Congrats Kim Coco and Kathy!

The 2011 class of David Bohnett Gay & Lesbian Leadership Fellows were recently announced by the David Bohnett Foundation and the Gay and Lesbian Leadership Institute.

The GLLI and the Bohnett Foundation get together to send openly TBLG people who are accomplished, mid-career professionals who are leaders in government and non-profit organizations to Harvard’s Senior Executives in State and Local Government program.  

The program is renowned for its hands-on learning experience designed to help seasoned public officials meet the changing needs of their constituents and communities.

There were 14 people selected to receive scholarships to participate in this elite professional development program at the Harvard Kennedy School this June and July and two people on the list were trans.

Kim Coco Iwamoto and Kathy Padilla are among the 14 Bohnett Fellows who will receive scholarships for the program that counts among its graduates Houston mayor Annise Parker, Campbell, CA Councilman Evan Low and Arizona State Sen. Kyrsten Sinema.

The 2011 Bohnett Leadership Fellows in addition to Kim and Kathy are:

Rep. Nickie J. Antonio – Lakewood, Ohio (Ohio State Representative, District 13)
A. J. Bockelman – St. Louis, Mo. (Executive Director, PROMO)
Kim Coco Iwamoto – Oahu, Hawaii (Civil Rights Attorney, former member of the Hawaii State Board of Education)
Cindy Dick – Tallahassee, Fla. (Tallahassee Fire Department Chief)
Rep. Karla Drenner – Avondale Estates, Ga. (Georgia House of Representatives, District 86)
Sen. Jolie Justus – Kansas City, Mo. (Missouri State Senate, District 10)
Leslie Katz – San Francisco, Calif.  (San Francisco Port Authority, former Supervisor)
Rev. Cynthia “Cindi” Love – Abilene, Texas  (Executive Director of Soulforce)
Councilwoman Rosie Mendez – New York, N.Y. (New York City Council , District 2)
Rep. Blake Oshiro – Honolulu, Hawaii  (Hawaii House of Representatives Majority Leader, District 33)
Kathy Padilla – Philadelphia, Pa.  (Philadelphia International Airport)
Councilman Amaad Rivera – Springfield, Mass. (Springfield City Council)
Brian Sheehan – Dublin, Ireland (Gay & Lesbian Equality Network Managing Director)
Councilman Alex Wan – Atlanta, Ga. (Atlanta City Council)

 Congratulation ladies, and I know you will represent our community well..

Will We Be Erased From The Upcoming WH Trans Meeting?

Autumn Sandeen of Pam's House Blend is reporting that a secret WH Trans meeting is supposed to be taking place on April 29.

I've heard it from multiple sources this week that there is a scheduled meeting between leaders in transgender community and the Obama Administration. I've heard it from multiple sources this week that this scheduled meeting is scheduled to be a "listening" meeting (where the White House listens to a constituent group), and not designed as an "action" meeting.    That meeting is currently scheduled to occur a week from this Friday -- on April 29, 2011. It isn't just an inference to say that the White House wants this meeting to be to be secret and off the record -- there currently are no plans for a photo op or for reporting from the meeting. 

What my inquiring mind wants to know is how much like a GOP party convention will this room look like?

The trans leaders they will see damned sure won't have any melanin in their skin, and we're the ones that the Obama Administration most needs to hear from.   We're the ones who are being killed and are facing the discrimination, but yet can't seem to get those WH invitations or get jobs in the trans orgs formulating the policy.

So will the African-American trans community be erased from this secret meeting should it happen?

Given the LG community's track record so far, yep.

Don't You Dare Tell Me I Don't Have The Right To Speak For This Community

Just as you GL folks can, will and do speak out about any anti-gay legislation regardless of whether you live in that area or not, trans Americans have the same rights to do the same thing.

I dare anyone cis, trans or gay to tell me I don't.
Bilerico Project comment thread, April 12, 2011

Seems like the folks who were on the losing side of the HB 235 battle are still in hatin' mode.  Perused this comment from one of the peeps on Dana Beyer's FB page that mentions yours truly:

Did I miss something? When did Ashley Love (and Monica Roberts) start speaking for the Trans people of Maryland and for the trans community as a whole? 

Yeah, you did.   I've been speaking for this community since 1998 in my case.   I also have an IFGE Trinity Award (Trinity Class of 2006) that backs up my ability and my right to speak for the trans community as a whole.  

Maryland surrounds our nation's capital.   I and others saw the danger inherent in the passage of that fracked up bill.   It would have sent a bad message to Capitol Hill and elsewhere that could have been applied to future trans rights legislation, and without the P/A language,  the bill had it become law would have hampered our ability to legally fight anti-trans discrimination.     It was bad legislation, so it needed to die.

Settling for bad legislation just so you have it is never an option for a marginalized group.  

You vanilla trans peeps in Maryland also started appropriating my people's stories such as Tyra Trent's murder in Baltimore while shutting the Maryland African-American trans community out of the debate or a seat at the table in formulating this bill and I wasn't having that.

There was not going to be a repeat of 2001 on my watch.

If the process had been open and not as secretive, and EQ MD hadn't been pushing a disinformation campaign to pass this bill in the wake of their marriage loss,  I wouldn't have felt the need to jump into this mess, nor would have I been invited to do so by Trans Maryland and Trans United.

But back to the point I want to make.   Don't you dare tell me I don't have the right as one of four African-American IFGE Trinity winners and a longtime activist for this community that I don't have the right to speak for this community, especially when my African-American transpeeps in Maryland were being erased and shut out of the HB 235 discussion      

My community stretches across the entire United States and the African diaspora, and when I see a jacked up situation occurring, I am not going to be silent about it.

Jenifer's Website Is Up!

As the HB 235 drama is proving, we're going to have to start electing our own people to public office.   That's the ONLY way we can ensure that we won't get screwed when it's time to pass civil rights laws that benefit us.

In Houston, while we get great support from our elected councilmembers, it's just time to elect one of our own people to office.

In this 2011 city election cycle we have a transwoman running for Houston City Council in Jenifer Rene Pool.  She's been a declared candidate for a few months and I'm already starting to see her signs pop up since she's an at large candidate.

If Jenifer wins she would not only be our first out transperson elected to Houston city council, she'd be the first in Texas and also the first elected to one in a city over one million in  population.    Monica Barros-Greene of Dallas was the last transperson to attempt to win a large Texas city council seat back in 2005.

No hate from our fundie foes Dave Welch or Hotze's Nazis yet, but I expect it by the time the campaign.gets into the home stretch. 

Others are waiting to see how the new reapportioned and redrawn city council single member district boundaries shake out before they declare one way or the other.   

She now has her website online, so check it out.

The Fatal Flaw Of The GL Movement Rears Its Head Again In Maryland

Did I not foreshadow what was going to happen in Maryland before this marriage equality drama got started?  

There is however a 30% chunk of it made up of African-Americans spread across the state and the last time we checked, the relationship between the African-American and gay community has been rather testy since 2008.

The African American community hasn't exactly been happy about, nor have we forgotten the anti Black  bigotry that broke out in the gay community in the wake of the 2008 Prop 8 loss.    There's also the perception in the African American community that the gay community has repeatedly disrespected a very popular in the Black community President Obama. 

So should it come down to a referendum the EQ Maryland folks are facing trying to get a plurality of African Americans to vote with them on this issue when they've done little outreach with a community that has issues with them and will be trying to do so with predominately white spokespeople.

And the anti marriage people will try to exploit that weakness. 

While the Maryland marriage equality bill never got out of the legislature to even get the governor's signature, much less have that referendum that probably would have killed it,  the post mortem has already begun in the Gayosphere on why the marriage equality legislation failed with a Democratic legislature in place and a Democratic governor willing to sign it.

Cue the 'Blame the Black legislators' rants in the Gayosphere in 5...4...3...2...1 ...

Before you start blaming anyone, better take a long hard look in the mirror at yourselves GL community and your (In) Equality Maryland representatives.   

I and other African American TBLG people, and numerous LGBT persons of color have repeatedly made this point until we are hoarse that you keep ignoring.

Until you have real diversity, and not token representation in these predominately white-run GLBT organizations at the senior leadership level and throughout the organization, you will continue to fail on this and other issues of importance to the BTLG community with communities of color.

The National Black Justice Coalition was sitting in Washington DC.  Did anyone in EQ MD even think about the fact that Maryland is a state with a 30% African-American population, and maybe it would have been a  wise move at the start to have the NBJC on board in this coalition and give their ED Sharon Lettman-Hicks a call?

Obviously they didn't.   And they paid for their lack of vision. 

If you take a look at Equality Maryland, what ethnic group dominates their leadership ranks?  . Damned sure ain't mine or Latino/a's
 

Your opponents are mopping the floor with you on this issue using identity politics.   The sad part is they beat you in Maryland with the 'B' team.  Robert 'Android Marriage' Broadus led the charge in taking down gay marriage legislation while Bigot Harry Jackson was sitting at his megachurch in Beltsville, MD on standby.

And because of your distaste for whatever reason of 'identity politics', your professional organizations and campaigns continue to labor under a severe handicap.  You not only don't (or won't) hire, invite or let qualified POC's run your orgs, you won't let POC's, who are better equipped by their lived experiences to counter those tactics run these civil rights campaigns.  

As long as the perception continues that the GL movement is a predominately wealthy white we're 'Just Like You' one, continues to present a white face to the media for it, and refuse to share the responsibility of the leadership of it with persons of color, you will continue to lose on marriage or any other issues of importance to this community.

In communities of color, whites and especially gay and lesbian white people are already perceived as having disproportionate amounts of societal privilege because that's the face you have continually presented to the world at large.   If a civil rights issue is being decided in a legislative committee or comes to a vote in a referendum and the only spokespeople advocating for it or lobbying for it have been white, the thought percolating through the POC's head is 'why should we give wealthy whites any more civil rights than we have and are still struggling to get?'

They are not going to see the civil rights issue at hand because you have failed to make the case in my community that marriage equality is a civil rights issue.  All you talk about in terms of marriage is the tax breaks you don't get, and that's a losing argument.

And the next thing that happens is once again you're scratching your collective heads and wondering why another GL rights slam dunk on the civil rights basketball court clanged off the rim and out of bounds into the stands, but you still use the same players, playbook and game plan that led to your loss in the first place..