Ashley Love has a blog called Trans Forming Media. She is also an officer of the anti-defamation group Media Advocates Giving National Equality to Transsexual and Transgender People (MAGNET)
Friday she wrote:
The NAACP is having its first ever ‘LGB"T" Town Hall’ meeting next week at their conference, BUT it's a shame they have NO transsexual or transgender people on the panel. So why don't they just be honest and call it the "LG" Town Hall? How many times do transsexual or bisexual people get shut out of these events? There are numerous Black TS or TG advocates in LA, so there is really no excuse. I was all happy to go until I heard they SHUT US OUT, AGAIN. When the highest number of hate crime murders in the LGBT and transsexual communities are Black or Latina TS or TG women, one would think these groups would be more inclusive and on point, but I guess we are an embarrassment to some. Also, they could have had more lesbian women on the panel as well. Anyways, if you're gay, have fun at the LG Town Hall. Us "tra**ys" will be busy being INVISIBLE... as usual...sigh
But Ashley chose not to be invisible. And she chose not to be silent.
On her Facebook page:
Its amazing that Don Lemon, a man who"s been out for only a few months, has the audacity to tell me, a woman who has been seeing a doctor about her transsexual & intersex condition for FIFTEEN YEARS, who I am, & that I'm the "same thing as gay". Sorry Don, women like me are not here to drag impersonate singers on a gay club's stage for you to laugh at. I'm a woman, deal with it. And stop the miseducation, its harmful.
It is Ashley who supplied the quote in the title.
Julian Bond allowed Ashley to speak at the end of the town hall. Sound is substandard.
Ashley has a YouTube Channel at
ashleymagnet.
Monica Roberts at TransGriot shares the following as a strategy:
Okay, so we're pissed about being dissed and excluded from this year's GL dominated event. So what do we do about it going forward?
My first suggestion is join the NAACP. Since they seem to think we transpeople don't exist, the specter of NAACP membership card carrying transwomen in local NAACP chapters will blow that assumption away immediately.
Our allies can also help in terms of introducing POC transpeople to any NAACP leaders they personally know.
I want to make it impossible for the NAACP to ever be in the position in which they feel they can diss us like they did with this event ever again without repercussions.
Ashley has reported that Julian Bond promised that next year's event will not exclude us.