Transitions Radio Interview Tuesday Afternoon

You regular TransGriot readers are probably saying to yourselves "'Didn't you just do a radio interview Saturday?"

Sure did.  But new week, new opportunity to discuss trans and other issues on another show.

This time it's Mark Angelo and Jessica Lynn Cummings extending the invitation to do so on their Transitions Radio show tomorrow on blogtalkradio.

The show will start at 6:30 PM EDT, so if you can listen to it, please do so.  If you're motivated to do so you can also call in at (646) 716-6895.

Should be fun and looking forward to talking to Mark and Jessica about many of the issues that impact our community.

TransGriot Note: Transitions Radio art by Kelley Miller

Mississippi Silicone Pumper Tracey Lynn Garner Trial Date Set

In the latest news surrounding the Tracey Lynn Garner silicone pumping case, the 53 year old Jackson, MS trans feminine pumper is now facing two depraved heart murder charges in the March 2012 deaths of 37 year old Karima Gordon of Atlanta and the January 2010 death of 23 year old Marilyn Hale of Selma, AL due to silicone butt injections that went horribly wrong.

Garner pled not guilty in a June 18 hearing in Hale's case, and a trail date hasn't been set for it.  

There has been a date set for the start of Garner's trial in the Gordon case, and it is scheduled to begin March 17, 2014 after two postponements.

Natasha Stewart is also facing charges in the Karima Gordon death and pled not guilty in January to charges of murder, conspiracy to commit murder, wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.  Stewart is an online model with a 48 inch pumped behind.courtesy of Garner's handiwork.

If Garner is convicted on either charge of depraved heart murder by the Hinds County jury, she is facing life imprisonment. 

Breast Cancer Study For Transpeeps On HRT

Since it's Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I was curious to find out if any studies had been done to see if there were any effects for transmasculine and transfeminine people on HRT and the prevalence of breast cancer. 

To answer the question I'd been pondering, yes there is.  There's a new study from Netherlands examining the prevalence of breast cancer in transgender people.

Gooren et al found that trans women and trans men who have had hormone therapy may be at the same level of risk for breast cancer as cis men.

For trans women, the development of breasts and increase in breast tissue might increase their risk for breast cancer. Trans women also receive estrogen and/or progesterone, which may affect an estrogen or progesterone sensitive cancer.

This study’s authors found 8 cases of breast cancer in trans women in the medical literature, ranging from 1968 to 2013. Three of those cases appeared not to be related to hormones. The other five occurred within 5-10 years of starting hormone therapy. These cases also follow the (cis women) pattern of ductal carcinomas being the most common cancer.

Of course, bear in mind that these stats are for the Netherlands, and the United States has a far larger population of trans peeps.  

If that's the case, this initial study is relatively good news, but more research still needs to be done top cross check the results of this one before we can definitely be certain that what they discovered in the Dutch study is true across the trans population in general.   

TransGriot Speak 102

Back in 2009 I wrote my initial TransGriot Speak post in which I clarified some of the Monispeak terms I used in my posts like conservafool, faith-based haters, WWBT, et cetera. 

Since that was four years ago and things have evolved since then, have some new TransGriot terms to define for you.

TERF- Trans Exclusionary (Exterminationalist) Radical Feminist  
Another shorthand term for the Whyte Radfem Womyn Gone Wild or the transphobic vanillacentric privileged radical feminists I gleefully eviscerate from time to time for their disco era hate speech aimed at the transfeminine community. 

Vanillacentric privilege- White privilege

Chococentric- a substitute term I use for Afrocentric. 

Tellin' it like it T-I-S is - One I borrowed from the late Jack 'The Rapper' Gibson which basically means I'm speaking the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and you don't like it, tough. 

TWAAT -Transsexuals Who Are Ashamed of Transsexuals-That one is a Calpernia Addams created acronym from a 2011 blogpost she wrote aimed at the WWBT's or transsexual separatists that I haven't had the chance to use in a blogpost yet.    

Transsexual Taliban- another one of my terms aimed at the vanillacentric privileged transsexual separatists

Gay, Inc.- Another term for the professional LGBT rights organizations.   I didn't create it, but it shows up from time to time in my posts  

transfeminine- of or pertaining to trans women

Transmasculine- of or pertaining to trans men

2013 UH Cougar Watch-Routing Rutgers

Before the season started the media covering the American Athletic Conference picked the Cougars to finish sixth in the inaugural AAC season poll. 

That dissing didn't sit too well with the UH football players, and as they started their season 5-0 the Cougar players continued to be incensed by the lack of media love and perceived disrespect.

"I was watching the Louisville (Central Florida) game and the ESPN commentators were talking about they were going to run the conference and do this and do that," said Cougar safety Adrian McDonald.  "They didn't even say anything about us. Coach talked about it. This is motivation. We're coming from the bottom and we're just going to work our way up."

If the media wasn't paying attention to UH.and ignoring them when it comes to ranking them, they most certainly are now. 

McDonald had two of the NCAA leading Cougar defense's five interceptions that turned a tight game into a 49-14 rout over Rutgers in Piscataway, NJ. 


True freshman quarterback John O'Korn led a high octane Cougar offense that amassed 611 yards of total offense.  O'Korn was 24 of 30 for 364 yards and 5 touchdowns as the Cougars rebounded from last week's narrow loss to BYU in a major way.    

The Cougar offense scored two second quarter touchdowns in the span of 58 seconds, one being a 83 yard strike from O'Korn to Deontay Greenberry that broke open the game and gave UH a 28-14 halftime lead.

The Cougar defense came into this game having forced 24 turnovers and a +14 turnover margin and added to it with the six turnovers they forced in this conference matchup.

With the win the Cougars are now 6-1 on the season (3-0 in AAC play) and bowl eligible but have bigger goals in mind.

The AAC champ is eligible for a BCS bowl, and after narrowly mission out on one in that near BCS busting season in 2011, definitely have their eyes on that prize in addition to the inaugural AAC title.

Next up is another AAC game in Reliant Stadium against the 2-5 (2-1) South Florida Bulls on Halloween night that will be televised on ESPN.

Hopefully the Cougars after that game will be one step closer to a BCS bowl and an AAC title that no one thought this freshman and sophomore laden squad would be able to win.   

The NC GOP's Massive Fail In Black Voter Outreach

If you want to know why I have such overwhelming contempt along with 96% of African-American voters for the Republican Party and reject their message, Rachel Maddow breaks it down for you how the North Carolina GOP this week is a case study in why I can't stand them and call the GOP the political arm of white supremacy. 

These are just the latest examples of the clueless GOP racism that ensures we African-Americans will be voting for Democrats and against Republicans for another generation.

Another Moni Radio Interview Later Today

Since I used to co-host a radio show on KPFT-FM, our local community radio station in Houston, I love having the opportunity to do radio interviews with folks who work or produce informational talk shows at public radio stations. 

Later this afternoon at 1 PM CDT I'm being interviewed by Sandra Meade of KKFI-FM 90.1 in Kansas City, MO during the first segment of her Trans Talk edition of the Tenth Voice show.

Yeah, I would have to go do an interview on a Kansas City based show days after my fave NFL squad lost at Arrowhead Stadium.  

Anyway focus, Moni. 

The Tenth Voice is a KKFI-FM show created in 1989 by and dedicated to the Greater Kansas City area's LGBTQIA people.  Listeners can tune in each Saturday at 1:00 PM CDT and around the world online.

Each week the Tenth Voice's team of hosts and producers present interviews, information, music, news and features of interest to Lesbians, Gay Men, Bisexuals, Transgender and Allied collective communities.   

Since its 1989 beginnings, The Tenth Voice radio show's mission has been to document history and inform the LGBTQIA Kansas City community.

The name of the show comes from the early Dr. Kinsey sex studies where he determined that 1 in 10 people are homosexual. That number has changed over time but just like the historic Stonewall name, they have kept the show name for the same reasons.

Speaking of shows, Sandra and I will discuss the long history of trans people of color in the LGBT rights movement, erasure and minimization of their contributions to said history, and the disparate challenges faced by trans people of color today.

So for my TransGriot readers in the Kansas City area, tune in to KKFI-FM at 1:00 PM CDT to hear my thoughts about that and all the topics we can cover during my segment of the show.    

As soon as Sandra lets me know the show has been archived, I'll post links to it.

'Boys From Brazil' Documentary

This 1993 documentary introduces us to the world of Brazilian travestis Samira, Luciana and their friend Gaspar.   It discusses their lives in Brazil, their first failed attempt to enter Italy and follows Gaspar as he later does so alone and hooks up with another another group of Brazilian travestis living in Rome named Claudia, Sabrina and Marcela. 

There's also a segment of it in which we see Luciana in the hospital getting silicone removed from one of her hips.   Yep, injecting silicone is a problemn for the Brazilian girls too just like it is here in the States..

Some of the video is NSFW, so you'lll probably need to wait until you get home to watch it.. 

But once again it drive home the point of trans people being part of the diverse mosaic of human life and how in many case the issues of transpeople in different parts of the world sometimes has a common thread running through them. 




Part 1



Part 2



Part 3



Part4


Part 5

Shut Up Fool Awards-The Trans National Holiday Is Coming Edition

This is the last Friday of October and next Thursday the Trans* National Holiday, AKA Halloween will arrive. 

Mixed in with all the little ghouls, goblins and kids dressed up as their fave characters in search of candy will be the big kids doing the same at various Halloween parties and balls. 

And I wonder how many will be dressed as Olivia Pope since we all know what TV show appears on Thursday nights?

I call Halloween the Trans National Holiday because once upon a time trans boys and girls and cis allies, on Halloween night in Chicago the huge Finnie's Ball used to take place on the South Side.  In New York similar elaborate drag balls were talking place in Harlem with the winners getting cash prizes for looking as femme or a masculine as possible.

Those balls became such an eagerly anticipated event they drew crowds in the thousands and garnered press coverage in EBONY, JET and the Chicago Defender.    

And speaking of eagerly anticipated, that's a nice segue into moving on to conduct our usual Friday 'bidness' in our TransGriot Shut Up Fool Awards in which I shine a bright spot light on the fool, fools or group of fools that exhibit mind numbing stupidity, overbearing arrogance, or just deserved to be called out for whatever reason. 

Let's move on to our American Horror Stories of this week.

Honorable Mention number one goes to Rep Blake Farenthold (Teabagger-TX) , who said this in the wake of questions asking why he voted to shut down the government in his Corpus Christi area district that has lots of military vets in it who were facing the possibility of not getting their disability checks. 

“I feel like my mandate when I was elected was to go reduce the size of government, lower taxes, and increase freedom, and freedom isn’t free, and sometimes you have to make a small sacrifice to move forward with what you’re after.”

November 4, 2014 can't get here fast enough for me.  Please find someone to run against this conservaidiot.

Honorable Mention number two goes to Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) whose made this bigoted tweet about the ACA that was captured by Mr. Watts.   

Senator, you do realize you have to run for re-election next November and there are a bunch of fair minded Texans ready to take our frustration with Teabagger Ted out on you.in 2014?  

Honorable Mention number three goes to Pastor Pharisee Kevin Swanson, who on his radio show started the War On The Girl Scouts up again and implored his sheeple to not buy Girl Scout cookies because it was a wicked organization that doesn't promote 'godly womanhood'.

He also deployed the c-word in his comments.   Communism

Oooo-kay.   Time to triple my GSUSA cookie order this year and I suggest you readers do the same.

Honorable mention number four goes to (hopefully former) Richland County, SC deputy Paul Allen Derrick, whose drunken response to 23 year old USMC member Brittany Ball out of Fort Jackson when she resisted his unwanted sexual advances outside a Buffalo Wild Wings in Columbia, SC.  His pissed off response was to go get his gun and handcuffs and attempt to forcibly arrest her 

Fortunately for Brittany the incident was caught on tape and Derrick has been suspended and is hopefully on his way to being fired. 

Honorable Mention number five is a group award for the right wing Pacific (In) Justice Institute for not only lying on a California high school trans teenager and accusing her of 'harassment' for simply going to the lavatory that fits her gender presentation, they have triggered bullying of her so intense the parents of the trans child were compelled to place her on suicide watch.   

I warned y'all these shady idiots were coming after us, and we better be ready trans community and allies to hit back just as hard.     

Our winner this week is the dishonorable senator from Alberta, Rafael Edward Cruz (Teabagger-TX)

In addition to parting his lips to suggest that the GOP attempt another shutdown,  Teabagger Ted joked at a recent Houston Tea Klux Klan event that the new Affordable Care Act exchange website was being run by Nigerian email scammers.   The Nigerian government in the wake of that comment demanded an apology. 

It also came out that the man who wants to keep the rest of us from getting affordable insurance coverage is on his wife Heidi's high dollar plan provided by the investment firm Goldman Sachs where she works.

Can you say GOP hypocrite boys and girls?   Thought you could.


Now it's time to say something else about this situation.   Mr T, take it away. 

Ted Cruz, shut the HELL up fool!    

Trans Woman Accuses El Monte, CA Police Officer Of Sexual Assault

One of the depressingly consistent stories I've chronicled since I started this blog in 2006 is the long and sometimes ugly history of police misconduct aimed at transwomen that is sadly widespread across the nation in red and blue states. 

The root cause of the May 1959 Cooper's Donuts Riots in Los Angeles, the August 1966 Compton's Cafeteria one in San Francisco and the June 1969 Stonewall Riots is trans and gender variant people getting fed up with police harassment of them.

We have had far too many cases of trans women disrespected in their own homes, having their human rights violated, messed with in jails by guards and prisoners alike, physically and sexually assaulted , subjected to stop and frisk tactics and even shot at by a drunk off duty cop pissed off because a trans woman rejected his disrespectful sexual advances.   And in far too many of those cases the police disrespect of trans women and disregard for their human rights has been aimed at Black and Latina transwomen. 

Now comes word from the Left Coast concerning a transwoman who filed a federal lawsuit on October 18 under a pseudonym that seeks unspecified monetary damages and names as defendants the city of El Monte, CA and an unnamed police officer she alleges sexually assaulted her.

According the the complaint, plaintiff  'Jane Roe' alleges that in the early morning hours on October 23, 2012.she was crossing Garvey Avenue at Central Avenue (map) on the way to a friend's house between 4 AM and 6 AM PDT when a uniformed El Monte police officer pulled up in a marked patrol car and demanded to know what she was doing, according to the civil complaint. 

The officer ordered her to lean into the driver's side window of the patrol car and "Because she feared for her safety if she refused, (she) leaned forward and (the officer) groped her breasts," the complaint says. "He then asked (her) if she was 'a nasty she-male.' (She) responded that she was transsexual."

The officer then allegedly ordered Roe to walk into an alley behind businesses in the southeastern corner of the intersection, and into a secluded parking lot behind 10052 Garvey Avenue in which upon arrival he ordered her to perform oral sex on him, the complaint says.

After several minutes, the officer raped her on the trunk of his patrol car while calling her demeaning names.

The officer then allegedly threw his used condom on the ground and told the trans woman to leave. After a few moments, she returned to retrieve the condom for use as evidence, according to the complaint.

That condom she retrieved was turned over to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department as evidence.  The officer was placed on leave as the El Monte Police Department launched an internal affairs investigation and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's launched a criminal investigation into the matter.

Jane Roe's federal lawsuit is a reminder of how many times the police officers who are sworn to protect and serve us have forgotten or ignored the fact that we transpeople are part of the community and we have human rights that you violate at your peril.

Silicone Pumper Oneal Morris To Do Year In Jail

Been keeping up with three high profile silicone pumping cases involving trans pumpers as they wind their way through the court system. 

One of them is the case of now 32 year old Oneal R. Morris, the Miami, FL based pumper whose pumping concoction of Fix-a-Flat, mineral oil and cement left several women cis and trans disfigured and one cis woman dead.

When I last checked in on this case Miami-Dade District Judge Ellen Sue Venzera rejected a June 25 plea deal that would have sent Morris to jail for 180 days, required her to pay restitution to her victims and placed her on five years probation because Judge Venzera felt the deal was too light for the seriousness of the charges.

Morris accepted a plea deal yesterday in which she will serve 366 days in jail for one count of practicing medicine without a license and surrender on January 7 to begin serving that sentence.   

Rajee Narinesingh, one of her pumping victims who is now an activist focusing on the dangers of silicone pumping, told the local Miami media a year in jail wasn't long enough. 

Morris is still facing charges in Broward County that include manslaughter in the death of 31 year old Shatarka Nuby. 

Happy Anniversary Of Your 49th Birthday Miss Major!

Today is the birthday of one of our iconic history making trans women in Miss Major Griffin-Gracy.

When I had my most recent conversation with her last Monday she told me that she was feeling under the weather when I was in Oakland and apologized for not be able to see me while I was there.

Apologize?  I'm the one that needs to be apologizing to Miss Major for not carving out some quality time with her while I was in Oakland. 
 

I was disappointed I didn't get a chance to see her while I was out on the Left Coast for Trans* H4CK and had I known she was ill, I would have redoubled my efforts to do so. 

Anyway, our iconic trans woman and Stonewall Vet is celebrating another anniversary of her 49th birthday, and I couldn't be happier.she's still around to tell her story.

We also get the blessings of her passing down her wisdom to me and all of us fortunate enough to bask in her majestic presence.  I'm looking forward to seeing the MAJOR! documentary when it's finally done.

Happy birthday Miss Major!  And hopefully the next time I'm in the area I'll get to ride in that Lincoln of yours.

2013 TransGriot NFL Predictions Week 8

It is the halfway point of the 2013 NFL season and the prognostication contest I'm in with Mr. Blake and Mr. Watts.  As you probably guessed, I'm not happy with where I am at this stage of the season 

Mike finally caught Eli, and the next eight weeks of the season are going to be interesting in this prognostication contest between these two.  Can I get back into the thick of this contest and erase a nine game deficit to both of them with 8 weeks to go in the 2013 NFL season? 

Maybe, since my tendency has been to get stronger as the season progresses.  But in order to make that comeback happen, I need a string of double digit wins starting now.    

I'm also not happy with where my hometown NFL team is, and neither is Texans owner Bob McNair, the fanbase or the players. At least I can say with absolute certainty the 2-5 Texans won't lose this Sunday because they're on their bye week

The good news is the Texans finally did what me and half of Houston wanted them to do and start Case Keenum.  He performed admirably in their 17-16 loss to the unbeaten Chiefs.   The bad news is we lost Brian Cushing for the season.

Last week I achieved a dubious distinction.  I've never had happen to me in all the years I'm prognosticated  NFL games and done so on this blog had two sub.500 weeks.  First time for everything.   

While I'm pissed off about the subpar Week 7 record, Mike and Eli were only marginally better.  

So let's get to work. In addition to the Texans there are five other teams on their bye week so only 13 games to select.  Teams I'm picking this week are in underlined bold print.   Eli and Mike's picks are here. 

Week 7 Results
TransGriot     7-8
Eli Blake        8-7
Mike Watts    9-6

2013 Season Record
TransGriot      60-47
Eli                  69-38
Mike              69-38 

NFL Week 8
Bye Teams: Baltimore, Chicago, Houston, Indianapolis, San Diego, Tennessee

Thursday Night Game
Carolina at Tampa Bay

Sunday Noon Games
San Francisco at Jacksonville
Cleveland at Kansas City
Miami at New England
Buffalo at New Orleans
Dallas at Detroit
NY Giants at Philadelphia

Sunday Afternoon Games
Pittsburgh at Oakland
NY Jets at Cincinnati
Atlanta at Arizona
Washington vs Denver

Sunday Night Game
Green Bay at Minnesota

Monday Night Game
Seattle vs St Louis

Moni's CC14 Interview

In the runup to our upcoming Creating Change conference in Houston January 29-February 2, in addition to yours truly writing the series of TransGriot diary posts about our Host Committee putting together the CC14 event, we have different members of our Houston Host Committee like myself who have attended past Creating Change conferences being interviewed about our experiences at this major LGBT community event.

The interview that I recently did was posted on the CC14 website today.  Here's a taste of it.

***

Creating Change: What are the 3 biggest learnings/discoveries/takeaways you have gleaned from the Creating Change Conference(s) you’ve attended?

Monica Roberts: The first discovery is that Creating Change is an amazingly diverse event with people there from 18-80.

It is the place to be if you want to meet people in the LGBT movement and acquire the knowledge base and skills necessary to become an effective activist.

The worst time to commit a discriminatory act against a member of the LGBT community is when Creating Change is in town.   The transphobic disrespecting of a transfeminine Creating Change attendee and her friends by the Oakland Police Department  in front of our convention hotel led to a protest march and use of the advocacy tactics we’d been learning in a real world situation.

Creating Change: What motivated you to volunteer to serve on the Creating Change Organizing committee?

Monica Roberts: I’m very proud of my hometown and wanted to be part of the team organizing the first Creating Change to take place in Houston.   I also believed it was important for me to do so as a past attendee and a longtime African-American trans leader from this city.

***

You can read the rest of what I had to say by following this link to the Creating Change 2014 website.

What's Transgender Awareness Week?

Because the November 20 Transgender Day Of Remembrance is designed as a commemorative memorial service to remember and recognize the people we lost due to anti-trans violence during that calendar year, there have been calls to do an event that celebrates being us or sheds light on the issues relevant to being trans.

In Louisville, we would create a series of trans educational events to take place during the week leading up to our TDOR memorial service at the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary's Caldwell Chapel. 

Some of those events would take place on the LPTS campus while others would be scheduled during the week at other venues like the University of Louisville or MCC and other open and affirming churches.     

That idea seems to have spread to other parts of the country to do the same, and it now has a formalized name in Transgender Awareness Week  

The dates are varying across the country for group that are organizing activities but it's generally falling in the period from November 13-22 this year with the TDOR occurring on a Wednesday.

The good thing about Transgender Awareness Week is its flexibility in how you can structure and format it. 

While it isn't and never will be appropriate to throw a party during that week, you can during the Transgender Awareness Week do things like have panel discussions on various trans themed topics, bring in trans guest speakers, have lectures, Safe Zone trainings, community town hall discussions, and viewings of trans themed documentaries and movies.

You could also use Transgender Awareness Week as an opportunity to partner with local law enforcement to discuss safety issues and help break down the mistrust and sometime animus that exists between the trans community and law enforcement.

It's an opportunity during that week while we have the media spotlight on trans people in some areas of the country for TDOR to partner with our cis allies.  We can use the runup to that day for discussing issues that are the underlying causes for the near-genocidal levels of anti-trans violence and come up with ways to fix the problem.

It's something to think about for next year if it's too late for you to organize a series of Transgender Awareness Week events for 2013.   

Why Is It Taking 5 Months (And Counting) To Renew My Drivers License In TX?

I despise conservatism and GOP run governments with a passion and have not minced words by calling them the political arm of whiteness and white supremacy.

And they keep proving my point.  See North Carolina, Michigan and Texas as  concrete examples of it 

The crap I'm dealing with as a girl like us to switch my driver's license from the Kentucky one I had to a Texas one is only adding to my deep dislike of the Republican Party and their jacked up policies.

When I moved to Kentucky from Texas in 2001, it was a simple, hassle free process to swap out my driver's license even though my Texas one had expired at the time.  I filled out the application, paid the then $8 fee, took and passed the written test, took my photo and walked out of the drivers license facility with my new Kentucky drivers license in my possession.    

While I was a Texan in exile our GOP controlled state legislature for political reasons made it harder to get a TDL in preparation for implementing their 'Voter ID' suppression scheme during the 2011 legislative session.  You have to prove US citizenship and Texas residency at a gatekeeper desk upon arrival in the Texas Department of Public Safety (our state troopers) license megacenter facility before the DPS employees even give you the application for the Texas driver's license and call your queue number to start the process.

The DPS in 2011 began closing many of the urban TDL offices, including the ones on Bissonnet and Dover streets that I'd gone to when I lived here in the 80's and 90's and renewed my licenses from 1980-2001 in the name of addressing the long wait times.  The DPS created Drivers License Mega Centers that interestingly enough here in Houston are all outside Loop 610 and are at least an hour bus ride away from many non-white inner city neighborhoods and closer to the surrounding GOP voting 'burbs.

So the day after my May birthday, since my license was expiring in four weeks, I roll out to the closest DPS megacenter to me near Hobby Airport at 7 AM.  I'm one of the first five people through the door when it opens at 8 AM 

While I was a Texan in exile they also changed the style of birth certificate they will accept as proof of US citizenship and I find out to my horror at the gatekeeper desk the one I've been using since they issued it in 1962 is no longer valid and I have to get a new certified one. I immediately leave from the Winkler DPS megacenter location in SE Houston to go to the City of Houston Bureau of Vital Statistics building by Reliant Stadium because I'm trying to get it renewed before an upcoming family trip.

I get to the City of Houston Vital Statistics building before noon where they issue birth and death certificates on N. Stadium Dr., wait 20 minutes, get to the window and now discover that since the name on my Kentucky drivers license and the name on my birth certificate don't match (which I already knew) they can't issue the conservative approved certified birth certificate to me.  I now have to file the 2001 name change I did in Kentucky in Austin with the state Vital Statistics Unit before they will issue the new certified birth certificate. I also have to get the application form notarized before I can send it and my paperwork off to Austin.

So frustrated as hell me goes back to the house, gets home about 1:30 PM and fortunately find a notary public a few blocks up MLK.  I pay her fee ($10) and then head to the post office a few blocks from that location to mail the forms off.  In my haste to get it to Austin as quickly as possible ($10 express mail) I realize to my horror I forgot to get the money order to pay the $37 filing and copy fee for the new conservative approved certified birth certificate. 

I call Austin to find out what I can do to get the process started, which is nothing until they either get the money order from me or wait until they receive and send the paperwork back to the house for me because it doesn't have the money order in it.   In the meantime I can't get the license exchange process started with the DPS until I receive the new certified birth certificate copy and my Kentucky DL expires on June 4.  

That date comes and goes, which means I now have to take the driving AND written test over, which is what I was trying to avoid in the first place. I could have renewed the Kentucky DL, but since I now live 1000 miles from Louisville and Kentucky requires an in person visit to a drivers license facility there for a new photo, that option is dead to me. 

It's the middle of June before I get the papers I originally sent to Austin without the critical money order back. I immediately head to my friendly neighborhood post office, purchase and stick my money order in the envelope, double and triple check to make certain every necessary document is in there, pay postage ($5), make copies of everything and wait.

The word in late June that the Supreme Court eviscerated Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act and Texas AG Greg Abbot's (R)  immediate implementation of the voter suppression law has now heightened the urgency of me getting this license renewal done.   In the meantime I'm still waiting through the month of July and early August for word my resent paperwork has been received in Austin.

Now I have another reason pop up that adds even more urgency to expeditiously deal with my license renewal situation besides the upcoming Houston city election.  I get the invitation from Kortney to come to Oakland for Trans" H4CK, which means I have to now fly to the Left Coast from Houston with an expired photo ID and won't know until the day I get to the airport how TSA security will react. 

At this point, I'm so pissed off about this situation I contact my state Rep. Garnet Coleman's office since I still haven't heard jack from the peeps in Austin.  And yeah, my computer having to be put in the shop didn't help my stress level either.  

I make what turn out to be two in person visits to Rep. Coleman's office on Almeda Rd in which his staffer Greg was a major help to me getting to the bottom of what was taking so long to process my certified birth certificate.   The state is claiming I never sent the money order but I have the post office receipts and a pile of paperwork that say otherwise.

Meanwhile it's now September.  I take my trip to Oakland for Trans" H4CK and I bring my current voter's registration card with me to prove my Houston residency in case I have problems either here or in Oakland with TSA security and it's a good thing I did.   I had no problem on the HOU-OAK leg going out there but did coming back through TSA security at the Oakland airport.  I had to show the voter registration card and explain my situation concerning the expired photo ID before the TSA agent was satisfied enough to let me through after undergoing a pat down search.     

Get back home from Oakland, have letter waiting for me and get phone call from Vital Statistics in Austin confirming what I knew concerning the money order, and assurances the name change was filed and new conservative approved certified birth certificate is being processed.

Don't receive it until last week and spend most of Monday morning at the DPS office finally getting the opportunity to fill out the Texas DL application, shelling out license fee ($25), taking photo, and passing written test.   But I now have to come back to the Winkler DPS location (since it is the closest to my house) to take a road test and pass it before I can receive my new Texas license.   And I have until mid January 2014 to set the date up and pass it or else I have to start the process all over again. 

So when is the first open date they have at that location to take the road test?   On November 5, Election Day.

Since the SCOTUS frakked with Section 4 of the VRA and Greg Abbott instituted the Voter Suppression law two hours after their 5-4 ruling  this is one of the ripple effects of it. 

The unacceptably long holdup in renewing my drivers license has cost me time, money and pissed me off.
It has also added additional hurdles I've had to deal with that are potentially messing with my ability to participate in this mayoral election, which was the intent of this bovine feces voter suppression law in the first place. 

And yeah, I'm not a happy camper it has taken me this long just to get my Texas driver's license and it's only increasing my determination that the GOP be ejected from power in my birth state.