same reason a large majority of African-Americans ain't voting for Willard either.

Besides, we like the African-American family that currently occupies that nice house our ancestors built with their unpaid labor at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and want them there until January 20, 2017..

Critical Second Presidential Debate Tonight

The format is a town hall style one with CNN's Candy Crowley as the moderator and 80 undecided voters,  but the stakes are even higher as Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama square off in the second of their three presidential debates at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY.

The polls are back to being tied after Mittens lied his way to a bump in them after their first debate in Denver and VP Joe Biden eviscerated Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) in Thursday's vice presidential debate.

Add to this situation the fact we already have early voting going on in several states including the must win one for Romney of Ohio.    Texas gets to join the early voting party starting on October 22, the date of the last presidential debate in Florida.

We will see later tonight which 'Multiple Choice Mitt' shows up tonight.   Will it be the moderate one who has been MIA for the last two years as he tried to secure the Republican nomination or will it be the 'Severely conservative' one? 

And you can bet President Obama will be ready to rumble tonight after being caught off guard by the surprise appearance of Multiple Choice Mitt.

Break out the snacks and get ready for one interesting 90 minutes of television that will have a bearing on who has the lead going into the final 2012 presidential debate in Florida.

Yo Hallmark Channel, Black People Fall In Love, Too

Last Saturday after watching my Cougars win their game against Alabama-Birmingham and Oklahoma run over Texas, I was college footballed out.  I'd already compiled my post for Sunday morning and decided to step away from the Net for a few hours and indulge my other passion.

I'm an admitted romantic and love reading romance novels.   While flipping through the cable channels for something to watch other than the news or a sporting event I stumbled across the tail end of a romance movie on the Hallmark Channel that intrigued me called 'How To Fall In Love' starring Ugly Betty's Eric Mabius, Brooke D'Orsay and Kathy Najimy.

Mabius plays a shy photographer who enlists the aid of a dating coach to help him get over his wallflower approach to dating that has plagued him since his youth.   The dating coach (Brooke D'orsay) turns out to be a popular girl he had a crush on in high school that he hadn't quite gotten over a decade later.  

While I liked the movie, which actually premiered on the network back on July 21 (and I won't tell y'all how it ends)  the next two movies including the one I watched that evening had the same glaring issue in terms of being overwhelmingly vanillacentric.

Hallmark Channel, far from being as diverse as it claims, definitely isn't.  The next two made for the channel romance movies also featured white peeps falling in love in various scenarios.  

Hello Hallmark Channel, non-white people fall in love too.   Ever see the movie Hitch?   Ever read the books of one of my fave award winning romance authors in Kayla Perrin?  

Maybe y'all should give Kayla a call and turn one of her novels into a movie.

Yes, Black people fall in love, get married, buy romance novels, and like watching romance movies, too.   It would be nice to see ourselves occasionally represented in your made for TV romances especially since we persons of colors are part of the 87 million homes that have Hallmark Channel as part of their cable package.

So can a sister at least occasionally get to see a romance movie that features characters that look like them and share their ethnic heritage?   
   

Mississippi Tea Klux Klan Head Says Women Shouldn't Vote

As if I needed any more stuff to add to the Mount Everest sized pile of evidence that irrefutably points out there are major differences between the two parties, this Tea Klux Klan member just gave me another one.

Central Mississippi Tea Party president Janis Lane was part of a Jackson Free Press interview RL Nave conducted with her and two other with Tea Klux Klan members.   It was already bad enough until this Phyllis Schafly wannabe dropped this gem in the tail end of it.

Lane: I'm really going to set you back here. Probably the biggest turn we ever made was when the women got the right to vote.

What do you mean?

Lane: Our country might have been better off if it was still just men voting. There is nothing worse than a bunch of mean, hateful women. They are diabolical in how than can skewer a person. I do not see that in men. The whole time I worked, I'd much rather have a male boss than a female boss. Double-minded, you never can trust them.

Because women have the right to vote, I am active, because I want to make sure there is some sanity for women in the political world. It is up to the Christian rednecks and patriots to stand up for our country.

Everyone has the right to vote now that's 18 or over (who is) a legal citizen, and every person that's 18 and over and a legal citizen should be active in local politics so they can make a change locally, make a change on the state level and make a change in Washington, D.C.

God bless America.

Really?   You believe men aren't capable of being diabolical and in your words 'skewering a person'?  What planet do you live on?   Yeah, and I caught the dog whistle to the 'Christian rednecks and patriots.'

Thanks to the 19th Amendment and women voting some sanity reigns in our government  

While we all have the right to vote, and Teapublicans who share her jacked up views aren't suppressing it for non-whites, time we exercise it on November 6 or whenever early voting starts in your locale to ensure that these people don't see another nanosecond in power.

 

Respect The Trans Elders

One of the cool things about conventions and conferences is that you not only get to meet the younglings who are all fired up and ready to change the world and you get a charge just from their energy, but you get the opportunity to talk to our activist elders

When I was at OUT on the Hill on the program was a panel that included our activist elders that I was looking forward to attending. 

Then I looked at the start time for it and noted it was at the same time as my trans town hall.

Then I thought about the fact just before that town hall started that out of the people who were sitting on that stage in terms of myself, Valerie, Danielle, Carmarion and our moderator Laverne, I was the oldest person on the stage that morning.   I then realized that (gasp), I was one of the trans elders.

Once upon a time, I was the one who was awestruck at meeting some of the legendary people in this community when I first started my activism in 1998.   Now at whatever event I have the chance to show up at it's the younglings who are considering it an honor to meet me.

I'm cognizant I'm approaching trans elder status (if I'm not there already).  Janet Mock reminded me during our time in DC it is a blessing for a trans woman to reach my age and I want others to have the ability to reach it too.  

And yeah, if I'm going to be a trans elder. I'm going to look good while doing so.

I have much love for the people who blazed the trails and paths that I'm following and lament the passing of others.  I feel so much joy and pride when I'm in the presence of people like Miss Major and Cheryl Courtney-Evans.  I'm looking forward to the day I meet other trans elders in person like Tracie Jada O'Brien and Sharyn Grayson. .

They lived the history we can only read about or I get to write up in a TransGriot post from time to time. 

These folks were not only transitioning and living their lives during an era that was far more restrictive and gender rigid than the world we currently deal with in the second decade of the 21st century, if we shut our mouths and listen to what our elders have to say, they have important lessons they can still teach us.  

So respect the trans elders.   For the ones who are still here, revere them for being the links to our past history they are.  Consider them as valuable fonts of information that can help us in our present.  Make sure we write their stories down or do them in video or oral history format for future generations. 

And never forget our trans elders are invaluable allies to help us shape our future. 

 

2012 Texans Watch-WTH?

Green Bay walked into Reliant Stadium last night and spanked my fave footballers like Joe Biden did Paul Ryan in that vice presidential debate Thursday night.

Green Bay took advantage of a flat Texans squad and embarrassed them on national television 42-24.  They stunk up the joint on offense, defense and special teams. 

About the only good things that came out of this sorry performance is that Andre Johnson passed the 10,000 yard mark for receptions, it was thankfully an interconference game and the Texans are 5-1.

Hey, if y'all want to beat Baltimore for the first time in franchise history when they come to Reliant next week, yall better show up with your A+ game and not the F+ one I witnessed along with the rest of the nation .   

Jenna Takes On The WHO's ICD Manual

After taking on Donald Trump and the Miss Universe organization and winning the right to compete in the Miss Universe organization pageants for herself and other trans women starting in 2013,  Jenna Talackova is combating a bigger target.: The World Health Organization.

Specifically Talackova is targeting the WHO's listing of Gender Identity Disorder (GID) in the UN body’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD) manual..  

The ICD is in its tenth edition and is used by doctors around the world.  Talackova has launched an online Change.org petition with the goal of getting the UN-based organization to remove GID from the ICD list of mental disorders.

The ICD-10 was endorsed by the Forty-third World Health Assembly in May 1990 and has been used in WHO Member states since 1994.

Homosexuality was removed from the ICD list in 1990 and the calls for the WHO to do the same for transsexuality have been getting louder in light of the fact that the ICD's 11th revision of the classifications has already started and will continue until 2015.

The May 2013 publishing date of the DSM-V manual in which 'Gender Dysphoria' has been proposed as the term to rename Gender Identity Disorder and it's being moved into its own category out of the Sexual Disorders one has also been an impetus for pushing the ICD change.  This is also important because insurance companies use ICD diagnostic codes when it comes time to bill for medical services performed. 

In addition to Jenna's Change.org petition that has over 31,000 signatures at the time I compiled this post, there is a similar petition from Maxwell Zachs that also has over 31,000 signatures calling for the same thing.   There is also an International Day of Action for Trans Depathologization being planned for October 20 to continue to push the WHO and other medical organizations to cease considering trans people as mentally ill.

It's a direction that France took in 2010 when it became the first country to remove transsexuality from its list of mental disorders.    The European Parliament in a September 28, 2011 resolution called for the WHO to withdraw gender identity disorders from the list of mental and behavoral disorders, and to ensure a non-pathologising reclassification in the negotiations on the 11th version of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11)

Organizations such as the APA and the World Professional Organization for Transgender Health have also called for depathologization

The WPATH Board of Directors strongly urges the de-psychopathologisation of gender variance worldwide. The expression of gender characteristics, including identities, that are not stereotypically associated with one’s assigned sex at birth is a common and culturally-diverse human phenomenon which should not be judged as inherently pathological or negative. The psychopathologlization of gender characteristics and identities reinforces or can prompt stigma, making prejudice and discrimination more likely, rendering transgender and transsexual people more vulnerable to social and legal marginalization and exclusion, and increasing risks to mental and physical well-being. WPATH urges governmental and medical professional organizations to review their policies and practices to eliminate stigma toward gender-variant people.

My position is similar to WPATH.  Eliminate the stigma, but also ensure that GID removal is replaced with medical protocols and practices that allow for non-stigmatized health care access for trans people.

Only time will tell if the international trans community is success at getting GID removed from the 11th edition of the ICD, but thanks to Jenna and many other trans people and their allies around the world the momentum to make that change happen is starting.

 

50th Anniversary of The Cuban Missile Crisis

On this date in 1962 a USAF U-2 reconnaissance aircraft mission flown by Major Richard Heyser took 928 photos in six minutes over the San Cristobal, Cuba area.   His flight captured images of what turned out to be a Soviet SS-4 medium range nuclear missile site under construction. 

That discovery triggered what has become known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.  It was thirteen intense days in which the US military went to Defcon 2 alert for the first and only time in its history, and the world nervously watched as the United States and Soviet Union came dangerously close to global nuclear war.

The TransGriot was a mere five months old when all of this drama was unfolding, and the SS-4 missiles were there as part of Operation Anadyr, the Soviet mission to secretly introduce three MRBM and two IRBM regiments to Cuba that totalled 80 missiles, Ilyushin Il-28 Beagle medium range bombers, and the troops, SA-2 surface to air missiles and MiG fighters to protect those installations.

There was an advance guard of four Foxtrot diesel-electric attack subs deployed each armed a 10 kiloton nuclear-tipped torpedo.  Ominously they were issued conflicting rules of engagement before leaving the Soviet Union as part of the plan to establish the forward deployment ballistic missile sub base at Mariel. 
 
Khrushchev and the Soviet leadership were not too happy about being surrounded by American Jupiter missiles based on the soil of NATO allies such as Turkey and the Polaris missile sub base at Holy Loch, Scotland. 

Because of the then Soviet leader bragging that their factories were producing nuclear missiles 'like sausages' the perceived missile gap became an issue in the 1960 Nixon-Kennedy presidential campaign that once Kennedy won the presidency, he began to address it by expanding what was in reality an American missile lead.

The increasing hostility between Cuba's Fidel Castro and the US, the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion and Castro's embrace of communism and seeking out the Soviets as an ally against the American bully gave the Soviet Union an opportunity to redress the missile gap imbalance as they saw it.

The USSR would do so by installing ballistic missiles into Cuba, setting up a forward deployment naval base at Mariel similar to Holy Loch for their ballistic missile subs and keep it secret until the IRBM and MRBM missile launch sites were operational.  That would force the Americans and President Kennedy to accept the fait accompli situation.

But a complex and large undertaking such as Operation Anadyr wasn't going to remain a secret forever, and enough intel started leaking out of Cuba to the point that the CIA began stepping up U-2 overflights of the island in August 1962 with the missions being taken over by the Air Force two months later..

The Cuban Missile Crisis was thirteen days of nerve racking military moves, countermoves and diplomacy at the United Nations and behind the scenes.  Florida became a staging ground for a major US military buildup and what would have been had it been launched the biggest amphibious invasion since D-Day. 

In the hindsight we thankfully have today, the ground invasion would have been a disaster.  Little did we know at the time there was a 40,000 man deployed Soviet motorized combat brigade in Cuba armed with 12 nuclear tipped FROG-2 battlefield missiles and orders that allowed the Soviet commander on the scene to use them without getting clearance from Moscow first.




The US military at the beginning of the crisis went on Defcon 3 alert as B-52 bombers and Polaris ballistic missile subs were dispatched and ICBM's were prepped for launch.  ExComm met at the White House as the hawks and doves debated and argued over what to do about the situation.  

President Kennedy eventually settled on a naval blockade as a first step short of launching the bombing raid and invasion of Cuba to remove them.

The news that missiles were in Cuba was announced to the American public and the world during an October 22 White House address to the nation. 

As the announcement to the American public and the world of the quarantine zone and its establishment by US naval forces was occurring 27 Soviet ships were steaming toward it as the world watched and wondered if World War III was imminent.

On October 23 the first hopes that sanity was breaking out occurred as several Soviet ships approaching the quarantine line stopped and turned back. 

But the crisis was far from over.  While political pressure was mounting with the November 1962 midterm elections fast approaching, and our hawks including SAC commander General Curtis LeMay were pressuring President Kennedy to use military action to remove the missiles, on the other side Castro was urging Khrushchev to use the missiles if Cuba was invaded.

An Air Force U-2 reconnaissance plane being shot down over Cuba on the orders of a local Soviet commander on October 27 only added to the stress level the leaders of both superpowers faced. 

A new message was received from Moscow offering a deal by which the missiles in both Turkey and Cuba would be removed and the USA and Soviet Union would jointly guarantee the security of both nations.

President Kennedy insisted that the missiles in Cuba must be removed, offered to end the naval blockade and pledged not to invade Cuba if that happened.  If the deal was rejected, the US would commence with the invasion of Cuba in 24 hours  .

But when the message was delivered to the Soviet ambassador in Washington, Attorney General Robert Kennedy added a private message that once this was done, the Jupiter missiles in Turkey that was one of the Soviet sore points instigated the crisis would be withdrawn a few months later.

The deal was done, Khrushchev announced on October 28 they were withdrawing the missiles from Cuba to the disgust of Castro, the crisis wound down over the next few months and in April 1963 the Jupiter missiles were quietly withdrawn from Turkey.

The 'hotline' between Washington and Moscow was installed to ensure rapid direct communications in future conflicts between the two superpowers. The Nuclear Test Ban treaty was negotiated and eventually signed and the world exhaled afer coming dangerously close to nuclear annihilation.

2012 Women's Media Center Social Media Award Voting Commences

As part of this year's Women's Media Awards, the Women's Media Center is opening the voting of its Social Media Award to the public.  

I wasn't nominated for this one (this time) but I do want to get the word out about this and get you to cast your votes before the October 29 closing date for one of the nineteen incredible bloggers, social media gurus, activists, and new media makers for gender justice.

The winner will be honored at the Women's Media Awards on November 13, 2012 in New York City.

I do have a tough choice to make before the voting closes .  I personally know four of the nineteen outstanding nominees for the Social Media Award. .

Pam Spaulding of Pam's House Blend,  Tamara Winfrey Harris of What Tami Said , Janet Mock of JanetMock.com and Kimberley McLeod of ELIXHER.com are all deservedly nominated in what is a high quality competition chock full of deserving winners..

You can cast your votes here and you can only do it one time     

Romney's Bigot Base

Had someone try to argue the point with me on my Facebook page last week that race wasn't a part of this 2012 election cycle.   If you believe that, you're as clueless as Stacey Dash.

Have you been hearing the dog whistle racist comments the Romney-Ryan team make on a regular basis?

If you haven't the bigot base of the GOP definitely has.  So have non-white American voters.  The only reason this election is even this close is because of 'gentleman' like this t-shirt wearing supporter of the Romney-Ryan ticket who forgot his pointed white hood before heading to this rally .

So if this picture pisses you off, do something about it.  Bust your ass to ensure the Obama family doesn't leave the White House until January 20, 2017.

Handle your electoral business on November 6 (or whenever early voting kicks in for you) so that POTUS 44 gets 4 more years in office and Mr Bigot and his friends are forced to watch a replay of this picture on January 20.

Malaysian Islamic Court Rules Against Transwomen

I wrote about the four Muslim trans women in Malaysia who were challenging Section 66 of the country's Islamic criminal code that bars Muslim men from dressing or posing as women.  

Section 66 of the state's Islamic Criminal Code states that “any male person who, in any public place wears a woman's attire or poses as a woman shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding RM1,000 ($325.USD) or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or both.”

That section of Islamic law has been used by fundamentalists (surprise, surprise) to harass transwomen living in that country. and the four Muslim transwomen challenged it on the basis they have a medical condition, it was in violation of their federal constitutional rights as Malaysian citizens and Section 66 did not apply to people diagnosed with gender identity issues.

“The undisputed medical evidence shows the applicants are biologically male but psychologically female. Thus, it [the law] is not applicable to them.” said lawyer Aston Paiva

In the October 11 ruling that has alarmed people in Malaysia,  High Court judge Datuk Siti Mariah Ahmad dismissed the Section 66 challenge by the transwomen, stating Muslims cannot be exempted from Sharia legal provisions.  She also ruled that Part II of the Malaysian Federal Constitution - which guarantees Malaysians fundamental liberties such as equality before the law, freedom of religion, and which prohibits slavery and enforced labor among others - is exempted by Section 66 of the Negri Sembilan Syariah Criminal Enactment 1992, according to lawyer Aston Paiva, who represented the transsexuals.

There was also some transphobia at play here. 

Thilaga Sulathireh, an activist who helped them bring the case to court, said the judge refused to overrule the ban. Malaysia has a dual-track legal system with Sharia courts administering certain matters for Muslims.
"The (judge) said they are born male, they are still male and so the law applies to them... She said cross dressing is condemned in Islam," she told AFP.

Civil liberties lawyers in Malaysia are concerned that the ruling against the four transwomen is only the latest case in a troubling trend in which Islamic law is supplanting the Malaysian Federal Constitution as the country's supreme law.

“Islam is the religion of the Federation, but that does not mean that 'Islam', or what the authorities deem as 'Islam', supersedes other Constitutional provisions,” Civil liberties attorney Syahredzan Johan said.

It's another legal blow that Muslim transwomen have taken in this conservative nation's courts.   Last year another High Court refused to grant a name change for 26 year old  post operative transwoman Aleesha Farhana.  She died  weeks later from a heart attack   

The transwomen are disappointed and distraught over this ruling, but are considering appealing it..
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Shut Up Fool Awards- Happy Birthday, Dawn Edition

Today is the birthday of my Louisville homegirl and one time saber wielding housemate Dawn Wilson. 

Lord Vader gets another year older and one year closer to having to compete with the Senior Mama's instead of the Baby Vets (snicker snicker).    But she can handle it since the last time I checked her USFA rankings she'd climbed as high as number 3.  

And yeah, I miss her and our You're Under Arrest anime marathons we used to have fun watching and our nightly walks around our East End neighborhood . I also miss beating her behind at X-box bowling

But I don't miss her questionable tastes in music that....(cough, cough, wheeze)   

Anyway, Happy birthday sis!   May you have many more. .

Now that I'n gotten Dawn's birthday business out of the way, time for me to focus on my usual Friday TransGriot 'bidness' in terms of selecting this week's Shut Up Fool Award.

While there were so many worthy candidates this week, I'm just going straight to the winner.   

This week's winner is Towson University (Maryland) senior student Matthew Heimbach who wants ro establish a (snicker snicker) White Student Union to combat what he calls an 'anti-white bias' on campus

A White Student Union? Towson, That's Racist.

The white male privilege is strong with this one, Obi-Wan.   And fool, you are part of the most privileged laden group in America in terms of being a white male.  Don't even try to go there with that 'anti-white bias' conservabullshyt    The professors and campus administration  for starters not only come from your ethnic group, but the campus culture reflects it.

All of the other ethnic groups on the TU campus have those various organizations set up because they are negatively affected by and overwhelmed by the whiteness and white privilege you reek of.


Besides, you already have a White Student Union on campus.  They're called the Towson College Republicans.

Matthew Heimbach, shut up fool!

Flush Fear, Not Rights Trans Rally Saturday In Calgary

I wrote a post about Conservative MP Rob Anders pimping the bathroom meme north of the border in an attempt to kill C-279, the Trans Rights bill sponsored by NDP MP Randall Garrison that seeks to add gender identity and gender expression to the Canadian Human Rights Act and the list of identifiable groups in the Criminal Code of Canada.

If passed, the bill would extend clear human rights protections regarding employment, housing and access to services to Canadian trans people.

The bill has multiparty support, is making its way through the Canadian House, has passed second reading and is headed to committee.  So what does the Canadian conservative movement do in this situation? 

Take a page out of their American conservafool cousins playbook and demonize it.     

Calgary West MP Rob Anders circulated a petition attacking C-279 that claims "its goal is to give transgendered men access to women’s public washroom facilities," and will expose children to harm.

It's backfiring though, with people starting a petition of their own to remove Anders from office. 

The trans community in Calgary has organized a protest tomorrow at MP Anders constituency office in SW Calgary. 

The 'Flush Fear, Not Rights' rally will kick off at 10:00 AM local time October 13 and will not only protest the pimping of the bathoom meme, but seeks to do some education on trans issues as well.

From the Facebook page organizing the rally:

We invite Mr. Anders, the members of the Calgary West Constituency Association, other Members of Parliament in the Calgary area, Members of the Legislative Assembly (the Province of Alberta likewise does not have clear trans inclusion in the Alberta Human Rights Act), members of media and allies to meet with trans people, and learn about trans issues and why human rights protections are needed.

Good luck and give 'em hell.