ConGRADulations To My H-town Grads

The University of Houston, University of Houston Downtown, and Texas Southern University all held their commencement ceremonies this weekend on their various campuses.

Since I've come back home I have gotten to interact with in various human rights and other projects and events members of the Class of 2014 at these schools. 

I've had the pleasure of speaking on their campuses (still waiting for the invites from TSU and PV).   It has been a joy watching LaKeia, Yesenia, James, and Atlantis grow as leaders and quality people on and off their various campuses.

I've gotten to meet others like Guillermo in conjunction with the battle to pass the Tittsworth Act at UH, and will be rooting for him and everyone else in the Class of 2014 as they take their first steps into that different off campus world.

These younglings will definitely be alright. 

Congratulations to all my H-town Cougar, Gator and Tiger collegiate grads.  Know that I have much love for all of you. Megaprops to every one of you for accomplishing a major life goal, and hope this is just the first of many outstanding achievements in your lives. 

Happy Mother's Day 2014

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms, grandmoms, great-grandmoms and mother figures who read TransGriot

Hope you are being spoiled rotten and are having a wonderful day.

As Robin Bonner pointed out in one of the Facebook groups I'm on, a mother is more than a vagina and eggs. A real mom is a teacher, an advisor, a confidant, mentor, a listener and a doer, she is the person your children want to emulate. She is a woman of character, grace and love.

Yes she is, and then some.

If you are fortunate enough to have your mother around, give her a call and wish her a Happy Mother's Day!   If because of your trans status you don't or yours has rejected you, then call the person who acts as a mother figure in your life and give that person some love on this day. 

Happy Mother's Day people!

You're STILL On The Wrong Side Of History, Houston Haters

Well, well, well.   The opponents of the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance are getting desperate.  

Saturday afternoon they unleashed their robocalls in the 'hood voiced by one of the sellout ministers in which even yours truly and my mom received.  Later that night they rolled out their message from Mike Huckabee

Then I wake up this morning to an anti-HERO ad being broadcast on Majic 102 in heavy rotation, and I smiled.

The haters are getting desperate.  Not only is time not on their side, neither are the polling numbers.   People support the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance.   Despite the robocalls and the radio ads on Black radio station 85% of my community supports the HERO despite the Pastor's Council cynically sticking Black pastors out there as their surrogates to unleash the anti-trans hate as Dave Welch and Dave Wilson smile from the background. 

Let's be real here, the people they have been attacking for the last two weeks are the Houston trans community.  They have no legitimate argument they can deploy to oppose the HERO, and all they have at this point is 'fear and smear'

In fact, your unbridled hate and lies are our best arguments for why the HERO needs to pass. 

Their last minute attacks, their Tuesday rally at City Hall won't change the fact that LULAC, the NAACP, the Urban League, the Greater Houston partnership and business community, Harris County's elected officials such as Sheriff Adrian Garcia, state Reps Garnet Coleman, Jessica Farrar,  state Senators Rodney Ellis and John Whitmire, progressive pastors,  and fair minded Houstonians are on our side.

In the words of Nelson Mandela, 'any man or institution that tries to rob me of my dignity will lose.'

The haters are well on their way to doing precisely that, and I hope to see something positively historic happen for my hometown on Wednesday with passage of the HERO.

TransGriot Nuke A Troll 34-Phi Nuka Trolla

After a long period in dry dock, it's time to turn the USS Monica loose on the trolls sailing the cyberseas.

Time to drop 50 megatons of knowledge on these poor deluded fools who step to her thinking they are all that and end up glowing in the dark as a result.

Todays fool du jour is IHSV 1269 who left this gem on the post I wrote entitled UH Tittsworth Act Opponents Still Bitter They Lost

Your obsession with Greek life is entertaining. It's apparent that you're not as comfortable in your own skin as you claim to be otherwise someone your age wouldn't be writing a blog ripping into a 20 year old who has taken time to get involved in his Student Government. Your inferiority complex is so evident that I'm almost in disbelief you followed up insulting Garza by referencing a 2008 Houston Chronicle article about events that occurred 45 years ago in an attempt to justify your own prejudices. The only "narrow minded ignorance" on display is coming from yourself. Take the time to look up the racial makeup of UH's Greek life before assuming it is predominantly white -- which appears to be your go-to insult for some reason.

5...4...3...2...1  launch.

Obviously you're not comfortable in your skin, your opinion or with your transphobia since you used a pseudonym to shield your identity from your comments.

If you haven't perused the other over 7600 posts on this blog, I absolutely LOVE Black trans me, and it's a failure of your reading comprehension skills to grasp that point.  Besides, I AM superior to you because unlike you, I sign my name to whatever I write.  I also stand by every syllable of what I wrote in that post you had a problem with.   

Waah, cry me a river about your whining about me ripping into Alan Garza for his transphobia.  I could really care two fraks about what you have to say about it.   The one and only thing I give young Mr. Garza credit for is that he at least had the cojones to unlike you, openly attach his name to and claim his loud and wrong position. 

But word to the wise that will serve you well in your future life.  If you don't want to be called a bigot or an oppressor by the marginalized group you are making life harder for in your vanillacentric privilege actions, then stop acting like a bigot or an oppressor.

I'm also quite aware Oh Ignorant One, that the UH Greek system has historic African-American fraternities and sororities as part of the system.  They were part of that system when I was walking the UH campus in the early 80's.  Lynn Eusan was a charter member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc's Epsilon Lambda chapter, the same chapter my cousins both pledged three decades later when they attended UH.   

But the only visible on campus Greek opposition to the Tittsworth Act came from survey says, WHITE UH frats and sororities.  That's stating a fact,  but if you choose to call that an insult, oh well. 

I found the UH historical parallel between the Eusan story and the SGA fight to pass the Tittsworth Act compelling and highly apropos.  It  was the same exact dynamic that Lynn Eusan faced 45 years ago in her run to become UH homecoming queen.   Her main, most vocal, and racist I might add opposition to wear the UH homecoming crown came from UH's white Greeks.   The UH transgender community's major opposition to passage of the Tittsworth Act also came from UH white Greeks.  

So hmm, appears to Cougar paw waving me you UH white Greeks haven't learned anything 45 years later, but you excel in majoring in oppression. 

You don't like me stating the inconvenient for you fact that UH white Greeks were oppressors then and now in 2014 in both these on campus human rights situations, too damned bad.  

Bottom line is that UH's white Greeks were wrong then and with the passage of time look even more foolish concerning their racist opposition of Lynn Eusan ascendance to become UH's first Black homecoming queen 45 years ago. 

All you white UH Greeks, Ashley Davis Nelson, and Alan Garza, who opposed the passage of the Tittsworth Act will look just as foolish to the UH Cougar Class of 2059.

Eat 'em up, er duck and cover fool, and don't look at the flash when the troll nuke explodes..

Michael Sam Drafted By St Louis Rams!

It took three days and over 248 picks, but Michael Sam finally made sports and NFL history. 

The St Louis Rams on the 249th pick in the seventh round of the draft selected the SEC Defensive Player of the Year to hearty cheers in Radio City Music Hall.  

My fellow Texan has become the first openly gay football player drafted by a professional football team.

Sam was in San Diego at the home of his agent when the pick was announced by  NFL vice president of game operations Mike Kensil and an emotional Sam tweeted this moments after he was picked::

Thank you to the St. Louis Rams and the whole city of St. Louis. I'm using every once of this to achieve greatness!!"

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell stated in an April 2013 document: “The NFL has a long history of valuing diversity and inclusion. Discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation is not consistent with our values and is unacceptable in the National Football League."

The NFL added sexual orientation to its list of protected classes in September 2011.

Being drafted was the not so easy part of this BFD GLBT sports moment.   Now comes the hard work of trying to make the St. Louis Rams opening day roster not far from where he played his collegiate ball at the University of Missouri.

He will have three of his Mizzou teammates with him in Rams camp trying to do the same thing.

Congratulations Mike!    May you make the Rams opening day roster and have much success, except when you're playing against my Houston Texans.
 

Why I Love Dolly Parton

Contrary to the prevailing perception in the trans feminine community we have a lot of cis feminine haters, and the predominately white TERF's do their best to reinforce that, we do have many cis feminine allies. 

One of them is iconic country singer Dolly Parton.   The 68 year old Parton not only talks the talk about LGBT acceptance and inclusion, she walks the walk.   I've heard anecdotal evidence that some of the people employed at her Dollywood amusement park in her hometown on Pigeon Forge, TN are trans fam.

While being interviewed by Joy Behar for CNN in 2009, Parton had this to say about why she’s so accepting of her huge LGBT fan base: “We’re not supposed to try to change people. We should allow people to be who they are and love them for who they are.”

Pressed by Behar as to what her thoughts were on the marriage equality issue, Parton replied, “I always say, ‘Sure, why can’t they get married? They should suffer like the rest of us do.’”

Parton wrote the theme song 'Travelin' Thru' for the 2005 movie Transamerica that received an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song.  It resulted in her receiving death threats from some nekulturny idiots pissed off about its blend of Jesus' story and uncompromising acceptance of trans people..    

Dolly is the godmother of Miley Cyrus and like Oprah, has also faced rumors she was a lesbian despite being married for 48 years to her husband Carl Dean.   She has a longtime deep friendship with a female friend that dates back to third grade that the rumor mongers point to as their 'evidence' she's part of the LGBT family. 

"Like Gayle [King], her friend, Judy, my friend...they just think that you just can't be that close to somebody," Parton said in an interview. "Judy and I have been best friends since we were like in the third and fourth grade. We still just have a great friendship and relationship and I love her as much as I love anybody in the whole world, but we're not romantically involved."

Parton also talks about the time she entered and lost a drag queen celebrity lookalike competition. "They had a bunch of Chers and Dollys that year, so I just over-exaggerated -- made my beauty mark bigger, the eyes bigger, the hair bigger, everything," she said, laughing. "So I just got in the line and I just walked across, and they just thought I was some little short gay guy...and I got the least applause!"

So yep, I have much love for Dolly Rebecca Parton, just as she has much love for girls like us.

Can We Do More For Houston Splash Than Just Party?

Houston Splash is our longtime official Black Pride event on the schedule of US national and international pride events sanctioned by the Center For Black Equity that run from April to November.

It draws many people in the Houston area, the surrounding region, and even from across the country because of the early May date that Houston Splash happens. 

It usually falls during the first weekend in May unless the huge Offshore Technology Conference chooses that date, and then it gets pushed back to the following weekend because OTC gets first dibs on 75% of the available H-town hotel rooms.

This year's 19th anniversary edition of Houston Splash got whacked by OTC this year.  It started May 7 and is running through May 11 at venues all over the Houston metro area.

But one of the things that has bothered me when I compare my local Black Pride event to others around the country is the glaring lack of programming or events that aren't revolving around a party or drag show.

It's one of the major reasons I don't attend many of the Houston Splash events because you can only do so many parties or drag shows, and there's more to Black SGL life than that.  It's also so heavily SGLcentric I feel along with many local trans people left out of many of the events.

I'm one of the people in H-town that feels there needs to be less party in Houston Splash and more purpose in this event.    

While I applaud the Houston Splash organizers for trying to address the issues I'm talking about in this post with the Wednesday Mental Health Forum and Thursday's sparsely attended transgender town hall, it pales in comparison to Black Prides in other locales that have in some cases vibrant daylong programming blocks that allow us to have substantive discussions about the issues affecting our Black Trans, bi and SGL community and draw people like me who like to have a purpose with their partying.

Other Black Pride cities have multiple town halls, poetry slams and keynote speakers as part of their Black pride weekends.  Atlanta has an annual State of Black Gay America Summit with keynote speakers and national LGBT leaders as part of their Black Pride programming.

If they can do it, why can't Houston, with the dynamic trans, bi, SGL leaders we have residing in the fourth largest and one of the most diverse cities in the country?

Maybe we can do as part of future Houston Splash programming an annual summit discussing the state of Black LGBT Texas or Black TBLG Houston, and use it as an opportunity to connect with straight African-American community leaders and organizations like the NAACP and the Houston Area Urban League     

I don't want the Black Pride event that represents my hometown to be about nothing except nonstop partying.  I believe it can and must do better.  With Houston Splash's 20th anniversary coming up next year, I hope the organizers of Houston Splash feel the same way as well. 
 

Shut Up Fool Awards-Jadeveon's A Texan Edition

The 2014 NFL Draft started last night and will run through Saturday.  Thanks to their disastrous 2-14 season the Texans had the first overall pick, and they wisely used it to select DE Jadeveon Clowney of South Carolina 

Can't wait to see him and JJ Watt terrorizing quarterbacks this season

Speaking of terror, it's time for us to segue to our normal Friday 'bidness' of finding out which fool, fools or group of fools exhibited mind numbing ignorance, over the top hypocrisy and head scratching stupidity.

Yep, it's time for this week's Shut Up Fool Awards.

Honorable mention number one is Mark Angelo Cummings, the Florida based trans fool who needs to have several sections of seats in Marlins Park, have a sweet tea flavored glass of STFU along with a Cuban sandwich.   Marky Mark decided to try to step to me again and made himself look clueless in the process when he tried to claim that racism doesn't exist unless it's against white people   

Seriously?    Mark, as I and other people have patiently tried to explain to your willfully ignorant and clueless ass (and predictably in his vanillacentric privileged arrogance labeled us 'angry' for doing so), Racism = bigotry /prejudice + systemic power.   POC's do not  (at least until 2040) have the collective power to oppress whites the way that has been and continues to be done to non-white people by the white majority for centuries. 

It is yours and other white transpeople's clueless dismissal of the point that race and class matter in Trans World, affect a gender transition, bring issues unique to trans communities of color that lead trans POC's to tell you white trans peeps to kiss our azz, form our own orgs and do our own advocacy independent of you.

So I ask the question you continue to fail to answer:  Why y'all so scurred of Black transpeople owing their power?


Honorable mention number two is Uniguest, the Nashville, TN based company that provides Net Nanny software programs for hotel business centers that can't tell the difference between a trans porn site and a GLAAD Award nominated African-American trans blog or a social organization in BTMI/BTWI that focuses on uplifting trans people.  

Yeah, can you tell I'm still pissed about not being able to access my blog in the Doubletree's business center during BTAC?

Honorable Mention number three is North Carolina Pink Republican Steve Wile, who has been campaigning on an anti-gay and anti-same sex marriage platform and got busted for being a drag queen.

Well, well.   Another example of a hypocritical anti-gay Republican

Honorable Mention number four goes to all of Satan's Helpers, Houston Division who continue to oppose the HERO on specious religious grounds.

Honorable Mention number five goes to Jim Coughlan, the Republican (surprise, surprise) controller of Dutchess County, NY who is running for a NY state senate seat.   He got busted for aiming a racist Tweet at MSNBC commentator Melissa Harris-Perry, and then when he got called on it, put out a statement claiming he hadn't seen Harris-Perry's work, didn't know she was African-American and claimed it was just a line from the Planet of the Apes movie and wasn't directed at her.

Yeah right.   Jim, hope you are aware that apes also look like you, too.

New York peeps, make sure this fool doesn't get a seat in your state senate.

This week's Shut Up Fool is Texas state Senator Dan Patrick, who is running for the GOP nomination for Texas Lt Governor.

Patrick opened his mouth during a debate with current Lt Governor David Dewhurst to claim it was a myth that Planned Parenthood had anything to do with Texas women's heath.

Note to Dan:  Google is your friend.   The facts are:

*Planned Parenthood health centers focus on prevention: 71 percent of our clients receive services to prevent unintended pregnancy.

*Planned Parenthood services help prevent more than 486,000 unintended pregnancies each year.

*Planned Parenthood provides 585,000 Pap tests and nearly 640,000 breast exams each year, critical services in detecting cancer.

*Planned Parenthood provides nearly 4.5 million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted infections, including HIV.

*Three percent of all Planned Parenthood health services are abortion services.

*Planned Parenthood affiliates provide educational programs to more than one million young people and adults each year.

I'm not even going to rehash all of the other ignorant and bigoted stuff he's said while campaigning for the GOP Lt. Governor's nomination.  It's at myth that the Republican Party cares about anyone that isn't a conservative white male.

Dan Patrick, shut up fool!
 

OutSmart Article Names 20 LGBT People of Color You Should Know.

Something else for my haters to chew on is this recent OutSmart magazine article by Yvonne Marquez that names 20 LGBT people you should know nationally, in Texas and in Houston. 

Yep, one of the people mentioned is a certain unapologetically Black trans blogger that likes to tell it like it T-I-S is about many subjects on TransGriot's electronic pages and elsewhere where she writes.

The Marquez article highlights Kim Katrin Milan and Bamby Salcedo on the national end of it, Texans Carter Brown, state Rep. Mary Gonzalez, Omar Narvaez,  Judge Tonya Parker,  and Priscilla Hale.

I'm listed in the Houston peeps with Yesenia Chavez, City Councilmember Robert Gallegos, Melanie Pang, Tye West, Becca Keo-Meier and Andrea Washington.

So y'all keep on hatin' while I do the work for this community and keep getting recognized for it. 

What's The T In LGBT? Event Tonight

For those of you in H-town looking for something to do that isn't Houston Splash party related, you may wish to head over to the Montrose Center tonight for the 'What's The 'T' In LGBT? event being hosted by Dee Dee Watters.

It will be an opportunity for those wishing to get more perspective and knowledge about the 'T' end of the TBLG community to do so at this event. 

The panelists for 'What's The 'T' In LGBT?' will be Roxanne Collins, Dylan Wilde Forbis, Makai Bowie, and the hostess Dee Dee Watters.   It will be an opportunity to ask questions and get them answered from parents, children, friends and family of trans people in our area, gain knowledge and have a great time interacting with us.

The topics slated to be discussed in this forum will be Gender Inclusion, Gender Identity, Sexual Preference and will be opened up to the audience for the question and answer period. 

The forum will be held from 7-9 PM CDT in Room 112 on the second floor of the building.at the Montrose Center, which is located at 401 Branard St.   All are welcomed and encouraged to attend and we definitely won't mind if you bring a friend with you to this community building event.

Hope to see you tonight.

The First Steps To Trans Liberation Are...

Self Love and Pride.

As Mary McLeod Bethune once wrote in the Journal of Negro History in January 1938, "If our people are to fight their way out of bondage, we must arm them with the sword and the shield and the buckler of pride--belief in themselves and their possibilities based upon a sure knowledge of the past.   That knowledge and pride we must give them--if it breaks every back in the kingdom.

The enemy of self love is one of the banes of a transperson's existence in the unholy trinity of shame, guilt and fear.  For us to love ourselves, we must vanquish that three headed monster.

Shame, guilt and fear work in tandem to paralyze us into inaction.   The unholy trio makes us afraid to acknowledge who we are as transgender human beings.   It causes us to want to retreat into another closet and not be open about who we are.   It causes us to question our trans lives, fear moving around in society, and acquiesce to disrespect and discrimination aimed at us.

It's hard to develop that self love and pride when we are hated by society for simply daring to openly live our lives to the best of our ability.    But develop it we must in order to become the tough minded individuals and people we will need to be to break free of the shame, guilt and fear in order to fight for our trans liberation. 

Handling My HERO Business Again

Once again I made the trek to 901 Bagby Street and our art deco designed City Hall to speak at and attend another meeting concerning the HERO in front of the full council. 

I was expecting it to be as contentious as the Quality of Life Committee hearing last week,  but those expectations died because many of the misguided African-American pastors who loudly expressed their opposition to it along with some of their not so righteous flock at that hearing were MIA yesterday. 

It's probably because they realize that the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance has momentum, it's the right and morally correct thing to do, and they might be coming to the realization they were played for suckers by the Pastor's Council.

In addition to myself, 77 other multiethnic speakers from our TBLG community and our allies took to the podium in front of our city council members to declare they were in favor of HERO passage   19 were against it including the usual haters like Dave 'Temporary Black Man For Electoral Purposes' Wilson and perennial council gadfly President Joseph Charles.

The local chapters of the NAACP and the Urban League also announced their support at this council hearing for the HERO. 84% of the Houston African-American community supports it.   State legislators like Sen. Rodney Ellis, Rep Garnet Coleman support it.   And in my capacity as the head of the Houston chapter of Black Transwomen, Inc., my org supports passage of the HERO

So those ministers who unleashed their faith based bigotry last Wednesday look even more foolish as this effort to pass the HERO moves forward and they realize they are on the wrong side of history. 

One of the other interesting and tear jerking moments of the HERO council hearing yesterday is that a Latino and African-American man both came out during their testimony.

The trans community was also there.   In addition to myself testifying in front of city council,  Nikki Araguz Loyd , Dr Colt Keo-Meier and Amelia Miller also did their part  to ensure the 'T' was represented. 

Another council meeting is happening today, in which we expect it will be tabled until next week.   Amendments are being offered, including to the problematic Section 17 51 (b) I expressed my concerns about in my testimony. 

We are one step closer to adding Houston to the long list of cities that protect its citizens from discrimination, and I couldn't be happier as a native Houstonian for that. 

White House Correspondents Dinner 2014

I was having so much fun with my Black Trans fam during my long birthday weekend and distracted wondering about what was transpiring at the GLAAD Media Awards that I forgot the White House Correspondents Dinner was also taking place on that event filled Saturday night.

So for those of you who missed it like I did, here's the POTUS.

City Council HERO Hearing Today

After dealing with the hate preachers last Wednesday, the HERO now goes before the full Houston City Council and another public comment meeting.that promises to be just as contentious as the April 30 committee meeting was.

Round Two of the battle to pass the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance kicks off at 1:30 PM CDT today and it promises to be just as contentious and ugly as it was last week during the Quality of Life committee hearing.

It's clear the strategy of the Pastor's Council haters is to let the Black ministers and other sellout people of color do their dirty work, and we need Houston SGL, trans and bi people of color to stand up and speak out against this cynical racist play.


You know I'm already in council chambers to watch the fun and do battle with the faith based haters, and will talk about it later.

And if you want to watch the proceedings, Moni's going to make it easy for you to do and just click on this link.

I Find That HERO Bathroom Language Disturbing

We have had 15 drafts, a standing room only contentious Quality of Life committee hearing which was several hours of attacks on the trans community and an upcoming session before the full city council tomorrow.  

But they still haven't fixed in the HERO that problematic bathroom language in Article IV, Section 17-51 

Sec. 17-51. Prohibition against discrimination in public accommodations.

(a) It shall be unlawful for any place of public accommodation or any employee or agent thereof to discriminate against any person on the basis of any protected characteristic, except as required by federal or state law or court order.

(b) It shall be unlawful for any place of public accommodation or any employee or agent thereof to deny any person entry to any restroom, shower room, or similar facility if that facility is consistent with and appropriate to that person’s expression of gender identity. It shall be a defense to prosecution for discrimination on the basis of gender identity under this article, however, if the defendant had a good faith belief that the gender or gender identity of the person discriminated against was not consistent with the gender designation of the facility. For purposes of this section, a defendant has a good faith belief if the manner in which the person represented or expressed gender to others (e.g. behavior, clothing, hairstyles, activities, voice or mannerisms) is not consistent with the gender designation of the facility the person attempted to access. Nothing in this section shall require construction of a new bathroom, shower room, or similar facility.

(c) It shall be a defense to prosecution for discrimination on the basis of disability under this article that the alleged discrimination resulted from a condition or structural feature for which a variance had been received. It shall also be a defense to prosecution for discrimination on the basis of accessibility that the place of public accommodation is in compliance with applicable state or federal law relating to accessibility.

Translation, if this is allowed to stand, it would allow gender policing to happen and the trans community in Tyjanae Moore type situations would have no recourse or way to punish people for harassing us.

Not no but HELL NO on this. That language in Section 17-51 (b) needs to go. 

The Dallas ordinance passed in 2002 doesn't have any bathroom language and as of this writing 12 years later hasn't had any increase in bathroom predators dressed in drag.    
 
Once again I have to call out the fact to Mayor Parker and Councilmember Ellen Cohen that the bathroom language in this HERO sucks and they need to forcefully tell the Pastor's Council where to go with their bathroom predator lies.

Just a gentle reminder to Mayor Parker that members of the Houston trans community were the foot soldiers and worker bees for many of your citywide campaigns for council, controller and mayor. We honored you with an Apogee Award at the 1998 Houston TG Unity Banquet for your leadership as a city council member on the 1998 non-discrimination ordinance.

We had your back when you needed us.  Now that we trans Houstonians need you to lead again on our issues since we don't have one of our own trans people on council yet, you want someone else on council to offer an amendment? 

Mayor Parker, we trans Houstonians need you and Councilmember Cohen to be the drum majorettes for justice we thought we elected to those positions.   Lead from the front and kill the HERO Section 17-51 (b) bathroom language.

It says above the doors to the entrance to council chambers 'The People Are The City'.  Transgender Houstonians are part of the 2.2 million people who live here and make up our sprawling southeast Texas metropolis.   It's way past time the ordinances in the city we love protected us from anti-trans discrimination.  We're tired of being demonized and humiliated for using the bathroom and there is no justification for it.

I and my fellow trans Houstonians want the same first class human rights you demand for yourselves with no excuses, no obfuscations and no delays.  We've waited long enough for the HERO to pass.

But before it possibly does, that odious bathroom language in Section 17-51 (b) must go.

Congrats Tiq and Kim!

Had to give a TransGriot shoutout to my brother Tiq Milan and his lady Kim Katrin Crosby who are getting married today in New York.

At least it'll be easy for me to remember their May 5 wedding day.

I had the pleasure of meeting Kim during my just completed BTAC weekend in Dallas, and I wish the happy couple a long, happy and healthy marriage.

Also looking forward to the next time I see you two as husband and wife. 

Ines Rau Becomes The First Openly Trans POC Playboy Model

For the first time since Caroline Cossey accomplished it in 1991, we will have an openly trans model doing a Playboy spread.  

We saw Ines Rau raise more than a few eyebrows with the steamy photo shoot she did back in November with model Tyson Beckford.   Now she's appearing in the May 2014 issue of the US version of Playboy.

In case you're wondering who is Ines Rau, she's a 24 year old Parisian born model based in New York who transitioned at age 16 and was discovered by modelling scouts in Paris.

Her career has been exploding lately and after reading Caroline 'Tula' Cossey's book I Am Woman twice decided to come out as trans.   Now she's following in Caroline's pumps and posing for Playboy.  
 
Playboy actively looked for several months to find a trans model to fit the parameters they were looking for before they found Ines.

That May issue is on your local newsstand now

Back In H-town From BTAC 2014

Well, finally back in Houston after a memorable BTAC 2014 weekend for me.

I couldn't attend the entire conference because of the pressing HERO business here, but did make up for lost time after my arrival in Dallas Thursday night.

Friday afternoon an amazing Black sisterhood discussion co-facilitated by Espy Brown and myself happened in which the cis and trans women in the room talked about the issues and concerns that concern us.  

That discussion needed another hour but it brought major insights to how both sides see things and hopefully helped pave the way for friendships to form. It was also the beginning of giving our cis sisters the knowledge they need to be better advocates for us when they end up in situations in which they have to quickly and confidently check other transphobic women.   

We also left that session in agreement that trans women are women and we both need to be doing a better job of working together.  It's a discussion we'll probably do again at a future BTAC event.

The community town hall immediately followed.  A tell it like it T-I-S is discussion moderated by Tiq Milan in which we discussed a wide range of issues impacting our community.

Several hours later at the Advocacy Awards Banquet, we got to enjoy a performance by KOKUMO and Dr. KRZ, Louis Mitchell and I were in the Skyline Ballroom to personally hand out the awards named for us   And did I mention all those handsome brothers, their lovely significant others and our allies in semiformal attire?

And who won the Monica Roberts Black Trans Advocacy Award for this year?    Tiq Milan. 

Houston represented this year (as usual).  Major shout out to Dee Dee Watters for winning a well deserved Newcomer of the Year Award and Tye West who was also honored during the Friday banquet.  

Always good to see my Dallas peeps Omar Narvaez, Rafael McDonnell, Katy Stewart, Nell Gaither and my homegirl Arianna Lint who did double duty with us and LULAC.

Saturday was Fun Day, and as we pulled out of the hotel on another clear and cloudless day enroute to Camp El Har Stevie Wonder's classic song Fun Day was playing in my head, and that exactly what it was.

A fun day to laugh, play games, and get away from the hotel for  few hours while building community before we moved into the screening of the movie Shirts and Skins, the TransManifest and the Black Diamond Ball

I did get to read two of my poems for TransManifest.   One of them was the fave poem of the BTAC fam and a request from Auset O'Neal entitled Y'all Love Madea But Hate on Me' and the other was 'Bathroom Trans Hate'.

And just as quickly as BTAC 2014 begun, it was over.  I hate I missed the early days of it, but the closing service on my birthday was a nice way to tie everything together and send us on our way back to our various parts of the country renewed, refreshed and ready to do the work necessary to continue the Black Trans Renaissance and build our community..

See y'all next year BTAC fam, and hopefully for the entire event.

Uniguest Blocks GLAAD Award Nominated Black Trans Blog

One of the things I was NOT a happy birthday camper about during my just completed trip to Dallas for BTAC 2014 was having another negative encounter with Nashville based Uniguest, the company that provides computer blocking software for many hotel chains.

Once again I ran into the problem of when I entered the Doubletree's business center Saturday to attempt to use their computers to get access to my blog, it kept kicking me off.  Black Transmen, Inc also had a similar problem accessing their website.

This isn't the first time I've had this problem.   It happened to me during last year's BTAC event and during the 2012 Netroots Nation.   Their excuse the last time was that my blog contained the words 'white supremacy' in it.

Yep, it sure does.   But if your obtuse behinds had taken the opportunity to read those posts in question, they were yours truly putting white supremacy on blast. 

Then again, maybe that's why you blocked it so nobody would read them.

One thing I do know is I'm beyond getting sick and tired of when I go to a hotel business center on my road trips and conferences around this country, need to access TransGriot for the purposes of printing something or just feel like using the hotel computers instead of my laptop to compose a post, I get ACCESS DENIED. 

I'm also not happy that I couldn't get anyone on your help desk number to complain about it and attempt to expeditiously fix the problem, which is why you're getting called out on my blog.  . 

Uniguest, I understand there are some problematic blogs out there.  But if your blocking software can't tell the difference between those problematic sites, a GLAAD Award nominated trans blog and a website for a Black trans advocacy organization, then your software has some issues. 

So fix the problem, Uniguest
  

Church Of The Real Signs

Come on down to the Church of The Real, in which Pastor Denny Upkins will tell it like it T-I-S is about the issues of the day as Deaconess Moni shouts Amen and hallelujah in the corner.

Church of the Real started as a hashtag Denny created when he was calling people out while issuing tell it like it T-I-S truths on his Facebook page.

Every now and then he drops a truth bomb on someone so thorough I just have to share it with y'all on the blog. 

So when I stumbled across a website that generates church signs and other graphics that you will occasionally see on this blog and my Facebook page over the next few months, that's when I got the idea to put some of his fave slogans on a Church of the Real sign 

While I created them for Denny and will deploy them on his Facebook page when I comment over there, from time to time they ill get deployed when I have to shut up my own trolls and assorted fools. 

Let the congregation say Amen!
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