Can't Y'all Read Your Own Stylebooks?

Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to see the recent explosion in positive coverage of transpeople by the media. I've done a few interviews and been quoted in a few articles myself.

What I have a problem with when I read or watch stories on transgender people is the continual butchering of pronouns. It has the effect when I'm reading or watching the story video of fingernails squeakily dragging across a chalkboard.

The Associated Press puts out what's called the AP Stylebook. It is considered the journalistic Bible and is updated on a regular basis. I own a copy of it that sits in a prominent place next to my computer. In addition to grammar rules, how to write properly formatted AP stories and other tidbits we writers need to know, it contains the guidelines for language and terminology use when reporting on various groups. Guidelines for reporting on GLBT peeps were adopted and added to the AP Style book for the first time in 2001. It was expanded in the 2006 edition.


From the 2006 AP Stylebook:

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.

The New York Times and Washington Post also have stylebooks as well that contain guidelines on covering GLBT peeps. The Washington Post one as of the 2006 edition doesn't have a paragraph in it covering transgender people. In the New York Times one, last published in 2005, it has this to say about transgender people:

transgender; is an overall term for people whose current identity differs from their sex at birth, whether or not they have changed their biological characteristics. Cite a person's transgender status only when it is pertinent and its pertinence is clear to the reader. Unless a former name is newsworthy or pertinent, use the name and pronouns (he, his, she, her, hers) preferred by the transgender person. If no preference is known, use the pronouns consistent with the way the subject lives publicly.

GLAAD even has a downloadable Media Reference Guide, now in its 7th edition that has a transgender glossary of terms and how to cover us.

But it seems like it's pulling teeth just to get peeps to implement these stylebook rules. The gay media at one point were the worst offenders about using incorrect pronouns to report on our lives with one egregious example of it being the notorious article Boston's Bay Windows ran in the wake of the November 1998 death of Rita Hester.

The anger over Rita's mischaracterization in the Bay Windows and Boston Globe articles eventually became the spark that started the Transgender Day of Remembrance vigils that now happen around the world.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen reports in which the person is obviously living their life as a female and they are referred to throughout the story with an old male name, called a 'transsexual male', or the male pronoun is used to describe them.

One of the things that irritated me about the coverage of transgender prom queen Crystal Vera a few months ago was the constant use of her old name when it was blatantly obvious there was a girl standing in front of those cameras.

In this recent story detailing the problems high school freshman and transwoman Vladimir Moran Miller has had with the Springfield. MO Public Schools over dress code, the incorrect pronouns just jumped out at me. And oh, did anyone think to ask the question whether this person has a femme name? It's obvious she's living as female, so that would be one of the first questions I'd ask.

But then again I'm a transperson. When it comes to some peeps in this country they are still in education mode when it comes to us, so we need to ensure that the story is as accurate as possible.

Is it gonna kill media peeps to ask just a few more questions in order to get a more accurate story when it comes to transpeople?

Miss Continental 2008

For some people, Labor Day means a last chance to relax, chill out, chow down on some barbecue and enjoy the last days of summer. It means seeing the Jerry Lewis telethon on TV. But for peeps involved in the pageant community, Labor Day means it's time to roll into Chicago for the Miss Continental Pageant. It's one I've always wanted to attend for years, and this year's pageant was held September 2 and 3 in Chicago's Park West Theatre.

The winner was Necole Luv Dupree. The 2007-2008 first alternate was Armani, with Alexis Gabrielle Sherrington as second alternate. Necole has a long list of pageant titles to her credit and was first alternate in last year's Miss Continental Pageant.

The Miss Continental Pageant is considered the creme de la creme of the transgender pageant world. It got its start in 1980, when Jim Flint, the owner of Chicago's Baton Show Lounge organized a pageant for female illusionists who couldn't compete in the Miss Gay USofA or Miss Gay America systems because they banned the use of female hormones, silicone injections below the neck or breast implants. Ironically, its first winner, Chilli Pepper was a classic drag artist, but over time transwomen came to dominate this system.

Unlike the mainstream Miss Universe or Miss America systems, it didn't take sistahs long to make their marks in this pageant world. In 1982 Tiffany Arieagus became the first African-American winner of the Miss Continental title. In fact, Necole is the ninth sistah to win the Miss Continental pageant and the third in a row since 2005-06. Other African-American winners have been Lakeisha Lucky, Cezanne, Paris Frantz, Tasha Long, Tommie Ross, Domanique Shappelle, and last year's winner Victoria LePaige, the first Chicago native to win the title.

Twenty-seven years later, the pageant has grown into a system that conducts preliminary contests across the United States, in Canada (Toronto) and Puerto Rico (San Juan). The Miss Continental title is considered a crowning achievement for anyone who's in the pageant world. Some legendary names have won this title that include my fellow Texan Erica Andrews, fellow Houstonian Tommie Ross and Domanique Shappelle.

So all hail the new queen of the Miss Continental world for 2007-08, Necole Love Dupree.

New Century, Same Old Bull***t

The more things chamge, the old saying goes, the more things remain the same.

It seems like every year, especially in ones when Republicans are in power, we African-Americans get a wake up call as to just how entrenched racism is in American society, how far we STILL have to go to overcome it, and just how racist and jacked-up our legal system is, especially in the Deep South.

I've been keeping tabs on an unfolding story in Jena, Louisiana. It's a town of 2,971 residents northeast of Alexandria in the central part of the state. It's the parish seat of LaSalle Parish (parishes are what counties are called in Louisiana)and Jena's population breakdown is 85% white, 12% Black

Believe it or not, this travesty of justice started because of a shade tree. In the summer of 2006 an African-American student named Kenneth Purvis asked school administrators for permission to sit under the 'white tree' in the front of the Jena High School campus. It had been 'tradition' and the unspoken rule that this particular shade tree was reserved for only white students to sit under during breaks and at lunch. The school's vice principal told Purvis there was nothing stopping them from doing it, so the next day several Black students sat under the tree.

The day after the Black kids sat under the 'white tree',three ropes in school colors were hanging from the tree tied with hangman's nooses. The three white students responsible for the stunt were facing expulsion, but the school board overruled the principal. Most whites in Jena dismissed it as a 'youthful prank'.

That 'youthful prank' as they put it has long, bitter memories for African-Americans. It triggered a series of events that escalated racial tensions in the town to the boiling point.

Incensed about the three day in-school suspension given to the noose hangers, several African-American students, including a few star players on the Jena High football team staged a sit-in under the 'white tree'.

The principal reacted to the sit-in by bringing in 28th Judicial District DA Reed Walters and ten police officers to a school assembly which was a throwback to the bad old Jim Crow days-blacks on one side of the auditorium, whites on the other. Walters is described as turning to the Black students during this assembly and reportedly telling them to "keep their mouths shut about the boys hanging their nooses up. If he hears anything else about it, he can make their lives go away with the stroke of his pen."

Police officers patrolled the Jena High School campus for a week and kept the simmering racial tensions at bay for a while. But on November 30 the school's main building was burned to the ground in an arson fire.

That fire blew the lid off the racial tensions seething below the surface.

On December 1 African-American football player Robert Bailey was invited to a dance at a hall considered to be 'white'. When he arrived he was sucker punched in the face, knocked to the ground and attacked by several white youth. Only one of Bailey's attackers was arrested. That person was given probation and asked to apologize to Bailey.

The next day a 22 year old white man and two of his friends pulled a loaded shotgun on Bailey and his two friends while they were at a local gas station. The black youths wrestled the gun away from the white male to prevent him from using it and took off.

Incredibly, Bailey was arrested and charged with theft of a firearm and disturbing the peace. The whites who instigated the event were not prosecuted.

Then on December 4 the fateful fight jumped off. When white student Justin Barker began taunting Robert Bailey about getting beat up that weekend, it jumped off a fight that sent Barker to the hospital. Barker was later seen socalizing a few hours later. Barker was later arrested for carrying a gun to school.

Robert Bailey, Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis, Mychal Bell, and a still unidentified minor were arrested, charged with attempted second degree manslaughter (a felony) and conspiracy to commit murder. Those charges carry a potential sentence of up to 80 years in prison. The sixth faces undisclosed juvenile charges.

They were also expelled from school. The Jena 6 as they have come to be called, have been in jail for months awaiting trial because of the outrageously high bails that were set that ranged from $70,000-$138,000.

$70,000-$138,000 bail for a schoolyard fight.

Mychal Bell, the first of the Jena 6 to go to trial, was convicted by an all-white jury in a court run by a white judge on the testimony of 16 white people. His public defender called no witnesses to testify on his behalf. He's set to be sentenced on September 20 and is facing 22 years in prison.

“There’s been obvious racial discrimination in this case,” said Joe Cook, executive director of the Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“It appears that the black students were singled out and targeted in this case for some unusually harsh treatment.”

The case is getting international attention and is just now being picked up by the US media, although Jet and Ebony magazines (as usual) were ahead of the US media curve.

I wonder if they're going to come down on DA Reed Walters and disbar him for abuse of power like they did to the North Carolina DA in the Duke Lacrosse case. Unlike the Duke kids, these kids lives and reputations are being ruined because they dared to stand up and defend themselves against bigotry and racist attacks.


It's interesting to note that the conservatives who were loudly defending the Duke players and railing about the miscarriage of justice in that case have been silent on this one. Where are the money-grubbing ministers of the Lo Impact Misleadership Coalition? Can't stop hatin' on gay peeps long enough to join Rev. Al Sharpton, Rev. Jesse and the rest of Black America in fighting for the freedom of the Jena 6?

Last month Rev. Al Sharpton told a press conference in the town that the case of the Jena 6 “speaks to a South we thought we left in the last century”.

All this drama because some white folks in Jena are pissed because some 'uppity nigras' dared to sit under a damned tree.