Lea T's Oprah Interview

Here's Lea T's interview with Oprah

Indianapolis Media Didn't Learn Jack-They're Still Misgendering AA Transpeople

Seems like during the holidays last year I was calling out the Indianapolis media and a Black reporter for the disrespectful way they covered the murder of Taysia Elzy and her boyfriend.


Thanks to my H-town homegirl and Indianapolis native Diamond Stylz, I've been alerted to another instance of media people disregarding the AP Stylebook.    And since they've already had this happen last year with another area  transperson, the Indianapolis media peeps don't have the 'we didn't know' excuse to fall back on..
   
Let's review once again what the AP Stylebook has to say about covering transgender people in media stories.  If you're tired of me repeating it,  I'm just as fracking tired of spelling it out to you professional media peeps as well.

transgender-Use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth.

If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the way the individuals live publicly.

Once again, an Indianapolis news station gets it wrong with a transperson, and big surprise, the transperson disrespected was a African descended one.   

Back on December 26 a little after 10 PM EST 23 year old Angel Johnson was shot four times in the face, chest and leg after someone kicked in her chained apartment door.   The home invasion incident has its genesis in an altercation she had with denizens of her apartment complex over her trans status. .  


Fortunately she survived and is thankfully recovering from her injuries.

The waste of DNA who did it according to Diamond is now in police custody.


But once again an Indianapolis media outlet, this time it was WXIN-TV Fox 59 and reporters Vanessa McClure and Jenny Anchondo who failed to read their AP Stylebook.   

WISH-TV didn't do much better either, and peep the jacked up transphobic comments in the thread below the stories. . 

Once again, I ask the question.  Angel has been living as a female for 12 years.  If we mere bloggers understand the concept of using the pronouns and name germane to the way the person being written about lives their life and the gender role they currently present,  what's y'all problem? 

Or are you media peeps that clueless or simply  hellbent on disrespecting transpeople?

Somehow I doubt that it's the former of the two.

Happy Kwanzaa Black Trans Style-Nia

TransGriot Note:   On each night of the Kwanzaa celebration this year, I'm going to write about each one of those principles and explain how it applies to the chocolate trans community and our cis African descended brothers and sisters.  


***


Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.

Haban gani?    What's the news?    


It's time to light the fifth candle on the Kinara and ponder the fifth principle of the seven celebrated during Kwanzaa.


Nia.   Purpose.   Another of the principles that neatly ties in with what we are seeking to do as African descended transpeople.    'Making our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness'. 

Got that right.    And we needed to get started on that like yesterday.

One of the major problems in the African American trans community has been we are disconnected from our history.   As Dr. Carter G. Woodson stated in 1922,  "The case of the Negro is well taken care of when it is shown how he has far influenced the development of civilization."  

The trans African-American has influenced the development of our community.   The trans African-American has been instrumental in fighting for this community's civil rights with the Dewey's Lunch Counter Sit In, Lady Java's work in Los Angeles to take down the odious Rule Number 9, Stonewall Rebellion veterans such as Miss Major, and Marsha P. Johnson's contributions to shape the nascent trans rights movement being prima facie evidence of that.

We are not only emerging from the shadows, but we recognize in this decade and for decades to come, we must live up to the nia principle.   

We need to get to work as soon as possible building a FUBU trans community that reflects and respects our history, our values and our traditions and allows us to determine our political destiny in order to close ranks and make ourselves stronger.

It's something chocolate transpeople have needed to do for a long time, especially since it has become crystal clear that the white run trans one doesn't want to work and play well with non white trans others. 

So yes, it's time to in conjunction within our African American family to build community together that helps lift us up as full fledged partners, and restores our people and the chocolate trans community to our traditional greatness.