Gun Hill Road Director and Actors True Transgender Metal

The New York Times ran an amazing article "When They Play Women, It’s Not Just an Act" By Erik Piepenburg about the phenomenal new release "Gun Hill Road"


"What sets this movie apart is it has transgender actors playing transgender roles" Erick explains "but this hasn't always been true."

Indeed there have been a multitude of cisgender actors cast in movies which misrepresented and in some cases where problematic for transgender and transsexual people.

Gun Hill Roads transgender lead actress Harmony Santana a NYC native was precisely who director was looking for. He understood from experience trying to cast cisgender gay actors there was a intangible ingredient missing. He learned from trial and error he needed a sister who shares our road less traveled and finding Ms. Santana was a gift from above! She was early in transition having come up the hard way still living in a homeless shelter for LGBT youth even as the movie was being filmed living the experience.

And complementing the metal of the movie is the NYT author's grasp on our issues as he as he explores the results that drag and exploative movies have had on the Transsexual and Transgender community by interviewing another well know transgender actress Laverne Cox.

My heart went to my throat as the author's article went further examining transgender roles by interviewing Israel Luna director of the movie "Ticked Off Tra##ys With Knives" which was intensely protested by the transsexual and transgender community.

It is a sad commentary that TO#WK movie would be held as a standard for transgender movies but in truth Erik did us a solid in contrasting that movies problematic senseless violent exploitation of transgender people with the true transsexual metal Gun Hill Road.

Hopefully in the future we will see many more movies like Gun Hill Road on our shared road less traveled.

Read the NYT article in full HERE.

Washington Blade article: Dear Moms So Sad your Daughter was killed Where the Tranny Whores Hang out

Its been just months ago that I called out the Washington Blade writer Lou Chibbaro Jr for erroneously presenting our opposition to HB235 as being led and organized by transphobic and homophobic hate groups.

The Washington Blades intent was to ignore the local poor transgender community and maliciously stigmatize us "out of state bloggers" as the enemy of equality, undesirable and unworthy. We were the only voice against gay oppression of trans people then and well, he's at it again.

Now they might have just as well called a slain transgender sister a whore in the same article they documented the mourning of her family and mother.

And the DC Trans Coalition is pissed. They are calling for fair minded people to respond with there article Fighting Biased Reporting After Tragedy

"Like many of you, we’re still reeling from last week’s tragic killing of Lashai Mclean. We were then especially appalled when we reviewed The Washington Blade’s coverage of the vigil held in Lashai’s memory, in which the reporter suggests — based on no evidence other than location — that Lashai was engaging in sex work at the time of her death."

They are asking for members to write and call the Washington Blade editor and express your dismay.

Kevin Naff
Editor, The Washington Blade
knaff@washblade.com

Video: Ashley Love takes over NAACP LGBT Town Hall "Sorry for the Misrepresentation of Trans people".

NAACP LGBT Town Hall Los Angeles CA: Activist Ashley commandeers the microphone after sending this mobile upload telling us "Wow, CNN's Don Lemon just said transsexual and transgender people are really just "gay" and are the "same thing as gay". Unbelievable!"

Don Lemon (far right) obviously aghast at having his gay assimulist patriarchal misrepresentation of transsexuals blown up by Ashley looks on at NAACP's former director Julian Bond in horror as to say HEY I thought it was an unspoken agreement, no transsexuals or dogs?



Ashley is humble in victory latter telling us "Julian Bond was kind and fair enough to let me speak at the end, though Don Lemon interrupted me and made excuses for his misinformation."

This episode of transsexual educating gays would have been completely unnecessary had the transgenders communities request for a transsexual panel member been heeded. Instead, it was this adacious act of advocacy that saved the day.

Ashley on her facebook page explained her frustration "Its amazing that Don Lemon, a man who"s been out for only a few months, has the audacity to tell me, a woman who has been seeing a doctor about her transsexual & intersex condition for FIFTEEN YEARS, who I am, & that I'm the "same thing as gay". Sorry Don, women like me are not here to drag impersonate singers on a gay club's stage for you to laugh at. I'm a woman, deal with it. And stop the miseducation, its harmful."

NAACP Holds First Lesbian Gay Town Hall Without a SINGLE Black Transgender Panelist!

Transgender and Bi community beware. You have been excluded from presenting as a panelist at the first ever LG(bt) NAACP conference despite concerted efforts by our sisters of color.

The NAACP is committing the same crimes perpetrated against us, not with physical violence but by dismissing us and ignoring our sisters as they attempted to stand up and be counted! Just like the police do.

Black transgender people are being slaughtered. Police ignore us. The NAACP ignores us.

A REPORT FROM THE NATIONAL COALITION OF ANTI-VIOLENCE PROGRAMS found in comparision to cisgender Lesbian and Gay people that 44% of LGBTQH murder victims were transgender women, transgender people of color were 2 times as likely to experience assault, 1.5 times more likely to experience intimidation, were almost 2.5 times more likely to experience discrimination.

Transgender survivors experienced higher rates of serious injuries (11.8%) and that 75% of transgender men and 20% of transgender women did not receive needed medical attention for their injuries compared with a overall avg of 15% of Lesbian and Gay people.

Transgender women were the least likely to report to police. 25.4% of transgender women did not make a report. Transgender people of color reported higher rates of indifferent police attitudes. 48.3% of transgender people of color reported that police attitudes were indifferent, compared with 7.7% of non-transgender white survivors.

Police were more likely to arrest offenders when survivors were gay non-transgender men. People who identified as gay, largely gay non-transgender men, made up 69% of the total amount of people whose offender was arrested.

Non-transgender men were majority of offenders (NOTE: sexuality of offenders NOT defined). Non-transgender men were 76.1% of offenders in 2010, and 23.8% of offenders were non-transgender women. There was only one transgender hate violence offender recorded in 2010 (0.1%).

Who's committing these crimes? The demographic speaking for us and assimilating our culture at the NAACP Gay town hall!!

Candlelight Vigil for murdered transgender woman of color Lashai McLean

Yet another transgender woman of color slain.

A candlelight vigil will be held at Saturday, July 23 · 7:00pm - 9:00pm at the corner of 61st and Dix street NE.

From the facebook vigil page:

"Unfortunately, yet another senseless act of cruelty against a member of the LGBT community has happened again in DC. This time the victim was identified as 23 year old Lashai McLean of Northeast, DC.

McLean was gunned down on the 6100 block of Dix Street, NE in the early morning hours. There was a second person with her, but all accounts have this person escaping the attack. Police state that they are still trying to determine a ...motive. However, the LGBT community believes that the attack was based off of the fact that McLean identified as a transgender woman.

McLean was highly active within the LGBT community. She spent many days on the premises of Transgender Health Empowerment (T.H.E.) and was known by most of the staff. It is coincidental that the site of her murder was in the same neighborhood T.H.E's Wanda Alston House.

Mayor Vincent Gray issued a press release which condemned the murder of a member of the LGBT community. He also was quoted as saying "if the investigation concludes that this shooting was the result of bias based on sexual orientation or gender identity, MPD and my administration will work with this community to see that there is an appropriate response to this kind of violence, which cannot be tolerated."

A candlelight vigil will be held at the corner of 61st and Dix street, NE on Saturday, July 23rd at 7:00 PM. Please come out and pay your respects to this young woman lost. This event is being organized by Transgender Health Empowerment."

Facebook Vigil page.

The DCTC press release

Interactive World Map Showing Transgender Murders Since 2008

Screen shot of a map showing all reported transgender murders since 2008 updated in May 2011.

Click the map to open another window for the interactive map.



To the casual observer it would appear transgender people must have it pretty good in Russia and other places. This is because in those countries transgender murders go unreported.

link to the interactive map