Category Archives: Politics

Transgender political issues.

June 2021 Trans Talk on 90.1 FM KKFI

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We have another busy show this week that you will not want to miss! We will start with the transgender news of the month as presented by Mistress Nightshade, then continue our series of transgender film reviews with a look at “Kiki,” a 2016 film about the drag and voguing culture in New York City. We will then have a roundtable discussion about Pride and the trans community, the growing numbers of LGBTQIA+ persons in America and what that means for the future, and an essay on lateral violence in the community and an example of how it is so destructive. Finally Fiona will give you the highlights of the community calendar update.

We do hope you will be able to join us this Saturday, June 26th at 1:00 pm on 90.1 KKFI, Kansas City Community Radio! You can also stream the program live on kkfi.org, or via various apps on your phone.

May 2021 Trans Talk on 90.1 FM KKFI

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It is the fourth Saturday of the month and time again for Trans Talk on The Tenth Voice. Join hostesses Una and Fiona Nowling as they welcome Kendall Martinez-Wright on the program to talk about her life and why she has decided to run for Missouri State Representative next year.

Kendall Martinez-Wright is the first transgender woman to run for the Missouri House of Representatives. She is a Black-Puerto Rican Trans woman, running for office in Missouri, amid a spate of nationwide and local anti-trans bills. She is a resilient woman, community organizer, and a statewide LGBTQ and Human Rights legislative strategist. As a child, Miss Martinez-Wright, along with her mother and younger sister, made the move from Chicago, IL where Martinez-Wright was born, to Palmyra, MO for a better quality of life.

Upon graduating from Palmyra High School in 2012, Kendall relocated to the Missouri State Capitol, Jefferson City, to attend Lincoln University. During her tenure at Lincoln University, she became a critical advocate for policy and legislative action that impacted funding for education and civil rights. She has served as the leader for social justice marches, fundraising campaigns, and statewide initiatives. Since, Kendall has continued her involvement in serving within approximately thirty-six civic organizations, establishing a wide range of relationships with elected officials, and serving as a discussion facilitator on a wide range of issues from racial justice, access to education, diversity, and healthcare.

Currently, Miss Martinez-Wright resides in her hometown of Palmyra. Her mission is to utilize her position at the table to amplify her voice and elevate your concerns. She is dedicated to community, and working diligently alongside stakeholders and partners in order to cultivate unity within and awareness of the valuable residents of District 5.

We do hope you will be able to join us this Saturday, May 22nd at 1:00 pm on 90.1 KKFI, Kansas City Community Radio! You can also stream the program live on kkfi.org, or via various apps on your phone.

March 2021 Trans Talk on 90.1 FM KKFI

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We have another busy show this week that you will not want to miss! We will start with the transgender news of the month as presented by Mistress Nightshade, then talk with Teri Miles, a local transgender woman who was recently elected to the city council of Creighton, Missouri! We are going to talk to her about what it was like running for office out and proud and learn a bit about her life and her journey.

Then we are going to have a summary of what is happening with laws and bills pushing for a purge of transgender youth and adult athletes that has spread like a pandemic of panicked paranoid prejudice across the country.

We do hope you will be able to join us this Saturday, March 27th at 1:00 pm on 90.1 KKFI, Kansas City Community Radio! You can also stream the program live on kkfi.org, or via various apps on your phone.

Keep up to date with all thing Tenth Voice by visiting our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/TenthVoice

December 2020 Trans Talk on 90.1 FM KKFI

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This week we will kick off the show with the transgender news of the month, then we will interview a new pioneer in the transgender community – Stephanie Byers, who made history twice last month by becoming Kansas’s first transgender elected official after winning her bid for the Kansas House of Representatives 86th District, and she is the first Indigenous trans person elected to any state legislature!

Representative-elect Stephanie Byers is the recipient of the GLSEN-Kansas state Educator of the Year and the GLSEN National Educator of the Year (2018), and recently retired after 29 years of teaching for Wichita Public Schools. For 28 years, she was the award-winning director of Bands and Orchestras and Fine Arts Department Chair at Wichita North High School. Stephanie is an Oklahoman by birth, a member of the Chickasaw Nation, and has called Wichita home for the last three decades. She and her wife, Lori, own and operate a company that assists corporations, community groups and schools with understanding of working with diverse communities.

Since coming out publicly as a transgender woman, she has advocated about issues impacting the LGBTQIA+ community. She has spoken at rallies on the steps of the Kansas State Capitol and given presentations to several local community organizations, as well as public school faculties and student bodies. Stephanie served as the Communications Director for Wichita Pride, the local organization that hosts Wichita’s local LGBTQIA+ pride events, and has volunteered for a number of other local Wichita non-profits.

Stephanie has a Bachelor of Music Education from Oklahoma Christian University (1986), and a Master of Music from Kansas State University (2015).

We do hope you will be able to join us this Saturday, December 26th at 1:00 pm on 90.1 KKFI, Kansas City Community Radio! You can also stream the program live on kkfi.org, or via various apps on your phone.

October 2020 Trans Talk on 90.1 FM KKFI

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Hello everyone! Welcome to the October edition of Trans Talk! Today we are going to start out with the transgender news of the month, then we’re going to speak with Larry Altman, formerly the lead compliance attorney for the Kansas City Missouri school district, and a strong ally to the LGBTQIA community. We will then continue our series of transgender film discussion, this time heading down south to Chile, to review the film “A Fantastic Woman,” a drama involving a transgender woman who is portrayed by an actual transgender actress, Daniela Vega.

We do hope you will be able to join us this Saturday, October 24th at 1:00 pm on 90.1 KKFI, Kansas City Community Radio! You can also stream the program live on kkfi.org, or via various apps on your phone.

July 2020 Trans Talk on 90.1 FM KKFI

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Hello everyone! Welcome to July’s edition of Trans Talk!  We’re kicking off the show with the transgender news of the month as usual, then we’re going to speak with Wick Thomas, a longtime queer, gender-variant activist who is also running for the Missouri House in District 19. We will then continue our special series of transgender film discussion in honor of all those who are stuck inside and wanting films to binge watch. Today we will be discussing the groundbreaking, controversial, and in your face film “Tangerine,” which is notable for featuring an actual transgender persons playing – wait for it – transgender characters. Rachael Cady is joining us by phone today to review this film with us.

We do hope you will be able to join us this Saturday, July 25th at 1:00 pm on 90.1 KKFI, Kansas City Community Radio! You can also stream the program live on kkfi.org, or via various apps on your phone.

July 2019 Trans Talk and Community Calendar for July-August 2019

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On this month’s Trans Talk we are going to talk to a few good folks from the Transgender Institute of Kansas City, who are going to discuss their move to their new location, their support groups that they are running, and what are some of their upcoming projects.

As usual we will have Una’s news rant, and the community calendar update (which is listed below).

We do hope you will be able to join us this Saturday, July 27 at 1:00 pm on 90.1 KKFI, Kansas City Community Radio! You can also stream the program live on kkfi.org, or via various apps on your phone.

The Transgender Community Calendar

On August 2nd, there is a Day of Beauty event at the Kansas City Center for Inclusion, running from 5 – 8pm. This is hosted by the Friends and Allies of the EQUAL Trans Support Group & there have been many donations of clothes and beauty products. You can also bring your own donations to the event but makeup products must be new or sterilized. For more information, you can check out the group’s Facebook page and go to events https://www.facebook.com/Friends-and-Allies-of-the-EQUAL-Trans-Support-Group-2043657289193085/ or directly at https://www.facebook.com/events/370948263617943/

On August 21st, from 2pm to 7pm, the Kansas City Center for Inclusion is hosting an LGBTQ Job Fair offsite at the University of Kansas Medical Center at 3901 Rainbow Boulevard, Kansas City, Kansas. Details can be found by going to their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/InclusiveKC/ and then to their events page, or directly at https://www.facebook.com/events/441570989730438/ It’s worth visiting their events page anyway, they have all sorts of events going on every month.

Every month, there is the Kansas City SOFFA group for Significant Others, Friends, Family, and Allies of Transgender and nonbinary persons. We meet on the first and third Wednesday of the month. In August, we’re meeting on the 7th in Study Room 116 & the 21st in the Conference Room. That’s at Leawood Pioneer Library, 6.30 – 8pm. For driving directions and other SOFFA information, you can visit http://transascity.org/SOFFA or email soffakc@yahoo.com

Every third Thursday, the Equal Trans Support Group meets at 5:00 PM. They also have a friends plus allies meeting on the second Monday of the month, at 6pm, and both are at the Kansas City Center for Inclusion, a couple of doors down from our studio at 3909 Main Street, Kansas City Missouri. The Center has lots of other events too, which can be found on their Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/InclusiveKC/

JoCo Q-Space is a youth group for LGBTQ youth. They meet every Thursday from 5:30pm to 8:30pm at Saint Andrew Christian Church 13890 W 127th St, Olathe, KS 66062. For more information, go to https://www.facebook.com/jocoqspace/.

They are the Kansas equivalent of Passages, Kansas City Missouri’s long-running LGBTQ youth group, which meets at the Kansas City Anti-Violence Project’s Q-mmunity Space, 4050 Pennsylvania Ave, Suite 135, Kansas City, MO, 64111, every Wednesday at 5.30pm – 9pm.

There is an MTF support group at the Kansas City Center for Inclusion on the first and third Tuesday of the month at 6pm. There is an FTM support group elsewhere, both for adults and for youth, so if you are interested, please text or call Gus at 816-785-8686.

On the third Saturday of the month, Authentically Me meets from 1-3pm at The Kansas City Center for Inclusion. This is a social group for gender diverse children in KC and their families, aimed at children 12 and under.

The Kansas City PFLAG chapter, which is Parents, Families, Friends, and Allies of LGBT people will meet on the 2nd Sunday of the month at 3pm, at the Village Presbyterian Church in Prairie Village, and the 4th Sunday of the month at 3pm, at the Kansas City Center for Inclusion.

If you have any events that you think should be added to the calendar, please message us on the Tenth Voice Facebook page, or email us through TransasCity!

VICTORY! Kansas Will Now Change Birth Certificates with Minimal Effort!

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In a huge victory for transgender, intersex, non-binary, gender-fluid, queer, and many other persons in Kansas, the state under Governor Laura Kelly has agreed to immediately allow gender marker changes on birth certificates! To make the change, you need to submit a sworn statement that you intend to make the change, and provide either a passport, driver’s license, or medical note from a physician. From our reading of the consent agreement, no one should even need to pay to hire an attorney to do any of this – it should be a very straightforward process requiring just a notary for assistance (often available for free at your bank).

This victory is the result of the tireless advocacy and work of Lambda Legal and the firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP, but very importantly due to the brave plaintiffs Nyla Foster, Luc Bensimon, Jessica Hicklin and a client identified by his initials, C.K. There was also an organizational plaintiff, the Kansas Statewide Transgender Education Project, Inc. (K-STEP), which was founded by the late and dearly missed Stephanie Mott, who sadly died this March before seeing this victory.

The announcement on Lambda Legal can be found here, and the consent agreement can be viewed directly at this permanent link: Kansas Birth Certificate Consent Agreement.

Time to celebrate!

January 2019 Trans Talk on KKFI

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This month on Trans Talk we’re going speak with Courtney, a local woman who recently faced a terrifying and demoralizing level of discrimination as she was thrown out of a local casino for trying to use the ladies’ room. After hearing Courtney’s story, we will have a round-table discussion about the Supreme Court’s anti-transgender ruling this week, and what it means for the future of all transgender rights.

We will have a take on the transgender news of the month, have a book review from Anthony, and then finish up the show with the community calendar update.  I do hope you will be able to join us this Saturday, January 26 at 1:00 pm on 90.1 KKFI, Kansas City Community Radio! You can also stream the program live on kkfi.org, or via various apps on your phone.

October 2018 Trans Talk on KKFI

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This month on Trans Talk, we will first interview Parker Liu who will give us some breaking news on the The Kansas City Demonstration for Transgender Rights, which will be held at 2:00 pm on Saturday, October 27th, at the J.C. Nichols fountain at the east side of the Country Club Plaza. See this public link for more information. Una from this very Trans Talk program will be one of the speakers at the event, so make sure you plan on attending!

Then we will have live music in the studio from the group Evil Pillows, an all trans punk rock band formed right here in Kansas City! They are going to play some songs to help give us some courage and empowerment over the airwaves, and then talk about their band, their inspirations, and their music. Bonus points out there if you guess the origin of their name without looking it up! Find out more information about the band at their Bandcamp link right here!

We will have a take on the transgender news of the month, which is going to be some of the most important news we’ve ever reported upon on Trans Talk, and then finish up the show with the community calendar update. I do hope you will be able to join us this Saturday, October 27th at 1:00 pm on 90.1 KKFI, Kansas City Community Radio! You can also stream the program live on kkfi.org, or via various apps on your phone.

September 2018 Trans Talk on KKFI

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This month on Trans Talk, we will feature an interview with LGBT scholar and activist Brynn Tannehill. In addition to being a retired Lt. Commander in the US Navy and a researcher at a Washington think-tank, Brynn is a frequent author for many journals and news organizations, including the Huffington Post, the Advocate, USA Today, Salon, Slate, and The New Civil Rights Movement.

Recently Brynn has been analyzing the policies and politics of the Trump Administration, the Republican and Democratic Parties, and the political and social zeitgeist we inhabit in this very strange and somewhat terrifying landscape, and she will be joining us on Trans Talk to give her analysis and perspective on where we may be headed, and how bad things could be not just for my transgender siblings out there, but the LGBT community, women, and pretty much the whole doggone planet.

We will have a new take on the transgender news of the month, and finish up the show with the community calendar update. I do hope you will be able to join us this Saturday, September 22nd at 1:00 pm on 90.1 KKFI, Kansas City Community Radio! You can also stream the program live on kkfi.org, or via various apps on your phone.

August 2017 Trans Talk on KKFI

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Hello everyone! On Trans Talk this month we’re going to be talking with a return guest in our studio – Dr. Hiten Soni, a psychiatrist who strongly supports the transgender community, about the rise in stress in LGBT people after Trump’s election.

We will have Una’s News Rant, a round up of some of the LGBT news this week, and we will finish up the show with the community calendar update. I do hope you will be able to join me this Saturday, August 26th at 1:00 pm on 90.1 KKFI, Kansas City Community Radio! You can also stream the program live on kkfi.org, or via various apps on your phone.

February 2017 Trans Talk on 90.1 KKFI

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We have a special guest to kick our show off – Christine Burns will be joining us from the UK to discuss her decades-long work for transgender rights, as well as her work as a transgender historian. Ms Burns was instrumental in using the early internet for transgender advocacy, worked with the early political group Press for Change for transgender rights, and also helped craft the UK’s Gender Recognition Act of 2004 – for which she was awarded an MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.)

We have two other special guests for the second half of our show – Grace Cox-Johnson and Johnalita White-Menscher will be joining us to talk about the first year of Transfinity KC, Kansas City’s transgender and allies chorus. We will discuss the performances of the chorus in its first year, and will talk tell us the plans for the upcoming year, as well as information on how you can join and make your voice heard.

As usual, we will share with you the transgender news and the community calendar update. We do hope you will be able to join us this Saturday, February 25 at 1:00 pm on 90.1 FM KKFI, Kansas City Community Radio! You can also stream the program live on kkfi.org.

Shameless: Conservatives Panic Over “Transgender Hillbillies”

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Transwomens Land Army
…and lesbian farmers, of course.

Really, the jokes just write themselves, as we learn from Media Matters of conservative angst over the The Iowa LGBT Rural Summit, which was held on August 18. The purpose of the summit is to elevate voices in rural LGBT communities and share information for politics, programs, and services to protect and strengthen them. This innovative program was quickly viewed as a plot to infiltrate the heartlands with “radical LGBT propaganda,” for evil purposes of course. For example, according to the Washington Free Beacon,

“The all-day summit will teach lesbian and transgender hillbillies how to get subsidies from the government like rural housing loans and “community facility grants.” Bullying will also be discussed.”

Noted transphobe, homophobe…shoot, is there anyone this guy likes?…Rush Limbaugh weighed in on this issue, braying on his August 17th show:

Have you heard the latest Democrat scam? Have you heard about the Agriculture Department’s financial grants to lesbian farmers? You think I’m making this up?

…
I’m like you; I never before in my life knew that lesbians wanted to be farmers. I never knew that lesbians wanted to get behind the horse and the plow and start burrowing[sic]. I never knew it. But apparently enough money can make make it happen, and the objective here is to attack — they’re already attacking suburbs, and that has been made perfectly clear by what happened in Milwaukee. And they’re going after every geographic region that is known to be largely conservative. They never stop, folks. They are constantly on the march.

While most of the criticism in the right-wing media focuses on lesbians, there is plenty of fear and loathing over the slow realization that transgender people not only exist, but yes, sometimes we do actually farm.

June 2016 Trans Talk on 90.1 KKFI

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KKFI

Hello everyone! We have two great topics this month on Trans Talk. First, we will be talking with attorney Larry Altman about the current status of North Carolina’s anti-transgender legislation, and how the upcoming election could impact transgender rights. Next, we will have a discussion with Nyla, Kelly, and Freddie, three transgender persons of color who are joining us to explain the specific challenges faced by their community, and to educate us on how we can be better allies to this community which is at such high risk.

Fiona Nowling will be co-hosting today’s program, and she will give us the community calendar update, while I will provide my view of some of the LGBT news this week. I do hope you will be able to join us this Saturday, June 25 at 1:00 pm on 90.1 FM KKFI, Kansas City Community Radio! You can also stream the program live on kkfi.org.