One of the things I'm heartened to see the NAACP do is finally address the undeniable fact that there are African descended LGBT people who are proud members of the African American community.

Our issues and problems as African descended TBLG people are intertwined with those of our parent African American community due to our shared cultural and historical ties. As members of that community we have a vested interest in seeing it survive and thrive.

I was happy to hear as a former card carrying youth member of the organization that the NAACP for the first time in their 102 year history is hosting a town hall meeting to discuss the issues that face African descended TBLG people.

"Black members of the LGBT community share a common history and continued struggle to address issues of bigotry, yet their identities, talents, and leadership are oftentimes diminished because of homophobia and fear of physical violence," remarked Benjamin Todd Jealous, NAACP president and CEO. "It is important that we address these issues head on."

Yeah, I would definitely agree with the sentiment President Jealous expressed, except for one problem. The panel that was put together for this NAACP Town Hall meeting has no trans participants in it.

So what's the problem? The problem is that this panel is heavy on the GL part of the community and has that glaring omission. Not sure how the bi portion of our community feels about it, but I can say with certainty that the trans part of the rainbow community is not happy about the erasure of African descended trans people from this historic panel.

NAACP, If your goal is to have a serious discussion of the issues that face African American LGBT people, then you can't erase the people who are taking the brunt of the casualties and discrimination.

And it damned sure ain't the GL portion of the community.

My point is underscored by the killing on the eve of this NAACP convention of Lashai Mclean in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, an African American transwoman being beaten in broad daylight in Fredericksburg, VA back in May and Kiare Newson being sexually harassed and disrespected at a traffic stop by Memphis police.

And no, as I've said ad nauseum on this blog, my home blog and elsewhere, I don't want to hear the excuse that you 'couldn't find any African American transpeople' to be part of this historic panel. I submit the people putting this panel together didn't look hard enough or let's get real, didn't try or didn't want to find any African descended trans people for this discussion.

Let's see, just on the West Coast living in California alone are Miss Major, Sharyn Grayson, and Tracie Jada O'Brien. In the LA metro that is hosting the convention are Valerie Spencer and Sharon Franklin Brown.

That's before I even touch on the out of state African descended trans peeps such as Antonia D'orsay, National Black Justice Coalition board member Kylar Broadus, and Dr. Marisa Richmond who could and would have eloquently discussed the issues facing trans people of African descent.

And yeah, if the invitation had been extended, don't think the I wouldn't have been happy and proud to be part of that discussion as an award winning blogger of trans descent.

It is a family conversation the trans portion of the community desperately needs to and should have had a long time ago with our cis African American peeps, legislators, and legacy orgs, and the NAACP convention would have been the perfect venue to have that family conversation.

But what I'm willing to bet is that on July 25, when we see the live feed starting at 2 PM PDT courtesy of the NAACP website of this Town Hall meeting or cable coverage of it, it will be dominated by an 'all marriage all the time' discussion once again.

It's a conversation that while it is important and historic, pales in comparison to the fact that transpeople are dying and catching hell out there and a same gender marriage heavy discussion won't do jack to alleviate the problems that African American transpeople are facing.

YOU PEOPLE KEEP CALLING ME AND TELLING ME PUBLIC ACCOMMODATIONS MUST BE INCLUDED AND I'M SICK OF IT DO YOU HEAR ME I'M SICK OF >YOU PEOPLE< CALLING ME SICK OF IT!!!!!

It seems MD Delegate Joseline Pena-Melnyk is a little upset about all the attention she's been getting about the flawed trans rights bill she introduced at the behest of (In)Equality Maryland.

I guess I should be thankful for the small favor that Del. Pena-Melnyk referred to us as "you people."

And as for your threat to pull your support for this jacked up bill you worked so hard on, that goes both ways. We can also find someone to run against you in 2012.

But seriously, Del. Pena-Melnyk, you're a smart woman. We got screwed by the Maryland legislature and our gay "allies" in 2001 and we fear it's happening to us again. What did you expect the reaction of the Maryland trans community and its brothers and sisters around the nation would be when you introduced a bill that members of the community that it's supposed to help and lawyers we have consulted tell you is flawed and worthless?

Did those smooth-talkers at (In)Equality Maryland tell you that MD 235 was "supported by the trans community" as they paraded two white affluent trans people to parrot their party line?

And you of all people as an attorney should know the significance of leaving public accommodations out of a civil rights bill for a marginalized group.

All we're asking for is that public accommodations language be added to HB 235 to eliminate the Mack truck-sized loophole in it that will allow bigots to continue to discriminate against transpeople. Why is that so hard?

Can you explain to me and the Maryland trans community why that is so difficult or is too much to ask?

President John F. Kennedy once said, in a televised June 11, 1963 civil rights speech, "When we grant rights to others which belong to them, we expand rights for ourselves."

Don't you think you and your kids deserve expanded civil rights? Don't you think that transpeople deserve the same rights that other Marylanders do? Right now, we transpeople have the perception, based on the HB 235 bill you put your name to, that you don't.

So yes, Del. Pena-Melnyk, we're just as sick of "you people" in the various levels of government playing games with our civil rights and our lives. Our people are dying and being disrespected out there. We transpeople don't have the luxury of waiting for the "incremental progress" that EQ MD is pimping.

Morgan Meneses-Sheets and much of her all-white Equality Maryland staff is already covered under existing Maryland civil rights law. The GL members of it were covered in the 2001 Maryland law that transpeople were cut out of. It's sad that the transpeople who live inside the borders of your state and contribute to its economy (if they are lucky enough to have a job) aren't.

Isis King grew up in your district. You mean to tell me that she doesn't deserve civil rights coverage when she comes home? That Sandy Rawls in Baltimore doesn't? That Alyson Meiselman, an attorney who has argued cases at the federal level, doesn't?

So if you're the civil rights champion people in Maryland have told me you are, how about stepping up to the plate and doing what is morally right and correct for the trans community? I know if I were in your pumps as a state legislator, I would want any civil rights bill that had my name attached to it be as air-tight and comprehensive as possible so it fixed the problem, not kicked it down the road five, ten, or twenty years later.

Maryland, the nation and the world are watching.

crossposted from TransGriot

And don't let the poll numbers showing increasing support for same-gender marriage and your giddiness over the DADT win spur you into making another tactical error.

Did you not forget why you shifted to a full-court-press effort on getting DADT repealed in the first place?

Remember the marriage loss in Maine? I do, and so do many politicians. 0-31 is the number the politicians are looking at. That is the current record reflecting the GL community's success rate in fighting the implementation of statewide anti same-gender marriage amendments when it's put to a vote.

It loses more right now than the LA Clippers.

The key to that is getting your African American and Latino/a GL brothers and sisters on board. We GLBT POC's know how to frame the arguments in our communities to make that happen. It's been obvious for a while that predominately white-led GL orgs demonstrably don't.

Frankly, from where I sit, two years after Prop 8, the gay community still hasn't done the legwork and education necessary to make the case in the African American community as to why same-gender marriage is the right and morally correct thing to do.

You have an organization whose mission it is to do that in the National Black Justice Coalition but fail to use it. Is it because that organization also has a strong trans equality message as well?

We Black TBLG/SGL peeps see ENDA as a much higher priority than getting married. You can't get married if you don't have a J-O-B to pay for the wedding ring, the marriage license, and the wedding.

ENDA is also an issue that can be used as an intersectional organizing tool to pull in straight peeps who wish to help on TBLG rights issues. It's also one of the few GLBT rights issues that affect straight people as well.

And for you GL peeps who desire to send in-your-face middle finger messages to the Forces of Intolerance, the Black and Latino/a TBLG communities would submit that one way to do so is to take away their ability to legally discriminate against you.

Remember the GBLT suicides everyone in the community was doing much weeping and gnashing of teeth over just two months ago or discrimination aimed at GLBT high school students such as Constance McMillen and Juin Baize we blogged about with depressing regularity? There is federal legislation such as the Student Non Discrimination Act of 2010 and the state-level Dignity for All Students Acts to address this problem that is another intersectional issue that affects straight people as well.

No marginalized group can do it alone without broad-based support. Immediately returning to pursuing "all gay marriage all the time" as the central focus of the movement may be what the HRC-Mattachine gays want, but it's not the smart political play.

You have three issues in ENDA, school discrimination and school bullying, which not only affect the entire GLBT rainbow, but straight people as well.

It gives the LGBT community an opportunity to show politicians it can build a broad-based coalition on issues that don't just benefit them. The TBLG community also gets to practice working with a multiethnic coalition to pass legislation that it sorely needs and get more legislative victories under its belt in the process.

Hopefully by the time ENDA, the SNDA and the DASA are passed, the Prop 8 case will have percolated through the federal court system and cleared up some of the uncertainty around same-gender marriage. You will also, by that time, hopefully have done the legwork you desperately need to do in communities of color before you further tackle the marriage issue.

Because if you don't, you will fail once again.

Unless you happen to be transgender or intersex.

Covenant House was begun by a Franciscan priest back in 1969, and founded as an organization in New York City in 1972. Lady Gaga recently gave Covenant House a $20,000 donation for their work with LGBT youth, but judging by how they handle things in Houston, you'd be hard pressed to give them a passing grade for the way that Covenant House-Texas deals with Houston area transgender and intersex kids.

Over the last few years the anti-trans attitudes injected into the Vatican hierarchy by Father Urbano Navarrete and Dr. Paul McHugh are entrenching themselves in the Roman Catholic Church and trickling down to the flock and its faith based service organizations.

It seems that one of those service organizations that has been affected by the faith based transphobia is Covenant House Texas.

They have either being turned away or if they are admitted, encounter less than respectful treatment.

One of the young trans people denied services by Covenant House Texas, Cinnamon (Kendrick) Perry, ended up a few days later on the Remembering Our Dead list. Perry was shot to death July 20, 2003 by someone in a passing car as she walked down the 1200 block of Lovett Street. The location where Perry died is tragically blocks from the Covenant House Texas facility located at 1100 Lovett St.

Perry told Cristan Williams before she was killed that 'They said they won't take people like me."

When Williams was investigating why Perry was denied admission, according to a post on the TFA website, Covenant House staff member Victor Hay explained to Cristan that the reason they withheld shelter services from an 18 year old HIV+ transgender person (Perry) was because Covenant House is a faith-based organization and as such, could not house transgender people for fear that 'the transgender person might snap and rape the biological women'.

Excuse me?

That's unacceptable because Covenant House Texas gets federal funding via the Houston City Council, which means that some of the tax dollars trans Houstonians pay go to funding anti-trans and intersex discrimination

If you think it's just transpeeps who get no respect from Covenant House Texas, intersex people are also being rejected and disrespected by CHT staffers.

A meeting was held June 11, 2010 at Covenant House attended by Cristan, Darin Quintero, TFA Board of Directors Vice-President, Councilwoman Jolanda Jones and her aide, Houston Covenant House Director/CEO Ronda Robinson and Josephine Tittsworth with the NASW-TX GLBT Equity Committee.

It was called to address the concerns the Houston trans community had about this increasingly intolerable situation. Director Robinson admitted during this meeting that Covenant House has no policy whatsoever concerning protecting GLBT youth and that equal treatment is discretionary for staff.

Robinson also promised that by July 19, 2010 CHT would provide the Transgender Foundation of America (TFA) with Policies and Procedures as it applies to Intake, Assessment, Placement, and Discipline regarding transgender youth and a follow up meeting would be scheduled to discuss solutions to the ongoing discrimination problems at Covenant House Texas.

One month after the July 19 deadline passed, Councilmember Jones sent this letter to Director Robinson about the glacial paced response of Covenant House-Texas towards fulfilling the promises made to her and other attendees at the June meeting.

On November 24 Covenant House-Texas finally ended their stonewalling silence as board member Andrea N. Moore sent a message to Cristan asking for another meeting.

Councilmember Jones' response to Moore and Williams' e-mail exchange pretty much sums up our view as to how serious Covenant House Texas is in wishing to deal with this still festering situation.

Ms. Moore,

Hello. I would love to meet with you. I am hopeful that you will be more productive than my meetings with Ms. Robinson, who made promises which have not been addressed and who has not answered follow-up communications. I would be lying to you if I said I was not disappointed in how the Covenant House has handled issues with the GLBT community, especially the transgender community.

While I appreciate your interest in investigating, I am concerned that that route is a bandaid rather than getting to the root of the problem. I am still waiting on a non-discriminatory policy by the CH. None has been given. This problem reminds me of what's going on with bullying in schools. The schools aren't acknowledging the problem yet children are killing themselves. Acknowledgment is the first real step to a meaningful and productive solution.

With that being said, I will have my Scheduler, Josaphine Bocardo, schedule a meeting. I also anticipate inviting Cristan Williams, who has worked long and hard on transgender rights.

Ultimately, I believe we are all created equal and all deserve to be treated equally.

The People (All People) Are The City,

Council Member Jolanda "Jo" Jones

And the e-mailed response from CHT boardmember and attorney Andrea Moore

Council Member Jones,
...
Thanks so much for your e-mail. I think that yours and my last e-mail to Ms. Williams may have just crossed paths.

While prior communications may have been less than you expected, I can assure you that Ronda Robinson's life focus has been to provide safe shelter and services for all young people.

To date, CHT has not adopted a GLBT specific policy as the organization's belief is that no individual served by CHT should ever be ill-treated, much less bullied or discriminated against. Frankly, it is my personal belief that any policy that defines the treatment that a specific defined group of individuals should receive, does more to segregate them than to emphasize that we are all created equal and deserve to be treated that way.

I look forward to meeting you and Ms. Williams and will look forward to Ms. Bocardo's call or e-mail.

Sincerely,

Andrea Moore

Moore has to be kidding about this part of her e-mail to Councilmember Jones:

Frankly, it is my personal belief that any policy that defines the treatment that a specific defined group of individuals should receive, does more to segregate them than to emphasize that we are all created equal and deserve to be treated that way.

Since 2003 CHT has shown a blatant disregard for the welfare of trans and LGB children. The lack of a policy has contributed to that culture of disrespect and possibly led to the death of a transperson. It's past time for Covenant House-Texas to create a policy with specific non-discrimination language applicable to TBLG people. It also needs to have enforcement teeth that spells out a range of punishment for violations of it up to and including termination.

There is definitely a transphobic stench emanating from the Houston Covenant House branch that needs to be disinfected and cleaned up. The National Association of Social Workers, the Houston trans community, Cristan Williams, Councilmember Jones and myself are more than fed up with the foot dragging and obfuscation going on.

We're demanding nothing less than Covenant House Texas simply treat all children they house in their facility with dignity and respect. As long as they are accepting funding from the city of Houston, some of which comes from the taxes trans Houstonians pay, they are obligated to write nondiscrimination of transpeople into their policies and follow them with no excuses and no more delays..

The question is at this juncture is will Covenant House Texas actually do so?

I've actually done a rewrite of the ''Texas Has a Whorehouse in It' song from The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas before to slam the attitudes of some of my fellow Lone Star State residents in the ongoing Delgado v. Araguz case.

Now in the wake of one of my African descended transsisters being arrested simply for going to the bathroom on November 17, new lyrics were needed for it

So you know the drill. Fire up those iPods and prepare to sing to Moni's remixed lyrics after the jump.

Texas bathrooms have transsexuals in 'em
(Lord have mercy on our souls)
Texas bathrooms have transsexuals in 'em
(Lord have mercy on our souls)

You're using public bathrooms and it fills me with disgust
Fixated on your genitalia to cause a fuss

(your genitalia to cause a fuss)

Black transwoman used the bathroom and you fools have gone plumb wild
Yep she's peed, didn't deny it, now you Reichers are getting riled
Security guard was tripping 'cause she hated homegirl's change
Wingers want to stop it but nothing 'bout all that is strange.

(nothing 'bout all of that is strange)

Transwomen peeing and pooping in the women's restrooms (oh no!)
Transmen peeing and pooping in the men's restrooms (oh no!)
Transpeeps are getting uppity, that much is very clear
David Welch is sayin' they can't use the bathrooms up in here

And now our own GOP Singers

(Texas bathrooms have transsexuals in 'em)

I'll put an end to this charade

(Texas bathrooms have transsexuals in 'em)

Stopping them is our crusade.
This is just disgusting and I'll fight it till I drop
Transsexual defecation going on.
And it must stop

Stop that defecation!
Transsexual defecation!
Stop that defecation!
Transsexual defecation!

Texas bathrooms have transsexuals in 'em
Lord have mercy on our souls
Texas bathrooms have transsexuals in 'em
Lord have mercy on our souls.
Ministers hatin' on you and they'll fight you till they drop
Transsexual defecation going on, going on, going on, going
on, going on, going on

Don't touch that browser!
This is the Party of No saying we'll be back, with new and revealing information about this and other cases.
'Cause we right wing haters never sleep

(Chorus) And it must stop.
Haters going to get you
Going to shine their light on you
Haters going to get you
Going to shine their light on you.

It's now blown up into a kerfluffle that involves local hater Dave Welch and his right wing "Christian" minions, Mayor Annise Parker, a transphobic TV reporter, our local Fox Noise outlet and local LGBT activists.

Hmm, maybe I should be writing this as a Broadway play.... But back to the story.

26 year old Tyjanae Moore had no intention on doing anything but minding her own business as she visited the downtown Houston Public Library branch on November 17. At some point during her visit she had to use the restroom, and that's where the fun starts.

A transphobic female security guard observes her entering the bathroom, and then gets a Houston po-po involved by stating "there's a 'man' in the women's restroom."

Meanwhile Tyjanae is handling her business and as she exits the facility is confronted by the not-so-dynamic duo of the transphobic female guard and the Houston cop. The HPD officer cites a law the GOP controlled Texas Lege passed which makes it unlawful for any person to use a restroom of the opposite sex unless given permission by the building owner before arresting her.

However, we have a 1990 case that happened in which a similar ordinance was on the books here in Houston. Cis woman Denise Wells, tired of waiting in the ultra long women's bathroom lines in the Summit during a July 7 George Strait concert bounced into the men's room to pee.

A po-po was in the restroom at the time and Wells was arrested. She sued the city and won. In the process she established a legal precedent that as long as you aren't deliberately causing a disturbance, using the bathroom of the opposite gender is fine.

It also resulted in the Houston City Council passing in 1993 a potty parity ordinance and the Texas legislature passing a similar law that required double the ratio of women's to men's restrooms in new or renovated sporting facilities, convention halls and public venues.

On top of that, we not only have the fact the library building is owned by the City of Houston, we have the March 2010 executive orders (1-8 and 1-20) issued by Mayor Annise Parker that expanded anti-discrimination protections for trans city employees and gives permission for transpeople to use the facilities in all city owned buildings.

The local Reichers, led by conservabigot in chief Dave Welch are already in trans hatemonger mode. They are demanding that Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) get involved and issue a legal opinion.

Mayor Parker isn't backing down one millimeter either.

Our local Fox Noise affiliate KRIV-TV is stirring the controversy pot even more with a jacked up poll question.

Q: Would you be bothered by a transgendered person being in a public restroom with you?

No, but I'm bothered by this poll question.

KRIV-TV also tried to set up a debate on the issue between Dave Welch and Transgender Foundation of America executive director Cristan Williams, who pwned him the last time they tangled on Fox 26.

He ran away faster than Usain Bolt from that matchup and eventually ended up facing off against Araguz attorney Darrell Steidley.

We also have transphobic reporting by KTRK-TV's Miya Shay to mix into this drama stew as well in which she misgendered and used Tyjanae's old male name in her ABC13 piece.

Since the Reichers are already pissed off (pardon the pun) about Phyllis Frye's appointment as an associate municipal judge by Mayor Parker, stay tuned to see if they will be causing mischief and mayhem for Texas transkind starting in January 2011.

The Texas TBLG community after those disastrous 2010 midterms is staring at a Lege that has a 99-51 GOP advantage in the House, an 18-12 GOP margin in the Senate and Governor Goodhair, aka Rick Perry sitting in the currently being renovated governor's mansion.

In addition our Lone Star conservahaters are gleefully lining up to file every piece of hate legislation they can dream up or copy from Arizona in addition to chomping at the bit to merrily reapportion state legislative and congressional districts to favor Republicans until 2020.

And the worst part is that we'll have to sweat out a legislative session that we pray only lasts until Memorial Day.

So don't surf from that Bilerico dial. Moni won't be sleeping on this issue, and she'll be bringing you more exciting updates as this case develops.

Um, hello! It's a memorial to the people we've lost to anti-transgender violence. It's not supposed to be a happy-happy joy-joy event.

TDOR is designed to point out to the media the cost of anti-trans violence. It's an opportunity for our allies to do intersectional work with our community and support us on one of our issues.

It is not an opportunity for GLAAD, HRC or other gay and lesbian orgs to fundraise in our community for their coffers, or for college students or people to have an excuse to party. You want a party, then do so on the International Day of Trans Visibility or pick another day on the calendar such as TDOR founder Gwen Smith suggested, the August anniversary date of the 1966 Compton's Cafeteria riots..

TDOR exists as a day for us to memorialize the people that we've lost and get people to focus on the fact we are taking the brunt of violence aimed at the TBLG community. As a transperson of African descent, I damned sure want to keep it in the forefront of people's minds that 70% of the people we memorialize every year are transpeople of color.

There are 364 other days on the calendar (365 in a leap year) for partying. This isn't one of them.

She raised a daughter who happens to see the big picture implications of the elections, and not just the "Save the Democratic Congressional majority" one that's all too familiar to us.

The initial population figures are being released to the states and the various municipalities in December 2010. That data will determine how many congressional districts a state loses or gains, and that will be in effect for the rest of the decade.

The states projected to gain seats:

1. Texas - (+4) (Current delegation: 32)
2. Florida - (+1) (Current delegation: 25)
3. Georgia - (+1) (Current delegation: 13)
4. Washington - (+1) (Current delegation: 9)
5. Arizona - (+1) (Current delegation: 8)
6. South Carolina - (+1) (Current delegation: 6)
7. Nevada - (+1) (Current delegation: 3)
8. Utah - (+1) (Current delegation: 3)

These states are projected to lose seats:

1. Illinois - (-1) (current delegation 19)
2. Iowa - (-1) (current delegation 5)
3. Louisiana - (-1) (current delegation 7)
4. Massachusetts - (-1) (current delegation 10)
5. Michigan - (-1) (current delegation 15)
6. Minnesota - (-1) (current delegation 8)
7. New Jersey - (-1) (current delegation 13)
8. New York - (-1) (current delegation 29)
9. Pennsylvania - (-1) (current delegation 19)
10.. Ohio- (-2) (current delegation 18)

Sometime in March 2011 the Census Bureau will release the final population data to the states, which will filter down to the cities. The population data will be used to redraw your congressional districts, your state house and state senate districts and your city council districts.

We're anticipating in Houston the data will officially push us over the 2 million mark in population, which triggers a clause in our code of ordinances that expands our city council by two seats.

Okay, so why is all of this important from a BTLG point of view?

Unless you live in Iowa, in which the redistricting is handed by a non partisan panel, whichever party in your locality controls your state legislature (or city council, etcetera) will control the redistricting process. The way they draw those boundaries can either help, hinder or neuter the prospects for additional GLBT community political representation gains.

Let's use Massachusetts as an example. It's projected to lose a House seat. If the Republicans by some miracle got control of the legislature and the redistricting process, and bear in mind the results of whatever map they come up with lasts for a decade, you don't think they wouldn't take the opportunity to draw Barney's seat out of existence and force him to run against another Democrat?

When the 2003 Delaymandering happened in Texas, liberal bastion Austin was split between 4 separate congressional districts. The six white Democratic congressmembers at the time were suddenly facing districts that were redrawn to be more conservative. Blue Dog Rep. Ralph Hall switched parties as a result. When the Dems regained control of Congress in 2006 that map probably kept six Texas seats out of Democratic hands.

They also redrew the Texas legislature map to produce a 120-30 Republican supermajority, but thank God it's 77--73 GOP for now. The loss of the Dem majority paved the way for the anti gay marriage amendment that fouls our state constitution now.

In Houston we'll be debating where those two new council seats will go, and you can bet the Houston Gay Lesbian Political Caucus will play a role in that process.

But there are other issues your ballot will decide besides the long tern implications of redistricting. We have trans candidates running potentially historic races for office in Oklahoma, Maryland and California who could use your help and votes.

Brittany Novotny is running against homobigot Oklahoma state rep Sally Kern. Dr. Dana Beyer is in a contested primary for a House of Delegates seat in Maryland. In California Theresa Sparks is running for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, while just across the Bay Victoria Kolakowski is running for a Superior Court Judge bench in Alameda County. If you peeps want to speed up the day that we see a trans congressmember in our lifetimes, these elections are major building blocks toward making that a reality

Congressional candidates are generally members of large city councils, state legislators and judges. We have to start consistently winning those races to be considered for the next phase of the political game. Annise Parker's route to the Houston mayor's chair started by winning an at large city council seat in 1997.

So yes, there's a lot at stake in the November 2 elections, and it's not just the Democratic congressional majority. Our political fortunes over the next decade are at stake as well.

It was the 15th anniversary of the death of Tyra Hunter on August 7, 1995 at the hands of Washington DC transphobes.

Transphobes who sadly held the titles of doctor, nurse and emergency medical technician.

While her mother Margie Hunter eventually won a multimillion dollar settlement for EMT Adrian Williams' reprehensible actions at the corner of 50th and C Streets in Southeast DC, I'd wager she'd be willing to give up every penny to have her child back.

Unfortunately the lack of medical treatment and medical transphobia that prematurely ended Tyra's life is still being experienced by transpeople 15 years later.

Transpeople continue to be disrespected and refused needed treatment by transphobic people in the medical profession. That lack of compassionate treatment and disrespect can have serious consequences not only for our health, but for people's lives.

People in the medical profession need to have the message driven home to them that your faith based hatred of transpeople does not override your responsibilities to expeditiously do your job in an emergency situation and do no harm to that trans patient.

If it takes them repeatedly losing some money out of their wallets and purses or pickets in front of medical facilities that disrespect us to drive that message home, then so be it.

Medical transphobia has the potential to kill people, and we owe it to Tyra Hunter's memory to make sure the medical profession and society at large hears that message.

But sadly, it wasn't, thanks to a waste of DNA who is now serving a life sentence in a Colorado prison for his crime.

Yesterday would have been the 21st birthday for Angie Zapata.

I think back to how happy I was when I hit that milestone birthday, and I wonder what Angie would have felt on this day being surrounded by a loving family and friends.

I wonder how she would have celebrated this day, and how far along she would be on her feminine journey now.

I wonder if she would have found someone worthy enough to love her and who was focused on the wonderful person in front of them.

But instead of her family watching her happily blow out 21 candles on her birthday cake and tearing the wrapping paper off numerous birthday gifts, they will be taking a somber trip to the cemetery where Angie has been lain to rest.

It's been two years since she was taken away far too soon, and as the trans community in Colorado and elsewhere strives to never forget what happened to her, we also pray on this day that the pain her family and friends feel over her loss is mitigated as time heals their wounded hearts.

May God bless the Zapata family.

Happy 21st birthday, Angie. Your extended family around the world will never forget you nor allow what happened to you to be forgotten.

Crossposted from TransGriot

I recently entertained myself on a slow news day by watching "The Plan." The story for you non-BSG fans is that Number One, aka Brother Cavil, hates humanity with a passion. He coordinated along with his fellow Number One avatars the genocidal nuclear sneak attack by the Cylons on the Twelve Colonies that nearly wipes the human race out.

During one scene in it, Brother Cavil is ranting to a Number Six avatar about why his grand plan to exterminate humanity and its remaining 50,000 survivors is failing miserably. Number Six listens, then says to him, "You can't declare war on love."

This marriage fight reminds me of that particular Battlestar episode. The gay community takes devastating hits, has had some staggering losses, faces situations in which at times they have been outgunned and overmatched, but yet are still standing and moving towards their ultimate goal of finding marriage equality.

And the Religious Right reminds me of Brother Cavil and the Cylons.

Yes, they have a plan. Their plan is make sure that marriage equality never becomes the law of the land and that the TBLG community remains in permanent second-class citizenship status.

And it ain't working. Not only have the underestimated the resiliency of the GLBT community, but how willing we are to do as Kara Thrace said in another BSG episode, "Fight 'em until we can't."

The Religious Right can't deal with people of the same gender or trans people falling in love and getting married. For specious political and religious reasons they want to prevent that by any means necessary.

They have basically declared war on love.

Gay community, don't forget as you're justifiably celebrating this win, down in my home state we have the Nikki Araguz marriage case percolating at the local level just outside of Houston.

That case, just like Perry vs. Schwarzenegger has the potential to become a landmark legal case that will impact how the law treats transgender marriage issues. It also has the potential to overturn the odious Littleton vs. Prange case, and is being handled by one of our community's foremost legal minds in Phyllis Frye.

As your allies, we could definitely use your support in our trans marriage fight. A win for us in the Araguz case strengthens your case as it percolates up through the 9th Circuit and eventually gets to the Supreme Court.

Judge Walker's decision striking down Prop 8 was a masterful take down of legalized bigotry and long overdue. But rest assured, like the Cylons, the faith based haters will be back in overwhelming force to try to overturn Perry vs. Schwarzenegger.

And like Brother Cavil and the Cylons, they will fail once again.

Because not only are they on the wrong side of the moral arc of history, they will lose because you can't declare war on love.

While some doctors, nurses, EMT's and other medical personnel are caring, compassionate and professional, we have some nekulturny fools in the bunch as well.

We have doctors who fail to live up to the Hippocratic Oath, and nurses, EMT's and other medical personnel who are more concerned with maintaining their faith-based bigotry of trans people than providing the quality medical care their trans patients need and deserve.

Even at the expense of that trans person's life.

Tyra Hunter was on her way to work in Washington, DC, when the car she was riding in was involved in an accident. She was refused timely treatment by DC Fire Department EMT Adrian Williams and later at DC General Hospital that would have saved her life.

Worse, while Williams was not treating Tyra, he took the time to disrespectfully mock her. And what was his punishment? A promotion by the DCFD.

Sadly, the less than stellar treatment trans people receive in medical facilities still happens.

I had a transwoman recently e-mail me about her needing to call in her congressmember to get her Medicaid application approved that she filed in April 2007. They glacially dragged their feet on a process that normally takes only 90 days for kidney patients. She heard nothing about her status until July 2008. Once the congressmember's staff started making phone calls on her behalf it was approved two weeks later.

To add insult to her injury, she endured a jacked up transphobic medical experience while getting needed kidney dialysis treatment.

Less than 24 hours after reading her e-mail, I heard the story about a transwoman getting disrespectfully treated July 18 at Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie, IN.

Her life partner took her there because she was coughing up a large volume of blood.

The patient showed emergency room intake staff her Indiana state ID, which had her female name and female gender marker in clear print on it.

So what did the Ball Memorial ER staff do? Logged her into their system as a male.

The fun and games continue. They proceeded to ridicule the patient and loudly refer to her as "it" while the patient's partner was disrespectfully asked by these infantile health care "professionals" if she was a "he/she." To add even more insult to injury, the patient was quizzed about her length of time as a "transvestite."

That incident was so jacked up a protest is going to take place there on August 17, and a petition is already circulating on the Net condemning it.

Medical disrespect and poor service happens to our transbrothers as well. Just as Tyra Hunter is our nightmare scenario, Robert Eads has the same significance to many transmen.

They will sadly recall how he was refused medical treatment by two dozen doctors for the cancer that took his life in 1999. His story is detailed in the 2001 documentary Southern Comfort.

And that's before we even get started with pharmacists who refuse to fill hormone prescriptions on specious faith-based grounds or if they grudgingly have to do so, disrespect the trans person availing themselves of their services.

So, yes, there's a lot of work we must do to ensure that no transperson is denied care or mistreated while receiving it.

But at the same time the medical profession needs to look inward, do the right thing and come down on those people in its ranks who presume their religious beliefs and transphobic attitudes outweigh their solemn oaths to do no harm and take care of all patients who seek their services.

And the point also needs to be driven home to the medical profession that "all patients" includes trans people as well.

Crossposted from TransGriot

But you'll note in the title I placed an asterisk in it.

This post that you're perusing at this moment celebrating that accomplishment is actually Post Number 102 since I became a Bilerico contributor and wrote my first post for the Project on January 25, 2008.

That one was called 'First Musings' and you can check it out courtesy of this link.

So why my belated celebratory post marking this auspicious occasion? I'll tell you after the jump..

Right after I wrote Post Number 99, I was all set to write the next one as a celebratory non-controversial fluff piece until The Grio posted that jacked up LGBT leaders list devoid of trans leaders .

And y'all know that I was going to have to call them out about that BS, and in the process that became my actual 100th post for the Project.

Hot on the heels of that post was the rapidly developing situation happening just up I-45 from me with a member of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit board trying to pull a fast one on the Dallas BTLG community and use the attempt to amend the non discrimination policy to include transpeople to insert language in it that screwed everybody.

So yeah, definitely had to discuss what happened to Ms. T-DART and the events leading up to what eventually transpired in that meeting .

By the way, DART finally got it right after the predictable firestorm of criticism from the LGBT community and removed the offensive language at their June 22 meeting. DART now has a non discrimination policy passed on a unanimous vote that covers trans people.

Now I can get to properly celebrating my milestone post here at the Project, albeit it a little belatedly.

Projectors, just like the first 100 plus posts, I'm going to continue to look at things that happen inside and outside the TBLG community through my chocolate flavored viewpoint. Some of you are going to like it, some are going to be indifferent about it, while others are going to hate it.

If you're in the 'hate it' camp, too bad. I'm going to continue to speak my mind on these electronic pages on various subjects, especially on race and how it colors (pardon the pun) our little TBLG subset of society.

But there's a reason for why I write the way I do, and that is to get you to think rationally and critically about the issues of the day in this community.

So Projectors, you're stuck with me telling it like it T-Ii-S is for as long as this blog exists or the editing team wants me around.

Now time for me to get busy, start writing, and get to Milestone Post 150.

It's a lesson that the GLBT community has painfully had to be reminded of repeatedly over the last 40 years in our civil rights struggle.

The latest example of the determination of the Forces of Intolerance to oppress and how far they will go to preserve their ability to discriminate against others took place in Dallas Tuesday night.

That hole in DART's non discrimination policy was exploited by the supervisors of a 20 year DART employee known as Ms. T-DART to protect her identity.

The post-operative Ms. T-DART was harassed, told by her supervisors that she couldn't have long hair, wear skirts at work, or use the women's restroom. Ms. T-DART was forced to show up for work in her uniform and use public restrooms on her bus route.

To add insult to Ms. T-DART's injury, DART attorneys filed legal papers to contest her court ordered gender marker change and reverse it. It was surprisingly granted by 301st Family District Court Judge Lynn Cherry, who had received the 2009 Stonewall Democrats of Dallas Pink Pump Award and is running for reelection.

That triggered a push by the local community to amend the DART non discrimination policy to cover trans people. On March 9 a vote was taken by a DART committee of the whole to add the words 'gender identity' and 'genetic information' to the non discrimination policy.

It initially passed on a 6-5 vote, but DART board member Pamela Dunlop Gates, who represents Dallas, changed her vote from YES to NO.and asked DART attorneys to clarify the definitions for "gender identity" and "genetic information." Dunlop Gates' vote switch meant that it was delayed until the June 15 meeting of the committee.

Local activists were disappointed, but hopeful that the amended non discrimination policy would pass and be approved by the full DART board on June 22..

Fast forward to Tuesday night.

The committee went into a 30 minute executive session prior to the 11-2 vote to pass the policy. There was no public board debate once the meeting was reopened and people were allowed back into the room according to John Wright of the Dallas Voice's Instant Tea blog..

Curious, because Texas has an Open Meetings Law on the books.

If local activists weren't anxious after the 30 minute executive session, they had even more reason to be concerned after the revised language was exposed to the light of public scrutiny

DART is committed to hiring, promoting and retaining the best qualified persons in all positions and, except to the extent permitted by federal and/or Texas law, DART will not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, disability, genetic information, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or any other characteristic protected by law.

Note I put the word "EXCEPT" in bold print. The insertion of that word by board member (and attorney) Raymond Noah into the policy wiped out the gender identity and the sexual orientation protections that were passed by the DART board in 1995 in one shot.

It prompted Ken Upton of Lambda Legal to state to Wright, "They just screwed you guys over royally."

"By adding that word in there, they've said we can discriminate all we want. It's exactly the opposite of what they promised they were doing."

Naturally the Dallas BTLG community is incensed.

Cece Cox, the assistant executive director of Resource Center Dallas said in a statement released earlier today.

"Without answers from DART, we are left to speculate that DART does not care about equity for LGBT people and even perhaps that this was deliberately sabotaged."

"We have not seen action like this since ExxonMobil rescinded employment protections at their merger in the most crass display of disregard for their LGBT employees in recent corporate history. A final vote has not taken place. DART has time to do the right thing. If it does not, DART should be prepared for outrage from the LGBTA community."

RCD spokesperson Rafael McDonnell said the nature of the LGBT community's presence at next Tuesday's meeting likely will depend on what happens between now and Tuesday evening.

"The question is going to be, are they going to change the language?" "Do they get that the language is bad? And if so, what are they doing about it? I think that will reflect the tone of what we do on Tuesday."

The eyes of the Dallas area and national TBLG community will be focused on the DART board meeting Tuesday night to find out the answer to that question.

I've found these lists are heavy on the gay and lesbian side of the community, forget the bi part or add them as an afterthought, and either forget the trans part altogether or mistakenly believe that drag queens are acceptable substitutes for actual trans people.

Not surprisingly, I get to tell y'all about another African descended media outlet that fails in that regard.

While there are some wonderful and well deserving people on the list Talia Whyte compiled such as Keith Boykin, Pam Spaulding, Jane Velez-Mitchell, Anthony Woods, Staceyann Chin, Lee Daniels and Wanda Sykes, I'll give you one guess who she chose as what she thought was a representative of the trans community.

Nope, wasn't the TransGriot. Wasn't Miss Major, Kylar Broadus, Earline Budd or even Isis King. The person she chose was RuPaul's Drag Race Season One winner Bebe Zahara Benet.

Excuse me?

Okay, how many times do I have to say this, black GL community and our African descended cis allies? This next paragraph also applies to the vanilla flavored GL community and our cis allies too, so pay attention.

Drag queen, unless said drag queen is living 24/7/365 (366 in a leap year) as a woman, DOES NOT equal trans.

Yes, there are and have been drag artists that not only have done high quality work in terms of entertaining the community, but stepped up offstage to fulfill leadership roles for the TBLG community.

But I'm beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of black peeps putting lists together advertised as LGBT community ones and being too fracking lazy to do the work to find actual trans leaders to profile on these lists.

And don't give me or the African descended trans community the weak azz excuse about you don't know, can't find any trans leaders or accuse me of sour grapes for calling y'all out on the oversight.

This isn't even about me, so don't go there. It's about the erasure of African descended transpeople.

My point is that if our own people don't or won't show us some love when you compile these leadership lists, and you write for one of our leading blogosphere sites directed at the African-American community gay and straight, how in the hell can we black trans leaders who are doing the work expect the predominately white TBLG community to respect us as well?

(Crossposted from TransGriot)

It was originally triggered by an idea from Ethan St. Pierre and Bet Power, and I quickly came up with the remixed lyrics for it.
The last one is set up so our transmen can sing along as well.

It reflects mine and the rest of the trans community's disgust at the 'bathroom issue' repeatedly being used as a wedge to either cut us out of civil rights law, ENDA, or scuttle the bill completely

You know, that's so 20th century..

So fire up the iPod's and sing along with Moni's fresh new lyrics

Sung to the tune of the Beastie Boys: (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party)

Kick it!

Trans people need to pee but we don't wanna go
Needs to be gender neutral but Barney says, "No!"
We need ENDA passed so we can go to work
Right wing preachers hatin' on the bill like ignorant jerks

We gotta fight for our right to potty

Bathrooms based on presentation need to happen yesterday
GOP hypocrites are saying "No way!"
Facing trans discrimination can be so sad
Coming from so called allies makes you fighting mad (Busted!)

We gotta fight for our right to potty

Don't like that I transitioned? Why should you care?
Don't need to know what genitalia that I have down there
I've got to pee so bump that noise.
I'm not going to (I will) use a bathroom with cisgender boys!

We gotta fight for our right to potty
We gotta fight for our right to potty

crossposted from TransGriot

While some things changed, such as my hometown continuing to be ably run by our second female Mayor Annise Parker, some things didn't.

Unfortunately Governor Goodhair, aka Rick Perry, is still occupying the Governor's mansion. Hopefully we Texas voters will take care of that problem on November 2 and get our former mayor Bill White in there. If that happens, he would be the first Democratic governor in that chair since the late Ann Richards.

Last week's State Board of Indoctrination (oops, Education) meeting in Austin proved that Texas Republicans will do whatever it takes to ensconce their batshit and racist right-wing agenda, "will of the people" they routinely quote be damned.

Welcome home, Moni.

I've been busy changing locations from Louisville to Houston on many of the websites I'm on, but that's the easy part. I still had to pack stuff from an eight year life in Da Ville and load it onto the truck that I picked up May 6.

BTW, to do my part in protesting Arizona's unjust anti-Latino laws; I refused to use a U-Haul for this move, since it's an Arizona-based company.

Picking up the truck signaled the beginning of my thousand mile journey back home. It was an emotional week that encompassed a lot of goodbyes from people in the activist and liberal-progressive community in Louisville, and a tearful goodbye while attending my last Sunday service at Edenside Christian, my open and affirming church. I had long conversations with various people I'd gotten to know over my time there, and observed my last Thunder over Louisville, Derby Week and attended my last GLBT themed derby party for a while.

Friday arrived with me spending much of the day getting the truck loaded. I took some time to get cleaned up and have my farewell dinner at Impellizzeri's, a fave pizza place in Da Ville that has special significance for Dawn, Polar, and me. It also didn't help that I celebrated another May 4 birthday during this emotional exit from Da Ville week.

The road trip symbolically began Saturday morning with me behind the wheel taking my last run for a while down I-65 south through Kentucky's cave country toward Nashville. When we arrived two hours later we noted the Cumberland River was still abnormally high when we crossed it because we were traveling a week after the floods that devastated parts of the city.

We saw evidence as we motored westward along I-40 towards Memphis that those now placid creeks in the area had been swollen with water with grass and other debris still impacted along many of the bridges we crossed. We got passed during our Tennessee run by a heavy wrecker hauling a flood damaged 18-wheeler truck cab that had a mud mark halfway up its door.

As Polar and I tend to do during these long road trips, we talked about every issue under the sun from the state of GLBT and national politics to race relations and sports. I even got the surprise of discovering once we crossed the Tennessee-Mississippi border near Graceland we were driving a dual signed portion of I-69 that may eventually extend to Texas through Houston.

Polar and I also got to witness the quarter mile of dead, broken and dying trees along the section of I-55 where the tornado that struck Yazoo City, MS, skipped over.

After motoring past the massive Nissan plant near Jackson and through southern Mississippi, we eventually reached our planned stopping point of Hammond, LA, around 10PM Central. We went out to eat for dinner near the motel and could smell at times as we walked to the restaurant on US 190 when the wind was blowing from the Gulf the burning oil from the slick continuing to grow from the blown out well.

We got rolling the next morning on I-12 west to the merge with I-10, crossed the Mississippi River at Baton Rouge, rolled through the Atchafalaya Swamp, zipped past Lafayette, the rice fields and crawfish farms en route to Lake Charles, the riverboat casinos parked near the Old Lake Charles Bridge and as we finally crossed the Sabine River into the Lone Star State, Polar dryly remarked, "Welcome home. Do you have your passport?

We stopped in Orange, TX, for my first Whataburger in 8 years, continued my road trip tradition of flipping the bird when passing through Vidor, TX (home of the Klan), and smelled the refineries near Beaumont and the San Jacinto monument.

I finally got a glimpse of the Houston skyline off in the distance as I exited onto Loop 610 south to go over the Sidney Sherman Ship Channel bridge and get to the south side of town and Hobby Airport where Polar's rental car awaited.

The first morning back home I awakened to the sight of Reliant Stadium with its roof open and a huge flagpole with a ginormous Texas flag fluttering in the warm breeze.

There was also another tearful goodbye on Wednesday afternoon when Polar hugged me and zipped off to catch his flight back to his life and the rest of his vacation in Da Ville.

I'm getting readjusted back to living in the central time zone and living in a city with a estimated 2 million residents. That number should become official when the 2010 census count is completed. Ironically I'll be counted in the Louisville population numbers for this decade since I was living there on April 1. The reverse was true when I moved in 2001.

METRO is now expanding the light rail system they were starting when I left with that project due to be completed by 2012. The Texas Medical Center continues to expand eastward and southward. Toyota Center is now open along with a ten lane Katy Freeway and the old six lane elevated section of the Southwest Freeway is now depressed as it runs through the Montrose-Museum District area.

My old far southwest Houston neighborhood has become more Asian and developed. There were changes.in the Montrose gayborhood as well. I visited Cristan and the gang at the new TG Center. I noted that Charlie's, a gay-owned 24-hour diner on Westheimer Rd. that was one of my fave and very entertaining places to eat back in the day is now closed along with a Black GLBT club then called Studio 13 when I first started visiting it in 1980.

Sadly, Cookie LaCook, a friend and the legendary "f-ing great" hostess of the FI shows at Studio 13 and the Houston Splash Black Pride event has passed away.

Moves are not only physical adjustments, they are emotional ones as well. You are leaving people and parts of your life behind to begin a new one somewhere else. Even if it is your hometown you're moving back to, there is still an adjustment period to take in all of the changes before you get settled in.

I'm a different person than the one who left in 2001. Even though I didn't think so at times, my contributions to the GLBT and Louisville community were valued. I grew as an activist, a person and a writer there, and to be honest, I needed the time living in a different part of the country to additionally broaden my horizons.

It's tough transitioning in your home town, and it was nice to not have that baggage for a while and for people to get to know Moni.

So while the chapter of my life in Louisville has closed, another one has opened here in my hometown. It's up to me to be the author of it and ensure there is a happy ending to the story.