Monica's Universe

(Angela Brightfeather is my best friend and Co-Founder of the Transgender American Veterans Association, and I am proud to present this wonderful article from Q-Notes, the Carolina’s premier LGBT publication.  This is an honor that she richly deserves.  Congratulations, Angela.)

Q-Notes Person of the Year: Angela Brightfeather

by Q-Notes Staff | December 27th, 2008

From her humble home in North Carolina to the doorsteps of national organizations and the halls of Congress, there’s no doubt that Angela Brightfeather has done her part this year.

If there were issues to be discussed, if the transgender community needed an advocate or if the transgender community was being ignored, Brightfeather stepped up.

The 63-year-old transgender leader and activist is a legend — she’s been involved in advocacy work since she was in her 20s; and she’s certainly not afraid of ruffling feathers.

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By Monica F. Helms

Read the article on The Bilerico Project, posted by Michael Crawford.  Send in your photo.

I put together this collage from pictures on line.  Many are have a copyright.  I honor those who took them.

By Monica F. Helms

On December 17, 2008, the police found the lifeless body of Jennifer Gale on the streets of Austin, TX. They speculate that she died sleeping on a bench in the cold Texas night. The only woman’s shelter in Austin, run by the Salvation Army, turned her away because they didn’t want a transsexual woman in their shelter. If she wanted to enter a shelter, she had to strip herself of her dignity by using her old male name and dress like a man so she could be allowed in a men’s shelter. Austin has a both housing and public accommodation laws that include “gender identity.”

On December 17, 2002, a passer-by discovered the body of Alice Johnston near the Chattahoochee River in Georgia with a self-inflected bullet wound to the head. The day before, she sent out a final E-mail on her Yahoo account that said, “I will soon be homeless. Since women’s shelters in Atlanta don’t take transsexuals, I’m a goner.”

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By Monica F. Helms

It has been exactly eleven and a half years since I started living this life as Monica and during that time, so many things have happened that I feel like I have lived three lifetimes. Friends came into my life and others have left, and some them even came back. I lost friends by the hands of others and some by their own hands. I have been praised by some for the work I have done and hated by others for exactly the same work. I have seen the best and the worst from my gay, lesbian and bisexual brothers and sisters, and truly seen the best and the worst of human nature in the transgender community, some of it happening the very day I type this.

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By Monica F. Helms

For 22 years, the International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE) has held a yearly conference for transgender people, its allies and the people who treat and help us. The community has come to see the IFGE Conference as a great place to get information on medical issues, political issues, spouse and children’s issues, and presentation issues. People from all over the world gather to share ideas and to network with others in the trans community. The Trinity and Virginia Prince Awards have been given out at these conferences.

For ten of the last 22 years, IFGE has enlisted the assistance of a company known as Trans Events to facilitate the conferences. As time went on, this turned out to not be a very good idea. Trans Events management ruled the conference with an iron fist, causing problems with IFGE’s reputation within the community. Any of the local people who decided to volunteer quickly discovered that the Trans Event management would order them around like personal servants.

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