The Axis Of Trans Oppression Is Attacking Us- What Are We Gonna Do About It?

One of the things I have been observing as a a long time advocate for trans human rights is the LGBT Hate industry and their ongoing war as part of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy to roll back and eviscerate human rights in the US for gay, bi and lesbian people.  

As the trans part of that rainbow political coalition, we now have not only made rapid human right progress since that first trans federal lobby day in 1994, we have had unprecedented societal visibility in order to drive home the twin messages that trans people are part of the diverse mosaic of humanity and that trans rights are human rights.

That progress and societal visibility has drawn the backlash that visionary leaders in Trans World have long warned was coming as we urged our people to prepare for its arrival.

We have been fighting a multi front war since Stonewall in which we are battling right-wing Bible thumping faux Christian oppressors, the Republican Party and the conservative movement, the TERF's, right wing media and frenemies in the LG ranks who repeatedly threw us under the legislative bus to get sexual orientation only legislation passed.  They are what I call the Axis of Trans Oppression.

We trans folks are unfortunately paying in blood for the failure of LG orgs to recognize that if the rights of transgender people weren't secure, their own rights aren't secure either. The HERO repeal in Houston and the passage of HB 2 in North Carolina have emphatically driven that point home.

As the Rev. Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr. also pointed out, we are in an inescapable web of mutuality, and if this fact hasn't burned itself into your brains yet, trans people are part of that web of mutuality.

We trans people are also paying for the long time neglect and failure of funders to see the wisdom of fiscally seeding regional and national trans groups like NTAC and others.  While we tried our best at the time as trans leaders to make that happen, the growth and maturation of national trans rights orgs should have occurred while we trans peeps were flying under the political radars of our right wing oppressors in the 90's-early 2K's.
 
We also needed to have our best and brightest activists advocates and thinkers in the late 90's early 2K's getting paid to spend 8-10 plus hour days gaining real world experience doing the hard solid thinking and work to advance trans human rights. We needed to be able to do the full time job of educating the public about trans people instead of having to do it part time or without pay. 
But that's coulda, woulda, shoulda Monday morning quarterbacking.  We have to deal with the 2K16 consequences and reality of things that should have happened not happening.   

We are fighting transphobic bigots in the LGBT hate industry who are sitting in nice plush offices, have decades of experience in opprssing people, now training their tactics, media platforms and money on a community they perceive as easy political pickings with little risk of retribution from our side.

They gleefully plot our evisceration as elements pf the LG community say 'we're on our own' to face this onslaught of oppression as they plan their weddings and enjoy the fruits of full equality they gained in many cases with our help and at our expense.


Trans people are under attack by the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, and unfortunately the LG orgs that have honored their 'we'll come back for you' promises have been ineffective in combating it for several reasons.

They are just as clueless in the issues that impact trans lives because of at times willful ignorance, their own long time discriminatory practices rooted in rainbow anti-trans bigotry and internal LGBT racial animus. .

Because of the failure to hire talented trans leaders and organizers in their organizations, they not only don't have trained trans people in place in their organizations to help lead and formulate the strategies necessary to defeat the Axis of Trans Oppression anti-trans talking points and tactics, they don't have a development pipeline in place to properly train the next generation of trans leaders and grow the movement.  

This combined with a lack of muscular trans organizations that will strike fear in their oppressive hearts also doesn't help us .It also doesn't help us that we don't have (yet) elected trans politicians at the large city, state, judicial and congressional level

With over 100 anti trans legislative measures popping up like kudzu across the South and elsewhere in this country backed up by right wing media gleefully spouting anti-trans hate speech, we need those trans led efforts to beat back the oppression being aimed at us like yesterday.

While that's the reality of what we trans Americans are facing, it doesn't mean that we need to just give up, throw up our hands and submit to whatever the Axis of Trans Oppression has in store for us.  We need to fight 'em until we can't.  We come from trans folks who rose up in protest of anti-trans discrimination and oppression at Cooper's Donuts in 1959, Dewey's Lunch Counter in 1965, Compton's Cafeteria in 1966, and the Stonewall Inn in 1969 and leaders like Sylvia Rivera who ferociously fought to her dying day for our human rights.  

We need to role model Sylvia, Marsha and our other trans human rights warriors of yesterday and today. We have a proud history and legacy to live up to of fighting anti-trans oppression no matter where it comes from, and it's a fight we must win despite the long odds.

The trans kids growing up now are depending on their trans elders and our allies to handle our trans human rights business, and we can't afford to let them or our elders down.

We`are on the correct side of history while our opposition isn't.  The Axis of Trans Oppression is part of the same conservative movement who were on the losing side when it came to breaking away from Great Britain to found this nation, abolishing slavery, women's suffrage, women's rights, the African-American Civil Rights Movement, and gay rights.  They will lose when it cones to trans rights, and I have confidence I will live to see our inevitable victory.

So let me ask the question I posed earlier.  The Axis of Trans Oppression is attacking our community.  What are we gonna do to repel their attacks?   Stand up and fight back.

FIBA Conducts 2016 Rio Olympic Basketball Draw

We're getting closer to the start of the Olympics in Rio and the several weeks of competition that will happen during that multi week quadrennial sporting event eagerly anticipated by the sports fans of the world.

One of the team sports that matters to Americans is basketball, and right now the men's and women's teams are on a roll and are prohibitive favorites for the top step of the medal platform when the Rio Olympic basketball  tournament tips off on August 6 through August 21.

The USA women will be shooting (pun intended) for their sixth straight Olympic title since 1996, while the underachieving men's team will be vying for their third straight title.

We already know what group each team will be in because of the FIBA Olympic Draw Ceremony that took place at The House of Basketball FIBA headquarters in Switzerland back on March 11 even though the Women's and Men's Olympic Qualifying Tournaments haven't happened yet.




The FIBA Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament will take place in Nantes, France June 13-19 and will determine the last five women's Olympic basketball tournament spots among a dozen contenders.

The FIBA Men's Olympic Qualifying Tournament will take place at three sites, Belgrade, Turin, and Manila from July 4-10.to determine which eighteen contenders get the last three Olympic men's tournament spots.

The women's Olympic tournament will take place from August 6-20, and the defending Olympic champion USA will be in Group B.   Group A will consist of the number 5 WOQT team, Japan, Brazil, Australia, WOQT 3 and WOQT 1.

Group B on the women's side will consist of Canada, WOQT 4, USA, Senegal, Serbia and WOQT 2

The men's Olympic tournament will also start on August 6, with the gold medal match happening on August 21.  The USA men will be in Group A with the MOQT 1 winner, USA, Venezuela, MOQT 2, China and Australia.

Group B on the men's side is shaping up to be the 'Group of Death', and will consist of  Argentina, Spain, Brazil, Lithuania, MOQT 3 and Nigeria

Both tournaments will have a group phase in which they play the teams in their group.   Top four team advance to the knockout phase and what the eight survivors of group play hope will end up with them standing on the top step of the Olympic medal platforms.

But we will have to wait until this summer to find out how this basketball dram plays out.  

Shut Up Fool Awards- Jackie Robinson Day Edition

Today would normally be the deadline day for turning in your tax return forms to the IRS, but you have extended time to do so until the 18th.   It's also the GLSEN Day of Silence as noted in an earlier TransGriot post. .

But today is also the day in 1947 that Jackie Robinson broke into the major leagues with the Brooklyn Dodgers and broke baseball's color line.   Some historians consider it to be the second most import day in the history of the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

It was on his day Robinson opened the door for other non-white baseball players to follow in his spikes when he stepped on that Ebbets Field baseball diamond to begin a national league Rookie of the Year season..  A huge debt is owed to him for taking the racist abuse he did for future pro baseball players to be able to play without much of the unnecessary drama he endured.

Now that I've commented on this historic day, now let's get to what y'all normally surf the Web for to find out on this day.   You wanna know what fools, fools or group of fools struck out in the common sense department, ran afoul (pun intended) of the double play of ignorance and stupidity, and hit a home run of hypocrisy.

Time for this week's Shut Up Fool Awards.

I'm just cutting straight to the one that jumped out at me this week afer an avalanche of idits to numerous to wade through just to whittle it down to three honorable mention candidates.

This week's Shut Up Fool winner is North Carolina governor Pat McCrory (R).

After enduring a PR tsunami for blitzing the unjust HB 2 through the North Carolina General Assembly, seeing the deleterious effect on his state's economy,  saying their would be 'no economic consequences' for passing it, and blaming the Democrats for their phuck up, he then signs a meaningless executive order as a PR band-Air to 'fix the problems of the unjust law' and called for a dialogue on HB 2?

"What we need is dialogue, instead of threats. [...] I see at the national level with presidential politics, I see even with this issue with the threats and the letters and the boycotts—I don't see conversation. I don't even see people reading things before they threaten to boycott. Why don't we have a conversation?"

Really Governor?  The rest of North Carolina and the world is not as stupid as your base. The time to talk about HB 2 was when you North Carolina conservafools were trying to pass it over the objections of every sane person in the Tarheel State. But y'all didn't want dialogue then, you wanted a monologue and to stick it to Charlotte for passing a civil rights law that covered all its citizens.

Now that what everyone said would happen is coming to pass, you're trying to save yours and your party's political posteriors and your endangered political careers.  All you had to do was not pass that unjust bill, but you couldn't resist the temptation to be a GOP oppressor and put yourself in the history books with other oppressive anti-civil rights Southern governors like Orville Faubus, Ross Barnett. and George Wallace.

And you have no one to blame for you predicament than yourself.

Gov. Pat McCrory, shut up fool!

2016 GLSEN Day Of Silence Today

Today is the annual GLSEN Day of Silence, and it couldn't be coming at a more critical time in our nation's history with the spread of anti- trans and anti-BGL legislation pooing up in 16 states this year. .

The GLSEN Day of Silence is a student led national event from the middle school to the collegiate level that brings attention to anti-TBLG name calling, bullying and harassment in schools.

Students at those school levels take a vow of silence for the day to encourage classmates and school administrators to address the problem of anti-BTLG bullying and the silencing effect it has on LGBT students and those perceived to be GLBT.

It was started in 1996 at the University of Virginia by then student Maria Pulzetti as a response to a class assignment about non-violent protests.  150 UVA students took part in that inaugural day of Silence protest, and the next year it went national with over 100 colleges and universities participating in Day of Silence events. .

GLSEN became the official sponsor of the Day of Silence in 2001. Since them the Day of Silence has grown to become an international event with not only participation in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia, but registered student groups in New Zealand, Singapore and Russia.   Over 10,000 students every year have registered to be a part of Day of Silence events.

And it's plucking some right wing nerves, because these hate groups are taking the time to organize counter protests in opposition to the Day of Silence's anti-bullying message.

Typical of groups on the wrong side of human rights.

Hope this year's edition of the GLSEN Day of Silence is drama-free here and around the world.. .

TransGriot PervWatch- The Tennessee GOP Sexual Harasser

As we've noted on these electronic pages and elsewhere on the Net, there has been a GOP legislative attack on the trans community spread across several states in reaction to their pissivity over the Obergefell SCOTUS ruling.

In Tennessee, the attack on transpeople legislation has been co-sponsored by state Rep. Jeremy Durham (R-Franklin), who has pimped the debunked lie that cisgender men would 'pretend' to be transgender in order to gain access to the women's bathroom.

Well, it turns out that the Tennessee GOP would be better off passing laws to protect women from Rep Durham and his like minded harassers..

Rep. Durham, who is one of the co-sponsors of the unjust HB 2414 has been accused of harassing 34 women, and was declared by Attorney General Herbert Slatery III  (R) in a warning he issued after investigating the complaints to be "a continuing risk to unsuspecting women who are employed by or interact with the legislature.".  

"With few exceptions, the women who related incidents felt they could not report Representative Durham's behavior because nothing could be done and they didn't want to lose their jobs or be considered 'untrustworthy' by employers, clients or legislators," said AG Slatery

In response to the warning from the Attorney General,  Tennessee House Speaker Beth Harwell (R-Nashville) had the trans oppressor exiled from his office in the War Memorial Building, moved to the first floor of the Rachel Jackson Building and limited his access to the Legislative Plaza, the second floor of the state capitol building and those buildings for 'official legislative business only'.

Durham has resigned from his positions as the House majority whip and in the Republican legislative caucus, and will be the only legislator with an office in the Rachel Jackson Building.  There have been bipartisan calls for his resignation which he has ignored, so it will be up to his district to decide in November if they want to be continued to be represented by a sexual harasser.

But this is just another example of what we have been saying in Trans World.   Those who have been squawking the loudest in pushing for these unjust laws aimed at the trans community and repeating the lie about phantom trans sexual predators to get them passed have turned out to be as they are investigated the real sexual predators.  

The 2016 Olympic Women's Soccer Tournament Draw Today

We're getting closer to the start of the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, and in a few hours, the USA women's soccer team will know who will be in their respective group during the Olympic women's tournament that starts August 3 and concludes August 19.

The FIFA number one ranked world champion USA women will be competing for their third consecutive Olympic title, and the road to the title match at Maracana Stadium begins with the draw scheduled to start at 8 AM CDT at that same venue..  

The 12 women's teams will be split into three four nation groups, designated Groups E, F and G.   The host Brazilians are in Group E.   Depending on whether they get drawn into Group F or Group G,  if it is Group t, they would play their first two group games in Sao Paulo and their third group match in either Salvador or Brasilia.  If they end up in Group G, their first two group matches would be played in Belo Horizonte, with the third group match being played in either Manaus or Salvador.

They are also split into four pots,.based on the March 25 FIFA world rankings.  The host nation and the top two FIFA world ranked teams are placed in Pot 1.  Brazil as the hosts are already assigned to Group E in the A1 position, with the USA and Germany being the other teams assigned to Pot 1..

Pot 1: Brazil, USA Germany
Pot 2: France, Australia, Sweden
Pot 3: Canada, China PR, New Zealand
Pot 4:  Colombia, South Africa, Zimbabwe

The draw is set up so that you don't have two teams from the same FIFA confederation playing each other in the group stage.  That means that we wouldn't be placed in the same group with Canada because they are fellow CONCACAF members,  the Germans wouldn't be placed in a group with France or Sweden, and Brazil wouldn't be in the same group with Colombia.

Once the groups are set, when the competition starts, the two best teams in each group and the two best third place finishers will advance to the knockout stages.

We'll see what the USA road to Maracana and a third consecutive Olympic gold looks like in a few hours. .

TransGriot Update:  USA was drawn into Group G, and will be facing number 3 FIFA world ranked  France, New Zealand and Colombia 

Kobe Drops 60 In His NBA Finale

Dayum!  I had an inking after Kobe dropped 35 points on the Rockets Sunday at Toyota Center that he might have a nice final game at Staples Center versus the Utah Jazz, but nice doesn't even begin to describe what I just witnessed in this ESPN telecast of this final NBA game. .

After 20 years in the NBA, Kobe exited the league by summoning one last legendary performance for the ages by putting the team on his back and dropping 60 points on the Jazz to will the Los Angeles Lakers to a 101-96 win in the final game of his career.

Not gonna lie, there were moments because the Lakers were an impediment to my Rockets advancing to the NBA Finals for much of his career I didn't like him, but all was forgiven when he put on that USA jersey and was playing for Olympic gold.

And yeah, you gotta give him his props for a Hall of Fame quality career and an amazing night you wouldn't have believed if Hollywood had written this script.

Mamba out indeed.  And he said goodbye in the most spectacular way possible on a night in which was chock full of NBA history.

Candlelight Vigil For Shante & Willie Friday

As the Houston Police Department talks to trans woman Serenity Colquitt, who turned herself into the police yesterday afternoon in the Shante Thompson-Willie Sims murder case, the planning continues for an upcoming vigil Friday evening to honor the victims of this heinous crimes.

Some of the eight people who viciously attacked are trans themselves, and HPD detectives are seeking a person of interest in the Thompson-Willis case.  .

The vigil will take place at Houston City Hall starting at 6 PM, and in addition to honoring the memory of Shante and Willie, it will be a call to action to end anti-trans violence.

In addition to speakers, it will also have a moment of silence for the person we have lost so far in 2016 to anti-trans violence.

Hope you can make it to Houston City Hall Friday night for this event.

 

Houston Trans Woman Murdered

Been wondering how long it would take before all the anti-trans hate peddled during the HERO repeal last year by the Republican Party, Rev. Ed Young, Steve Riddle, Steven Hotze, Dave Wilson, and the Baptist Ministers Assn of Houston and Vicinity would start negatively affecting my community.

The answer was last night.

34 year old Shante Thompson and her friend Willie Sims were fatally shot and killed in Midtown Houston late last night at the corner of Dennis and Fannin Streets.  .It appears Thompson and Sims were hit with a crowbar or tire iron before being shot. According to a KHOU-11 report the motive for the killing is still under investigation.

The blood of Shante Thompson is on your hands Harris County GOP, Max Miller, Steve Riddle, and Ed Young.  Your faux faith based spreading of transphobia for political gain has finally manifested itself into the death of this trans woman.   You cannot spread anti-trans hatred as you did for years and think it won't have real world societal consequences.

And as you probably guessed, the initial news report on ABC-13 misgendered and deadnamed Thompson before it was corrected thanks to Nikki Araguz Loyd and other community allies calling them out about it.

Nikki Araguz Loyd

2 hrs · Houston · 

Another Trans woman named "Chante" was murdered last night in Houston..... And the media led with her dead name and then said known to friends as.....‪#‎ABC13‬

Hey ABC-13 and other Houston media outlets,  there is something you need to familiarize yourself with called the AP Stylebook.  It has had since 2001 guidelines on how the respectfully cover trans people.  So does GLAAD and the NLGJA.  But then again if you have been reading it from the beginning, we'd still have HERO on the books.

Ahem.  From the AP Stylebook:Transgender: Use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth. If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly.

And one other thing.  It's transgender person, not transgendered.

Thompson is now the seventh trans person we have lost to anti-trans violence in the US in 2016 and the third one  we have lost in Texas.   All the Texas trans people lost have unfortunately been trans people of color.

The opening stages of planning for a vigil  have started, and I'll pass on the time and date for that event once it's finalized.  Houston Police are still looking for the perpetrator of this killing and if you have any information about what happened that will lead to the capture of the person or persons who did this, please call Crimestoppers at 713-222-TIPS (8477)

As I get more information about Shante's murder, I'll pass it on to you in subsequent TransGriot post.

Rest in power and peace, sis.   We won't rest in H-town until your killer is captured and brought to justice.

I'm Exactly What God Wanted Me To Be

I find it humorous and aggravating at times when the GOP trans oppressors try to invoke Conservagod in their pathetic and misguided attempts to legislate hate and bigotry toward toward trans people.

I had a wonderful time yesterday speaking in front of a crowd at the Houston Trans Visibility Gathering at Hermann Park.  The trans kids and parents giving me props for being that fierce human rights warrior was a nice reminder of why we are fighting tooth and nail to make things for our trans kids better.

But since it's Sunday, I want to point out that trans people are part of the diverse mosaic of human life. We are God's children just like you right wing peeps blasphemously hiding behind the Bible claim you are, and will not tolerate your faux faith based attacks on our humanity. .

Trans people exist.  We are not 'rebelling against God' in the latest lie you tell your conservafool leaning sheeple, er congregations, we are joyfully living our lives.

We are living those lives exactly as God wanted us, and too bad if you don't like it.  Our trans lives are not up for theological debate or discussion. and we trans peeps are going to fiercely push back when you try to go there.

Far from being unhappy, the moment I transitioned 22 years ago last week, my life improved dramatically. I've been able to take part of some amazing events around the country inside and outside the trans community and while there, talk about the issues that impact us intersectionally.

I have been blessed with a media platform in which I get to express myself on a regular basis about whatever issues I can to discuss and thousands of people here and around the world read.

While I've had some challenges along the way getting acclimated to life in my trans feminine body, there are also amazing people I've met along the way I'm blessed to call my friends.   Could life be better?  Damn skippy it could, and it would be if you conservafools would stop gleefully oppressing us.

There are also people I get to talk to on a regular basis I probably wouldn't have met or had the opportunity to meet and get to know had I not become the person God wanted me to be and unblocked the blessings that have come into my life as a result.

But those are just my observations as part of the 22 years I've spent in our community..  If you interviewed other trans folks around the country and the world, I'd be willing to wager that the majority of the people you would talk to would also be for the most part satisfied with being our trans selves.

I'm exactly who and what God wanted me to be, and I'm looking forward to seeing what things are in store for me as I live my life as an unapologetic Texas Black trans woman.

Houston Trans Visibility Gathering Today

I'll be spending part of my Saturday afternoon participating in the Trans Visibility Gathering at Hermann Park in a few hours from 1-4 PM CDT.

The event was conceived and organized by Nathan Johnson, and some of the folks slated to be there besides some blogger y'all may have heard of are Becca Keo-Meier, Koomah, Dee Dee Watters, and Melissa Murry.

The Houston Trans Visibility Gathering will commence with a visibility march through Hermann Park from a starting location near the paddle boat dock, and once the march ends, the speeches by community leaders will begin along with performances by trans artists, and activities for kids at Miller Outdoor Theater's Hippie Hill. .

Once again, the Trans Visibility Gathering event starts at 1 PM, and attendees are advised to wear white t-shirts with trans related comments on it and bring sunscreen and bottled water.  We will meet near the paddle boat docks and the Hermann Park mini train station, and volunteers will be standing by in the various parking lots in the park to direct people to the starting point of the event.

Markers will also be provided for the t-shirts, and hope to see those of you who support our community and who live in the Houston metro area in attendance..  

Political Revolution Will Not Come From Voting Third Party

I have been amused by the calls for political revolution coming from supporters of one of the Democratic primary candidates, but they are barking up the wrong tree in order to make that happen.

You want a political revolution?  The answer to shaking up the American political system has been under your nose all along.  It's just some of you because of your dislike of the two party system refuse to see it.

Well folks, the two party system is the best we got right now, and it's what we have to work with.

To me, the answer to shaking up the system has been quite simple for years. It's not voting for the Greens or whatever third party du jour white leftists think is cool or trendy.  It's called bumrushing the polls in every election cycle in numbers above 45% of the electorate and voting from the top of the ticket all the way down to the end of it for Democrats.

Moni's Political Revolution calls for called kicking the Republicans out of power at all levels of government (federal, state, local and judicial) and putting the Democrats in power for at least 10 years at all levels of government to clean up the putrid political GOP mess   It's voting the entire ballot from the presidential race at the top of the ticket to the judicial and other local races at the bottom of it.

Hear me out first before you scoff at it.

It's painfully obvious we have a Republican Party that has made it clear over the last two decades they are goose stepping toward fascism and idiocracy.   The Green Party is not only not ready for political prime time, they aren't even close to major party status.  Neither do the Greens have the organization or the size necessary to take on the Herculean job of cleaning up our broken American political process to make it work for everybody.

Besides, how many times has Jill Stein unsuccessfully run for president?  Do you have a Green Party member in any state legislature?  The US House?  The US Senate?  Doesn't help is she has the positive platform but can't get elected or can't get other members of her party elected to help make it a policy reality

The Democrats do have the size, national organization and the ability to get the job done.  They just need the votes to get in power and stay there for at least a decade to accomplish the mission..

The other thing we don't have is the luxury of time.  The change we need must happen now, starting with this November 2016 election. 'Vote the person, not the party' sounds nice on a bumper sticker, but delusional in a political climate in which you have members of a political party gleefully eager to use their legislative and judicial power to oppress people.

So what good is a moderate or liberal leaning Republican if by their very election to office, their seat helps keep an ENTIRE unjust party in power in a legislative chamber so that the rest of that party's members as part of that legislative majority enacts policies and laws to oppress us?.

 And Democrats who aren't acting in progressive ways can be primary challenged or even better, if you don't see the candidate out there you'd like to vote for, run for office your damned self.  

I see the value in direct action protests.  But direct action protests don't mean jack if they aren't backed up by the power of the ballot.

Why do you think one of the major goals of the African-American Civil Rights Movement was getting the unfettered right to vote, and why do you think the Republicans have spent millions and passed unjust voter suppression laws in the states they control just to fight the power of our votes?
   
We have a critical election happening on November 8 which will be an all hands on deck affair.  People of color cannot afford white liberals pissed off that the rest of the party didn't see it that way on a Sanders nomination petulantly sitting it out.

It's also the personification of white privilege that you have the ability to think that way, much less are pondering acting on that misguided idea in the name of 'teaching the country a lesson'.

Well the last Republican administration came about because you wanted ideological purity instead of voting for Vice President Al Gore, and it cost us a SCOTUS liberal progressive majority plus the countless lives lost in the Iraq and Afghan wars. .

Non white voters and those of us in marginalized communities don't have that luxury.  It is imperative that we do the job correctly this November and get Democrats in office from the White House to judicial chairs to our state legislatures.

The political revolution will not come from voting third party.  It will come from never voting for Republicans again until they decide to join the rest of us political grownups in the US.  It's also getting the Democrats in power for another four to eight years and finishing the cleanup job that President Obama started.  

Trans Oppressors Goddam

Well, it has been a while since I have done one of my infamous song rewrites.

In light of all the anti-trans legislation that is breaking out like kudzu across the South and in other GOP run states, I finally got the idea to remix the lyrics of Nina Simone's classic protest song to fit the 2K16 political situation we trans folks now are witnessing and finding ourselves in.

So y'all know the drill.  Fire up your fave music program and sing along with Moni's remixed lyrics




Trans Oppressors Goddam
Sung to the tune of Mississippi Godddam by Nina Simone

The name of this tune is Trans Oppressors Goddam
And I mean every word of it

North Carolina's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

North Carolina's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

Can't you see it
I know you can feel it
It's all in the air
I can't stand the trans oppression much longer
Somebody say a prayer

North Carolina's gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi Goddam

This is a show tune
But the show hasn't been written for it, yet

Transphobic TERF assholes on my trail
Using the bathroom sends me to jail?
GOP impeding my human rights path
I think every day's gonna be my last

Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get freedom in due time
We belong here
We belong there
Justice and trans acceptance is my prayer

Don't tell me
I tell you
Trans people's freedom is overdue
I've been in the trenches so I know
Our GOP trans oppressors say "Hell no!"

Trans people are people
"Hell no"
Pass trans rights laws
"Hell no"
Respect our humanity
"Hell no"
You're a predator 
"Hell no"
You're no lady
"Hell no"
Your thinking's crazy
"Hell no"
Where am I going
What am I doing
I don't know
I don't know

Trans folks do your very best
Stand up be counted with all the rest
Everybody knows the trans oppressors Goddam

If you thought I was kiddin'

We won HERO
Got deceptively voted out
GOP claimed it's Mayor Parker's plot
All I want is equality
For my sister my brother my people and me

GOP lost gay marriage after all these years
Now you firing up anti-trans fears
Trans men are men, trans women are ladies
Your unjust legislation is quite shady

The GOP trans oppressors are full of lies
But as you tell them a trans person dies
Sick of this conservative political show
As you say to trans people "Hell no!"
"Hell no!"

Trans kids transitioning?
"Hell no"
Public accommodation
"Hell no"
Trans education
"Hell no"
Bathroom defecation
"Hell no"
It's my body
"Hell no"
Trans people attacked politically
"Hell no"
Why don't you see it
Why don't you feel it
I don't know
I don't know

You don't have to love me GOP
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about Mississippi
Everybody knows about  North Carolina
Everybody knows about  Trans Oppression Goddam

That's it!