For the 14th time in a Grand Slam tournament, the first time at the US Open since 2008, and the 27th time in their careers But this prime time quarterfinal match had high stakes with a semifinal berth on the line.
Serena's pursuit of her fourth consecutive US Open singles title and the first calendar year Grand Slam since 1988 was on the line, Venus was working on trying to win her third US Open title and her first since 2001 when she beat Little Sis in the final to get it.
The match started with both sisters hitting hard, hitting winners and staying on serve until Serena gets the break she needed to go up 4-3 and close out the first set in 33 minutes.
Then it was Big Sis's turn to up her game as Serena suffered through a stretch of bad play that allowed Venus to close out the second set and even the match.
Then Serena as she has done all season reset, kicked her game up to A++ level and quickly reeled off three straight wins to seize control of the decisive third set and close out this emotional win with her 12th ace of the match to punch her ticket to the semifinals.
6-2, 1-6, 6-3 Five match wins down, two to go.
Her semifinal victim opponent will be Italy's Roberta Vinci who has been on the short end of her matches with Serena, having lost to her four times/
Don't think Thursday will be any different, but that's why you play the game..
TransGriot Update: The Thursday women's semifinal matches got rained out, so they were rescheduled for Friday.
We're now past Labor Day, which is the traditional start for campaign activity in a Houston civic election, but because of HERO, has ramped up a little early in this 2015 cycle.
The canvassing continues for HERO supporters, with 100 people showing up Saturday to do phone banking, block walking and simply telling the truth about the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance.
The HERO ordinance just to remind people covers 15 categories against discrimination in employment, housing and business services on the basis of 15 different characteristics, including sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, familial status, marital status, military status, religion, disability, sexual orientation, genetic information, gender identity and pregnancy.
But the HERO haters continue to push the debunked bathroom predator lie in their desperate effort to hoodwink and bamboozle people into voting against a human rights ordinance that covers them.
The Houston Unites campaign to defend HERO is on the J-O-B, with Fran Watson appearing on KCOH-AM, a local Black radio station owned by HERO hater and mayoral candidate Ben Hall this morning to debate the ordinance.
But Hall isn't giving up on his efforts to lie about the HERO. He's planning a Demonize the HERO
event tonight at Northbrook Middle School in the Spring Branch ISD ( a district that doesn't have an anti-bullying or non-discrimination policy covering sexual orientation and gender identity BTW) at 7:00 PM CDT.
DO NOT MISS OUT ON THIS DISCUSSION.
Join me as I explain the details of one the most important issues in this election. I'll discuss why you should vote NO to the "Houston Equal Rights Ordinance” (HERO), also known as the “Bathroom Ordinance”.
This ordinance will be identified on the November 3 ballot as Proposition 1 a/k/a Prop 1.
Prop 1 does not actually provide equal rights to everyone. I'll explain why the ordinance doesn't protect Houstonians and how it's actually very unsafe. I'll explain why it puts your family, your businesses and your freedom at risk. And I'll also debunk the ludicrous rumor that anyone against this ordinance is "anti-LGBT" and approves of discrimination.
The event is hosted by Kempwood North Civic Association, and takes place in the THEATER of Northbrook Middle School, 3030 Rosefield, Houston TX 77080. (The Theater is at the south end of the school, on your right as you face the school office.)
Come ask questions about the ordinance during the Q&A session. This issue affects you!
It isn't a ludicrous rumor Mr Hall, it's a fact that if you're against the HERO ordinance knowing that until it was passed, Houston had NO local remedy to combat discrimination (and neither does the state of Texas,),,you ARE an anti-LGBT oppressor and hater, especially if your only reason for doing so is a debunked transphobic lie.
And you as an attorney Mr.Hall, should be ashamed of yourself for peddling disinformation and lies.
Just in case y'all angelic troublemakers wish to raise some hell and bring some truth to the auditorium, Northbrook Middle School is located at 3030 Rosefield St. in H-town.
This was an interesting Charlie Rose show in which gender identity in the brain was discussed.
The show featured guy like us Dr Ben Barres, who happens to be the chair of the neurobiology chair at Stanford University, Dr Norman Spack of Boston Children's Hospital, Catherine Dulak of Harvard University, Erick Kandel, Melissa Hines of the University of Cambridge. and Janet Hyde of the University of Wisconsin.
Lauren Foster has led a very interesting life since she transitioned in her native South Africa in her teens. She worked (and still does) as a print and runway fashion model walking runways in Europe, South America and the USA.
If her name is familiar to you trans younglings, she was on television on the Real Housewives Of Miami, had a five page VOGUE spread, starred in three art films directed by Joseph Lally, launched the GLAAD Miami Leadership Council with Omar Sharif, Jr and Marysol Pattonand is currently writing her memoir entitled Just Another Girl.
And launching tomorrow is a revolutionary one stop shop website with the same name, that I was graciously given a preview of by Lauren entitled justanothergirl.org
The website not only has links to Lauren's personal story, but information concerning facial feminization and SRS surgeons, trans specific legal information, and beauty tips. Basically it's like GOOP for #GirlsLikeUs
"The goal was to set up a website with no graphic content that young people could access and show to their parents as part of their Trans 101 educational process," said Lauren to me in a recent conversation we had about the launch.
Well, she succeeded in that goal, and you'll get to see it when the site launches tomorrow.
I'm looking forward to reading her memoir when she's completed it.
It's Labor Day in the US and Canada, which happens to be the considered in the US the unofficial end of the summer season.
But the actual purpose of Labor Day is to celebrate workers and the labor movement. The current 40 day work week, Saturdays and Sundays off (for some folks) , the minimum wage, overtime, OSHA workplace regulations, collective bargaining, sick leave, child labor laws, retirement security, and other worker friendly policies that helped build the middle class.
But ever since Ronald Reagan came into office, unions have been demonized and attacked by the Republicans, with negative effects to the American middle class.
A strong labor movement translates into livable wages for you along with a safer workplace and civil rights advancement.
So as you soak up the rays on the beach, chow down at that barbecue and return from wherever you traveled to on this long weekend. ponder the fact that many of the things we American workers take for granted were union made.
An interesting Gatorade commercial has been airing in which a young Serena Williams is being interviewed by a reporter who asks her an interesting question
"If you were a tennis player, who would you want to be like?"
The commercial when shows video from different points of her amazing career before it cuts back to young Serena giving her answer to the reporter's question.
Today Venus and Serena were on the Arthur Ashe Stadium courts playing their fourth round US Open matches with quarterfinal berths at stake.
Which sister made it to the quarterfinals? Both of them.
23rd seeded Venus got this Sunday afternoon of tennis at Arthur Ashe Stadium off to a great start with a dominating performance against Estonian qualifier Anett Kontaveit, who was playing in her first US Open and got to the fourth round after beating Madison Brengle in three sets
Big Sis took only 50 minutes to efficiently punch her ticket to the quarters with a 6-2, 6-1 straight set victory over Kontaveit and set up her first trip to the US Open quarters since 2010.
The question then became who would Venus play in that quarterfinal?
Serena took the Arthur Ashe court moments later for what was expected to be by tennis pundits the tougher match of the afternoon against 19th seeded Madison Keys.
Serena faced and beat Keys earlier this year in the Australian Open semifinals, and wasn't playing with the tennis youngling. Little Sis was on her A++ game from the outset, but the 20 year old Keys was hanging with her booming serve for booming serve and shot for shot as both stayed on serve .
Serena got a critical service break thanks to Keys double faults and unforced errors to put her up 5-3 and allow her to close the first set on her racquet.
The second set was just as close, with both players staying on serve and amazing shots being hit until once again Keys got broken to put Little Sis up 4-3. Serena held serve to push the lead up to 5-3, and when Keys needed to come up with the clutch serve to save match point, she double faulted to hand little Sis a 6-3, 6-3 straight set victory that took only 68 minutes to complete.
Four down, only three more match wins to tennis history But that next match will be against her big sister.
At 7 PM EDT on Tuesday night, we should have a sold out Arthur Ashe Stadium and a huge television audience watching the first US Open quarterfinal between the Williams Sisters at Flushing Meadow since 2008 with huge stakes for both sisters.
Venus is playing for her third US Open title, Serena for the first calendar year Grand Slam since 1998. Which sister will prevail?.
If you are a trans or non gender conforming person who is HIV+ or know someone who is a trans or NGCP person who is HIV+ , please take a moment if you haven't done so already to either take the first ever Positively Trans Survey yourself or encourage that person to do so.
The survey is anonymous, available in English and Spanish, takes 20 minutes to complete and seeks to hear about the experiences of HIV+ NGCP and trans people with the health and legal systems in the US.
In addition to help getting a clearer picture of the HIV?AIDS landscape as it applies to trans and non gender conforming people, if you take the survey you can also enter a drawing for one of eight VISA gift cards ranging from $25 to $100 dollars. .
The things I hope happen as a result of this Positively Trans Survey is not only do we get a clearer picture and more solid info about HIV + trans and non gender conforming people, it becomes the catalyst to help drive policy changes that will help our trans and NGCP HIV+ community community from the local to the federal level. .
But if you haven't taken the time to do so, please do so ASAP.
One of the things I've been more than pissed off about is the ongoing pattern since 2003 of anti-trans rhetoric coming out of the mouths of Pope Francis and his predecessor along with anti-trans policies.
It started in Spain back in July when 21 year old transman Alex Salinas asked his parish priest if he could be his nephew;s godfather. The priest according to Salinas initially agreed to the request but changed his mind when Bishop Rafael Zornoza of Cadiz y Ceuta challenged the decision.
Salinas is recognized by the Spanish government as a male, but the Catholic Church refuses to do so and offered him the position of 'spiritual godfather', which is a position the Catholic Church designates for people they deem ineligible for the godparents role.
Never mind the fact that Salinas has been faithfully attending mass at his parish.
After the critical backlash that ruling generated in Spain, Bishop Zornoza quickly deferred to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that enforces Catholic teaching to render a final verdict on the subject.
That verdict recently came from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and it reeked of transphobic bigotry.
It concluded that “transsexual behavior itself reveals, in a public manner, an attitude opposite to the moral imperative of solving the problem of sexual identity according to the truth of one’s own sexuality.”
“It is clear that this person does not meet the requirement of carrying out a life conforming to the faith and the position of godfather,” the statement read. It later added, “Discrimination is not to be seen in this, but only recognition of an objective lack of the requisites that by their own nature are necessary to take over the ecclesial responsibility of being a godparent.”
Salinas blasted the Vatican's transphobic ruling in a Facebook post, and has left the Catholic Church on top of it, His sister has also decided not to baptize his nephew in the wake of their rejection of her trans brother.
The poisonous anti-trans legacy of Paul McHugh is bearing bitter fruit not only for the international trans community, but will continue to cost the Catholic Church trans and cis followers that believe that trans people are just as human as any cis person . .
The Williams Sisters so far successful business trip to Flushing Meadow for the US Open continued into the third round, but this time the sisters days were reversed. While 23rd seeded Venus breezed to a straight set 6-3, 6-4 win against Switzerland's Belinda Bencic, the evening session for number one seeded Serena didn't quite go as planned for her against fellow American Bethanie Mattek-Sands.
Let's talk about Big Sis for a moment. She advanced to the fourth round of the US Open for the first time since 2010 by knocking off the 12th seeded Bencic. She will play qualifier Anett Kontaveit of Estonia who knocked off American Madison Brengle in three sets to get to the fourth round.
Serena's run to tennis history and the US Open fourpeat ran into trouble in her match with Mattek-Sands. While she came out flat in the first set, spraying 14 unforced errors to just one for her opponent, Mattek-Sands was on her A game to the point that Serena dropped her first set at the US Open to another American since 2005.
Last American to take a first set from Serena at the US Open? Her big sister Venus.
But Serena dropping the first set in a Grand Slam has been a recurring theme this year, but she has managed to summon that refuse to lose will, up the level of her game and escape with the win eight times.
But Mattek-Sands kept up the pressure, coming within two games of springing the upset for the ages before Serena found the A++ tennis level that many people can't match and won eight straight games to take the match 3-6.7-5, 6-0.
Serena's next opponent will be Madison Keys, who she vanquished in the Australian Open semis earlier this year. Keys got past Agnieszka Radwanska in straight sets to earn another shot at the world's number one player.
Should Serena and Venus get past their fourth round opposition on Sunday, they will face each other in the US Open quarterfinals.
It's another great day for Nikki Araguz Loyd in a Texas courtroom as the Texas Supreme Court in Austin ruled in her favor in her ongoing case to reinstate her marriage to her late husband Thomas Araguz III.
In the last update, she had a big win at the Texas 13th Appeal Court level in Corpus Christi that not only reversed Judge Randy Clapp's (R) unjust order that invalidated her marriage, but struck a what may be fatal blow to the Littleton v Prange case.
It also sent the case back to Judge Clapp's court where we hope the arc of the moral and legal universe will continue bending toward justice for her and the Texas trans community.
The case was appealed to the all GOP dominated Texas Supreme Court by the Delgado legal team, and in a ruling that came back today that was a wonderful surprise for her and the Texas trans community , the SCOTX without comment denied hearing their petition.
Translation, the ruling of the Texas 13th Court of Appeals stands.
Of course, when I talked to an obviously happy Nikki Araguz Loyd about her latest legal win, she said, "I'm elated that the Texas Supreme Court saw fit to do the right thing in my case. It gets us past another major hurdle and one step closer to the Lone Star State recognizing the transitioned gender identity of trans people."
It's Labor Day weekend, and it's considered the last weekend of the summer season. People are getting their last trips in to the beach or wherever they wish to travel before the weather starts turning cooler.
For those peeps in the pageant world, Labor Day weekend means the annual pilgrimage to Chicago for the Miss Continental pageant.
But what this day is for in the United States and Canada is to celebrate workers.
For those of you who are on the job either serving the public, building things, repairing and maintaining our infrastructure or are running mom and pop businesses or startups, this day to to recognize and celebrate you.
And hopefully we will see more progress in the coming year to raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour.in the US.
Speaking of labor, time to get to my usual Friday labor of love in which I get to call out what fool, fools or groups of fools get this week's Shut Up Fool honors.
Honorable mention number one is Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) who is named for a double dip of idiocy. First, he was quoted during a campaign stop as saying that 'people with jobs don't do heroin'
Oh really? The employed not only can do heroin, but get coke, weed, OxyContinin.....you get the drift.
Then he said that lack of assimilation was the problem of native Americans . Gee that's mighty white of you to say, Rand.
Honorable mention number two is Michael Whaley, the latest kneegrow to go on FOX Noise and coon it up for the conservafools. They brought his azz on to attack Black Lives Matter..
Honorable mention number three is Raymond Mott who provides more evidence that the po-po's are contaminated with white supremacists, and gives us Black peeps even more ammo to be wary of them.
he denied he was a member of the KKK, then came clean, refused to resign and claimed that 'he'd been baptized.'
Honorable mention number four is a joint award for Minnesota Teapublican state reps Tim Kelly and Tara Mack, who both got caught with their pants down in a park by a Dakota County police officer while their married to other people azzes were making out with each other.
Reps Kelly and Mack compounded their multiple violations of the Ten Commandments by calling the officer who wrote them public nuisance citations a liar.
There's those hypocritical GOP family values for you. And note they love the po-po's until they start enforcing the laws on their vanillacentric privileged behinds
Honorable mention number five is Bristol Palin, who proved once again she's her mother's daughter with an ignorant facts free anti-Obama rant
Honorable mention number six is Mike Huckabee, who got called out on MSNBC's Morning Joefor his hypocrisy in calling Hillary Clinton a 'lawbreaker', but supports lawbreakers Kim Davis and Josh Duggar.
Honorable mention number seven is Anthony Horowitz, who opened his mouth to say that actor Idris Elba was 'too street' to play James Bond and then apologized after his ass got justifiably called out on it.
This week's Shut Up Fool loser winner is Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman (R), for that jacked up press conference last Saturday in which he blamed Black Lives Matter for the fatal shooting of one of his deputies, when even the detectives working the case don't know the cause of the Goforth killing yet.
His problematic and racist comments have had the ripple effect of triggering a conservative attack aimed at the Black Lives Movement that FOX Noise has eagerly egged on.
It's one of my fave conferences, and there's a possibility I might be back for it after a three year absence from the event.
The National Black Justice Coalition's (NBJC) 6th annual OUT on the Hill is rapidly approaching on September 16-20 in Washington DC
The last time I was in the OOTH house in 2012, I was honored to participate in this groundbreaking Black trans feminine panel with Danielle King, Rev. Carmarion Anderson, and Valerie Spence moderated by Laverne Cox.
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I also got to participate in an amazing blogger's panel with LZ Granderson, Danielle Moodie-Mills, and the Anti-Intellect,
This year's theme is We Are Family: Building Stronger Roots Together, and that's what OUT on the Hill has been like to me in the times I have had the opportunity to attend in 2011 and 2012, one big family reunion in which we get to build a stronger Black LGBT community,
It has led to me meeting some amazing Black TBLG leaders , elders and emerging young Black LGBT leaders who are doing and will do some amazing things for our community, two trips to the White House for policy briefings, and getting an opportunity to go to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Annual Legislative Conference that takes place at the same time at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center and meet more engaged Black folks, CBC congressmembers and leaders from around the country.
This year #OOTH2015 will also focus on health and wellness on our community.
Every time I get the opportunity to go to OUT on the Hill, I come back to Houston refreshed, renewed and ready to tackle the ongoing job of uplifting the trans end of the Black LGBT community while reminding the Black community at large that you can't spell Black Lives Ma__er without the two T's.
There's still time for you to register for this event and hope to see y'all there at #OOTH2015.
TransGriot Update: It's official: For the first time since 2012, I'll be at OOTH 2015! I have a Friday noon Eastern time panel discussion I'll be participating in, and I plan to be doing posts and live tweets of all the #OOTH2015 action and happenings.
The venues for the 2016 CONCACAF Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament being hosted in the USA were announced on August 12, and both are in the Lone Star State!
CONCACAF announced that BBVA Compass Stadium in Houston and Toyota Stadium in Frisco, TX will be the venues hosting the eight team tournament February 10-21 that determines which two teams from CONCACAF will be playing in the Rio Olympics in a few months.
Toyota Stadium will host the Group A matches from February 10-15, and BBVA Compass Stadium will host the Group B matches from February 11-16, the semifinal match on February 19 and final match on February 21.
The USA as the host nation has already qualified, and the world champs will be in Group A. Canada and Mexico have also qualified, but their groups and which end of I-45 they will be playing on will be determined when the tournament draw happens
The other five nations competing will be determined by the results in the Central American and Caribbean Zone tournaments Two will come from the Central American Zone tournament that runs September 30-October 4 and three from the Caribbean Zone.
The Caribbean Zone tournament started August 21 and will be completed October 4. Puerto Rico, Guyana and Jamaica are three of the four finalists in the knockout round as of this writing with the fourth finalist to be determined from a group that is composed of Antigua and Barbuda, Cayman Islands, Trinidad and Tobago and host Saint Lucia.
Only two CONCACAF teams will be left at BBVA Compass Stadium when it is over and it will be interesting to see which two teams will be punching their tickets to go to Brazil.
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When the Fran Watson created petition asking for the federal government to investigate the causes of the violence leading to the murders of tans women of color went up on August 10, it was with hopeful optimism after it was posted and I signed it that we would hit that 100K signature target in a very short time.
I saw this as an easy way to show support for the trans communities of color in the wake of us having a murderous month of July, and I remembered how fast the Leelah Alcorn one hit its target in mere days..
We are now six days from the September 10 deadline to get those signatures, and we're not even over 10,000 signatures yet,
Guess not all trans lives matter as much.
We have six days to get over 95,000 signatures to get a White House response to this petition. If you have already signed it like I have, I thank you on behalf of my community and the trans women we have lost this year. If you haven't,here's the link to it.
Here's hoping that more people sign it, share it and we at least get to 10,000 signatures for it.
While I was working on escaping from Casa de Slumlord, I didn't have cable during that time period, and I missed some of the groundbreaking episodes in the Rick and Maya trans story line on the Bold and the Beautiful leading up to their wedding.
While that was going on, Maya was trying to repair the relationship between herself and her father Julius Avant that had become contentious between them when she transitioned in her teen years .
First her younger sister Nicole, and now her mother Vivienne relationships with Maya have been improving to the point that Nicole accepts and loves her unconditionally as her big sister, and the relationship between her and her mother Vivienne was improving during that time period she was visiting her in LA.
But Julius is still transphobically unrepentant concerning his feelings for Maya, she overheard him during the run up to the wedding, and it came to a head as Maya was about to get married to Rick Forrester
This is a groundbreaking story line that not only features a major character who is trans, but that character also happens to be African-American.
This wedding may also be the first for a soap opera in terms of it involving a trans feminine character marrying a cisgender male.
It has also been groundbreaking (and emotional at times for me) to see how the issues surrounding Maya's transition have played out in an African-American family
Well, speaking of those episodes, here they are for your perusal TransGriot readers.
Kitzler was in Pennsylvania from her home in South Carolina to get the gender confirmation surgery done after 16 months of pre-operative preparation, the prerequisite psychological clearances and a 24 hour fast before the scheduled Tuesday procedure was halted by her parents lawsuit.
Angela Giampolo, Christine's attorney said she had never seen competency invoked in order to block a gender reassignment surgery, and that Kitzler's parents were trying to prevent Christine from living an authentic life .
"This isn't a competency hearing. This isn't a guardianship hearing. This is a difference of opinion,." said the prominent Philadelphia based TBLG rights attorney.
Judge C.Theodore Fritsch agreed and denied their request, saying Klaus and Ingrid Kitzler had failed to provide clear and convincing evidence that guardianship was necessary. Judge Fritsch also denied their motion for an independent medical exam.
Of course Christine was happy with the decision rendered by the court and is moving forward with the planned procedure.
Good luck with your SRS Christine and may you have a speedy and complication free recovery from it.
Roland S. Martin tore Bill O'Reilly a new anus after O'Reilly used his Fox Noise show to bash #BlackLivesMatter, call them 'a hate group' and vow in his white supremacist arrogance he was going to ' put Black Lives Matter out of business.'
And yeah, my fellow Houstonian let him have it .
I agree with Roland. Until you, O'Reilly, are calling out the police with the same venom you spewed at Black Lives Matter, and by the way, I met the founders of the BLM movement in February, you do need to shut your racist, vanillacentric privileged ass up.
The world is watching the US Open to see if Serena Williams can win her fourth straight title and in the process, complete the first calendar year Grand Slam since 1988.
One of the things we Serena fans know and worry about is that if she's going to get upset, it's going to happen early in the first week. Once she gets zoned in and gets over her early round nervousness, she's tough to stop.
And in a US Open tournament that has seen ten seeded players exit the tournament in the first round, another in Russia's Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova get beat in straight sets in the second round, and Maria Sharapova withdraw before the tournament even started because of a leg injury, Little Sis as the world's number one ranked player and number one tournament seed is a prohibitive favorite to capture this final grand Slam tournament of the season.
Serena's opponent in this second round match at Arthur Ashe Stadium was Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands, and in the first set Bertens gave an admittedly nervous Serena a stiff challenge that belied her number 110 world ranking.
Bertens promptly broke Serena's serve, and was serving for the set at 5-4 before Serena came back to force a tiebreaker. Unfazed, the 23 year old Bertens sprinted to a 4-0 lead in the tiebreaker before Serena showed that heart of a champion once again, She rallied to tie it at 4-4 with some self destructive help from Bertens, and eventually won to steal the first set.
After that first set escape in which she had eight double faults, Serena took command of the match when she broke Bertens for a 3-2 lead and closed it out for the 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 straight set win.
Two match wins down, five to go for the calendar year Grand Slam.
Next up for Serena will be Bethanie Mattek-Sands, who knocked off Coco Vandeweghe in straight sets after she upset Sloane Stephens in the first round. In case you're wondering what Serena's record is against Mattek-Sands this year: 2-0
Meanwhile, Venus was playing fellow American Irina Falconi under the Arthur Ashe Stadium lights , and it looked like Big Sis was going to romp to victory in straight sets. But that disturbing tendency of Venus not closing out matches reared its ugly head again. Up 5-3 and serving for the match, it started going sideways for Big Sis as Falconi raised her game up another level, and broke Venus' serve twice to force a tiebreaker, then kept her momentum going to take the second set.
The reason for the up and down performance? 35 winners offset by 47 unforced errors for Big Sis. She recorded six aces against five double faults.
Big Sis regrouped, got off to a fast start and rolled to a 4-1 lead before Falconi recovered to close to 4-2. After holding serve, she broke Falconi one last time to close out the match and get a hard fought 6-3. 6-7 (2-7) 6-2 win and punch her ticket to the third round.
She will face Switzerland's Belinda Bencic, the 18 year old protege of Martina Hingis who was nearly ousted from the tournament by Misaki Doi of Japan in a drama filled three set match Venus will attempt to get past the third round of the US Open for the first time since 2010.
But the question is will the oldest player in the tournament field (35), have enough to get past the precocious 12th seeded Bencic, and get one step closer to a possible quarterfinal match with her sister for the second straight Grand Slam tournament?
"We will lose more transgender people to violence. The Remembering Our Dead list will get longer. The anti-transgender rhetoric coming from their acolytes will get nastier and more hateful. They will try to spin and twist Bible verses to favor their immoral positions. But in the end the result will still be the same and the neo-fascists will lose. "
TransGriot June 14,2007, 'We're Winning
I wrote those words eight years ago, and they are as applicable today as when I penned them after returning back to Louisville from having spent several days lobbying in Washington DC.
It's a best of times and worst of times scenario for us. We have unprecedented visibility with multiple cable TV shows and movies being released with trans characters, documentaries being produced that focus on our trans elders like Miss Major and Marsha P. Johnson, and trans people walking fashion runways.
We have people seeking to learn more about our trans lives. We have ongoing scholarly research being conducted that helps add to the increasing data and knowledge we have concerning transsexualtiy. More jurisdictions are passing laws to protect our human rights. Schools and colleges are enacting policies that help facilitate us getting our educations. Even the US armed forces are planning to remove the ban on open trans military service. We have even shown up and shown out in the White House halls to own our power.
But it has also been a violent year in which we have lost 17 trans women, with the majority of them being trans women of color. We still are dealing with crushing unemployment and underemployment. HIV infection rates amongst us are still too high as we fight to get the agencies that help us cope with the HIV/AIDS epidemic to recognize our humanity statistically and as a fact.
But despite all of that mixed news, were winning. Understanding of trans issues is exponentially increasing. We have allies who do get the point that trans women are women and trans men are men. We have more families in our ranks who wish to love their trans kids instead of throw them out of their homes.
But we still have far too many people wallowing in willful faith based ignorance about our trans lives. Far too many HBCUs do not have trans friendly policies and support for us when we hit their campuses. We have far too many Black ministers working to condemn us instead of role modeling unconditional love for us.
And yes, we have ongoing work to do internally in terms of building sisterhood in our chocolate trans ranks. We need to continue to build working partnerships with our trans brothers and our cis allies. We`also have some cis women who adamantly refuse to recognize our womanhood, and they need to recognize we don't want to fight with you, we want to unite to tackle the problems that affect all women cis and trams
And we trans peeps still have to fight to get people to recognize that our Black trans lives matter, too. Every breath a trans person takes is a revolutionary act, and it is past time for our fellow African-Americans to realize that we didn't forfeit our Black Cards when we transitioned. Being Black and trans are not mutually exclusive, and those Black Cards are still valid even after we transition. .
We're winning, but the work to make trans human rights a reality and to have our humanity respected and protected in the laws of this nation is ongoing.
![NewsOne host Roland S. Martin responds to Bill O'Reilly on Sept. 2, 2015. [NewsOne]](https://www.rawstory.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Roland-S-Martin-090215-800x430.jpg)
