A proud unapologetic Black trans woman speaking truth to power and discussing the world around her since 2006
Another day, another person I need to drop 50 megatons of knowledge onI understand that there is justification for criticism of the marriage-centric "equality" movement.
But a few points for you:
1) Don't eat your allies. It makes them not want to be our allies in the first place.
2) Don't assume you know what someone else's oppression is (like you did in your second-to-last paragraph) and then simultaneously (and justifiably) criticize them for assuming what your oppression is. It undermines all the actual, reality-based points of your argument.
3) I don't think I've heard a single person say gay marriage will fix everything.
I've heard some racist, ignorant shit from twinky, privileged, white cis-boys in WeHo. I've also heard some ignorant shit here. I get you're hurt, and left behind or left out of a lot of what the "movement" talks about.
The solution isn't to tear others down.
The task of Black leadership is to provide the vision, resources, tactics, and strategies that facilitate the achievement of the objectives of Black people.Denny's post is echoing the thoughts of many people in Black trans and SGL World concerning the wisdom of pursuing an 'all marriage all the time' strategy when many people in our community are reeling from double digit unemployment. And as for your other point of you never heard anyone claim gay marriage will fix everything, as recently as August 22, 2011 Richard Socarides made the claim that the achievement of marriage equality would bring trans rights along in its wake.
These objectives have been variously described as freedom, integration, equality, liberation, or defined in the terms of specific public policies. It is a role that often requires disturbing the peace. And we constantly carry on a dialogue about the fitness of various leaders and the qualities they bring to the table to fulfill this mission.
Been a while since the USS Monica left home port to sail the cyberseas in search of trolls to properly irradiate. Me telling hard truths about racism in this country and the nekulturny behavior of whites at times that you don't want to hear doesn't mean 'I hate white people', 'have a lot of hate in my heart toward whites' or I'm a 'racist' that you falsely accused me of The people that have the pleasure of being in my company and have known me for decades know otherwise. 
| GLAAD, students, alumni voice support of trans-inclusive admissions policy | |
| New York, April 11, 2013 -
GLAAD, the nation's lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) media
advocacy organization, today announced that it has joined more than
3,000 Change.org petition signers and student organizers at Smith
College to call for an end to the school's policy that unfairly rejects
the admission applications of some transgender women. That petition is
available here: http://change.org/smithadmissions In March, Smith denied admission to Calliope Wong because the gender marker on her FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Financial Aid) form did not match her stated gender identity of female. Despite Smith's reputation for being inclusive, this policy turns a blind eye to the many complications and challenges trans people - especially youth - sometimes face when attempting to correct gender markers on personal identification documents. "Through the pressure from this petition and the campaign in general, I hope that Smith College becomes a more responsible and transparent institution," said Wong. "What that means to me is that Smith College will no longer use arbitrary and legally dubious bars against transwomen in the application and admissions process." "Thousands of Smith's supporters are telling the school that it needs to end its policy of refusing to consider the applications of women whom they decide aren't 'woman enough' based on inconsistent documents," said GLAAD spokesperson Wilson Cruz. "Smith is setting a poor example to all of its students by not even accepting the applications of women like Calliope." "To me, the inclusion of trans women at women's colleges is a feminist issue. Trans women experience misogyny on multiple levels, making it all the more important that they have access to affirmative women's spaces like Smith," said Smith Q&A member and student Elli Palmer. Smith Q&A organizer Ollie Schwartz agreed, saying, "While Smith admissions policies remain muddled, one thing is becoming clear: our communities will not stand idly by while trans women are treated differently." Blogger and Yale student Sarah Giovanniello has been writing about Wong's story. She noted that, "the support the petition has received in just a few days is overwhelming. I hope that the widespread attention Calliope's case has gotten communicates to the Smith administration how important trans women's rights are and should be to the college's mission. Ideally, the college would commit providing trans women with the same level of support as any other applicants." For more information, visit http://glaad.org/smithadmissions ### About GLAAD: GLAAD amplifies the voice of the LGBT community by empowering real people to share their stories, holding the media accountable for the words and images they present, and helping grassroots organizations communicate effectively. By ensuring that the stories of LGBT people are heard through the media, GLAAD promotes understanding, increases acceptance, and advances equality. For more information, please visit www.glaad.org or connect with GLAAD on Facebook and Twitter. |
Buzzfeed offered some brief bios of each honoree, but other news outlets have mostly just published a list of names. We here at Autostraddle wanted to feature a bit more in-depth information and some actual words from the many inspirational humans on this list — more specifically, from the ladies. To that end, we've erred carefully to include only those who clearly identify as women, but there are heaps of genderqueer folks, trans men and non-binary-identified people on the list that you should check out, though, so GET ON IT!!!
The Trans 100 List is definitely doing its job of facilitating positive conversations inside and outside the trans community in terms of our accomplishments, who we are as people and in the case of non-white trans folks, that we exist and are major contributors to the advancement of trans human rights.
April 12 is the 50th anniversary of the 1963 Good Friday arrest of the Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. while talking part in The Birmingham Campaign 
This week's winner is Montana State Rep Dave Hagstrom (R-Billings) who wrote a letter to his tenants that wasn't an April Fool's Day joke that mocked single mothers, hungry kids and tell his tenants to 'die sooner'. 
METRORail only has at the moment (no thanks to Tom DeLay and the Republicans obstructing the federal funding) the starter 7.5 mile long Red Line that opened for service in January 2004 just before the Super Bowl. It runs from UH Downtown (where I'll be part of a panel discussion on the 17th) to the Fannin South Transit Center just past Reliant Park (the Dome, Reliant Arena and Reliant Stadium complex). That line also passes Rice University, Hermann Park, the Texas Medical Center and through the Museum District as well.
The two new lines under construction in addition to the Red Line extension are the 3.3 mile Green Line that starts in the Theater District and terminates at the Magnolia Park Station in the East End. 
Maxine's reaction after she saw me during that first nerve racking week of transitioning on the job was to walk her elegant self over to my gate as she was coming off her flight, hug me, say, 'What took you so long?" and tell me we needed to chat before she bounced to her next flight. 
Jazz was barred for two years from playing youth soccer because of the irrational fears about her playing with cis girls that plague Fallon Fox and other trans feminine athletes. She ended up fighting her local youth soccer association and taking that fight all the way to the US Soccer Federation for her right to play soccer. The USSF unanimously voted to allow her to play, then subsequently crafted a policy that allows future trans athletes to do so as well. 
But it wasn't without trying from our side. Canadian cyclist Kristin Worley attempted to qualify for the Beijing Games and had to battle not only her fellow cyclists for a spot on the team but the Canadian Cycling Association as well. 
But one of the problems we still have to overcome is widespread transphobic ignorance and people ignoring the science involved with transition. 
The myth that a trans woman is a better athlete than a cis woman is off the mark, erases our femininity and is blatantly disrespectful and insulting to the abilities of a cis female athlete. It also doesn't take into account the wide variances in talent, body builds and athletic ability of those trans and cis athletes.
One of the things that mystifies me is why The Southern Poverty Law Center hasn't declared Trans Exterminationalist Radical Feminism as a hate group. Could it be because the rumor may be true that a TERF works for SPLC and squashes the subject every time it comes up in SPLC circles? "All transsexuals rape women’s bodies by reducing the real female form to an artifact, and appropriating this body for themselves. "
The transsexually constructed lesbian-feminist feeds off woman’s true energy source, i.e. her woman-identified self. It is he who recognizes that if female spirit, mind, creativity and sexuality exist anywhere in a powerful way it is here, among lesbian-feminists
I hope to see the very concept of Jewry completely obliterated.
I contend that the problem with transsexualism would best be served by morally mandating it out of existence
"Today the Frankenstein phenomenon is omnipresent not only in religious myth, but in its offspring, phallocratic technology. The insane desire for power, the madness of boundary violation, is the mark of necrophiliacs who sense the lack of soul/spirit/life-loving principle with themselves and therefore try to invade and kill off all spirit, substituting conglomerates of corpses. This necrophilic invasion/elimination takes a variety of forms. Transsexualism is an example ..."Gloria Steinem's five page transphobic scribblings from her 1983 book Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions which heavily cited Janice Raymond's waste of trees.
“Dionysus sometimes assumed a girl-like form. The phenomenon of the drag queen dramatically demonstrates such boundary violation... As ethicist Janice Raymond has pointed out, the majority of transsexuals are “male to female,” while transsexed females basically function as tokens, and are used by the rulers of the transsexual empire to hide the real nature of the game. In transsexualism, males put on “female” bodies (which are in fact pseudofemale).... The Dionysian solution... is The Final Solution."
In other words, transsexuals are paying an extreme tribute to the power of sex roles. In order to set their real human personalities free, they surgically mutilate their own bodies...
Instead of serving more lifesaving but often less lucrative needs for their surgical and hormone-therapy skills, some physicians are aiding individuals who are desperately trying to conform to an unjust society. It’s a small group of successful physicians she [Janice Raymond] names ‘the transsexual empire’Here's the verbal grenade she launched at Renee Richards in 1977.
"At a minimum, it was a diversion from the widespread problems of sexual inequality." She writes that, while she supports the right of individuals to identify as they choose, she claims that, in many cases, transsexuals "surgically mutilate their own bodies" in order to conform to a gender role that is inexorably tied to physical body parts. She concludes that "feminists are right to feel uncomfortable about the need for and uses of transsexualism."
Introducing Alysia Yeoh, the roommate of Barbara Gordon, AKA Batgirl. In the rebooted Batgirl series Barbara is a lesbian, and in Batgirl #19 Alysia will reveal to Barbara that she's a girl like us in a conversation with her roommate in the same conversation in which Barbara reveals she's Batgirl. 
Been keeping an eye on Los Angeles and the unfolding story since February concerning the local trans community's outrage over a transphobic LA Times story featuring murdered transwoman Cassidy Vickers.1. The LA Times acknowledged mistakes in terminology and pronoun usage in the article about Cassidy Vickers
2. They acknowledged and apologized for harm this caused the community
3. They also acknowledge the need to provide context about trans discrimination when writing about crimes involving trans victims.
4. They acknowledged the need to attribute any terminology used by family members that doesn't match a person's chosen gender identity as their perspective and not representative of a neutral viewpoint.
5. They acknowledged they need to learn more about the community to accurately report on it
6. They committed to a trans sensitivity training for their staff
7. They gave us their internal style guide for talking about transgender issues for us to review and edit. Following edits, they committed to distributing it to their entire staff
8. They committed to distributing GLAADs updated style guide for talking about transgender issues when it is released next month to their staff.
9. They committed to using Gender Justice LA, GLAAD, and the TEEP program as a resources to check in with before publishing articles about trans issues.
10. We pitched to them a number of stories they might also consider writing about the LA trans community, including writing about GJLA's Theatre Of The Oppressed program and Transgender Leadership Development Program, profiling Trans 100 members and LA residents Bamby Salcedo or Michelle Enfield, documenting the state of talks between the trans community and LA County Sheriffs and incorporating it into ongoing coverage on the sheriff's department, and writing about the success of the TEEP program that serves as a model for trans-employment programs around the country and the world. Although they didn't definitively say they would do each of these, they were very enthusiastic about the stories in general, and they eager for us to help them dissever more stories they could write about the trans community.
Overall, I think it was productive meeting and they seemed very receptive. As with all these types of meetings, it is only a start and hopefully dialogue will continue over the coming months and years. But I think was a good start, and there is no way it could have happened without the grassroots response of so many amazing activists and allies over the past couple months. Everyone who signed the petition, came to the delivery event, publicized the issue, or otherwise contributed should consider themselves a true trans hero!
GLAAD is also publishing an article about the meeting and I will send the link when they do.
Thanks Hannah. Will be interested to hear GLAAD's perspective on what took place yesterday. 
One of the excuses I heard attempting to defend the indefensible was someone who claimed that 'they didn't know of any Black transpeople, much less Black trans activists.; 
We have conferences such as the BTMI event and Trans Faith In Color in which we can gather, talk about issues, honor our people doing the work and build community amongst ourselves and with the groups we intersect and interact with. As Kwame Ture once said, 'In order to participate in the greater society, you must first close ranks.'
And we didn't just pop up in the second decade of the 21st century either. We've helped shape and mold not only trans history, but made some Black history of our own in addition to doing our part to uplift ourselves and our people. 
If you're wondering why this issue between girls like us and the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival keep popping up repeatedly, it's time for another trans history moment. While I waited for Laura to return I was approached by two women, Chris Coyote and Del Kelleher. Chris said that she needed tospeak with me regarding a serious and difficult matter. Sensing her urgency I suggested we move away from the women near the fire pit in order to talk privately. Chris said that the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival was a woman-only event and she wanted to know if I was a man. I replied that I was a woman and I showed her my NH picture ID driver’s license. Then she asked me if I was a transsexual. I asked her what was the point of her questioning and she replied that transsexuals were not permitted to attend the festival. She said that MWMF policy was that the festival was open to “natural, women-born-women” only. I replied that nowhere, in any festival literature or the program guide was that policy stated. I asked Chris to please verify that policy and she went to the office to contact the festival producers, Lisa Vogel and Boo Price. Sometime during this conversation I waved Laura to come over and she witnessed much of what transpired.
I continued speaking with Del. Del stated that the reason the policy was not in any literature was because the issue of transsexuals had never come up as a problem before. Del added that the policy was for the benefit of the transsexuals’ safety and the safety of the women attending the festival. When I pointed out that there were other transsexuals on the land she acknowledged that this was true. Then she added, ‘We haven’t caught them yet, but we did catch you.”
The HRC anti-flag incident occurred less than a week before the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the first legitimate (read: trans-inclusive) state gay rights law.
Heard anything about that from HRC?
Considering that the governor who signed it was a Republican, one might think that HRC would have touted it to the far-flung winds then and now (or does HRC only privilege Republicans over Democrats in New York?).
Oh, but wait…
Then, as now, it is one of the laws that conclusively disproved the ‘incremental progress is absolutely necessary’ claim that HRC and its defenders not only still mainline themselves but also fraudulently claim to others is not only acceptable but also necessary.
