Demanding Diversity

Ciara McElveen.  Chyna Doll.  Mesha Caldwell.  Jamie Lee Wounded Arrow.  Jojo Striker.  Jaquarrius Holland.  Keke Collier.  At least 7 transgender women have been murdered so far in 2017.  Their names need to be known. But this goes beyond a hashtag. This goes beyond cries of anger and sadness on Twitter. This is a wave of hatred and fear spreading across the United States.  We know that we most often fear what we don't understand. We must create a society where everything tries to understand. I don't think anyone is asking for the 60+ year old's in the retirement community to suddenly have a clear understanding of all the progression we've made regarding sexual orientation and gender. But we can sure as hell ask them to try.  We can ask everyone to feel compassion.  We can ask everyone to feel empathy. We can ask everyone to feel open to new concepts and ideas.  The future of the trans community dep...

Aside from all the other ridiculousness coming out of the Trump administration, we learned last night that it has decided to rescind the Obama's rule on transgender students' bathroom access and use.  Long story short; Obama decided that transgender students should be able to use the  bathrooms based on the gender with which they identify. The Trump administration decided they can't.  The Justice and Education departments said the Obama administration documents do not "contain extensive legal analysis or explain how the position is consistent with the express language of Title IX, nor did they undergo any formal public process. This interpretation has given rise to significant litigation regarding school restrooms and locker rooms." Seriously though. I can't with this anymore. There are starving people all over the country. There are overcrowded jails with no funds to support or house the inmates residing in them. There has been 270 school shoo...

Happy day for inclusion in the media! French Vogue featured Brazil's Valentina Sampaio on the cover of its March 2017 issue.  Valentina is featured wearing Yves St. Laurent on the cover with the words in white bold "La Beaute' Transgenre" which translate into English as "The Transgender Beauty."  The headline (translated into English) says  “Transgender beauty: How they’re shaking up the world,” which is such an inspiring stance for French Vogue to take. Vogue decided to take on gender representation in the best way possible with this beautiful cover and spread.  Representation for  the transgender community is crucial.  French  Vogue  editor-in-chief Emmanuelle Alt spoke to American  Vogue and explained  that they are spotlighting inequalities based in gender representation. “This cover is about the importance of [human] rights, and that we still need to make progress on an awful lot of stuff,” Alt says....