Open Letter To Zaya

Dear Zaya,
As one of your Black trans elders, I am pleased and proud to hear that  you are taking the steps you need to make to become your true self.    I am also happy that your parents are unconditionally loving and supporting you as you embark on this challenging at times journey.

One of the things about this trans journey you need to know is that you're not alone.  There are other amazing kids like you that share your ethnic bcackground like Trinity Neal.   There's also something else that you probably didn't know in that when you transition, you family expands to include trans people from here and around the world.

Black trans people have existed as long as humanity has.   We have a proud history and take no crap people who have been fighting since before you were born to make the world better for trans people inside and outside the community.  I'm proud to be one of those people.

Many times I and other elders who fight tooth and nail for trans people's right to exist without drama are doing so for our kids.   You are the living embodement of the future we fight like hell for.

Your transition has also jumpstarted a long needed conversation in Black America about Black trans people and our community's need to embrace their trans siblings.

So why am I wrting this open letter?  Because I thought it was important for you to see some words online from someone who is a proud unapologetic Black trans adult who transitioned 25 years ago.  While I have accomplished much since 1994 and I'm proud of the person I have become, I still wish at times that I could have transitioned as early as you have been able to do.

When I finally did so, my life, challenging as it has been at times, is still better that it was before transition.  I've gotten to do some great things and meet many amazing people I probably wouldn't  have been able to meet if it weren't for me being this amazing, unapologetically Black trans woman

You still have yours to live and I hope you'll go on to do some great things.  Hopefully some of the great things you do will also benefit our community. .

I can't wait to see how you evolve to become the fabulous Black woman of trans experience I know you are.

Sincerely yours,
Monica

Not Feeling Michael Bloomberg

It's not lost on me that on the 67th anniversary of the day Christine Jorgensen returned to New York after being in Denmark for two years for her physical transition and GCS, I'm looking at the prospect of having a transphobe on stage tonight at the Harris County Democratic Party's (HDCP)  Johnson Rayburn Richards (JRR) dinner being held tonight at the Marriot Marquis>

It ain't Julian Castro, who I am looking forward to hearing speak to night as the JRR keynote and hopefully getting a chance to meet.  Michael Bloomberg?   Not so much.

The JRR is the largest Democratic funraiser in Texas, and it's the one in which I received the Barbara Jordan Breaking Barriers Award from last year.  In the 2020 edition of the JRR, which is back to being a dinner now, awards will be presented to Amber Goodwin, Linda Morales, Cecile Richards and the Supermajority group..

I have not been happy with the remaing candidates available in the 2020 Democratic primary since Kamala Harris was forced to drop out along with all the other non white candidates.  I felt last year that 21 candidates in a presidential primary was far too many in a critical for our democracy election, and the sorry state of the primary confirms that.  My concerns are heighted by the realization that the Dems are the only thing standing beween Trump and a fascist dictatorship.

Neither am I happy that the media and Berners after Iowa and New Hampshire are rushing to crown Bernie Sanders as our nominee after primary contests in two of the whitest states in the nation.

Y'all need to slow your roll on that.  Guess y'all forgot about 2016 huh?   Rigged primary my azz. 

More like Black Democrats massively rejecting St Bernard of Sanders, and news flash, ain't nothing changed in Black America since 2016 concerning our low opinion of Sanders, no matter how much you believe the hype from Nina Turner.

Black Democratic voters matter, and it looks like we'll have to teach that lesson once again.  Early voting for the Texas prmary starts on February 18,  with the election happening on March 3.

FYI, Texas awards 262 delegates.  That dwarfs the number you can get in Iowa and New Hampshire combined .

But back to talking about Bloomberg.   One of the other things that has me concerned is this rush to canonize him as some sort of savior when he is deeply problematic to me and many Black Americans

And oh yeah, haven't forgotten that Bloomberg ran as a Republican to become mayor of New York

I'm not happy about the 2016 transphobic comments that Bloomberg uttered in Great Britain, and damned sure was paying attention when stop and frisk Black and Brown people was going on when he was running New York City. 

Many of the Black and Brown people being frisked by NYPD were also transgender New Yorkers.
It was also a policy that Bloomberg zealously defended and didn't apologize for until he decided to jump into the 2020 presidental race.

Note to Bloomberg:  Trans Democrats exist and you're about to find out that salient point the hard way that we do.   Some of us are major leaders in not only the national party, but in our local party organiations as well.

FYI, two of the first statewide trans inclusive non discrimation laws were passed in Minnesota and Iowa, so contrary to your 2016 transphobic opinion, Midwesterners and folks around the country do get the point that trans rights are human rights. 

Trans people are also part of everyone's family.  It's why the increased support for trans rights is happening along with trans folks across the country, our Mama and Papa Bears, and our allies fighting tooth and nail to make it happen.. 

So if you see me pouting at the JRR tonight, now you have the backstory on why.     .

The 2020 SUF Lifetime Achievement Award Winners Are...

This is the night you TransGriot Readers have all been waiting for.   Tonight is the night you will discover who will join all the not so distinguished reprehensible people who will live in SUF Lifetime Achievement Awards infamy.

Just as a reminder, these are the folks who won it in 2019, and this is the complete list of awardees going back to 2010.   We're starting a new decade properly by adding ten more fools to this list.

They will still be eligible for weekly awards if they continue to say and do stuff that puts me in the position in which I must call them out.

It's also a reminder as Mr T warned us, fools are everywhere.

So lets cut the jibber jabber and get to what you peeps wanted to know.

This year's TransGriot SUF Lifetime Achievement Awards Class of 2020 is.

Kellyanne Conway
Candace Owens
Steve Radack
Betsy DeVos
Franklin Graham

Jim Bakker
Robert Jeffress
JK Rowling
British PM Boris Johnson
Rep Doug Collins (R-GA)  
     

HBAD Endorsement Meeting Today!

The Texas primary election date of March 3 is rapidly approaching, and so is the start of early voting in the Lone Star State on February 18.

That meant that for the second consecutive Satuday I got up out of bed early so that I could be at the  Sunnyside area venue in which the Houston Black Area Democrats (H-BAD) endorsement meeting was being held before it started at 9 AM.

It was my first time doing their endorsement meeting, and was nice seeing old freinds and meeting some new ones.  I laughed when I got asked the question by a few people in attendance if I was running for office in this cycle, and when I said 'Not yet", that question truned into 'When was I going to run for office?

91 people screened for the H-BAD endorsement, which is one of the Big Four endorsements of Houston progressive Democratic politics. 

These endorsement meetings can have a lot of drama that rivals the best reality TV shows.  There's twists and turns.   People getting endorsements as expected, and others who didn't get it from the screening committe, but who flipped it once itgot to the meeting. 

People can win or lose endorsements based on what they say that sways the people in the room or pisses them off.

Here are the folks who after six hours, walked out with those coveted H-BAD endorsements:

US Senate- Amanda Edwards 
US Representative District 2- Sima Ladjevarian   
US Representative District 18-  Sheila Jackson Lee
US Representative District 22- Derrick Reed 

Member TX State Board of Education District 6- Michelle Palmer 
TX State Senator Disctrict 13- Borris Miles 
TX State Representative District 27- Ron Reynolds
TX State Representative District 126- Natali Hurtado 
TX State Representative District  131- Alma A. Allen 
TX State Representative Distrct 138-Akilah Bacy 
TX State Represntative District 139-  Jarvis Johnson
TX State Reprsentative  District 141- Senfronia Thompson 
TX State Representative District 142- Richard Bonton 
TX State Represntative District 146 -Shawn Nicole Thierry
TX State Representative District 147- Garnet F. Coleman
Cheif Justice Texas Supreme Court -Amy Clark Meacham
Justice, Texas Supreme Court Place 6- Kathy Cheng
Justice Texas Supreme Court, Place 7- Staci Williams 
Justice Texas Supreme Court Place 8- Peter Kelly
Justice, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals  Place 3 - William Pieratt Demond  
Justice, Texas Court  of Appeals District 14- Jane Robinson
Justice  Texas Court of Appeals 1st District, Place 3 -Veronica Rivas-Molloy
Justice, Texas Court of Appeals  1st District Place 5- Amparo Monique Guerra
Justice Texas Court of Appeals 14th District  Place 7- Tamika Craft

District Judge  80th Judicial District-  Larry Weiman 
District Judge  164th Judicial District- Alexandra Smoots Thomas 
District Judge  165th Judicial District- Ursula Hall 
District Judge  176th Judicial District-  Nikita 'Niki' Harmon
District Judge  179th Judicial District-  No Endorsement 
District Judge  333rd Judicial District-  Daryl Moore   
District Judge  334th Judicial District-  Dawn Deshea Rogers
District Judge  337th Judicial District - Brennen Dunn
District Judge  339th Judicial District- Te'iva Bell
District Judge 351st  Judicial District - Natalia 'Nata' Cornelio 
District Judge 507th Judicial District-  Julia Maldonado

Harris County District Attorney - Carvana Cloud
Harris Ciunty Attorney- Christian Dashaun Menefee 
Harris County Sheriff - Ed Gonzales  
Harris County Tax Assessor Collector - Jolanda Jones

Harris County Commissioner Precinct 1- Rodney Ellis
Harris County Commissioner Precinct 3- Morris Overstreet 

Harris County Constrable Precinct 1 -Alan Rosen 

Harris County Civil Court At Law Number  4- Lesley Briones

Harris County Justice of the Peace Precinct 6 Place 1 - Victor Trevino III
Harris County Justice of the Peace Precinct 7 Place 1 -  Jeremy  L. Brown 
 

I Love Cities Skylines!

One of the things that peeps are surprised to find out about moi is that I am not only a trans grognard or warganer, I also love computer and video games.

They are one of the things I do as part of my self care regimen, and it also satisfies my inner blerd.

What's a blerd you ask?   Blerd is a term I picked up (and I like) from my homegirl Kandice Webber to describe a Black nerd.

One of the computer games I fell in love with back in the 90's was Sim City.   I loved it so much I bought Sim City 2000, Sim City 3000 and Sim City 2013 because I absolutely love the city simulator games.    Why don't I own Sim City 4?   Because by the time I was able to buy it, Sim City 2013 was out.

Then I discovered Cities Skylines.

One of the things that irritated me about Sim City 2013 is that they took away the ability to build subways and freeways from your game cities.   It also limited you to one 2x2 km tract to build the city on with no ability to alter the terrain if you needed flat areas to build stuff on.

It also wasn't as realistic as Cities Skylines is where you can get granular about everything from traffic to city governance policies

The thing I love about Cities Skylines is I have far more options for mass transit in this game than just the light rail streetcars and buses in Sim City 2013.    You have those plus subways, monorails, commuter rail, ferries, and even blimps. 

I also have the ability to modify terrain, and choose up to nine 2x2 km tiles to build a sprawling city on to my hearts content.

One of the things I also love is that when I'm playing this game, I'm so focused on concentrating on what I need to do to build the city and clean up any problems that arise while doing so, I'll look at the wall clock next to my computer desk and realize that a few hours had elapsed since I started that game session.

So on those weekends I take a moment to unplug from The Net, this is one of the me time things I love to do.

Now if I could download some real world buildings and Houston ones into my game, I'd be a happy camper.

Shut Up Fool Awards- First Friday In February Edition

It seemed like it took January six months to pass, but we finally got the apportunity to flip the 2020 calendar page to February and go through the first full week of it.

And as usual, the fools are all among us.  So let's get started calling some ignorant mofos out.

Honorable mention this week was EVERY Republican senator who despite a Mout everest of evidence that shows that Donald Trump did what the house impeached his orange azz for, they voted to not only not call any witnesses, they voted to acquit him. 

 I hope and pray that every American citizen outraged about this carriage of injustice fires their GOP senator at the polls  on November 3.

The other honorable mention this week is Michael Bloomberg, who revealed to the world through a leaked 2016 video that he's a transphobe.  Yeah, I'm  calling that azz  out at the JRR next week

This week's winner is Mike Pompeo.

The conservafools are big mad that Speaker Pelosi ripped up Orange Foolius' SOTU propaganda rant speech when he was done gaslighting his conservasheeple, and Pompeo decided to troll Speaker Pelosi with a pic of Lisa Simpson crying as she rips up a speech she'd written.

Pompeo failed to realize since he probably never watches the show that he played himself.
.
That moment Pompeo screen grabbed is from a The Simpson's episode called ' Mr Lisa Goes to Washington'.  She wins an all expenses paid trip to DC for her and her family as a result of winning an essay contest, and is a finalist for a $10,000 prize.

During the trip, she witnesses her congressman taking a bribe, and she concludes she must change the spech she'd originally written.   She rips it up, and writes a new one that calls out the cesspool of corruption inside I-495.

But then again, that would go over Pompeo's head because as Trump's Secretary of State,  he is part of the most corrupt regime in US history

Michael Watts said it best in his blogpost about Pompeo's self pwning..

Unfortunately, Mr. Pompeo is part of an administration that is willing to sacrifice our ideals for the sake of achieving some type of short-term instant gratification instead of a lasting long-term investment. I can’t tell whether Pompeo is the congressman or the lobbyist because they are both going for the quick fix; the congressman for the rush of power or the lobbyist for the rush of making good on an investment.

And Mr. Pompeo should know better about surrendering our values given that he was trained as an Army officer at West Point where cadets are taught there are ideas and principles worth defending, fighting, and if necessary, sacrificing for them. 

Perhaps he forgot them upon leaving the Army.

Mike Pompeo, shut up fool! 

The 2020 LGBTQ State of The Union

This is the only State of the Union I'm watching tonight.    Billy Porter is delivering it. 

Shut Up Fool Awards -11th Anniversary Edition

On January 30, 2009, I started what is probably the most popular feature on my blog in the TransGriot Shut Up Fool weekly awards.

Ever since I bestowed FOX Noise's Juan Williams with my first ever Shut Up Fool Award, I've been calling them out for the last now 11 years.

The weekly awards morphed into a Shut Up Fool of the Year award I reveal on New Year's Eve,  and a Shut Up Fool Lifetime Achievement Awards I do on Oscars night.

Eleven years later, still doing the Shut Up Fool Awards because frankly, there is a never ending list of fools to call out, and it's gotten worse since Orange Foolius started desecrating the White House.

And on these electronic pages, we don't pity fools, we expose them and call them out

Let see who won this week's Shut Up Fool Award shall we?

This week's 11th Anniversary Fool is none other than MSNBC anchor Alison Morris.

She locked up this week's SUF Award by opening her mouth during Sunday's reporting of the death of Kobe Bryant, his daughter and 7 other people in a helicopter crash by clearly saying the n-word,
then trying to lie and gaslight us in to believing she didn't say what we clearly heard Broadcast Becky say.

Here's the receipts.

Naw boo boo kitty, you said it.   Obviously you are very comfortable saying that word, otherwise it wouldn't have slid out of your pretty little mouth so easily on air.   And what even more irritating about this episode is the rush of white run media, including Snopes, to try to gaslight or minimize it.

Nope, we heard it.   So stop trying to gaslight America , apologize, and move on. 

But before you do, Alison Morris, Shut Up Fool!

ESSENCE Honors Black Trans Women In Hollywood

One of the big three iconic magazines in the Black community is ESSENCE.   It has been chronicling the stories of Black women since its 1970 founding. 

I'm gratified to see that after a problematic history with trans women, that ESSENCE featuring more Black trans women in their stories and coverage to the point I'm seriously considering restarting my subscription to the magazine.

In the January 2020 issue discussing Black Women in Hollywood, I was pleased and proud to see my trans sisters and trans sibling in the article celebrating  Black Women in Hollywood..

The women of POSE are not only #BlackTGirlMagic personified, they are doing groundbreaking work on this FX show.   I just hope that all their hard work starts getting reflected in them finally starting to get nominated for and actually making more history by taking home some awards

It's also my wish for them that in addition to receiving awards they deserve to be nominated for, that other movie, Broadway and television roles start flowing from their time on this show as they already have started to happen for Angelica Ross and MJ Rodriguez .

And can't forget the groundbreaking work that Janet Mock is doing behind the POSE camera lenses as a writer, director and producer.  I'm also looking forward to seeing what happens in Season 3 of POSE later this summer. 

You may wish to head to your local newsstand and grab this latest issue of ESSENCE before it's gone. 

Who Will Be In The 2020 SUF Lifetime Achievement Awards Class?

Once again since the Oscars have regressed into #OscarsSoWhite territory again, just a little reminder that I'll be announcing the 2020 SUF Lifetime Achievement Awards class of (dis)honorees on February 9

Ever since the 2010 Oscars I've been naming peeps for the SUF Lifetime Achievement Awards.   The intent was when I started them to retire them from weekly SUF award consideration, but so many of them kept saying stupid crap out of their mouths that I dropped that idea. 

Rush Limbaugh was our inaugural winner in 2010     But since 2011 was the 5th anniversary year for TransGriot and we had a plethora of fools to select, I started selecting five every year, bumping that up to ten when TransGriot passed its tenth anniversary year in 2016.

The Class of 2011 

Sarah Palin
Glenn Beck
Bill O'Reilly
Ann Coulter
Michele Bachmann 

The Class of 2012  was the first one in which I gave out a group award.

A group award for the Gendertrender radfem trans hate blog
Michelle Malkin
Dan Savage
Michael Savage
Chuck Knipp (AKA Shirley Q Liquor)

The Class of 2013 

Mitt Romney
Sen John McCain (R-AZ)
Sen Mitch McConnell (R-KY)
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC)
Supreme Court (in)Justice Clarence Thomas

The Class of 2014

Cathy Brennan
A group award for the TERFs
Bryan Fischer
Sen Rand Paul (R-KY)
Ted Nugent

The Class of 2015

Dinesh D'Souza
Rudy Giuliani
Phyllis Schafly
Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)
Pastor James David Manning
The Class of 2016

Supreme Court (In)justice Antonin Scalia
Steven Hotze
Dave Wilson
Germaine Greer
Sean Hannity

The Log Cabin Republicans
Pat Robertson
Rep. Steve King (R-IA)
RNC Chair Reince Priebus
Ben Carson

The Class of 2017
Donald Trump
Jeffrey Lord
Carl Paladino
a group award for the Bernie or Busters
Milo Yiannopoulos

Texas Lt Governor Dan Patrick
Sen Ted Cruz (R-TX)
Gov. Pat McCrory (R-NC)  
Jill Stein
Richard Spencer 


The Class of 2018 Sarah Huckabee Sanders 
Jeff Sessions
TX state Senator Lois Kolkhorst
Maine Gov Paul LePage
Alex Jones

Steve Doocy
Tomi Lahren
Rep Louie Gohmert (R-TX )
TX State Rep. Jonathan Stickland
Diamond and Silk

The Class of 2019
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA)
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC)
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME)
Jonathan Saenz
Paul McHugh

Megyn Kelly
RuPaul
Jerry Jones
Ainsley Earhardt
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) 


These are the folks who have won the TransGriot SUF Lifetime Achievement Award since they started in 2010.   Who will join them on February 9? 

Shut Up Fool Awards- Post MLK Day 2020 Edition

Another MLK Day has come and gone, and now the GOP can stop pretending they care about racial justice and equality and go right back to being the racist azzholes they and their MAGA hat wearing supporters are.

And yeah, because they were pretending, sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, you can wager you paychecks that they opened their mouths on this latest edition of our federal holiday honoring Dr King they opposed and let stupid crap fly out of it.

And yeah, I gots to call them out on it.

Honorable mention for this week's SUF honors goes to Cruella Betsy DeVos, who said that people who support abortion are like the folks who were pro slavery before the Civil War.

Really fool?  You had that expensive private school 'edjumacation and that toro poo poo came out of your mouth? 

It's a ongoing joke and an embarrassment to the United States that you are the Secretary of Education.

This week's winner is Kellyanne Conway.

The White House Crypt Keeper opened up her mouth on King Day and also let something stupid fly out of it.

She said that the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr if he were alive, would be against the Trump impeachment trial.   It was a comment that the Rev Bernice King, Dr King's youngest daughter, quickly went to Twitter and checked Madame Alternative Facts on.

Be A King

@BerniceKing

Until a person commits to better understanding and then better understands my father’s teachings and methodologies, I REALLY wish they’d keep his name, and incorrect analysis, out of their conversations about current issues. #MLKDay

#MLK

Is is November 3 yet?

All together peeps, Kellyanne Conway, shut up fool!

Janet Mock To Receive 2020 GLAAD LGBTQ Advocacy Award

The last time I had the opportunity to talk to Janet Mock face to face was back in August 2016 when we were at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York.   We were less than 24 hours from becoming  the first out Black trans folks to hit their historic Amphitheater Stage to talk about trans issues and the current events of the time period.

Since then, she's been a little busy.  Her first book in 2014, Redefining Realness, debuted on the New York Times bestseller list    She released a second book in 2017 entitled Surpassing Certainty that focused on the years in her life that she was not out as trans.

Y'all may have heard about a hit TV show she writes, directs and produces called POSE on FX.

Janet Mock has been making history ever since I had the pleasure of meeting her when I was in New York in 2012 for a GLAAD POC media training. 

Some of the things Janet Mock has been recognized for have been TIME naming her to its 100 Most Influential People list, The Hollywood Reporter naming her one of its 2019 “Women in Entertainment Power 100,” Ebony naming her to the Ebony 100 list, Vanity Fair named her on its “New Establishment” list, while the PEN Center USA honored her with an Award of Honor during the 2017 Literary Awards.,

In Hollywood, Mock has continued to blaze trails.  She became the first trans woman of color to write and direct a television episode when the 'Love Is The Message' episode was broadcast during POSE's first season.

She also became the first Black trans person to sign a deal with a major movie studio when she inked a multiyear deal with Netflix.

I am exceedingly happy to find out that when the 31st Annual GLAAD Media Awards happens, she will be honored with an LGBTQ Advocacy Award! 

Janet is Black Trans excellence personified, and I'm proud to call her a friend in addition to watching her make moves and still do some amazing things.

And yeah, I'm a huge fan of POSE and can't wait until its third season happens. 

She's Baack! Diamond Stylz's YouTube Channel Restored

Hopefully YouTube will reverse this unjust action and reinstate her video blog that she put a decade of work into building.-TransGriot,  July 1, 2018

It took YouTube way too long to reverse the unjust 2018 shutdown of Diamond Stylz's YouTube video blog, but it's back along with all the content that she had been uploading yo her YouTube channel since 2007

Diamond also started the Marsha's Plate podcast with her cohosts Mia Mix and Zahir that has broadcast over 100 episodes (My Marsha's Plate interview is Episode 71 BTW)

She was also recently tapped to become the interim executive director of Black Transwomen. Inc

Just like TransGriot has been vitally important in chronicling Black trans history and the events of the last 14 years, Diamond served the same role in the YouTube video blogging world, and I was highly pissed off when her blog was unjustly taken down with zero warning.

I'm glad it's back up because Diamond is one of the treasures of our Black trans family in terms of her leadership skills, intellect and wit.  You haven't lived until you have been on a four hour car ride with her and Dee Dee Watters to Dallas and back while discussing every topic under the sun.

She is also a trans trailblazer.   She won a 1999 Indiana federal trans discrimination case that set the precedent that allows trans students to wear prom attire matching their true selves, and being the first out trans student at Jackson State University, graduating with a psychology degree in 2004.

And I for one am glad she's living here in Houston.

Will there be new episodes of the YouTube blog?   I sure hope so, because her voice is an important one to hear inside and outside our community.   But until those new episodes do happen, I'm going back and binge watching some of my fave episodes of her You Tube channel in addition to my weekly appointment listening to Marsha's Plate

You may also wish to do the same for Marsha's Plate too and drop some change in appreciation of her work.

My Post CC20 Musings

I'm back on my end of I-45 after an amazing few days in Dallas for Creating Change 2020.

In addition to bringing something back to Houston with me to put on my trophy shelf called the Susan J Hyde Award for Longevity in the Movement,  I brought something else back with me.

The knowledge that we're gonna be alright as a movement because of all our wonderful younglings.

The younglings are not only pushing us elders and yelders to be better, they are also doing the same with their youthful energy to society and our movement as a whole. 

They also get the benefit of being part of the intergenerational conversations that happen in the CC20 space

As with any Creating Change, while I always enjoy getting to spend quality time with my cohort of trans activists marveling how far we've come since our days when we were the new kids on the activist block, I get my life and enjoyment from talking to and actively listening to the younger generation.

And yeah, proud of my Houston activist fam.   We are always busy at these events, whether we are presenting at panels or strategizing about what we're going to do in the coming year to make Houston, Texas and our TBLGQ community better

There are also those wonderful moments when I get to step away from the convention hustle and bustle and jet for a few hours connect with friends who live in the host city.   I was glad that Kyiana Wheeler and I got a chance to make that happen on Wednesday.

One thing I need to do a better job of is checking in with my blood relatives who live in Dallas.  Some of them only knew I was in town when they saw me on the local news doing an interview.

In my defense to my Dallas relatives who are reading this post and sucking their teeth, this is a business trip for me.  A fun one, but at its most basic level it is a business trip.

I tend to get busy with panel discussions, interviews, and all the other stuff that happens at conference events like CC20, and before I know it, the event is over and I'm headed back home.

I enjoyed just getting to at times sit back in the hospitality suites and listen to them talk about what was happening in their lives.  There were times when I was asked to drop some knowledge about what I'd experienced as a 22 year advocate, and time when I just sat back and absorbed it.

TBLGQ intergenerational conversations matter.

There was a moment when Antonia d'Orsay and I were giving a Trans 101 history class to three gender non conforming peeps as they were out in the smoking area. .

There are the meetings happening on and off the #CC20 campus between ED's of the various organizations in attendance in Dallas plotting the next phases of our human rights movement

There were also moments during CC20 when I was the person having those meetings with leaders of various TBLGQ community orgs

There was me walking around at my sixth Creating Change having the younglings stop me in the hall, take photos, and tell me how much they appreciated my work and the blog.

And I needed to hear that.   One attendee told me about her professor actually assigning TransGriot blog posts as reading material for her Women and Gender Studies class.

That increased in intensity after I gave the acceptance speech for the Hyde Award, and I'm not mad about that.   Once upon a time (CC99 in Oakland)  I was the wide eyed newbie nervously rubbing elbows with the leadership icons of that period.

Now I have become that icon.   I want peeps to be aware of the fact that if I'm not busy at a conference, I will always have time (or make time) to talk and listen to you. 

It was also nice to get to know the other Black and Latinx trans folks that were able to attend and get to know them better in addition to taking part in that rally Thursday afternoon.

Creating Change 2020 has passed into the TBLGQ community history books.  I salute the Dallas organizing team for putting on a great event while pointing out the Houston #CC14 attendance record is STILL intact.

Looking forward to the next time I can be at one, either in Washington DC next year or NOLA in 2022.

.

Shut Up Fool Awards - The Moni's At CC20 Edition

As many of you are already aware of, I'm on the other end of I-45 in Dallas to take part in the latest edition of Creating Change in Dallas.

While I have been busy getting my learn on, participating in panels and enjoying seeing old friends and meeting new ones, the world keeps on turning and the fools keep on being fools.

So let me get right to this week's fool. 

This week's Shut Up Fool winner is former NY mayor and current Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg.

Bloomberg is trying to buy his way into the White House, and his TV commercials here in Texas have already hit the ad nauseum level for me.   

Something else that made me nauseous and earned him this week's award is making the comment that his odious Stop and Frisk policy that NYPD gleefully executed against Black, Latinx and trans New Yorkers was 'to help Blacks'

Really? 

Sunny Hostin quickly put that azz on blast on The View when she blew up that lie.



And as Hostin noted, he was still vociferously defending that policy last January, but only apologized for it after he jumped into the presidential race and he realized that Black Democrats are big mad about that stop and frisk policy.

All together people.   Michael Bloomberg, Shut Up Fool!

CC 2020 Susan J Hyde Award Speech

TransGriot Note:  This is the text of the speech I'm currently delivering at the opening Creating Change 2020 plenary session

To Rea Carey, the Creating Change leadership team, the Dallas CC20 Organizing Committee, Barbara Satin, Creating Change 2020 attendees, my Houston activist family and my trans siblings.

I am beyond thrilled and excited to be honored with this year’s Susan J Hyde Award for Longevity in the Movement.   Even better is the knowledge that I’m receiving it in my home state. The only thing that would have made it more amazing would have been to be receiving it on my end of Interstate 45.

I humbly accept it not only for myself, but for every Black trans person who will never have the opportunity to contribute their talents to our community because they were taken from us far too soon..  

Can we please have a moment of silence for all the trans people we’ve lost to anti-trans violence in 2019?   

Thank you.

I’m not the first Black trans person to receive this award, and you can trust and believe I won’t be the last Black trans person standing up on a future Creating Change stage to pick up one of their own.

Kylar Broadus received this Hyde award during Creating Change 2011 held in Minneapolis.  He’s a trailblazer, community leader and a man I have the utmost respect for. I’m proud to be on this date following in his footsteps and receiving this prestigious award.   

As much as native Houstonians like myself revel in poking fun at the third largest city in the state because it is ingrained in people growing up either here or in Dallas to throw shade at each other and their respective NFL franchises (Go Texans!) , there is no denying the fact that Dallas has been a major part of my life.  My mom grew up here until her junior year of high school and my grandfather was transferred by his Continental Airlines job to Houston.

Every summer, my family and I made the four hour trip up I-45 to Dallas to visit many of my relatives that still live here in the area and span the Metroplex from Garland to DeSoto, and South Dallas to Oak Cliff.   I’ve been coming here since 2013 for the Black Trans Advocacy Conference, and proudly sit on the Black Trans Advocacy Coalition board as a member of Black Transwomen Inc. I’ll be back here to spend my birthday week at BTAC’s 9th annual conference also being held here in Dallas May 5-10. 

And I can’t forget last year, when I made multiple trips to Dallas for everything from a BTAC leadership institute to Muhlaysia Booker’s wake and funeral.

I’ve been a trans activist for over two decades, and 2019 was a milestone year on two levels. It marked 25 years since that April 4,1994 day I walked into Houston’s Intercontinental Airport to begin the work shift at my airline job that would change the course of my life for the better. 

2019 also was the year that I passed the 20th anniversary of my first Texas trans lobby day organized by my late mentor Sarah DePalma, the ED of the Texas Gender Advocacy Information Network or TGAIN.    TGAIN is still around, but is now called the Transgender Education Network of Texas.

It also marked the 20th anniversary of me attending my first Creating Change conference in Oakland.

But to be honest, when I started the transition in 1994, being an activist was the furthest thing from my mind.  My goals then were a little more modest. I wanted to do my 35 years at the airline job I absolutely loved and retire   I wanted to just get comfortable being me and enjoy my life evolving into the fabulous Black trans woman you see on this stage today.

There’s an old saying that if you want to make God laugh, try to plan out your life.

There used to be an organization back in the day called the International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE) that was around until 2015.   Back in the 90’s they published a quarterly magazine called Transgender Tapestry that I started a subscription to in 1995. 

In 1997 they decided to publish a series of articles highlighting 100 out and proud trans leaders.   The first magazine I received highlighted 25 people, many of them iconic elders in our community like Jamison Green and Phyllis Frye just to name a few. 

But as I read that article, I was left asking the question, “Where are the trans leaders who look like me?”   I know we exist.

I get my next quarterly Tapestry issue, and it finally had two Black people in it.   RuPaul and Dennis Rodman.

Needless to say I was pissed.  RuPaul and Dennis Rodman had made it quite clear they weren’t trans, and worst of all their inclusion was perpetuating a racist stereotype that the only thing Black folks could do was be an entertainer or an athlete.

Never mind the fact that Marisa Richmond in Nashville and Dawn Wilson in Louisville were at that time running trans support groups called the Tennessee Vals and the Bluegrass Belles on opposite ends of I-65.  Marisa and Dawn were also emerging Black trans community leaders that I would later meet at the 1999 Southern Comfort in Marisa’s case and Dawn at the 2000 IFGE Convention in DC.. I’m also proud to call them my friends,

So after seeing that I resolved to not only be at the 1998 GenderPac Lobby Days in Washington DC, I made it my mission to start getting involved in local and national trans activism.

So yeah, a jacked up article in a trans magazine was the impetus for me getting into trans activism, and I never looked back.

When I  came into trans activism in 1998, there was unfortunately a prevailing attitude that adding trans folks to pending legislation for the TBLGQ community would kill it for everybody, so all TBLGQ activism at the local, state and federal level operated on the euphemistically named ‘incremental progress’ model.  

Translation: We trans folks were told by some Big Gay Org this bill won’t pass with you trans folks in it.   Or we were told that ‘trans rights was ‘too new’, so let’s just take what we can get and we’ll come back for you trans folks later.  

A later that never came.   Ask the trans folks in Wisconsin, who have been waiting since 1982 for people to come back for them and add them to their state’s nondiscrimination law.

Sometimes the anti-trans legislative hostility came from our own community    The anti- trans bathroom argument was created not by Republican politicians, but by one of our own in former US Rep Barney Frank in 1999 because he didn’t want trans folks included in ENDA..  

The 1998 landscape also included the trans community being relentlessly attacked by TERFs, evilgelicals  and being laughed at and considered a joke by politicians on both sides of the political aisle

But still we rose.  During my 22 years in this movement, I have been blessed to see changes in how the trans community was perceived, and I'm happy to say that the Task Force played a major role in making that happen.  As the Political Director of the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition, (NTAC) from 1999-2002, one of the first events I attended in that role was a National Transgender Policy meeting facilitated by the Task Force in 2000. 

I got to witness the rise of our trans kids like Jazz Jennings and the Mama and Papa Bears as a political and cultural force for our community    I got to witness politicians stop laughing at the trans community and take our demands for human rights equity seriously

I started a blog in 2006  ‘nobody reads’ called TransGriot that not only just celebrated its 14th birthday on New Year’s Day, but was just honored with its fifth GLAAD Media Award nomination.

I get to watch an amazing TV show called POSE in which the issues that affect the trans community get told as you watch it from coast to coast.   The trans characters are also played by trans women, with trans women being writers and producers of the show. 

I’m also happy to witness trans men not only become better known in Hollywood, but stepping up across the country and the world to take on their leadership roles in the movement.  I’m also proud to see my Dallas based sibs in BTMI under Carter Brown’s leadership role model not only what that leadership looks like from a Black trans masculine perspective, but also be sterling examples of Black men while doing so.

I have gotten to witness people like Virginia Delegate Danica Roem get elected and reelected to their state legislature.   I got to see Black trans people like me in Councilmembers Andrea Jenkins and Phillipe Cunningham be elected to the Minneapolis city council and serve together on that body.

And naw siblings, I didn’t forget about the work that nonbinary and gender non conforming people are doing to drive home the point that gender is on a spectrum, not a rigid binary.

I have also been blessed to witness the beautiful sight of our Texas trans kids living up to our history of being tenacious fighters for trans rights in the Lone Star State and helping lead the charge in 2017 to kill twice the odious SB 6 ‘Bathroom Bill’ in a regular and a special oppression session. 

It’s interesting that Creating Change is back here in Texas at a potential tipping point moment in our politics.   We are now only nine seats away from flipping the Texas House to Democratic control for the first time since 2002   There is the possibility that we may flip this state blue on November 3 and flush John Cornyn out of his US Senate seat he has occupied for way too long at the same time.

We have lesbian and gay office holders across the Lone Star State from judges to city councilmembers to state legislators.  I hope to see in my lifetime a Texas trans person get elected to public office before the decade of the 2020s has passed into the history books.

But much needs to be done here in Texas before we can see that glorious day.  We mush flip our legislature and ensure that fair maps instead of gerrymandered ones are drawn.  We must make sure that every TBLGQ person is counted in the upcoming 2020 Census and registered to vote.   On November 3 we must do everything within our power to ensure that every person who is registered to vote has the opportunity to cast a ballot in a critical to our democracy election.

We must push to ensure that trans Texans are covered not only in our state’s James Byrd Hate Crimes Act, but a statewide nondiscrimination law.

In my Houston hometown, we must convince our female majority city council to pass HERO 2.0, and defend it from attack from the evilgelicals and the Republican Party.

We must kill any proposed bills in Texas and anywhere else in the US that seek to ban the ability of trans kids to get trans medical care before their 18th birthday or criminalize doctors for providing that treatment.

And yes, I have a message for Gov Greg Abbott, Lt Governor Dan Patrick and the Texas Republican Party:  Don’t mess with Texas trans kids.

Don’t mess with our trans kids in the other 49 states and\ US territories either.  
   
How do we accomplish all that?  That’s why you’re here in the 214 area code for the next few days at CC20.  You are here to not only network with the peeps that can help you accomplish those goals, but learn new skills, and brush up on ones you learned decades ago like I did at my five previous Creating Change events.

You are also here to hopefully make lifelong friends during the time you’re here in Dallas for CC20.

In conclusion, when I transitioned a quarter century ago, I never imagined standing up on stages as my fab self getting honored for the work I do to make my community, the Lone Star State, and our nation better.   I never imagined back in 1994 that I would be appearing on Nightline or MSNBC, or doing print media interviews or podcasts to talk about trans issues.

I didn’t consider the possibility that people would be asking my unapologetically Black trans self to run for public office.  I never thought about the fact that while I don’t have children of my own, I would gain a whole lot of nieces and nephews who chose me to be their Aunt Monica.  

But it’s happening.  I’m seen as a possibility model and an icon to a community that I’m unabashedly proud of.  I’m proud of the next generation Black trans women I see who will make me look like a slacker by the time that I’m done in terms of what they collectively accomplish for our movement .

And to quote our  trans elder Miss Major, “I’m still effing here.”

We’ve got work to do CC20.  Time to go handle our movement business, get our learn on, and get it done for the TBLGQ + kids who look up to all of us.  

And I’m not going to disappoint them.