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…

The post The Tide of Change in Tuscaloosa appeared first on The Strong Stance.

Experience changes your life. It changes how you see things, how you perceive the world and your future expectations. With experience, you may look at life, in the words of Joni Mitchell, from Both Sides Now. On this episode, I’m bringing you stories from three trans folks about seeing different sides of their own personal life events.

Story Tellers:
JB Fuoco [“Seeing Both Sides (and the Middle Too)”]
Julian [“It’s Hard to Understand, I Know”]
Kris McElroy [“Fears and Joys”]

JB Fuoco [“Seeing Both Sides (and the Middle Too)”] is a Latinx, queer, transgender business analyst and native Southerner. He …

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This month’s Spotlight is focused on Chris Jennings: drag king, photographer, podcaster and host of the new weekly Facebook Live show, Coffee with Chris. They are truly an all around entrepreneur. We discussed what has gotten them to this point, what keeps them going, and their previous and current ventures, including a drag king-focused photo book called Kingxtaposition.
We had such a great time with this conversation, so I hope you enjoy it.

Resources:
Fierce!: http://www.fiercequeerburlesquefest.com
Coffee with Chris: https://www.facebook.com/coffeewithchrisshow
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chrisjaythemc
Instagram: chrisjayphoto

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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 …

The post The State of Queer Public Health appeared first on The Strong Stance.

On this episode, I am honored to have the brilliant Angela Dumlao as my Spotlight guest! We discussed their wildly popular trans and non-binary versions of the #ShePersisted memes, as well as the rest of their projects including Call Me They, Post Traumatic Super Delightful, and @MenswearSelfCare.
We had a great discussion about gender, individualized healing, fashion, and self-care. I had such a wonderful time talking to Angela and I hope they will grace the show again soon. You can find more information on them and all their projects via the links below.

Resources:
Website: angelacdumlao.com
Twitter: @angelacdumlao
Call Me …

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On this episode of The Strong Stance Spotlight, I speak to Kendra Brill about her life, her time in prison, her struggle with addiction, her transition, her faith and her new book, ‘The Kendra Brill Story: From Out Of The Ashes A Phoenix Emerges’.

You can purchase the book here:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/tess-decarlo/the-kendra-brill-story/paperback/product-23054769.html

You can connect with Kendra on Facebook here:
https://www.facebook.com/KendraCatherineBrill

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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.

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The post Angry, Broken, Processing, and Trying to Heal appeared first on The Strong Stance.

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? …

The post Adjusting to Southern Intersections appeared first on The Strong Stance.

The month of June was particularly eventful for a lot of the queer community: Philadelphia Trans Health Conference, Pride, the Pulse shooting in Orlando and more…and clearly not all of it was positive. These events affected people in different ways and, in the case of Benny Rodriguez, they weren’t the only events that made June emotionally taxing. So we sat down for a chat about…Benny’s June.

We discussed the Latinx community, the anti-blackness found at many of the aforementionedevents, and the erasure that was so blatantly evident in the wake of tragedy.

Resources:
Philadelphia Trans Health Conference: https://www.mazzonicenter.org/trans-health
Pulse …

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My wife and I recently took a trip down to New Orleans for a week. Just before we left, I was introduced to this month’s guest via a mutual friend on Facebook, and in a bizarre turn of events, he happens to live in New Orleans. So long story short, I got to meet him and talk about this amazing adventure he’s about to embark on…and I had to have him on to share it with The Strong Stance listeners. My guest is Basil Soper and he is joining us to discuss his life and his newest project, Transilient.

Resources:…

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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 …

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If it’s felt lately like there has been a large number of anti-trans bills proposed across the country…it’s not your imagination. There has. NCTE is currently tracking some 49 proposed and inactive bills in 19 states in the 2016 legislative session. And a vast majority of those laws affect transgender and gender non-conforming students. These are the bathroom and locker room bills you’ve likely heard about: That a student must use the restroom that matches their sex assigned at birth, or in some cases, their genitals. And then there’s bullying: According to the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, only …

The post Christian Zsilavetz & Pride School Atlanta appeared first on The Strong Stance.

Each of these segments will feature a story about events involving a family member or members. I have some amazing stories for you today, about pain, about joy, and hopefully you’ll laugh a bit along the way as well.

Story Tellers:
Eli Strong [“Expectations”]
Julian [“Black and Blue”]
Ari Agha [“Aunt Miriam”]

Julian [“Black and Blue”] is a 30 something year old black trans man navigating life as a mental health professional in Washington, DC on a non-profit salary. When he’s not working, he enjoys learning about ways to be a better therapist, playing and listening to music and long …

The post Family Matters appeared first on The Strong Stance.

The stories in this episode showcase a few of the ways in which we present ourselves to the world around us and how those performances and presentations affect our lives moving forward. Is the face that we show to the world the same one we see in the mirror? How do we view society and how are we viewed in it? And will these experiences change the trajectory of our future and how we move through our daily lives? Welcome…to The Strong Stance Stories.

Story Tellers:
Eli Strong [“Strangers”]
Tracee McDaniel [“1996: The Year That Transformed My Life”]
Melvin Whitehead…

The post About Face appeared first on The Strong Stance.

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 …

The post FTMFitCon 2015 appeared first on The Strong Stance.

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 …

The post The Injustice of Incarceration appeared first on The Strong Stance.

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 …

The post The Rampant Murders of Transgender Women appeared first on The Strong Stance.

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 …

The post The Trans-lation of Marriage Equality appeared first on The Strong Stance.

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 post Did We Leave Pride, or Did Pride Leave Us? appeared first on The Strong Stance.

When it comes to the referring to larger “gay” or “queer” community (and I’m using air quotes here), most people and organizations have settled on the acronym LGBT, or Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender. While each of these individuals are not identical, nor do they sometimes even share some of the same characteristics, they have found themselves grouped together as one collective community. But why is that? And what are the benefits of the collective versus the individual, or rather the collective and the splintering off of one particular segment of that community? There is an ongoing debate as to …

The post Is the T Transitioning Out of LGBT? appeared first on The Strong Stance.

Lately most of the news of trans people has been negative. Murders, violence, harmful and ignorant legislation… It is often hard to remember the great things that members of our community are doing in spite of all of this. So tonight we are going to focus on a member of our community that is not only surviving, but thriving and is helping other transgender and gender non-conforming people to do the same: the Founder and CEO of the Juxtaposed Center for Transformation in Atlanta, Tracee McDaniel.

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Trigger Warning: We will be talking about our personal experiences tonight and as with most topics on this show, we’re not always certain what roads this conversation might lead down. We’re going to do our best to keep this PG-13, but we want to warn folks that if someone feels compelled to share a negative experience, we are certainly not going to squelch that.

Very often trans people are reduced. They are reduced to their names, their pronouns, their parts and their surgeries. Trans people are constantly subject to inappropriate questions, assumptions and stereotypes about any number of experiences in …

The post The Trans Sexual Experience appeared first on The Strong Stance.

It’s no secret that living as trans can be a challenge. That is particularly true in the small towns of the deep south. There is a massive amount of evidence that successfully transitioning, however one might define that, is monumentally easier with access to resources and a healthy support system. That also holds true after one has “completed” their transition, also however one might define that. It’s also no surprise that, considering the law of averages, that the smaller the town, the fewer resources are available. Throw in the degree to which a town is considered to be conservative or …

The post Transitioning the Small Town South appeared first on The Strong Stance.

Access to health care has lately been a hotly debated topic, both inside and outside of the transgender and genderqueer community. What’s covered, what’s not, who is covered and who is not. It’s a discussion that cuts across class, race, sex, and gender identity. Now, with the Affordable Care Act, there is even more debate and discussion. A good number of these decisions particularly affect the trans\* community.

Tonight,  Danielle Askini – Policy Director at Basic Rights Oregon, will join us to discuss the current climate of health care as it relates to the trans\* and queer community and the …

The post Transgender Wellness: Access to Care appeared first on The Strong Stance.

As trans and genderqueer people we often become so focused on our social, mental and physical transitions that they grow to be larger than life. So much so that we forget that a transition is just another word for a shift. A shift in thinking, a shift in geography, a shift in expectations, a shift in marital status or family size. They all affect us as human beings and they are yet another layer to our complex lives as trans*, gender queer, and queer people. And when we forget, it makes it that much easier for people outside our community …

The post Life’s Transitions: Moving Beyond Gender Reassignment appeared first on The Strong Stance.

Most people acknowledge that mental health issues are not handled as seriously as other health issues. There are misunderstandings, victim blaming, and the inaccurate belief that someone living with mental illness can simply ‘cheer up’ or get through it. What most people don’t know is the diverse ways in which social workers exist in the world of mental health. There is not only a myriad of ways that social workers practice, but also a requirement for diversity and cultural competence and an ever-present need for diversity among providers. Join us as we discuss these issues and their impact on the …

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On this episode of The Strong Stance, we will open the dialogue on gender, race and interracial dating because the reality is that we aren’t as progressive as we like to think we are.  The reality is that race and gender do play critical roles in our relationships and how outsiders view those connections–more than we admit in public, polite society.  Tune into this show as we talk about the reality and the misconceptions of interracial dating. In what ways do race and gender identity play a role in who we have romantic relationships with? Is the personal really political? …

The post Relationship Politics: Race & Gender Identity in Dating appeared first on The Strong Stance.

In general, many people find the topic of sexual assault extremely uncomfortable to discuss, but it’s imperative that we have the conversation. Given that we don’t shy away from difficult topics on The Strong Stance, we are going to tackle this issue head on. Join us as we speak to Nicole Armstead and Christa Heilman from the Network for Victim Recovery of D.C. about the resources for survivors of sexual assault and the unique experiences of those that are trans and gender non-conforming.

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This past weekend I was the keynote speaker at Lavender Graduation at The University of Alabama and I was reminded of how different DC and Alabama can be with regard to queer and trans* rights. We often discuss issues on The Strong Stance and statistics on how those issues affect trans* people. Tonight we are going to take a step back and look at how these issues have affected one person in particular.

Evan Higginbotham is a transgender gay male, from Tuscaloosa Alabama. He is a junior at the University of Alabama, studying psychology, with a minor in addictive disorders …

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When it comes to elevating the queer community we often focus on activism and education, but we don’t often look at how the celebratory events we hold can elevate the community. Of course everyone knows about Pride, but what other events are recognizing our community in an uplifting way?

Tonight, The Strong Stance will talk with Ebone F. Bell and Josh Burford. Ebone is the Founder and Managing Editor of Tagg Magazine; and Josh is an archivist, an activist, and a radical educator with over 15 years’ experience working with minority communities and diversity education.

Resources:
Tagg Magazine: http://taggmagazine.com/
TaggFest …

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So many trans folks, especially early in transition, are obsessed with “passing”: posting pics on social media, asking for others opinions, reading blogs on behavior, dress, and actions. Often this status is seen as important not only for safety but also so that the outside world sees you as who you truly are.
But how does “passing” negatively affect our community? Tonight join me and guest co-host Jaan Williams as we break down the definition of the word and the concept of “passing” and Passing Privilege.

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Last week, ESPN’s Grantland ran an article about trans golf-club inventor Essay Anne Vanderbilt (Dr. V). The lengthy article used her trans identity to sensationalize the story; and, Dr. V committed suicide in the midst of the writer researching the story.

Tonight on The Strong Stance, Melvin Whitehead will join me as we reflect on how we feel about ESPN’s handling (or lack of) on the situation.  We’re also going to talk about outing/disclosure and transphobia.

Yes, the gloves are off, emotions are checked at the door; and, we’ve got the labels on the table.  We’re taking The Strong Stance. …

The post Outing Post-Transition appeared first on The Strong Stance.

In this episode of The Strong Stance, we are going to talk about how to access Trans Resources in the DC area.  Joining us on air will be TransLAW: Trans Legal Advocates of Washington, Whitman-Walker Health, and HIPS – Helping Individual Prostitutes Survive.

Guests:
Lisa Mottet – TransLAW
Thomas Coughlin – Whitman Walker Health
Cyndee Clay – HIPS

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On November 7th, the Senate voted 64-32 to extend the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) and include workplace protections to the LGBT community. What does this really mean? Tune in as I speak to Andy Bowen, Policy Advocate at the National Center for Transgender Equality, about the legislative landscape for the transgender community.

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On the inaugural episode of The Strong Stance, Annise Mabry, Executive Producer of the Back2Us Radio Network, joins me to tackle the topic of Privilege In All Its (Trans)Formations.  What does privilege look like as it relates to gender, race, and even privilege within the trans community? You don’t want to miss this discussion.

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