The number of shows I put in the 'Must See Trans TV' category is rising with each passing year as it is acknowledged in Hollywood that trans people exist, and we have interesting and compelling stories to tell.
The next #MustSeeTransTV scripted show I am eagerly looking forward to watching is Pose on FX when it debuts June 3.
Pose is set in late 1980's New York City, a time in which the ballroom scene was beginning to blow up.
Executive producers Ryan Murphy, Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson began assembling the show in March 2017. It is also being produced by Janet Mock and Our Lady J, who will also be on the writing team with Murphy, Brad Falchuk and Steven Canals.
Leiomy Maldonado and Danielle Polanco will be choreographing the show's ballroom scenes.
Pose will also have the largest ever cast of TBLGQ characters to date for a television show.
After a six month nationwide search, it was announced that trans actors Angelica Ross, MJ Rodriguez, Indya Moore, Hallie Sahar and Dominique Jackson were cast along with cisgender actors Ryan Jamaal Swain, Billy Porter and Dyllan Burnside.
Evan Peters, Kate Mara, James Van Der Beek and Tatiana Maslany later joined the cast, but when the modern dance teacher for creative reasons was changed to an African American character, Maslany exited the production with Charlayne Woodard taking her place.
The pilot episode of Pose was filmed in October 2017, with the eight episode first season beginning production in February.
The trailer was finally released on April 12, and so looking forward to seeing my sis Angelica Ross on this show along with the other trans actors who are a part of the Pose cast.
Looks like the peeps who want the bigoted status quo to stay intact in Pearland are having a hard time dealing with the reality that their once sleepy little suburban town is a multicultural city of over 130,000 people.
With the city evolving to become a diverse metropolis, the political leadership of it at city hall and the school board need to reflect that reality.
Daniel Abdullah Hernandez is running for the Pearland ISD school board's Position 4 against incumbent Sean Murphy. That board is close to flipping to liberal-progressive control if the conservative faction controlling it now lose one or two more seats.
If that happens, PISD's homophobic and transphobic superintendent Dr. John Kelly is probably going to be one of the casualties since he is a polarizing figure there.
Hernandez has not only been critical of Pearland ISD's treatment of trans kid Kai Shappley, he has also been critical about the district's racial and fiscal problems.
Hernandez would also be the first Latinx person amd Muslim elected to the PISD board should he be successful in winning his race on May 5. Hernandez is also the imam at the Pearland Islamic Center.
Dalia Kasseb, who ran for the Pearland City Council last year, is making another run at a Pearland City Council seat. You'll remember that anti-Muslim rhetoric was deployed in her race last year in which she led all candidates in her race by getting 41% of the ballots cast.
Unfortunately that wasn't enough for her to win the seat outright on Election Day. Kasseb was forced into a runoff for that Position 7 seat that she unfortunately lost.
She does have two other challengers for the Position 4 seat in Sonny Atkins and Adrian Hernandez, and was endorsed by the Texas Democratic Party. Here's hoping that Kasseb is successful this time in making history, capturing the seat on the Pearland City Council that eluded her last year and does so in 2018 without a runoff.
If she does accomplish that feat, she would become the first Muslim to win a political race in Brazoria County in addition to becoming the first to win a Pearland city council seat.
But there are some peeps in Pearland who aren't liking the fact that since 2000, the town has grown more diverse. It is now 47% Anglo, 25% Latinx, 17% African American and 9% Asian.
While it's denied by city leaders, there is an increasing divide between the longtime conservative leaning residents and the more liberal progressive ones in the newer, more ethnically diverse suburbs west of FM 518. It's starting to play out in the city's politics.
A hidden camera recently caught an elderly white woman tearing down a Daniel Hernandez campaign sign. There was YouTube video of it happening, but of course it has been taken down in an attempt to protect the guilty party who didn't know she was on camera when she performed her nefarious deed.
Stealing, defacing, mutilating or willfully destroying a political yard sign on private property is a misdemeanor crime in Texas punishable by a $2500 fine, a year in jail or both.
The same thing is reportedly happening to Kasseb's yard signs according to one of my Pearland TransGriot readers.
Good luck to both Daniel Hernandez and Dalia Kasseb as they both seek to make electoral history in Pearland. Shame on the folks who are engaging in thuggish political behavior.
Early voting starts on April 23, so Pearland peeps, make your voices heard and beat back the election bigotry that is occuring once again in this city.
The bottom line is that Pearland is getting diverse, and the people who are seeing public office there will only continue to be more representative of the entire community, not less so
Today starts the zodiac period from April 20 to May 20 of all us proud members born under the sign of the Bull, AKA Taurus/
The long list of famous people born under this sign include Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Queen Elizabeth II, George Clooney, Stevie Wonder, Janet Jackson, Jessica Alba, Cher, George Lucas, Rosario Dawson, Jet Li, Carol Burnett, Mark Zuckerberg, and some award winning blogger y'all may have heard of.
But I know y'all didn't surf over here to read a post in which I pop my collar about all things Taurus.
I know it's Friday, and y'all wanna know who earned this week's Shut Up Fool Award.
So let's get to it.
This week's winner I'm going to the Mother Continent for in Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni
President Museveni claims the practice has been pushed on Ugandans by "outsiders," and argues that the mouth is solely for eating.
"Let me take this opportunity to warn our people publicly about the wrong practices indulged in and promoted by some of the outsiders," he told the press during an address.
"One of them is what they call oral sex. The mouth is for eating, not for sex. We know the address of sex, we know where sex is," he continued.
Yeah, right. You have 41.5 million people in your nation, and they are probably like the rest of the world laughing at your azz for even saying something that cluelessly stupid before they engage in consensual oral sex
You want to ban it because you probably aren't getting it on the regular.
After seven seasons and over 100 episodes, the last episode of one of my fave shows is happening tonight.
I've been a Scandal fan since the first episode in large part to my love of Kerry Washington . I also love well written scripted shows, and Scandal definitely fit that bill as being one of Shonda Rhimes' hit shows.
The Blackness of this show also appealed to me.
One of my favorite Scandal episodes is one in which her father Rowan has her repeat one of the lines that literally all Black children are told in this country as a way to deal with the anti-Blackness in this country.
'You have to be twice as good to get half of what they have."
The various season ending cliffhangers that gave us a WTF reaction and scrambled what we thought we knew about the Scandal universe combined with the Washington DC setting and the storylines that seem at times ripped from the headlines.
But after seven years, Scandal is being broadcast for the last time tonight, and Thursday nights won't be the same for me when it ends.
DC Council member Charles Allen (D-Ward 6) introduced the measure in large part because he was impressed by the recent March For Our Lives in DC and the ongoing eloquence of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas students.
The proposed voting age change has majority support on the DC council (7 members out of 13), and will probably pass if it comes to a vote.
But why stop in DC? Let's lower the voting age to 16 across the United States. 16 year olds in many cases are more cognizant of the issues that affect them than their elders twice or three times their age in many cases.
The youngest member of our Houston Mayor's LGBT Advisory Board, Lily Pando, was just 16 years old when she was tapped to join it when it was formed two years ago. It wasn't a publicity stunt because she is an intelligent young woman and one of our rising star young leaders here in Houston. When Lily speaks, we elders listen.
It's not unusual for me to see our TBLGQ World teens leading the charge for the expansion of trans (and everybody's) human rights and being eloquent voices for other policy issues of concern to them.
If you think I'm kidding about that, does Jazz Jennings ring a bell?
It also hasn't surprised me that the MSD students in the wake of the mass shooting on their campus have been kicking butt and have the NRA, the Republican Party and right wing media on the defensive.
I was 14 when Jimmy Carter got elected POTUS. I would have loved to have been able to vote in that 1976 presidential election instead of holding up a sign and marching through my neighborhood with several other kids imploring people to vote for him.
I turned 16 in 1978. Had I been eligible to do so, I definitely would have done my part to keep Bill Clements out of the Texas governor's chair. One of my presents I received for my 18th birthday in 1980 was a voter registration card.
If 16 year olds can drive, be tried as adults for any serious crimes they commit, and work jobs in which their wages can be taxed, then why shouldn't those same 16 year olds have a say in who runs the government?
It's also a good idea for democracy. The earlier you get someone to start consistently voting, the more it becomes a lifelong practice.
So yes, I'm down with 16 year olds voting, and the sooner we pass this policy change, the better. .
TransGriot Note: In the interests of journalistic integrity, I sit on the board of the Trans United Fund.
As you know, I do a lot of writing through my blog, TransGriot (which just won a GLAAD Media Award, making history as the first time a trans person has won for Best Blog!) But what you may not know is that I'm a Board Member and key leader in Trans United Fund, a trans-led organization working to build political power for trans and nonbinary people across the country.
One of the main ways we build this power is electing transformative trans leaders. We are decisive in electing trans leaders because when we do that, there are more trans people who see ourselves reflected in leadership, and more people of our communities who believe they can run. When they do run, they come to Trans United Fund as the go-to organization for help in their races, and we need the resources to help them win.
Will you stand up and help build political power that our communities need with me and Trans United Fund? Whether it's in your budget to give $15 or$150, every dollar makes a difference in the lives of trans people like me, and our ability to join the decision making tables where decisions about us are made. Nothing about us, without us!
In this environment, with a presidential administration which is actively hostile towards trans people, it is crucial that we elect trans folks to public office at all levels of government. It is critical to elect trans people to office not only to defend against the attacks of the opposition but to advance our interests, rights, and needs in decision making bodies at the local, state and national level..
As a trans-led, trans-run organization, run by a majority of trans people of color like myself, Trans United Fund has proven that we have the best interests of trans people at heart. We are actively working to build political power across the country by building a diverse coalition of leaders across different identities, experiences, and backgrounds.
And that's exactly the group we need leading this charge to make change right now.
Join us and our work and pitch in now: we can go so much farther together.
One of the things I get to celebrate on my upcoming Cuatro de Mayo birthday besides getting another year older is the return of the Netflix television show Dear White People for its second season.
The show stars Logan Browning from VH1's Hit The Floor as Samantha White, and she's back behind the Winchester University radio mic to critique along with her Black classmates at this PWI all the things the see on and off campus from their eyes.
In season two's ten episodes they will tackle the alt-right white supremacists, do battle with online trolls and dealing with integration of their previously all Black dorm
Will we see more 'Defamation', the show's parody of Scandal? Good question.
While I was in my Vegas hotel room, was surprised to see this AM Joy interview with Michael 'Killer Mike' Render.
I definitely had a problem with him appearing on NRA-TV and making the loud and wrong comment that 'Wakanda Had Guns' along with him being there with an anti-Black org in the first place.
Dude, go watch Black Panther again
Anyway, here's the interview for those of you who missed ir.
The Texas Log Cabin Sellouts Republicans must feel like Charlie Brown at this point when he tries to kick a football that Lucy is holding.
But like Charlie Brown's failed attempts to kick that football, the Texas Log Cabin Republicans keep trying and failing .
What they keep failing at is having a booth at the Texas Republican State Convention. For the last 20 years they have tried to get that booth, while other GOP party affinity groups get theirs with no problem .The Texas Log Cabin Sellouts keep getting kicked in the teeth and smiling after it happens for the whole world to see.
This time the State Republican Executive Committee debated for two hours before they came up with the inevitable no. While they had some supporters, they were dwarfed by the faux faith based TBLGQ bigots in the room
As y'all know, I'm here in Las Vegas to do a political training conducted by the Working Families Party, and it's been an interesting one so far.
I'm here as the NHL playoffs are happening, and it's all about the Vegas Golden Knights, the NHL expansion club that won the Pacific Division in their inaugural season and are know locked ina playoff series against the Los Angeles Kings.
LA is a mere 263 miles down I-15 from Las Vegas, so this playoff series is already intense because no matter what the sport, everybody wants to Beat LA in it .
I have something else I'm doing in town besides watching hockey or heading to the casino. This is a business trip, and I'm here for the Working Families Party Spring School and get my learn on.
It's also Friday and that means I have to conduct my usual TransGriot business of calling out a fool, for group of fools out.
This week's Shut Up Fool winner is Taylor Swift
As a longtime Earth Wind and Fire fan, I was ready to regurgitate my breakfast when Swift tried it and Pat Booned a classic song that probably has Maurice White spinning in his grave because she did so.
What possessed her to even do so?
This is the original for those of you who aren't aware of it or have been in isolation for the last 40 years.
I'll spare you Swift's WTF version of September.
Umm Taylor, stay in your lane, because you damned sure didn't have the chops to 'sang' (not sing) this iconic in Black America song.
And naw, boo boo kitty, don't think Moni or Black America forgot you remained mute when the opportunity to call out her alt-right white supremacist fanbase presented itself/
Taylor Swift, shut up fool, and never desecrate one of our seminal songs with you alleged singing ever again.
The GLAAD Media Awards were held in Los Angeles last night, and was surprised to learn from Fiona Dawson that my third nomination for Outstanding Blog was finally the charm and that I've won the 2018 Outstanding Blog award.
Thanks to all of you who have congratulated me (and they are still rolling in as I write this) for the win in a category that had several wonderful and equally deserving winners.
But I'm happy it was finally me. With the win I made a little history. TransGriot is the first trans owned and operated blog to win in this category!
Thanks GLAAD for bestowing me with this honor and honoring the hard work I put into it since January 2006 to make it a go to source for news and commentary about the trans community and other subjects I enjoy commenting about
My first trip outside of Texas takes me to Las Vegas, and the landing was a little more exciting that I wanted, but I'm here in one piece until Sunday. It's also the first time I've ever spent time in Clark County, NV besides transiting the airport.
But it's not a vacation, it's actually a business trip. I'm here for the Working Families Party Spring School along with some of my colleagues from Trans United Fund.
In case you're wondering who and what is that group, the Working Families Party is a progressive organization founded in New York in 1998 by a coalition of labor unions, civic organizations, and advocacy groups.
They are a growing progressive organization dedicated to fighting for an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1% billionaires and a democracy in which every voice matters. Working Families now has chapters in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Washington DC
The policies they are pushing for are a livable wage, affordable housing, raising the minimum wage, universal single payer health care, better public schools, and more investment in public services.
This Spring School is a multi day training that is happening here, and it's going to be interesting to see what other persons and organizations are here and what transpires over the next few days until I head back to the Lone Star State.
My first trip outside of Texas in 2018 is also to a place that I'm visiting for the first time in Las Vegas, Nevada. It also comes with a large slice of deja vu attached to it.
I get to travel out of IAH on United. I get to not only see my former coworkers who haven't retired yet, I also get to walk through Terminal C and E exactly one week after my transiversary.
When I made my first trip to Portland, Oregon back in 1996, we hadn't started non-stop trips to PDX yet, so I had the options of either flying to Las Vegas, Phoenix or San Francisco on Continental, then fly an America West flight up there from whichever of those airports I chose up to PDX and back and back. We has a code share and pass agreement with America West at the time, so it wasn't going to cost me more than the standard pass charges no matter which way I went.
I decided to go through Las Vegas. I had a 45 minute layover, and I knew about the slot machines in the McCarran International terminal waiting to relieve you of more cash. I had every intention of sitting there, exercising my Taurean willpower and resisting the temptation to play until my flight boarded.
That only lasted 10 minutes, so I ended up playing one of the nearby quarter slot machines.
$1.75 of playing later I hit it for $25 dollars just as it was time for me to board my America West flight to Portland, so I was forced to grab my money and go.
My luck was even better on the America West flight. The head flight attendant on this trip was one I helped non- rev on one of my CAL flights two weeks earlier. She raved to her crewmates about the service I'd provided for her at my gate, and was determined to return the favor. Her America West crew spoiled me rotten on that flight to Portland even though I was in the back with a row to myself. On the way back to IAH I had a much longer layover in Vegas for my Continental redeye back to Houston, so once again I killed some time by playing the airport quarter slot machines.
It only took me only $1.25 of play this time to hit for a $15 payday. I immediately quit while I was ahead of the game and took my winnings to grab something to eat in the airport food court before it was time to board my plane back home.
It took 21 years, but this time I get to leave the airport and stay in the city for the first time. It had always been on my domestic trip bucket list, but never got the opportunity to take it as an employee.
Now I get to go to Vegas for a multiday training and also stay in a hotel on the famed Las Vegas Strip. I also have two cousins who live there that hopefully I'll get some quality time with before I have to come back to Texas on Sunday
One of the things I've noticed is that i have a lot of people in my social circles who are social workers. Many of them went to school or graduated from the UH Graduate College of Social Work, and I've gotten to know its dean Alan Dettlaff from my with him time on the Houston Mayor's LGBT Advisory Board
The UH Graduate College of Social Work gets to well deservedly pop its collar over the fact that it was just named one of the top 25 Social Work colleges in the nation!
It jumped fifteen spots to now be ranked at number 24, and congrats to Dean Dettlaff and his team for their hard work to get it there. I also like the fact that the UH GCSW has a social justice mission as part of its vision statement.
Today I get to spend a few hours chilling with them at their annual scholarship luncheon, and their guest speaker for it is an old friend of mine in Laverne Cox.
Some awards will also be given out during this luncheon as well .
Yes, I know her. Met her during a 2012 OUT on the Hill when she was the moderator for that all Black trans feminine panel I was on with Rev Carmarion Anderson, Danielle King and Valerie Spencer.
Back to the post.
The 2018 UH GCSW Scholarship Luncheon is being held starting at 11:30 AM CDT at the Post Oak Hotel in Uptown Houston (AKA the Galleria area).
The 30 story hotel owned by billionaire UH Board of Regents chair Tilman Fertitta is so swanky it has its own Rolls Royce showroom.
I get a chance to check it out, or at least the conference center ballroom part of it today, and see a few friends in the process.
One of the things that alarmed me as a newbie activist 20 years ago was hearing the results of transgender needs assessment surveys don in Washington DC, San Francisco and Los Angeles that revealed that large contingents of the respondents surveyed were HIV positive.
Those alarming needs assessment results in the late 90's early 2000's woke people up to the reality that HIV had a transgender face and was another problem we needed to tackle.
National Transgender HIV Testing Day started in 2016 as an initiative of the CDC and the Center For Excellence in Transgender Health at UC San Francisco.
Transgender and gender variant communities had high HIV infection rates. In many cases people didn't know their status, thus helping to spread the virus in our community and with others they came in contact with either by unprotected sex, sharing hormone shots or silicone pumping needles .
National Transgender HIV Testing Day (NTHTD) is a day set aside to recognize the importance of HIV testing and increasing awareness and focus on HIV prevention and treatment efforts among transgender and gender non-binary people.
HIV testing can be an effective prevention tool that actively engages trans people in supporting sexual health and wellness while empowering us to make informed health choices that will help improve our lives. HIV testing among trans populations also allows health care providers to identify those who are HIV positive and to begin treatment efforts sooner, leading to better health outcomes and reduced possibility of HIV transmission.
Many organizations that serve trans population will have local testing events, so there should be a local organization doing an NTHTD testing event near you.
So on April 18 do yourself a favor and get tested so you can know your status, and make some future informed healthcare decisions based on that.knowledge.
You TransGriot readers have been asking me from time to time when was I going to do more video?
Thanks to the folks at Koncept Kit, your wish has come true!
I'm now doing a show called TransGriot Weekly with Monica Roberts in which I talk about trans and other news issues locally, in Texas, the US and internationally.
Like the blog, I'll also comment about things that grab my attention, and yes, I'll do a Video Shut Up Fool Award on a biweekly basis.
And as the show grows and evolves, I'll look at along with the production team at doing interviews as well.
I'm now six weeks into it, and it has been an interesting experience going from writing about the news to choosing what stories need to go on the air to talk about and delivering them with a camera rolling.
The best part is I'm having a lot of fun doing so..
You can find the show's Facebook page, like it abd check out the video episodes I've done so far at this link.
And yes, once you've seen them, share them as well.
"I know sex work to be work. It's not something I need to tiptoe around. It's not a radical statement, it's a fact."
-Janet Mock
In the wake of the passage of SESTA, the Stop Enablings Sex Traffickers Act on a 97-2 vote by the Senate, one of the consequences of its passage and expected signature into law by 45 is that several
websites that our trans community who are sex workers depend on to pay their bills, shut down or took down those sections of their websites to avoid potential lawsuit from sex trafficking victims. .
And I wasn't happy when I heard as a result some sanctimonious comments from the trans peanut gallery cheering that while saying those folks need to 'get a real job'.
As Janet and others have repeatedly stated, and I agree with that sentiment, sex work is work.
Your trans family doing sex work to survive is STILL your trans family, and I'm not liking the sanctimonious comments coming from some peeps on the Net that they 'need to get a real job'.
What makes you think these folks haven't tried that? Anti-trans discrimination in employment is real, even in TBLGQ World If you think I'm kidding about that, check the 2015 US Trans Survey and look at the unemployment statistics.
If you don't like the fact some trans folks have to do that to live and pay bills, I have a suggestion for you. The next time a lobby day is held in your locale, get off your azz, go to your state capitol and lobby your legislators to pass non-discrimination bills that prohibit discrimination against transgender and gender variant people.
Implore businesses and organizations to hire qualified trans people. If you're a big baller and shot caller and have influence on hiring decisions, suggest that the folks making hiring decision add trans people to their mix of diverse candidates for open job positions.What we will not do today or at any time in the future is shame other trans people who are engaged in sex work to pay the bills.
You want to get your jollies shaming and screaming at someone, do it at the politicians who refuse to pass non discrimination laws that cover gender identity discrimination so they CAN if they wish to do so get and keep the 'real jobs' you screech about.
TransWorld, we don't need to be bashing other trans folks in our community ranks. They get enough of that from the Republican Party, TERF's, the conservafool media and white fundamentalists
I repeat, the folks who engage in sex work are still and will always be your trans family and deserve your respect and empathy, not derision. Save that derision for the people who gleefully oppress us.
So TransWorld, stop bashing trans sex workers who are simply trying to live their lives to the best of their ability.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/51689909/10544364_10153198751317871_193183040038995001_n.1478313256.jpg)
