Trans Universe

Guest posting by Angela Brightfeather

Angela has been an activist for the transgender community is some form or another for the last 42 years. Some of our community’s activists weren’t even born then. She has been on the board of NTAC, It’s Time, North Carolina and the several other organizations too numberous to mention. Currently, she serves as the Vice President of the Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA) and is one of its Co-Founders. Also, Angela is one of my closest friends.

“Final testimonies and Summary of the Hearings”

Before Sabrina Marcus Taraboletti testified or even said one word, I predicted under my breath and to myself, “She is going to jump up and give her testimony holding the mic.” I was wrong of course, but Sabrina is a no nonsense woman who many of us are used to seeing control the situation at past Southern Comfort Conference. She did not let me down. As always, Sabrina started right out with enthusiasm and conviction.

Sabrina has always been a very “real and committed” person in every respect. It became even more evident during her testimony that Sabrina Marcus is the Transgender Community and of all the testimony given that day, she is the one who represented the average TG person; you, me and the whole community. Her story is the one heard at every support group meeting on any given night when one might attend such a gathering. Sabrina is exemplary of what we are and what we have been screaming from the hilltops for so many years. No matter how much we follow the rules of life and being a good person, if we express ourselves we are going to get fired, blacklisted or worse. Please stop the pain. Not just my pain, but also that of the people I love and who love me.

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Guest posting by Angela Brightfeather

Angela has been an activist for the transgender community is some form or another for the last 42 years. Some of our community’s activists weren’t even born then. She has been on the board of NTAC, It’s Time, North Carolina and the several other organizations too numberous to mention. Currently, she serves as the Vice President of the Transgender American Veterans Association (TAVA) and is one of its Co-Founders. Also, Angela is one of my closest friends.

It was my great privilege to attend the recent hearings held in Washington, DC this week on Transgender Unemployment, as the representative from the Transgender American Veterans Association, TAVA. My thoughts are fresh from the hearing and my sense of having to be there to witness an historic moment in our community was more than justified.

I pleasure myself sometimes in thinking that I am a person of vision. Only those who have been active in the Transgender Community for a few years may understand it. In my fondest visions of the past concerning our community, I would have to be the Transgender reincarnation of Nostradamus to have been able to predict our community giving testimony at a Congressional Hearing about Trans Unemployment problems. We all know that this is at the heart of so many of our long list of problems.

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