Upcoming Nikki Araguz Interview On 20/20

In case anyone was wondering what's transpiring in the Araguz v. Delgado trial, both parties are still in the discovery phase.   If I hear anything or any developments in this case, I'll pas it along to you..

In the meantime, if you tune in to ABC's 20/20, you'll have an opportunity to watch Nikki Araguz do an interview with Deborah Roberts (not sure if she's any relation) on 20/20 this Friday. .   


Should be interesting.

Happy 25th Birthday Isis!

Y'all knew I wasn't going to let today slide without saying something on my Little Sis' milestone birthday.

Today is Isis King's 25th birthday, and I wrote this in my open letter to her two years ago.

As time goes on, transition will get easier for you. Your confidence will grow as you learn who Isis is, get comfortable with your body and figure out what type of woman you want to project to the world. As you work through that ongoing process, you will eventually get to the point in which you feel as strong, sexy, beautiful and confident as the Egyptian queen you chose to name yourself after. This America's Next Top Model experience will only help speed that inevitable day along.

And two years later, Isis has survived and thrived .

She's also happily evolving into becoming the woman I predicted she would be and is constantly evolving and growing to become.

I couldn't be happier for her.   


Happy 25th birthday sis! Enjoy your milestone birthday and may you have many more.

Someday I hope to be able to give you that big hug you deserve from me in person.

Message From Vicky Kolakowski

TransGriot Note: message from California judicial candidate Victoria Kolakowski.

Dear Supporter,

This Thursday is a crucial deadline - it is the last day to contribute before the end of this quarter's fundraising deadline. It is our last opportunity to show the press and voters that we have the momentum on our side going into the November election.

In June, we celebrated a clear victory. The voters of Alameda County spoke, and more than 93,000 of them - nearly 46% of the total - voted to make me their next Superior Court Judge. I couldn't have done this without you.

However, the victory was not decisive and the electorate in November is twice as large. This means I need twice as many resources to reach voters.

Please donate today to ensure victory in November:
https://www.completecampaigns.com/public.asp?name=KolakowskiVictoria&page=1

When people hear that less than a third of Alameda County judges are women and that no transgender person has ever been elected judge, they vote for me. When people hear that we need to make our courts more accessible to people who can't afford a lawyer, they vote for me. When people hear our message, they vote for me.

We need to get our message out to voters countywide. Contribute securely online today to ensure we have the resources to reach hundreds of thousands of Alameda County Voters:
https://www.completecampaigns.com/public.asp?name=KolakowskiVictoria&page=1

Contributing by this Thursday, September 30th is crucial for two reasons. It is our last chance to show the public our grassroots financial support. But just as important is that it is just a week before voters receive their absentee ballots. We need the resources to reach voters immediately!

Let's show everyone that we are ready to go all the way in November!

Thank you again for your support.

 Vicky Kolakowski

Sex, Lies, Politics, Transpeeps and Polygraphs

As I constantly remind people, trans folks are part of the diverse mosaic of human life.

That means we'll find ourselves intertwined with and across a wide variety of human activity. We sometimes end up as actors playing a role in the great stage play we call life.

During this election cycle we have transpeople who are running for public office and have excellent chances to win. But in 1983 three African descended transwomen found themselves inserted as an issue in the middle of a heated Mississippi gubernatorial race between the state's attorney general Bill Allain and Republican candidate Leon Bramlett.

The 'Southern Strategy' was now over a decade old, but at the time in state and local level races denizens of the Deep South were still voting for Democratic candidates. In 1983 Mississippi's divorced popular attorney general Bill Allain was running to become the state's governor. Republicans were eager to break the century old Democratic hold on the Mississippi governor's mansion and show they were the new 'moral' political kids on the block with momentum in the state. They wanted Leon Bramlett to win and would do so by any mens necessary to help him.

So enter into this Southern fried political drama Devia Ross Holliday, 24 year old Nicole Toy Arrington, and 22 year old Donna Johnson.

Devia was an illusionist at an local Jackson GLBT club who when she wasn't at her primary job at the Walthall hotel. Nicole Toy Arrington had a dishwashing job at a local motel.

Devia and her housemates paid their bills by sometimes doing sex work on the local trans stroll, and one of their clients was alleged to be the Democratic candidate for governor. A Jackson cop named Randy Clark claimed he witnessed Allain talking to Donna Johnson in August 1983 on that Farish Street trans stroll.

GOP operatives supporting Bramlett got wind of the stories and hired detectives to investigate the rumors. It was the perfect volatile scandal mix of race and sex with a trans twist to it, and a detective with GOP ties soon got in touch with all three ladies and put them on his payroll.

Ross, Arrington, and Johnson were trotted in front of the media to make allegations that they had paid sexual relations with Allain more than 20 times. A polygraph test commissioned by the Jackson Clarion-Ledger appeared to buttress those claims. They then spent the next several weeks before Election Day 1983 being shunted between motels in Mississippi and Louisiana as their handlers sought to limit their media access.

"I'm no sexual deviate, and Leon Bramlett knows it!" Allain said as her denied the allegations. As he traveled to New Orleans to take a polygraph test to back up his denial (which he passed), his operatives went on the offensive to destroy the credibility of Holliday, Arrington and Johnson.

They went as far as to get an affidavit from the parents of Donna Johnson trashing their child by calling her a liar and thief.

On November 8 Bill Allain won the governor's race in a 55%-39% landslide anyway despite all the drama. Weary of being bounced from motel to motel, the trio returned to Jackson and recanted their stories shortly after Allain was inaugurated in January 1984.

The story receded from the headlines, and eventually got retold in two books, Mississippi Politics and Men Like That: A Southern Queer History.

Sadly, exactly ten years later on November 8, 1993 Devia Holliday was found dead in Jackson from a gunshot wound to the head in her Farish Street neighborhood.

Donna Johnson ended up in jail facing a murder charge due to an argument that unfortunately morphed into a stabbing death on January 7, 1984.

As for Nicole Toy Arrington neither book mentions what happened to her.

As for Bill Allain, he decided not to seek a second term as Mississippi governor and returned to his Jackson law practice.

But no one will forget the story of how three transwomen ended up memorably affecting a Mississippi governor's race.

The Transwoman Behind Turkey's FIBA Tournament Success

Turkey had an 8-1 run to the September 12 title game in the recently concluded 2010 FIBA World Championships before they fell to Team USA.

But one story that emerged in the wake of the FIBA silver medalists 81-64 loss highlights something that I have said repeatedly in different ways on this blog.

No matter where we live on Planet Earth, if you give a transperson a shot at doing what they love and leave them alone to live their lives, it not only pays dividends for the transperson, but also the societies in which we live.

Meet Leyla Çalışkan, a talent scout for Turkish basketball. She discovered and trained Turkish NBA baller Hedo Turkoglu and several players on the Turkish national squad that made their nation proud and became known as the '12 Giant Men'.

Leyla was working at a local college pre-transition when she discovered Turkoglu and Kerem Tunçeri. Çalışkan’s “special situation” as she calls it was noticed at Çavuşoğlu College where she worked at the time and she was fired from her job.

“I had not had the [sex-change] surgery yet [when they fired me], but I guess people were understanding [my situation],” she said in an interview published in the Turkish English language newspaper Hurriyet.

Çalışkan said she went through a very difficult and lonely period after she was fired and then decided to have the SRS she'd been postponing in order to keep her job. “However, I have never regretted having the surgery; I found my identity,” she said.

Her story does have a positive end despite the fact her prized pupils don't communicate with her. She is still doing the work she loves in terms of discovering new Turkish basketball talents and working as a coach.

Dr. Dana Beyer Primary Election Night Legislative Race Update

The Maryland primary election happened last night, and Dr. Dana Beyer was hoping to take another step closer to becoming the first open trans person elected to a state legislature.

Unfortunately it was not to be. In the Legislative District 18 race, which is in Montgomery County, MD there were a total of six Democratic primary candidates vying for the three Maryland House of Delegates slots for the November 2 election.

It's such a heavily Democratic district that Republicans don't bother to run candidates in it and the Dem primary winner usually moves on to the Maryland House of Delegates.

There were a total of 18,061 votes cast in the District 18 Democratic primary, with all the incumbents grabbing the top three spots. Ana Sol Gutierrez led the pack with 4390 votes (24.31%). The next highest vote getter was Jeff Waldstreicher with 3974 votes (22.00%). Al Carr grabbed the third spot with 3783 votes (20.95%).

Dr. Beyer finished fourth with 2990 votes (16.56%) She missed moving on to the general election by just 793 votes.

Vanessa Atterbeary 2372 (13.13%) and Michael K. Heney 552 (3.06%) were the other candidates in the District 18 primary and here were their vote totals.

Dr Beyer stated in a Metro Weekly interview late Tuesday night, "The people who said they were going to vote for me didn't vote for me, so I'm clueless as to what happened," she said. "But I had data, which I trusted, that told me I was going to win.

"Something went wrong."

Asked what went wrong, Beyer said she'd have to go through the results precinct by precinct to get a better picture of what had happened, but added, "I'm just gonna let it go for now. I'm gonna move on. But, it would be nice to know why."

While Dr. Beyer narrowly missed continuing on her history making quest to the general election ballot (and the Maryland House of Delegates), I hope she considers another run in politics soon. She would definitely be an asset to whatever body she serves on.

She is already serving as an inspiration to those of us who wish to take that next evolutionary step and get elected to public office. It's not a matter of if a transperson will be elected to a state legislature, it's when.

Hearts and Ears, Inc Presents An Evening of Music Featuring Tona Brown

On November 20, 2010 Violinist and Vocalist Ms. Tona Brown will be performing in a charity concert at the First and Franklin Street Presbyterian Church at 6:00 PM EST.

All proceeds will go towards Hearts and Ears, Inc. a non profit organization supporting mental wellness and recovery for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning community.

Guest artists to perform during the concert include organist Ms. Desiree Hines, Pianist Ryan Shookman and cellist Kevin Jones.

The church is located at 210 West Madison Street in Baltimore, MD.

Ticket Prices are $20.00 (RSVP) and $30.00 at the door.

For information about this concert event please call 410-523-1695. If you would like to volunteer we could use your help!

Looking forward to seeing you there for what will be an enjoyable evening of music.

Kim Coco Is Running For Reelection!

Kim Coco Iwamoto in 2006 became the first transperson successfully elected to a statewide office and the highest ranking one when she was elected to the Hawaii State Board of Education.

I'm happy to let you TransGriot readers know that Kim Coco is running for another four year term on the Hawaii State Board of Education!

She has been a wonderful addition to the board, and as long as her constituents are happy with her performance, bump what the haters have to say.

The more trans elected officials we can point to with pride, the better for all of us no matter where we reside in the States.

Best of luck Kim Coco on November 2!

Kolakowski For Judge September 14 Oakland Event

TransGriot Note: Announcement from Superior Court judicial candidate Victoria Kolakowski.

Make sure to save the date! Our big Oakland event will be on Tuesday, September 14 starting at 5:30 p.m. PDT at Shashamane (2507 Broadway, where Mix It Up East Bay meets)

It's hosted by Board of Equalization Chair Betty Yee, Assemblymember Sandre Swanson, Oakland City Attorney John Russo, Oakland Councilmember Ignacio De La Fuente, Peralta College District President Abel Guillen, Frieda Edgette, Richard Fuentes, Edie Irons, Michael Lighty and the California Nurses Association, Molly McKay and Dr. Davina Kotulski, Rebecca Saltzman, and Sean Sullivan. And there is still time to join the host committee!

RSVP to the campaign at (510) 465-2988 or e-mail events@kolakowskiforjudge.com. Donations may be made securely online at http://kolakowskiforjudge.com/

For more info, visit the Facebook event.

Victoria Kolakowski Birthday Bash And Fundraiser August 29

TransGriot Note: Victoria Kolakowski is another one of our groundbreaking trans candidates during this 2010 election cycle. In addition to celebrating her birthday, (Happy Birthday Vicky!) she is vying to become the first trans person to be elected to a trial court judgeship.

She running for Superior Court judge in Alameda County, and has a long list of endorsements and support from organizations in the Bay Area and the state of California from people such as California state senator Mark Leno and California state Rep. Tom Ammiano as we get closer to election day.

***

The Kolakowski for Judge Birthday Bash & Fundraiser is this Sunday!

Here are the details:

Sunday, August 29th from 5-7pm
Home of Geoff Kors and James Williamson
San Francisco, CA
Location of private residence will be provided after ticket purchase or RSVP by email.

Requested Donation $100.

To purchase tickets online, please visit: http://eqcapac.org/birthdaybash

To RSVP, please call me at (510) 465-2988 or e-mail events@kolakowskiforjudge.com.

We look forward to seeing you at the event this Sunday!

Brittany Novotny Cali Fundraiser Sunday

You know that I've been watching with major interest the potentially historic election taking place north of me in Oklahoma City in which attorney Brittany Novotny is taking on notorious homobigot and Republifool incumbent Oklahoma state Rep. Sally Kern.

While I've been tracking Novotny's progress since September, I've wondered why the gay community hasn't realized the fact they have a golden opportunity to take out one of their notorious enemies and help their trans allies at the same time by supporting Novotny.

In case you need any reminders of what a waste of DNA Sally Kern, check out this link to her August 7 speech hatin' on gays and 'libruls' and the YouTube video, loyal TransGriot readers:



LGBT activist Ben Patrick Johnson and trans activist Ashley Love are teaming up to host a fundraiser for Brittany at the Hollywood Hills home of Mr. Johnson on August 29. It will run from 4-6 PM PDT and at this event you'll have an opportunity to meet the woman who is poised to write a new chapter in trans political history.

You'll also get a chance to help a sister out and pause to drop some bucks for the cause. Of course, for those of you who aren't in OKC, y'all can still donate to her campaign by hitting up Brittany's website at www.brittany4hd84.com

It'll also be beautiful if Brittany can get some serious cash out of this fundraiser. Per their usual political tactics, the national wingnuts are probably going to throw a blizzard of cash and negative ads late to save Sally's sorry behind and Brittany will need the money to rapidly respond to it.

If you're interested in attending the fundraiser, RSVP to Ashley Love at ashleylapr@yahoo.com so they can get a firm headcount of the number of people attending.

People wanted someone to run against Rep. Sally Kern. Brittany accepted the challenge. Now help her win on November 2.

Nikki Araguz Update 13 -August 16 Press Conference

As many of you following the case know, another hearing was held yesterday in the ongoing Araguz case. It was basically housekeeping stuff, so Nikki wasn't required to be here. One piece of good news out of it was that the 60K she was due to get as the beneficiary of Thomas Araguz' life insurance policy has been released to her.

Here's the press conference that took place after the hearing.



And here's Cristan's take on today's events.

Helena Bushong-Interview

HIV-AIDS affects almost 50% of the African-American population. Out of that portion of the African-American population living with HIV-AIDS, about a quarter of it is older than age 50.

And there's the African-American trans community.

28% of the African-American trans community is affected by HIV-AIDS.

Here's a link to a video interview of a woman who hits all three categories, Helena Bushong.

Helena in addition to being the head of the Illinois Gender Advocates also has the distinction of being the first African American transwoman ever to visit the White House.


TransGriot Update:  Helena recently e-mailed me to advise me she's no longer the head of Illinois Gender Advocates

30th Anniversary of Houston Crossdressing Ordinance Repeal

Today is the day 30 years ago that an ordinance was passed by Houston City Council that repealed Section 28-42.4 of the city’s Code of Ordinances, more popularly known back in the day as the anti-crossdressing ordinance.

It had been on the city's legal books since 1904 and was used by HPD during the oppressive leadership reign of hated police chief Herman Short to harass the Houston GLBT community.

Thanks to a 1975 lawsuit by transwoman Toni Anne Mayes that got an injunction against the Houston Police to back up off her and quit using it to harass her and the 3.5 years of hard work of my activist mentor Phyllis Frye, the transpeople of my generation and beyond could walk the streets of Houston without being arrested or harassed by the Houston po-po's for wearing the apparel of the opposite gender.

And now, a link to a 2006 OutSmart magazine story by Ann Walton Sieber about the repeal

Nikki Araguz Update 11B -Another Cristan Update

The courtroom showdown in the Araguz case happens August 16, and Phyllis and her legal team are working hard to ensure a victory in this case.

In this latest update from Cristan Williams, she has uncovered more interesting information you may want to check out.