October 22, 2017

The Tide of Change in Tuscaloosa

It’s been 18 years since I stepped on campus as a freshman at the University of Alabama as a teenage queer kid. A lot has changed since that day. On this episode of The Strong Stance, I explore the strides the campus and the town of Tuscaloosa have made, while celebrating the 15th anniversary of UA Safe Zone, which I co-founded in 2002, Homecoming, and speaking at Druid City Pride that’s still in its early years of existence.

Resources:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thestrongstance
UA Safe Zone: http://safezone.ua.edu
Druid City Pride: https://www.druidcitypride.org
Pride Speakers: Gina Mallisham & Sgt. Justin Kelly
Equality Alabama: https://www.equalityal.org…

May 15, 2017

The State of Queer Public Health

With the recent House passing of the American Health Care Act (AHCA), the state of queer public health is even more unsure and in danger. Part of what AHCA does, and what has caused the loudest outrage, is make it more difficult for folks with pre-existing conditions to get and keep adequate and affordable health insurance, and by extension, health*care*. A few items that have been listed as pre-existing conditions by the Kaiser Family Foundation include AIDS, HIV, “sexual deviation or disorder”, and transexualism. Obviously these particular ones disproportionately affect the queer and trans communities, in addition to all the …

December 2, 2016

Angry, Broken, Processing, and Trying to Heal

A lot has happened in the country, in the trans community, and in my own personal life in the last 5 weeks. The bulk of it has left me very angry and broken. Join me on this episode of The Strong Stance, as I discuss the events of the past month, including the Transgender Day of Remembrance, the election and its aftermath, my recent move and the toll that it’s all taken.

If you would like to donate to the work of the Trans Women of Color Collective, go to www.twocc.us and click ‘Donate’ in the upper right corner.

Download …

September 7, 2016

Adjusting to Southern Intersections

Moving to any new environment always means adjustment: Taking a new job, starting a new family, moving to a new city. With each of these shifts often comes a new culture and a new social circle. And while building that circle can be at least somewhat difficult for most people, it’s particularly more onerous if you belong to a community that is not widely accepted or even understood. Combine that with any other minority status and the intersectionality of those identities can compound those adjustments. And what if that new culture is one that tends to be significantly more conservative? …

May 6, 2016

Bathroom Bill Breakdown

In the last several weeks, both the state of North Carolina and the city of Oxford, Alabama have passed legislation limiting or prohibiting the trans community from utilizing the public facilities of their correct gender. These bills are HB2 in North Carolina and City Ordinance 2016-18 in Oxford. Join me as I breakdown some of the points, counterpoints and realities of these bills and the harm they inflict on the trans community, as well as the complete lack of protection that they provide to the people who claim they are needed. Below you will find a number of resources that …

October 26, 2015

FTMFitCon 2015

I recently presented at the FTM Fitness Conference in Atlanta. It was three days of speakers, breakout sessions and events focused on the acknowledgement, discussion, education and celebration of transgender fitness in all forms: physical, emotional, mental and financial. This was the second year for the FTMFitcon, which will soon be going thru a rebranding of sorts…but we’ll get to that later. For most people that have heard of FTMFitCon, they know it as the ‘First FTM Bodybuilding Competition’, but that event is just one aspect of the conference. In addition to the historic bodybuilding competition, there was a fashion …

September 25, 2015

The Injustice of Incarceration

In the last few years, there has been ever increasing media attention on the subject of incarceration, particularly in how those institutions affect transgender inmates. From CeCe McDonald’s imprisonment for defending herself in an assault, to Laverne Cox’s portrayal as Sophia Burset in Orange Is the New Black, to Jennicet Gutierrez’s White House protest of transgender detainee treatment in ICE custody. Today we have two guests joining us to discuss the current state of the American prison system, the concept of abolition and the reforms necessary to protect transgender and gender non-conforming prisoners. Joining me are Mik Kinkead, staff attorney …

August 27, 2015

The Rampant Murders of Transgender Women

For all the advancements that the transgender community has seen over the last couple years, there are still staggering statistics of discrimination and oppression that our community faces on a daily basis. We face employment and housing discrimination, the outright denial of adequate healthcare or the coverage thereof, bullying, suicide and murder at alarming rates.
Tracee McDaniel of the Juxtaposed Center for Transformation, Cheryl C. Courtney-Evans of T.I.L.T.T, Inc. (Transgender Individuals Living Their Truth), and Sasha Alexander of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (SRLP) join me to discuss these devastating losses, the violence plaguing our community, and where …

July 26, 2015

The Trans-lation of Marriage Equality

A month ago The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that same-sex marriage is now legal nationwide. NPR’s Nina Totenberg said that this case, Obergefell (OH-ber-guh-fell) v. Hodges is a landmark ruling that is “right up there with Brown v. Board of Education, and Roe v. Wade.” Facebook exploded with rainbow flags and the White House was lit up in rainbow spotlights; and people celebrated in the streets, in their homes and at events. But how does this decision affect the transgender and gender non-conforming community? How big IS this win for us? And obviously there is …

June 26, 2015

Did We Leave Pride, or Did Pride Leave Us?

It’s Pride season again and while so many people are attending festivals, parties and parades to celebrate the equality gains that have been made in the LGBTQ community and rejoicing in the existence of any space that allows us to truly exist in the comfort of our own skins without the judgement and burdens that come with daily life in the non-queer world, I have to ask the question of where the trans community fits into this schema. It’s ironic that we have to have a conversation about where trans people belong in an annual affair that basically celebrates an …

The Strong Stance

Category: The Strong Stance