The school year gets started for ten Houston area school districts including the Alief one I now live in tomorrow. But the events in Achille, OK have me thinking about our trans kids getting ready to start school either tomorrow or over the next few weeks.
And Maddie, you and your family are in our collective thoughts as you start the school year in Achille today. We hope it gets much better for you as the year continues and those transphobic adults are punished.
It also has me pissed about the move Secretary of Miseducation Betsy DeVos pulled in which they announced back in February they would not be acting on bathroom discrimination complaints filed by transgender students
But back to discussing this school year that is about to start.
Trans kids, your Aunt Monica wants you to know that you are not only loved by me and your trans elders, we will fight with every fiber of our beings for your humanity and your human rights. We will also fight for your most important right of getting a quality education free from harassment by you fellow students or their transphobic parents
We will also fight tooth and nail for those of you who wish to participate in extracurricular activities so that those of you who have the ability and talent to excel in sports can do so.
So run for class president. Try out for whatever team you wish. Run for homecoming or prom king and queen Run for cheerleader. because we trans elders and our accomplices will be solidly in your corner rooting for your success.
We know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you are left alone to handle your education business, you will excel and thrive because you are #TransExcellence personified.
Also keep in mind that standing up for you trans selves can also lead to human rights advances for our entire community.
While we are in a tough environment to grown up trans, we have gone through far worse periods in our history as trans people and survived it. This Trump misadministration will eventually go away as you elder work to make him a one termer. Also keep in mind that your best revenge against the folks who hate you is to hold your head up high, be unapologetically proud of being trans, and be better students and human beings than they are.
As this 2018-19 school year begins, I'm looking forward to seeing and writing about the historic trails you will blaze over the next few months that inspire me to work harder to be a better role model for you.
No matter what happens in this 2018-19 school year, know that we unconditionally love you and are rooting for your scholastic success. Your trans elders and I also hope you have a school year as wonderful and fabulous as we know you trans kids all are, whether you're starting pre-K, elementary school, middle school, high school, college or graduate school.
Have a wonderful 2018-19 school year, trans family.
There's a special election happening in South Carolina today that will also get my undivided attention when the polls close this evening.
Dayna Smith is running for the SC State Senate District 20 seat that covers Lexington and Richland counties and the cities of Columbia, Irmo, Lake Murray, Seven Oaks and St. Andrews.
The special election is happening because longtime state Senator John Courson (R) resigned and vacated the seat after pleading guilty to official misconduct in June. The seat has been held by the GOP since 1984, and South Carolina has a 28-18 GOP state Senate majority that the SC Democrats would love to begin the process of flipping by flipping this senate seat..
Smith is one of three Democrats competing for the seat, and faces off against Dick Harpootlian, the former chair of the South Carolina Democratic Party and Kyle Lacio for the Democratic nomination.
Four Republicans are running in their primary.
If no one gets over 50% in their primary, there will be a runoff election scheduled for August 28. The primary winners will face off in the November 6 general election for the District 20 seat .
Good luck to Dayna and hope she makes some South Carolina political history later tonight.
Four primary elections are happening today in the states of Connecticut, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Vermont. In addition to seeing what transpires in some races key to who holds control of the US House and Senate, the American trans community's eyes will be on Vermont as another trans candidate attempts to make electoral history.
Back in 2000, the late Karen Kerin made history in the state by winning the Republican nomination for Vermont's US House seat. She subsequently got blown out in the general election by Bernie Sanders.
A conservative who was a perennial candidate in the Green Mountain State, Kerin was also the 2008 Republican candidate for attorney general, and lost Republican primary election races for the US House in 2002 and for attorney general in 2006.
In her last race in 2010, Kerin was making her second run as a Libertarian candidate for Vermont attorney general. She had previously run as a Libertarian for attorney general in the 2004 election cycle
Kerin passed away in 2014 at age 69.
Now as we fast forward to this crucial 2018 election cycle, another Vermont trans person in 62 year old Christine Hallquist has stepped up to run in the Vermont Democratic Party primary race for governor.
Her platform includes Medicare For All, access to better education and more high wage jobs.
The former energy executive is running against three other candidates in James Ehlers, Brenda Sigel and 14 year old high school student Ethan Sonneborn.
Sonneborn is eligible because Vermont does not require candidates to be of voting age.
If Hallquist wins the nomination, she would make electoral history on two fronts by becoming the first out trans person in the Green Mountain State to win a Democratic primary for any office.
She would also become the first out trans person nationally to win a major party nomination for governor
She would also take on the winner of the Republican gubernatorial primary race between incumbent Governor Phil Scott and Keith Stern.
Early voting has already occurred in Vermont, so it will be interesting to see what transpires when the polls close later this evening.
TransGriot Update: Hallquist did make history! She won the Democratic primary, and will take on the incumbent Republican governor Phil Scott in the fall.
On November 6 when the nation will be in breathless anticipation of whether the Democrats or Republicans have control of the US House and Senate, trans people's eyes will be nervously cast at Massachusetts to see whether the human rights law protecting the Massachusetts trans community stays in place or is repealed.
The Massachusetts legislature passed in 2016 a law that extended public accommodations protections to its transgender citizens and prohibited discrimination against them.
Predictably, the transphobic bigots formed Keep MA Safe, and successfully fought to get a referendum on the 2018 ballot, called Question 3, that would eradicate those protections.
And as they've done in Houston and elsewhere, the transphobes are peddling the debunked bathroom predator lie to make sure that the NO votes on Question 3 carry the November 6 day.
Once again, the human rights of trans people are on an election ballot, but this time it's in the blue state of Massachusetts. I and a lot of people outside of the state are concerned about this referendum because if they transphobes are successful in killing this Massachusetts trans rights bill, it could set off a wave of anti-trans referendums just in time for the 2020 presidential election.
And those concerns are shared by our allies and my fellow trans elders who are keenly aware of the Bay State's anti-trans past.
Knowing that historically Massachusetts has been the home of transphobic TERF's for decades like Janice Raymond and Elizabeth Hungerford, and former US Rep. Barney Frank opposed trans inclusion in ENDA by pushing in the 90's and 2000's the transphobic 'penis in showers' argument, we know there's a possibility that the NO votes could prevail and roll back the human rights of our trans cousins living there with unpleasant repercussions for the rest of transkind in the US.
A WBUR poll conducted back in May was equally disturbing, showing that only 52% of Massachusetts resident were in favor of keeping the trans rights law versus 38% of Massachusetts residents who favored getting rid of it.
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Massachusetts will be a trans political battleground as we get closer to Election Day, and that's why the bipartisan Freedom For All Massachusetts coalition started back in May.
They are hard at work to ensure that we hear good news from the Bay State on November 6.
And while it's wonderful a broad based coalition of business community, women's groups, law enforcement, supportive legislators, organizations and trans people and their families has been assembled, and Bay State transpeople are feeling somewhat confident that their fellow citizens will support them when the time comes, the reality is this election is taking place during a time in which our human rights and humanity are under daily attack by the Trump misadministration, its Department of Injustice Justice, the TERF's and right wing fundamentalists.
The only support that matters is in the voting booth on November 6. That's why Trans World will be nervously watching the election results from Massachusetts on that date..
Because once again, trans people's human rights are on the ballot, and it's a must win election for us.
If I need any more incentive to push harder to pass hate crimes and nondiscrimination legislation that protects trans people, I need to look no further than north of the Red River into Oklahoma
This disgusting series of Facebook posts came to light from Oklahoma courtesy of the Hate Trackers website . Burney and Jamie Crenshaw in the Achille ISD parents group began ranting about a 12 year old trans girl attending school in the district just north of the Texas-Oklahoma border. It didn't take long for the Facebook posts to dive into the transphobia ignorance and dehumanizing trans hate speech sewer.
And nope, these aren't the trans child's peers. They are adults.
One post by Kevin Bickerstaff advocated encouraging Achille ISD students to violently attack the trans girl in question until she is too afraid and traumatized to come to school.
"Just tell kids to kick ass in the bathroom and it won't want to come back," wrote Bickerstaff in his FB post.
Eddie Belcher, who has alleged white supremacist ties, advocated cutting the trans child's genitals.
"If he wants to be female, make him female. A good sharp knife will do the trick," wrote Belcher.
The conspirators also advocated in those trans hate posts coming to subsequent Achille ISD board meetings to demand they take action against the pre-teen trans student.
Gee, wonder if they will be bringing pitchforks and tiki torches to those Achille ISD meetings as well?
The disturbing posts also got the attention of trans parents groups, the Oklahoma media, the Achille ISD and our TBLGIQ accomplices. Meanwhile in reaction to the violent transphobes, the parents of the trans girl sought an emergency protective order on August 10 against Crenshaw.
Achille ISD took down the transphobic posts from their Facebook page, and it does have an anti-bullying policy Wonder what Achille ISD superintendent Rick Beene thinks about it and these violent parents wishing to harm a trans child?
Hopefully they have also gotten the attention of law enforcement officials in Oklahoma.
Oklahoma was one of the Republican controlled states in which the legislature pushed for anti-trans hate legislation that fortunately failed.
What happened in Achille is a salient example of anti-trans rhetoric being peddled by the TERF's, the conservative movement, white fundamentalists, right wing media and the GOP for political advantage now filtering down to the unwashed rural Trump loving masses and having negative impacts on the real lives of transgender people.
Anti-trans hate thoughts + anti-trans hate speech = anti-trans hate violence/murders. You hatemongers are aiming that rhetoric against trans children and it needs to stop.
I repeat, stop it now before it gets to the violence and murder result of the Equation of Trans Hate.
The Miss Puerto Rico Universe is one of the most competitive pageantry titles on the island. It also has since 1970 produced five Miss Universe winners in Marisol Malaret, Deborah Carthy-Deu (1985), Dayanara Torres (1993), Denise Quinones (2001) and Zulekya Rivera (2006).
While the Miss Universe pageantry system since 2013 has allowed trans women to compete, Puerto Rico along with Venezuela, the Philippines and surprisingly Thailand have been among the holdout organizations among the perennial Miss Universe contender nations barring trans women from competing.
But in the wake of a t positive federal court decision earlier this year from US District Judge Carmen Consuelo Cerezo that allows trans Puerto Ricans to update their gender markers, and Angela Ponce's breakthrough win in the Miss Universe Spain pageant, that's changing.
Quinones, took over as the new Miss Puerto Rico Universe pageant director in March and has long been an advocate for trans women being allowed to compete.
She announced during a pageant registration event taking place on the same day that trans Puerto Ricans were allowed to change their gender markers, that trans women would be allowed to compete in the Miss Puerto Rico Universe pageant starting in 2019.
Like other contestants, trans Puerto Ricans who are ages 18-27, have changed their documentation and wish to compete in the pageant either must be born on the island, have one parent who is Puerto Rican or ha lived on the island for 10 years or more, will be allowed to compete for the title.
We'll have to wait until 2019 to see if any trans contestants enter Miss Puerto Rico Universe. Time will tell if there will be a trans Miss Puerto Rico that wins the title, and goes on to compete at Miss Universe and bring another crown back to the island.
As someone who writes for a living, I have been appalled at the Trump misadministration repeatedly attacks journalists. He has gone as far to call them 'The Enemy of the People'
The problem with that dangerous rhetoric is twofold. A free press is essential to a democracy.
The other problem is that his knuckle dragging lemmings will potentially take that rhetoric to heart and go beyond simply yelling at journalists they don't like and start physically attacking or killing them as was recently done in Maryland at the Capital Gazette.
At their national board meeting in the wake of the just concluded National Association of Black Journalists convention and Career Fair in Detroit, the NABJ Board of Directors unanimously approved the following resolution condemning Trump's attacks on the media
At the national board meeting following the NABJ Convention & Career Fair in Detroit, the board approved the following resolution:
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"Whereas President Trump or his aides have excluded a reporter from a White House briefing for asking unwanted questions;
Whereas President Trump has suggested taking away journalists' press credentials because of perceived negative coverage;
Whereas President Trump has repeatedly and unjustly labeled much of the news media as "fake news";
Whereas President Trump has called the news media "very unpatriotic";
Whereas President Trump has described journalists as the "enemy of the people";
Whereas supporting and protecting journalists is consistent with the National Association of Black Journalists, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that takes no position on governmental policies and programs;
Therefore, the National Association of Black Journalists rejects and condemns any statement and action by President Trump and his administration that are detrimental to freedom of the press."
***
The NABJ's 43rd annual convention drew over 3000 journalists, media professionals, students and thought leaders attendees to the Motor City from August 1-5.
I hope I can make it to next year's convention in Miami, and if I can't, I definitely want to be in DC for the joint NABJ-NAHJ one in 2020. The NABJ Convention is coming to me in Houston in 2021.
Back to the post.
In addition, the NABJ Board discussed conducting a study on Trump and the media, and reporting the findings by the 2019 NABJ convention in Miami. NABJ is interested in hearing from organizations, educational institutions, individuals and entities that may be interested in partnering with them on this study.
The Hawaii primary election is taking place today, and one of the races I have my eye on in the Aloha State is the lieutenant governor's one.
Current Lt Governor Doug Chin (D) decided to run for the 1st Congressional seat being vacated by Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D), who decided to primary challenge incumbent Gov. David Ige (D).
Kim Coco Iwamoto, who served two terms on the Hawaii State Board of Education in 2006 and 2010 and was subsequently appointed to the Hawaii Human Rights Commission, is running in this crowded five candidate Democratic primary race for Lt. Governor.
She has been surging in the latest polls, but will she get enough support from Aloha State voters to win this statewide race and the Democratic lieutenant governor's nomination?
She has been endorsed by one of the major labor unions in Hawaii and Trans United Fund
If she does, she'll get one step closer to making more electoral history by becoming the first out trans person to win a major party lieutenant governor primary in the US.
However, we won't find out the results of today's Hawaii primary election until all the ballots are cast, counted and the totals revealed in the early morning hours of Sunday our time.
You know I'm hoping for that trans electoral history to happens for her.
This Sunday marks the first anniversary of the hate rally in Charlottesville, VA that led the the death of Heather Heyer and others being injured when a Nazi deliberately drove his car into a crowd of people.
And what was Dolt 45's response? The Nazis are 'very fine people.' Yeah, right.
Now the emboldened white supremacists are taking their hate speech to Washington DC's Lafayette Park for another 'Unite The Right' hate rally
Ugh.
Let's get to this week's fools, shall we?
Honorable mention number one is Donald Trump for just pick an idiotic statement
Honorable mention number two is Rudy Giuliani for continuing to be a fool for Trump and attempt to do his part to trash the Mueller investigation
Honorable mention number three is Laura Ingraham for making another racist comment on her show
Honorable mention number four is a group award for every racist idiot who participates in this hate rally at Lafayette Park keynoted by David Duke.
Honorable mention number five is Rep Devin Nunes for attending a fundraiser for embattled Rep cathy mcMorris Rodgers and being recorded confirming what every American paying attention is aware of in terms of the GOP is abdicating their oversight authority on the executive branch in order to protect Dolt 45
This week's SUF loser winner is Pastor John Gray.
This kneegrow is doing his best Uncle Ruckus impression by continuing to try to justify cooning it up with Trump at that WH meeting in which another kneegrow pastor laughing claimed that Trump is the 'most pro Black president ever by blasphemously claiming that meeting with Trump is equivalent to meeting with Jesus.
Really fool? It's time for you to have a come to Jesus meeting with the Black community.
This kind of crap is why young people are turning away from the church, because of shady characters like you who spend more time sucking up to power than speaking truth to it.
Sir Lady Java was one of our trans pioneers and elders who worked with Lena Horne, Redd Foxx and others as the premiere female illusionist of the 60s and 70's.
Lady Java is still with is. She's living in Los Angeles these days and now doing interviews talking about her life and 'her people' as she calls girls like us.
The white supremacists are coming to Washington DC's Lafayette Park on August 12 to celebrate the one year anniversary of their 'Unite The Right' Rally in Charlottesville, VA.
As you are aware of, many of DC's 700,000 residents are Black and not feeling the Klan affiliated hatemongers coming to town. You can count DC Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) as one of the many people who aren't feeling this march.
"We have people coming to our city for the sole purpose of spewing hate," Mayor Bowser said. "We denounce hate, we denounce anti-Semitism, and we denounce the rhetoric we expect to hear this Sunday."
One of the things that was suggested for security purposes was to give the Klan affiliated hatemongers a special WMATA subway train comprised of three rail cars to transport them from their assembly point near the Vienna, VA station to the Foggy Bottom-GWU station. The haters would be subsequently escorted by police from that station to the Lafayette Park rally site.
The proposal was made by WMATA officials as a way to avoid a repeat of the violent confrontations that happened in Charlottesville.
That plan got derailed (pun intended) quickly when the Amalgamated Transit Workers Union Local 689 declared in a statement their members would refuse to drive those trains. They correctly felt it would give special treatment to hate groups and a courtesy that hasn't been extended to any other group planning a march or rally in Washington DC.
“Local 689 is proud to provide transit to everyone for the many events we have in D.C. including the March of Life, the Women’s March and Black Lives Matters rallies," ATU Local 689 president Jackie Jeter said in the statement.“We draw the line at giving special accommodation to hate groups and hate speech,” Jeter said. “We find it hypocritical... to make these unprecedented special accommodations for a hate group.”The union said that people of color make up “more than 80 percent of Local 689’s membership... the very people that the Ku Klux Klan and other white nationalist groups have killed, harassed and violated. The union has declared that it will not play a role in their special accommodation.”
WMATA has dropped the idea, and is now coordinating via talks with the Virginia State Police, the MPD and Metro Transit Police what they will do to keep everyone safe on hate rally day and keep it peaceful.
Good luck with that. But one thing to note is there will not be a white supremacist express subway train for their DC hate rally.
Wonder if Dolt 45 will make an appearance at Lafayette Park so he and Stephen Miller can hang out with all the 'good people' that will be at that hate rally?
As many of you TransGriot readers are aware of, I'm a huge supporter of trans actors playing trans people in film and television roles, and trans writers predominately writing those characters.
The success of the FX TV show POSE speaks to what can happen when you let trans people tell their stories. It also speaks to the authenticity that shines through it when you cast trans actors to play trans roles.
FYI Hollywood, trans actors can also play cis roles. How about hiring some of my Hollywood trans peeps to do just that?
Variety magazine, the media publication of record for Hollowood, just released a Transgender In Hollywood issue.
It also conducted this first ever Transgender Artists Roundtable discussion that included Laverne Cox, Alexandra Billings, Trace Lysette, Brian Michael, Chaz Bono, and Jen Richards.
One of the informational nuggets that emerged from the MomsRising #NN18 panel last week was making sure that you are registered to vote for this critical to our democracy 2018 midterm election.
Our panel moderator Kristin Rowe Finkbeiner pointed out that the staff of MomsRising recently checked their registrations. Two of them discovered to their horror that despite being active voters, they had been chopped from their local voting rolls.
So before November 6 gets here, please check to make sure you're registered to vote before your state's deadline day, and keep checking it on a regular basis for the next 91 days.
This is going to be crucial, especially if you live in a state with a Republican secretary of state or a county with a Republican voter registrar. The GOP knows they are going down hard, will be desperate to purge people off the voter rolls, and the conservative controlled SCOTUS will look the other way as they do so.
I had concerns about mine since I just moved, but with my new license arriving on Monday and my new voter registration card arriving yesterday combined with me spotting my name on the county Harris Votes database, I'm midterm election ready and will be cross checking it all the way to the October 9 deadline date to register in Texas.
And yes, I plan to be at the polls for the first day of early voting in Texas on October 22
So handle your electoral business and make sure you are midterm election ready.
Ciora Thomas of Pittsburgh has been added to the commission as of today. And yes, she's a proud girl like us.
She's the founder of Sisters PGH, serves on the Pittsburgh LGBTQIA+ Advisory Council secured a partnership and position on the board of Proud Haven, an organization that provides a safe shelter for homeless lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) youth/adults.
Congrats Ciora! I know you'll be an unapologetic voice for Pennsylvania trans folks. Kudos also to whoever was reading and listening to Ernest and myself, and fixed the representation problem with the LGBT Commission that Ernest Owens and I were calling out.
This 2018 election cycle is shaping up as one in which Native American women will make potentially historic gains if things break right for them on November 6.
Paulette Jordan captured the Democratic nomination for Idaho governor. In New Mexico Deb Haaland won the Democratic nomination for the 1st Congressional District seat by double digits back in June, and she is favored to win in the general election.
Now in Kansas we have Sharice Davids, who knocked off a Bernie backed candidate that he and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez controversially came west to campaign for.
Davids beat Brent Welder by over 2000 votes in the Kansas 3rd District race to capture the nomination.
Hillary Clinton won this district in 2016 by a single point over Trump 47%-46%
Davids will face off against incumbent Rep. Kevin Yoder (R), a House Appropriations Committee member who has held this seat since 2011. Yoder won his GOP primary race with only 68% of the vote after casting votes for Obamacare repeal and the steep GOP tax cuts.
That primary performance was noted by the esteemed Cook Political Report, who moved this KS-3 race from Lean R into the Toss Up category
This is another race in which a woman has beaten a male candidate on the Democratic side, and now Davids gets a shot at sending Yoder back to Kansas while making some electoral history of her own.
If she wins on November 6, she would become one of two Native American women elected to Congress.
You long time TransGriot reader know that over the history of this blog I've had my issues at times with CNN's Don Lemon. But since Trump's election he has been calling out Dolt 45 on the regular and tellin' it like it T-I-S is.
After Dolt 45 made more racist tweets attacking him and Lebron James, Lemon took some time on his CNN show to put Dumb Donald on blast.
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