Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Stop Trying To Erase Tenika Watson-And Trans African Americans In General

In the wake of Teddy Pendergrass' death it was interesting to note that the eulogies of him written by MSM papers and elsewhere mentioned the 1982 traffic accident but didn't mention the other passenger involved.

Tenika Watson's name was ignored by many except the people who Googled it and ended up at this humble blog. As a matter of fact I had an all time record traffic day of 8561 page views thanks to that August post I put up telling Tenika's side of the story circa 1982 and I thank y'all for visiting the blog.

But with those 8500 plus view came the trans haters trying to erase Tenika's existence and transpeople in general

I received this comment from someone calling themselves Elizabeth. My comment filter thankfully caught it before it could contaminate my comment thread on the post.

'Elizabeth' commented on Tenika Watson's Story - TransGriot:

It's wonderful that they both lived throught the accident. Tenika Watson is a man, which is why society will not accept him as a woman. However, he should not be attacked for his lifestyle. He, like the rest of us, just needs to be prayed for and told the truth.


The e-mail address of Elizabeth was removed to protect the ignorant.

Did you pay any attention to that picture? Tenika Watson is most definitely NOT a man, SHE is a woman. You are the one however, who needs glasses, Jesus and prayer for the ugly transphobia you had the nerve to attempt to bring to my blog.

And what you did was attack her life by denying its existence. I'm sick of you Reichers rolling out the word 'lifestyle'. You chose your 'christian' lifestyle, transpeople have a life.

The truth is that you need to pick up a science textbook before you comment here, Elizabeth. Since you're so concerned with the truth, time to school you on gender issues.

First lesson is that genitalia does not equal gender identity. That's something we scientifically literate peeps have known for some time and is becoming more clear with each passing year and decade of research on gender issues.

It's also becoming clear to all except those of you wallowing in arrogant cis privilege that there's a fine line between walking on this planet in a masculine or feminine body.

This was a comment from the ATL that was a reaction to my recent Bryn Mawr speech.

You speak of this stuff as if it's normal. It isn't normal! If you have a problem with my statement I think you really need to seek, not a pastor or counselor, but the holy spirit. Ask him to give you understanding of the Bible. I'm sorry that homosexuals/transgender people are abused and that is definetly NOT God's will. We are to love EVERYONE. However, I'm so sick of people trying to pass this lifestyle off as "o.k.".

The waste of DNA calling themselves Disagreeing didn't have the cojones to own their hate speech. You cannot profess that you love someone and express these kinds of hateful sentiments. As a Christian I have a problem with you using the Bible as justification for your BS.


Contrary to your erroneous assessment of my spirituality, I attend church regularly and know beyond a shadow of a doubt God loves me and other trans people as well.

I also have a better grasp of scripture than you assume I do. Check out Matthew 19:12 before you come over here to get pimp slapped again.

These are blatant examples of what has been going on in the African American community, online at various sites and beyond.

Too many of the insecure people who engage in erasing our identities such as Elizabeth and Disagreeing attend conservative prosperity gospel pimping churches. They hide their trans hatred, ignorance and transbigotry behind the Bible and parrot those sellout Christopimp preachers who spout this scientifically illiterate crap ad nauseum and it needs to stop.

What else needs to stop is ignoring the fact that transpeople have been a part of African American culture and living our lives for decades. There are an estimated 1.3 million proud chocolate flavored transpeeps.

And lets keep it real, there are some of you macho cis dudes out there who when you close your bedroom doors have trans sistahs in your beds.

No matter how much you try to erase us and our existence, the beauty of the Net is that we're finally getting the opportunity to tell our stories.

We chocolate flavored transpeeps also get the opportunity to swiftly smack down hateful transphobic comments, faith based disinformation and feeble attempts to erase our existence.

If you don't like the equalized playing field, tough. New decade, new rules.

And one of those new rules is we African descended transpeople aren't tolerating any attacks on our humanity.