Had to take a moment to give one of my fave people in the trans rights movement a TransGriot shout out on her milestone birthday.Monica Helms is not only the creator of the trans flag, a 2003 IFGE Trinity Award winner and blogs at Trans Universe, she along with Angela Brightfeather founded the Transgender American Veterans Association in 2003. In addition to fighting for trans vets issues, she's also been busy in the ATL fighting for trans and 'errbody' else's civil rights as well.
I met her when I was just beginning to get my feet wet on the national level as an activist. Because we had close to similar writing styles and similar views on a few issues it became tough for other people to differentiate between us in online discourse in the late 90's. People started referring to us as Monica of the Air, because I was working for CAL at the time, and Monica of the Sea because she's a Navy vet. That later got shortened to Air Monica and Sea Monica.
Well, couldn't let today slide without wishing Sea Monica a happy 60th birthday!
Keep speaking truth to power, fighting for the community, and may you have many more birthdays.
