I’ll be performing a lot over the next few weeks and I want to see your faces! Check it out:
March 15th: I’ll be at Story Club South Side at 8 pm at the Co-Prosperity Sphere. The theme of the night is “Like a Lion.” I’m telling a story called “Brave.” It’s darkly humorous tale about the time an Israeli soldier pointed a gun at me and I almost peed my pants. https://www.facebook.com/StoryClubChicago/?fref=ts
March 16th: I’ll be at Story Lab at 7:30 pm at Black Rock Pub and Kitchen: I’m telling a story entitled “Dolphin Sex Poetry Slam: My Online Dating Regrets.” A random dude from my writing class says that the story reminds him of Aziz Ansari’s show Master of None, so if you value that guy’s opinion, then the story is pretty great. https://www.facebook.com/events/820363321408924/
April 19th: I’ll be at Story Club South Side again at 8 pm at the Co-Prosperity Sphere. The theme of the night is “Like a Lamb.” I’m telling another story about Palestine. This one is called “Settlers Shot Shaadi’s Sheep.” https://www.facebook.com/StoryClubChicago/?fref=ts
“This past year in Chicago has been so full of people power! We’ve been in the streets, in circles, and in community, resisting state violence and anti-Black racism. What better way to document some of the highlights of this year than through a coloring book?”
I am very lucky to be a small part of this incredible project. I wrote the copy for eight coloring pages – and of all the writing I have done this year, I am the proudest of this. Please, check out this project and get yourself a copy!
“Angelo has been coming to church for Christmas for few years now,” my mother says. Angelo is the donkey. Yes, the donkey has a name. This where things begin to fall apart. This is the first reason why I can no longer participate in the holiday traditions of my childhood. This is why I am no longer fit for Christmas.”
It was inevitable. As soon as information about “Stonewall” was released, it was clear that the film was going to center the stories of cis-gender white gay men and that trans women of color were going to be written out of history. Again. And now trans people are resisting. Again.
Umm, naw boo boo kitty, that’s not how it went down, and as long as Miss Major is alive, I’m not letting that fictionalized whitewashed trans free Stonewall narrative even gain a foothold because it’s a crime against history.
The reality coming from multiple witnesses to the original event say that it was Marsha P Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, butch lesbians and other persons of color who jumped off the riot in 1969 while the Fire Island gays were still cowering in their closets.
Even Ray Hill, who is one of our Houston human rights icons and was one of the early Big Four Gay leaders along with Harvey Milk, Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings, has told me that Stonewall was a trans and gender variant POC led uprising.
As a transgender writer and scholar, I’m pissed too. And I’m hurt in a way that I’m not prepared to describe right now. But in the words of Marsha P. Johnson – pay it no mind. Here are five movies made by and for trans people of color that you should be watching instead:
Upcoming Films:
Happy Birthday, Marsha: Here’s a story of Stonewall that centers trans women of color, pure and simple. Happy Birthday, Marsha will be coming out soon.
Major: Miss Major Griffin-Gracey is another hero who was not only present during the Stonewall rebellion, but also at the Attica uprising. This upcoming documentary show trans resistance to the prison industrial complex, one of the aspects of our history and present that’s ignored and dismissed by films like “Stonewall.” https://vimeo.com/104871154#at=2
Free Cece: Trans resistance didn’t stop with Stonewall. It lives on in people like Cece McDonald. This trailer is wonderful – just think of how great the upcoming film will be.
Films you can watch right now!
Tangerine: Fictional, funny, and fun – and it’s in the theaters now.
Pay it No Mind: the Life and Times of Marsha P. Johnson: It’s full-length and online. Learn something.
When it comes to who should replace Matt Smith as the next star of the TV show Doctor Who, many fans are hoping for one thing: anyone but another white guy.
For nearly 50 years, the Doctor, the time-traveling main character of Doctor Who, has been portrayed by white men. Fans concerned with social justice are right to clamor for a different sort of Doctor. While the Doctor may be an alien, over the course of the show the character has come to represent the best of humanity. That’s why it is especially important that the Doctor be portrayed by a person of color or a woman – or, dare we dream, a woman of color, a person with a disability, a queer person, or transgender person, or a combination of all the above.
But while we wait to meet the new incarnation of this beloved sci-fi character, fans should turn their attention to racial and gender representation in an area of Doctor Who that isn’t immediately visible on screen: the executive producer.
Joy Michael Ellison 