9/6/10

BIG D Gay (& transgender) Rodeo Sept.10-11 @ Alvarado, TX

SADDLE UP my Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender amigos. Hola Hombres and hombre-ess's it's Time to RODEO!

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Location Diamond W Arena & Expo
8901 E. Highway 67
Alvarado, TX

Time September 10 at 6:00pm - September 12 at 11:55pm

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More Info Texas Gay Rodeo Association

We are a Texas non-profit corporation dedicated to elevating the image of women and men in the field of rodeo. Our purposes are to promote and stage an annual rodeo in Texas and to encourage the participation of its members in western-related events and to engage in charitable activities.

We are proud of our twenty five year history of gay rodeos and of our record of donating more than $2,000,000 to Te...xas charities.

TGRA, Inc. is a 501(c)3 charitable organization

9/1/10

Transgender female youth study indicates MTF have Highest Aids/HIV Infection Rate

The transgender elephant in the room.....the studies mechanics described for curbing this trend are correct, but without understanding the underlying forces driving this trend, the mechanics are useless.

This study examined our population (MTF) who are early in transition (youth) and compared the results against cisgender, homosexual and bisexual groups of the same demographic and found these alarming but unsurprising results.

From the study "Sexual Risk Taking Among Transgender Male-to-Female Youths With Different Partner Types"

"Methods
We interviewed 120 transgender female youths aged 15 to 24 years recruited from clinics, community-based agencies, club and bar venues, referrals, and the streets of Los Angeles, California, and Chicago, Illinois.

Results
Sexual risk behaviors varied by partner type. Transgender female youths were less likely to use condoms during receptive anal intercourse with their main partner and were less likely to use condoms with a main partner while under the influence of substances. Youth participants were also more likely to talk to a main partner about their HIV status. Our data identified no demographic or social factors that predicted condom use during receptive anal intercourse by partner type.

Conclusions
Research and interventions that focus on understanding and mitigating risk behaviors by partner type, especially those that tackle the unique risks incurred with main partners, may make important contributions to risk reduction among transgender female youths. read the study in full click here
Why would these results not surprise me? As a transgender female in early transition I was living proof of this study.

I engaged in risky sex because;

I had Low self estem, I was alienated from family and I was struggling with adolescent precepts molded by a overbearing patriarchy. I found camaraderie, identity and anonymity in the sex for drug culture. These social mores that brought me to that condition are self propagating. The people who defined our subservience and sentenced us to the resultant perpetual ignominy are the same ones who relied on our sexual availability and shameful silence to live out there secret fantasies, always unknown to their wives.

I was addicted to drugs and while high I temporarily lost my inhibitions and was a willing sexual partner, to anyone. I needed to stay high. Coming down was a bitch maginfing the shame and self hatred I sought to escape.

I could engage in multiple sexual activities in a short time when high and earn enough to 'maintain' my high.

I had a facilitative mainlining partner. We never engaged in protected sex in our open relationship. Becuse I was afraid I was infected I remained untested which served to fuel my recklessness.

My turn around was my higher powers doing. One fine day life, out of the clear blue, not just my own, but the well being of others suddenly became a prime concern.

After 20 some years.

I am employed.

I love Church.

I walk a hour a day for fitness. I am often propositioned, hooted and honked at and I simply smile. I am so happy with my boyfriend who loves me. I have goals, friends, advocacy and a kitty who loves me. I am so at peace with my creator(usually).

I wouldn't, couldn't not again to those depths of despair dive.

What can we do? Continue what we have been doing by feminizing our society which opens avenues for empathy, compassion and eventually sisterhood and brotherhood for all.

So I'll continue to read, write and talk about our female transgender elephant in the room.

8/23/10

Transgender Texas edispu nwod/upside down should Nikki Araguz lose


Think your transgender day in the grand republic of Texas is bad now?

Should our worst fears be realized, you may very well have to revert to your gender identity the doctor assigned you at birth, and up to this point the national gay and lesbian organizations may as well be helping to hang us out, upside down.

Maybe they feel it's a no win battle her or perhaps as the ENDA Blog suggests or perhaps they just don't give a damn.

Money talks and according to attorney Phyllis Frye gay.com hasn't antied up.

In a email Phyllis asks:

Where is the same national support given for the L and G same-sex marriage struggles? Has it remained nonexistent for over six weeks now because this Texas fight is insignificantly and merely a “tra##y” same-sex marriage fight, so who nationally gives a shit? Then are we a National LGBT-inclusive community, but NOT when it comes to financing the “tra##y” same-sex marriage fights? From here, it seems to me — still — that the national L and G groups and the big bucks L and G attitudes haven’t really changed very much. FOLKS, IT IS TIME YOU FIGURED IT OUT THAT THE SAME-SEX MARRIAGE FIGHT IS JUST AS MUCH A TRANSGENDER FIGHT AS IT IS A LESBIAN, GAY AND BISEXUAL FIGHT.

8/22/10

TransYouth Family and Allies Organizing Legal Battle for Denied Kansas Student

Pennies From Heaven

Two moms transgender daughter denied access to school becuse of her gender expression seeks your love from our rainbow!

From Kim Pearson Friday, August 20, 2010

Those of you who follow my Facebook may be aware that I made an emergency trip to Kansas this week. A school there was refusing to recognize a 10 year old transgender girl's gender identity. They were requiring her to attend school as male and wouldn't budge.

I met with a school across town and they were happy to have her and wanted to learn how to make her school experience safe and productive. We registered her and expected that she would start school later in the week. I flew home to AZ.

Now the district administration has become involved and informed the parents (two moms) that their child will not be accommodated at ANY SCHOOL in their district. The child must present male or gender neutral, must use a male name and male restroom. The reason given is that to do otherwise would "interfere with the learning environment".

We are going to file suit against this school system. TYFA has retained the best attorney in KS with experience in GLBT discrimination. We need to raise an estimated $25,000 (or more) to litigate this case. I am calling this fund raising effort "Pennies From Heaven". Make any donation amount but end it with .01 (example 20.01) so that we know you are donating for the KS Defense Fund. Are you with me here?

It is time to take back our schools for gender variant students everywhere and we are going to start in Kansas.

LETS MAKE IT RAIN LOVE!

THANK YOU! TO MAKE YOUR DONATION NOW: click here

Kim Pearson
Executive Director
TransYouth Family Allies

8/19/10

Cristan Williams Debates the Nikki Araguz case with fascist Dave Welch

Cristan Williams of the Transgender Center of America agreed to debate on Fox News the controversy surrounding the Nikki Araguz case. Of course the lead questions all were bent to put Cristan at a disadvantage. Happily the Fox channel home-turf was of no benefit to Dave Welch who writes for 'world daily' which publishes extremist pseudo-christian, borderline psychotic right wing screeds. Watch and enjoy.



Welch: "Clearly we are at a point when we have to defend (activate the good ol' boy netwerk) and (re)define (discriminate) with the (Texas) constitutional amendment."


Welch: "You can't legislate on a fractional percentage of society". (like blacks, Jews, transsexuals and woman?)

It is clear.

Welch is a talking head for racist patriarchal white transphobes who would pervert Christianity inorder to facilitate the subjugation of ALL minorities by the Texas legislature.

Yes Welch, we CAN 'undefine' a institution inplaced by the majority that not only discriminates against, but denies minorities by segregation the privileges enjoyed by powerholders, this is America you plastic smiling turd.

Thanks to ENDA Blog's appropriately tittled post How to debate a plastic-smiled turd!

8/17/10

Uniting against hatred: the Shirley Sherrod Plea

I received this from the NAACP. It's about racisim but the bigotry that is behind this hatred is universal. Transgender people must stand with all people in a united strugle against injustice no matter who or where it is found.

from Shirley Sherrod Back in March, I delivered a speech to an NAACP Freedom Fund banquet in my home state of Georgia. I drew on my personal life story to urge poor people, white and black, to pull together and overcome racial divisions. We have to understand that our struggle is against poverty and against those who are blocking our path out of poverty.

Unless we figure this out, I warned, our communities won't thrive and our children won't prosper.

As you know, a Tea Party blogger named Andrew Breitbart released an intentionally deceptive, heavily edited clip from that speech to make it look as if I was delivering exactly the opposite message. Then Fox News blasted that false message across America's airwaves, creating a firestorm that led to my ouster as the USDA State Director here in Georgia.



Not long ago, I sat here in my living room in Albany, Georgia for an afternoon of deep conversation with NAACP President Benjamin Jealous. As he has done in public, Ben movingly apologized for the fact that the NAACP was initially hoodwinked by Breitbart and Fox into supporting my removal. I told him what I want to tell you.

That's behind us, and the last thing I want to see happen is for my situation to weaken support for the NAACP. Too many people confronted by racism and poverty count on the NAACP to be there for them, especially those in rural areas who often have nowhere else to turn.

People ask me, "Shirley, how are you getting through all of this?" I tell them that, if they knew what I have lived through, they'd understand that these current challenges aren't about to throw me off course.

When I was 17 years old, my father was murdered by a white man in Baker County, Georgia. There were three witnesses, but the grand jury refused to indict the person responsible. I knew I had to do something in answer to my father's death.

That very night, I made a commitment that I would stay in the South and fight for change.

I have lived true to that commitment for 45 years. I didn't yield when, just months after my father was killed, they came in the middle of the night to burn a cross in front of our house with my mother, four sisters, and the baby brother my father never got to see still inside.

And I'm surely not going to yield because some Tea Party agitator sat at his computer and turned everything I said upside down and inside out.

I learned a lot of lessons from my parents growing up, but one of the most important ones is what my mother taught her children after our father was killed. She told us we mustn't try to live with hate in our hearts.

My mother led by example. Just 11 years after that cross-burning incident, she became the first black elected official in Baker County, and she's still serving, still working to bring people together.

You and I have to keep working as well. Change has to start with us. I have been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support I have received over these last few weeks. It means so much to me and my family.

But you and I have to make sure that people all across the country who wage a daily struggle against poverty and racism have support networks as well. And that's why your personal involvement in sustaining the NAACP is so critical.

The NAACP confronts the virulent racism that my family and so many other families have had to endure. But it is also leading the way in breaking down the structural barriers that block so many people's paths out of poverty.

In our struggle between the "haves" and the "have-nots," they want to keep the poor divided - and we have to insist, by our words and our actions, that there is no difference between us.

As we move forward together, I urge you to remember this: Life is a grindstone. But whether it grinds us down or polishes us up depends on us.

Thank you for all you are doing to challenge poverty and racism. I look forward to working and struggling right by your side.

Sincerely,

Shirley Sherrod