Thanks Northampton!

Once again I wanted to thank all the wonderful people that showered so much love and attention on me as I spent a wonderful weekend as the Grand Marshal for the Northampton Pride March and being its keynote speaker.

Had a tough act to follow in Bet Power, but think I did okay.

Looking forward to the next time I'm blessed to hang out and spend some quality time with all you peeps in the Pioneer Valley of Western Massachusetts.

The tough times in your community won't last. You are tough, resilient people who will outlast the forces that are arrayed against you even if the challenges facing your community seem daunting at times.

Remember what Bet said in his speech. If y'all start with loving and respecting each other, you'll be okay.

Never forget who your real enemy is.

Y'all keep fighting the good fight for truth, justice and the civil rights of trans people there, in Massachusetts and the New England region and beyond.

Thanks For The Birthday Greetings Everyone!

Wanted to take a moment to say thank you to everyone one who showered me with love, cards, cash, a birthday meal, calls, e-mails, blog posts and Facebook birthday greetings.

It's been an emotional week, and having another birthday just added to it.

When I opened the birthday cards from the church and Maureen with the handwritten note inside about how I'd be missed, it set off another round of crying for me.

It really made my day a lot brighter to see the kind words, heartfelt comments, and birthday wishes from old friends and colleagues that in some cases didn't wait until 12:01 AM EST on May 4 to start sending good vibes my way.

As for what transpired today, in addition to picking up my repaired leather skirt, I did take part of the day to have a manicure and pedicure done at my nail shop and say 'happy trails' to everyone there.

Thanks again for taking the time out of your busy schedules and web surfing time to brighten up my birthday.

Thank You SUNY- Oneonta

I wanted to take a moment to say thank you to SUNY-Oneonta, Dr. Bambi Lobdell and the many people that extended the kind invitation to have me speak on their picturesque campus on African descended trans issues.

I had a wonderful time talking to Dr. Lobdell, her students, faculty and various people in the Red Dragon family. It was a wonderful experience overall and I hope to have another opportunity to do so in the near future.

Feel free to stay in touch with me for any questions you have on the subject of trans issues as they relate to African Americans.

Thank You For A Good 2009

Thank you TransGriot readers for helping this humble blog grow and hit some milestone achievements this year.

*1 million hits

*My 2000th post

*2000 hits per day

*2008 Weblog Awards Finalist




Thanks to you loyal readers, those were achieved and more. I'm looking forward as the anniversary of TransGriot's founding looms at midnight to continued growth, continuing to create quality posts, reaching the 2500 and 3000 post milestones, getting to 1.5 million hits and keeping TransGriot an enjoyable and informative place for you to visit.

Back In SDF

What's SDF? The IATA airline code for Da Ville.

Back in town after spending a wonderful Sunday afternoon and evening hanging out on Long Island with Eileen, Kyle, Juli, Barbara, Arianna and the rest of the LITDOR gang. Got to sample a little bit of life on Long island before my speech later that evening.

There was someone videotaping it along with Barbara taking photos, so if I get them or a link to the video of the LITDOR event, I'll put them up in a later post.

Once again, I deeply thank the Eileen and the LITDOR organizing committee for extending the invitation for me to speak at your event and being gracious hosts.

Hope y'all enjoyed the speech as much as I enjoyed delivering it.

By the way, if you want the TransGriot to speak at your events, better get to me early. 2010 will be here before you know it.

My flights back here got in early, and Polar was at the airport to scoop up the TransGriot and take her to lunch.

I'm going to crash for a little while, and will talk to y'all about my excellent Long Island adventure later.

Thanks Tweeps!

Wanted to take a moment to say THANK YOU to all the tweeps who had my back in my unexpected Internet wrestling match with the Food Humorless Blog.

The ironic thing was I didn't realize how much of a storm it created until I got that threatening e-mail from the webmaster of the blog.

All I did was simply call them out for disrespecting Sonia Williams, and it became a major Twitter event.

What happened was I slammed the site for putting up a disrespectful thread straight up calling Ms. Williams a transvestite. The comment threads were even worse repositories of transphobia and racism characterizations of the beauty of Black women.

I was given a heads up on it by one of my readers, left my comments in the comment thread on the blog, wrote the piece on TransGriot slamming it, then took a nap.

I check my e-mail a few hours later to see the nastygram from The Pophangover webmaster.

I'm on Twitter, but I didn't check it for several hours until most of the controversy had simmered down.

But, once again, thanks for demonstrating the power of online activism, even to the TransGriot.

It's nice to know that when I take on peeps who have stepped beyond the valley of civic decency, many of you are watching my electronic back.

Thanks 'Errbody'!

Thank you to Renee and 'errbody' across the blogosphere and the Net who sent e-mailed birthday wishes, hit my Facebook account, mailed birthday cards, called or left messages on the birthday post I put up. It was deeply appreciated and made a somewhat blah day a little better.

It sucked to have to spend 'my' day at work, but I won't be complaining when I get the check next week.

Neither am I complaining about the love you showered down on me or the fact that I was blessed to make another year.

I also received my birthday present from the Houston Rockets. Read it and weep LA Faker fans. Houston 100-LA 92