Happy 9th Anniversary STRAP

May brings us to another anniversary month for the internationally renowned trans civil rights warriors at STRAP.   The organization was founded by Sass Rogando Sasot  in 2002 has grown from a Manila based organization supporting transpinays to one that has international respect and growing reach inside the Philippines as well.  

Have much love not only for Sass, but current chair Naomi Fontanos as well.

STRAP is not only adding a chapter in the southern half of the country, they are forging partnerships and expanding their education mission inside and outside of the Philippines.

Happy 9th anniversary STRAP!     May you continue to grow, evolve, prosper and be the organization providing the principled leadership that transpinays deserve.

May you also continue to be a shining example of that principled leadership in the Philippines and the rest of the world as well. 

The Great Fighting Sport: Toronto's first MMA event tonight; Rogers Centre host UFC 129

TORONTO, Ont. - It will be a double main event as Toronto will host UFC 129 at the Rogers Centre. Approximately 55,000 fans will be at the Rogers Centre Saturday night, watching the fights.




Headlining the card will be UFC welterweight champion, George Rush St. Pierre. He will be defending his title against American, Jake Shield. St. Pierre said he will not take Shield lightly.



"I wanted to fight Shield for a long time. He is going to bring the best of George St. Pierre. That is why I am excited for this fight as well.



However, Jake Shield predicts he will be the new champion.



"I think George St. Pierre is a great fighter and deserves the respect that he going to get, but, I think it's my time. He's got his respect and I am going to go out there and take the belt. It's my turn."



Canadian Mark Hominick will fight for the featherweight championship against Jose Aldo.



"If it takes one round, five rounds, it doesn't matter. I am prepared for both and I am going to do this," said Hominick.



UFC President, Dana White spoke and said that he always believed bringing the UFC to Toronto would be record breaking.



"I just always did ... I figured, if we did the event here it would be huge. I knew how big ... I could just feel everywhere I went in Canada, more than anywhere else in the world."



White also believes that UFC 129 will change how the rest of the world views mixed martial arts.

UFC welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre will put his title on the line against Jake Shields in the main event of UFC 129 on April 30 in front of an expected record crowd at Toronto’s Rogers Centre.




UFC 129 also features featherweight champ Jose Aldo vs. Mark Hominick and UFC hall of famer Randy Couture vs. fellow former champ Lyoto Machida.





"This event will start a shock wave. Wait until we leave Toronto, watch and see what happens over the next couple of years. [If] you think things are big in Canada now, wait till leave here on Sunday. It's going to make it even bigger," said White.


UFC 129 in Toronto is officially a record sellout at 55,000 tickets and a gate in excess of $10 million.




Organizers started at 42,000 tickets but quickly put more on the market after the first rush of sales Thursday.



The April 30 mixed martial arts show at the Rogers Centre doubles the largest gate and attendance records in UFC history. It has also set a single-day event gate record for the domed stadium.



The previous UFC attendance mark was 23,152 for UFC 124 at Montreal's Bell Centre in December. The old gate record was $5.4 million, set in December 2006 in Las Vegas at UFC 66.



"UFC continues to set new milestones," UFC president Dana White said in a statement Saturday. "We've sold 55,000 tickets in our first stadium event in Toronto and we continue to take the UFC to the next level."



More than 40,000 tickets sold Thursday in the first day of a pre-sale to members of the UFC Fight Club.



The rest were snapped up Friday, in another pre-sale, and Saturday, when tickets were made available to the general public.



StubHub, a ticket reseller, was offering seats from $143 to $9,999 Saturday.



Tickets originally ranged in price from $50 to $800.



The Rogers Centre card will be the UFC's sixth in Canada. Montreal has hosted UFC 83, 97, 113 and 124 while Vancouver hosted UFC 115.



The main event features welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre of Montreal against Jake Shields. Mark (The Machine) Hominick of Thamesford, Ont., takes on featherweight champion Jose Aldo in the co-main event.



UFC 129: St-Pierre vs. Shields


Date: Apr 30, 2011 at 6 PM

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Venue: Rogers Centre

Broadcast: Pay-per-view

Tickets: Still available. Find tickets here.

MAIN CARD



■Champ Georges St-Pierre vs. Jake Shields (for welterweight title)

■Champ Jose Aldo vs. Mark Hominick (for featherweight title)

■Randy Couture vs. Lyoto Machida

■Mark Bocek vs. Ben Henderson

PRELIMINARY CARD



■Nate Diaz vs. Rory MacDonald

■Brian Foster vs. Sean Pierson

■Pablo Garza vs. Yves Jabouin

■Claude Patrick vs. Daniel Roberts

■Ivan Menjivar vs. Charlie Valencia

■Jason MacDonald vs. Ryan Jensen

■John Makdessi vs. Kyle Watson

Pam's Ponderings-Why Are Transwomen So Shady?

TransGriot Note:  Author Pamela Hayes graces us with more of her observations about trans life.


A few weeks ago, a trans woman asked me if I thought trans women were shady. She said when she started her transformation, she needed information about where to get hormones, electrolysis, everything trans. She said that a trans woman who was firmly ensconced in her transition could have been helpful, but wouldn‘t lift a hand to assist her.

I’ve heard that story a million times. “Erica” is a trans woman who was/is gorgeous, with a shapely figure, mountains of thick hair, ample boobs brought on by a daily dose of hormones. Erica was a knockout. She had the looks of a supermodel.

But her deep, mannish voice marred her good looks. Her voice told her story. She’d go in a store and clerks would smile warmly and say, “Yes, ma’am, can I help you?”

In a whisper, Erica would state her business and the clerks would  start frowning and go whisper something in the ear of another clerk.

Now, Erica‘s best girlfriend in the whole wide world, “Cathy” had a deep voice and she commissioned a doctor to do a procedure called voice modification surgery, which made Cathy’s deep voice light and feminine and helped with her self-esteem and made passing easier. Erica asked Cathy who did the surgery. Cathy vehemently denied having had anything done. According to Cathy, she took hormones and one morning, she woke up with a feminine voice.

Of course, Cathy is full of shit. I know from experience, surgery will soften your voice. But surgery doesn’t feminize your voice.

But why wouldn’t Cathy share the voice modification tip? Cathy was insecure and she didn’t want other trans women learning about voice modification because it would improve them and they may surpass Cathy.

In my opinion, Cathy’s behavior doesn’t make her shady. It shows that she’s insecure and there are plenty of natal women who are like that.

They’ll prepare a mouth-watering entrée, which receives rave reviews and if someone asks her for the recipe, she’ll claim that she pried the recipe out of a dear friend, who gave it to her on the condition that she not breath a word to anyone.

Or she'll claim it’s a family recipe. When in truth, she could have gotten it out of Woman’s World or Good Housekeeping. I’ve dealt with many women who pull these stunts. Or if she gives up the recipe, she'll omit one or two ingredients, which can drastically change the taste of the final product.

Women will go to a gifted colorist and if another woman says, “Oh, your hair looks wonderful. Who did it?” She’ll claim she did it herself or she went out of town and had it done.

So, you see trans women are no shadier than anyone else. I think they (we) are certainly more insecure.

Tales Of The Waria Documentary

Indonesia is the largest Muslim country population wise, and does have a trans community inside its borders called the waria..   A documentary has been produced by director Kathy Huang which follows three members of this community called  Tales Of The Waria.

The first video clip is of Kathy Huang describing her documentary and the second one is a trailer for it.  enjoy.

This Ain't Stayin' In Vegas-Cosmopolitan Hotel Has Trans Bathroom Issues

It is becoming increasingly clear as we see transpeople getting attacked, hassled or arrested for simply using the bathroom that the 'bathroom predator' meme needs to be utterly attacked, debunked, ridiculed and destroyed before we end up having to memorialize a dead transperson at a TDOR near you.

The latest episode of cis people gone wild over transpeople using the restroom happened at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas and first becomes known to us due to a hotel review website.

This transperson known as Stephanie is in Vegas for a conference.  She's enjoying a few hours at the hotel's bar and feeling the need to answer nature's call.  She uses the restroom at 4 AM Vegas time and as she exits it finds herself met by security guards, hassled and barred for life from the just opened hotel for doing so.

Of course once the word of what happened gets out to a community already in high pissivity and fed up over the revelations of other bouts of bathroom transphobia breaking out , the Cosmopolitan's FB page gets lit up with complaints to the point in which the hotel has to release a statement about it.

"The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas is committed to maintaining a community that recognizes and values the inherent dignity of every person, by fostering sensitivity, understanding and mutual respect of our guests and employees.We sincerely regret any misunderstanding or inappropriate actions that any member of our staff may have taken. And to ensure increased sensitivity within this area, the organization will focus on continued training and on-going awareness initiatives. In addition, we apologize to the individual guest and welcome her back to the resort anytime.Again, we would like to apologize to the LGBT community and anyone concerned and hope to demonstrate our firm dedication to fair and unbiased treatment of all." - The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas

Umm hmm.   Well, y'all need to write that into the security guards post orders.. 

And while you're at it, are you amenable to doing some training on TBLG issues for your staff?.   Because in an age of instant communications and the mood this community is in right now, what's transphobic in Vegas won't stay in Vegas for long.

Why A Lot Of Black People Are Pissed About The Birth Certificate Release

It's taken me a day to calm down about the disgusting travesty I and other African Americans were forced to watch a few days ago.    The first African American president was forced to release his long form birth certificate basically because a bunch of white people are pissed that he is the fully elected president of ths country and are knee deep in their usual nullification tactics to delegitimize his presidency and try to make him a one termer.

All you did was ensure that we'll be out in force on November 6, 2012  voting to ensure he gets a second term despite your preemptive strike attempts to suppress our right to vote.

Goldie Taylor of theGrio encapsulates better than I can right now why I and a lot of African-Americans are pissed.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Shut Up Fool Awards-Royal Wedding Edition

Back in 1981 when Diana got married to Prince Charles, I was up at 3:30 AM so I could watch it.   Now I have the alarm clock set early so I can see Prince William get married to Kate and wish his mom was around to see it. 

It's also the last week of April and I'm just days away from the blessing of celebrating another birthday. 

It's also Friday, and you loyal TransGriot readers know what that means.  It's time to select our fool or group of fools that we'll shine a bright spotlight on their idiocy.  

Feel free TransGriot readers to nominate or bring to my attention before noon Thursday any person,. persons or group you feel is worth of a Shut Up Fool Award.

We had a large crop of court jesters who were royal pains this week.    We have a group award for Fox News once again for  everything they do to distort the truth.   Joseph Farah of Wing Nut Daily reappears this week, birther queen Orly Taitz, Charlie Sheen, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) , Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), Any Holmes for trying to defend the conservafools on this birther crap, and the Republican party for trying to pimp the Kill Medicare Budget.

Honorable mention to Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern for branching out from homophobia and transphobia.  She's now adding sexism and racism to her repertoire with her stank comments about African Americans. 

But our winner for the third time in four weeks is Donald Trump.

He not only has doubled down on the bigotry and birtherism, as fast as he is becoming an icon and popular in elements of the RepubliKKKan party for it, his walling in white privilege behind is becoming just as hated in the African American community for disrespecting a president we have mad love for.

The little press conference he called in which he gleefully took credit for 'forcing the president' to show his long form birth certificate has only added gasoline to the increasing dislike we have these days for 'The Donald'.










So much for your great relationship with 'the blacks'   

Donald Trump, shut the HELL up, fool!