Rest in Power Monica

 A true transgender pioneer, activist and blogger has passed away. Recently the body of Monica Roberts was found in the parking lot of an apartment complex.

She passed from an unspecified "medical emergency" according to a Houston police statement. 

Roberts (above) a native of Houston, launched her award-winning TransGriot blog in 2006 as a forum for transgender people of color. It became one of the first blogs to identify transgender homicide victims using their correct gender identity and names. Last year, Roberts told The Daily Beast that she took on the task because “I got tired of them being disrespected in death.”

I remember ten years ago when I first began blogging, Monica Roberts was already an established transgender person of color in the field. 

She will be missed. Rest in Power!

Cyrsti's Condo "Sunday Morning Edition"

Ker Plunk! Welcome to another Cyrsti's Condo Sunday Edition. Get yourself a hot "Cup o Joe" and lets get started! It's cold here in Cincinnati, Ohio. Which indeed it should be during the Christmas season. Lets get started!

Page One :The Week that Was - or Wasn't:  Much to the chagrin of the anti-transgender movement strides continue to be made in the world from the LGBTQ community: 

Such as this week when Canada’s first transgender judge was been appointed to provincial court in Manitoba.

Kael McKenzie, a Crown attorney from Winnipeg, was designated a judge on Dec. 17 and will begin his new job immediately.With his appointment to provincial court, Mr. McKenzie becomes the third openly trans judge now practicing in North America. The first, Victoria Kolakowski, of Alameda County, Calif., was appointed in 2010.Many are calling Mr. McKenzie’s appointment “a Canadian milestone.” (Thanks Bobbie)

For me, as I have written-this Wednesday is legal name change day!

Page Two: Yesterday's Coffee - Editorial Opinion: One of the blogs I follow is TransGriot which is moderated/written by Monica Roberts. Monica is a transgender woman of color who is never short on opinion - most of which even I agree with. Monica is also from Houston, Texas where the trans- rightist- conservative bigots banded together to shoot down HERO 


Monica wrote: 

"The problem I have with it along with many of our allies is that the taping (of another 'I am Caitlin' show) had no Houston trans representation, and especially Houston trans people of color leaders to discuss on camera an issue that we have been all in about and are the experts at discussing in HERO. In Dee Dee Watters and my cases, we have been fighting to pass our human rights ordinance since January 2014."

Follow the link above for Monica's thoughts on many transgender issues-especially from the point of color!

Page Three: Entertainment: This Holiday Season we have the premier of the "Danish Girl." and the announcement of  Amazon's new kids show co produced by transgender woman Shadi Petosky . The show is called " Danger and Eggs." 

Shadi 

As Variety and Entertainment Weekly reported, Petosky learned Friday that Danger & Eggs, the animated children's show she co-created with animator Mike Owens, has been green lit for 25 episodes by Amazon, along with two other shows aimed at kids. 

Page Four: The Back Page: Doesn't seem possible but this will be the last Sunday Edition before Christmas. I know that so many of you will be traveling to see families and many of you who have families who don't want you in their lives anymore. Either way, take care of yourselves and be safe! You are always loved here and thanks for stopping by Cyrsti's Condo! Merry Christmas and Blessed Yule!!!!

Giving Credit Where Credit is Due?

One of the potential problems I see coming out of the HUGE Caitlin Jenner coming out is all of the sudden she will get credit for the transgender advances many people have worked very hard to achieve. Here's a prime example from the LEXIE CANNES STATE OF TRANS — 

UPDATE-3 June 2, 2015. According to blogger Monica Roberts, Texas’ various anti-trans bills, including “bathroom bills” have failed to become law following the end of the Texas legislative session. This means “bathroom bills” in all 5 states have failed. Follow the link above for more.

Another very pleasant departure from the recent Jenner hoopla last night was NOT hearing or seeing any jabbering from Zoey Tur on anything I watched. Instead I saw the very credible and experienced trans woman Eden Lane.

Eden Lane

 The transgender community desperately needs to seize the "Jenner/Gender" moment with quality trans women journalists such as Eden Lane-not one who fell on their head out of a helicopter like Zoey Tur.

Transgender Mothers?

I picked up this interesting story from Monica Roberts TransGriot site:

"Doctors successfully transplanted a donor uterus from a deceased woman into now 22 year old Derya Cert, a Turkish woman born without one but who had functioning ovaries. Being born without a uterus affects one in every 5000 women and until this procedure came along meant that the woman in question would be childless. A uterus transplant has been attempted once before by a medical team in Saudi Arabia back in 2000. The womb came from a live donor but failed after 99 days due to heavy blood clotting and was removed from the patient receiving it. Medical centers in Sweden and the United States are also working on perfecting uterine transplant medical technology and the medical procedures and drugs necessary to prevent the body from rejecting the transplanted organ. Cert became the first woman in the world to have a successful transplant from a deceased woman, which raises the hopes of women that are in a similar situation to hers that they could one day undergo the procedure once the techniques are refined and give birth to their own biological children."


"We've long wistfully expressed the sentiment in transworld if only trans men and trans women could swap body parts. It's becoming increasingly possible that a trans man when having the hysterectomy could designate it be donated to a trans woman for implantation. But if they did so, this is a situation in which cis privilege would aggressively assert itself. If that trans man donated their uterus, it would probably get prioritized toward being given to a cis woman without one. Trans women would be extremely far down the transplant list despite the desires of some of us to be fruitful and multiply. That research is also geared at this time toward helping infertile couples, not giving trans women the ability to give birth to biological children of their own But that shouldn't stop us from doing hard solid thinking about reproductive rights issues, procreation and the potentially game altering way that uterine transplant medical technology that hones its procedures and becomes as common as heart and other organ transplants could one day be applied to trans women. . The trans community definitely needs to be having these conversations about where we fit in this equation and think about what happens if they perfect uterine transplants. Could testicular ones be on the horizon next?"

Opens a lot of potential doors doesn't it?  Go here for more of the story.

Giving Credit

Here is a follow up post looking back at the Phil Donahue show.  I always try to give credit on any information I find on the web.
The video I posted came through Monica Robert's Trangriot blog and here is an excerpt:


"Phil Donahue's talk show based out of Chicago started in 1970 and was the gold standard in that genre for years. Phil had the number one rated talk show in the 80's and early 90's before Oprah took that title away and his show canceled in 1996. He was one of the first talk show hosts to discuss trans issues and for the most part did so without sensationalizing it. These shows were a huge assist in terms of me and other trans people during that time trying to gather information on trans issues during the pre-Internet era. However, watching them with our second decade of the 21st century evolution on these issues and terms we use in the community now can be grating on your nerves at times. But peeps, this is what we had to work with at the time ."

As I said in my post Donahue actually started a year or two before 1970 but made it big when he moved to Chicago as Monica said. Here is part of his bio:

"At WHIO in Dayton, he became a newscaster, and also started a radio talk show called Conversation Piece. In 1967 he joined a rival station, WLWD-TV, and tried out a new format, a talk show aimed at "women who think." His idea was to involve the audience, and have them interact in person, or via telephone, with his guests. His topics attempted to be substantive, relevant, informative, and somewhat controversially progressive."

That's when I began to see Donahue when we lived about 20 miles from Dayton.
The most relevant statement Monica made was "peeps, this is what we had to work with at the time."
It's great she remembered Phil!

Plus here is another video on the Cyrsti's Condo big screen:

Trans Kids Update

Way back in the year of the force 2007, Barbara Walters and ABC produced a show which focused on the lives of transgender children such as Jazz (above).
From Transgriot:

"This Friday Barbara will visit the trans kids and their families that were interviewed for that 2007 show and find out what is transpiring in their lives five years later. One of those adorable trans kids was Jazz, and she'll be part of this broadcast. It's slated to be televised November 2 from 10-11 PM EDT on your local ABC station. It is sweeps month, so count on the trans themed programming to flood the airwaves for a few weeks."

Monica Roberts (Transgriot) has the videos from the previous shows here.

Tea Anyone?

I picked this up from the TransGriot Blog by Monica Roberts.

Being a trans woman of color (Monica not me) I can sense where's she is coming and it is sad we are heading into such a polarizing election.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has noticed the extreme lack of minorities around Romney and his boy Ryan.

That in itself does not have to be a deciding factor. After all can't the Republican Party roll out Colin Powell again?

Seriously, aren't the Tea Party ideals something we can all live with? Less government, regulations and taxes to name a few?

The problems with the "T" peeps take me back more than just a decade to the 60's and early 70's when we were talking about the whole system being rigged.

However! I'm afraid all those self righteous T rally's went the way of the payoff.

If you want to see what's wrong with the system, start by checking how many high powered peeps recently have that Yale degree.

Romney is a big change though. He only has a Harvard Law Degree- but wait-so does Obama and where's that pesky birth certificate?

My only point is once again we have to vote for the better of two elitist Ivy League candidates. The truth is we all have to stay away from the veritable tone of political BS coming from both parties and do our own research and hope the rest of the electorate is intelligent to do it too.

The bottom line is the public political smokescreens are set up to divert all of us from what's good for our country and families.

Some of us are running out of time to pass down any sort of a stable country to our kids and grand kids.

I can't and won't try to tell you how to vote. I'm just saying please do it right!

Please don't send me specific political comments about candidates and positions. If you do you missed the point of this post. Thanks!

Let My Trans People...

From Monica Roberts at "Transgriot". If you haven't heard about her she is a writer, award winning activist, lecturer, speaker, native Houstonian and Texan who transitioned in 1994. I have a link to her blog here.
Here's part of her latest post, follow the link above for more:

Let my transpeople pee in peace without being messed with by ignorant cis people.

Let my transpeople access trans specific and non trans specific health care without the Janice Raymond restrictions being used by insurance companies and transphobic doctors to deny them coverage.

Let my transpeople be able to work and keep a job they are qualified for.

Let my transpeople be able to have identity documents that accurately reflect the person they are now.

Thanks Monica!