Have you ever experienced something that left you feeling and questioning, "Did that really just happen?"
tj30trust's blog
I have had a very challenging couple of weeks since my time at Creating Change 2016. I have had to struggle with the idea of sisterhood and solidarity. I will do my best to just explain where I am coming from. I will admit that I didn't think it would have to come to this, but I am physically exhausted and have no more time nor energy to devote to the events that have happened post-protest. I know that I have lived a sheltered life away from the rest of my trans* sisters and I'm under the firm belief that it has been a good thing. I haven't dealt with a lot of the cattiness that I've been told...
It's such a recurring theme that I have to calm down before actually sitting down to blog. I have to make it known that even I face adversity and people should realize that I am a person. I'm humbly asking you to stop compartmentalizing me and see that I am a fellow human being. My being transgender is constantly under a secret attack. I've often said that I don't upset the gender binary, but that is a misleading statement and a half-truth. I have found that I upset the African-American cisgender female community more so than anything. I am not saying that all Black non-trans women are...
Yesterday, Charlie Sheen announced to Matt Lauer on the Today show that he was in fact a person living with HIV. Rumors had been circulating in the tabloids that an A-list celebrity was suspected of having HIV. Sheen had known of his status for around four years, he admitted. He felt it necessary to come forward about his status because those he claimed knew of his status began blackmailing him to keep his status secret. I have never had anyone blackmail me about my own status. Before Sheen made his announcement, Who's the Boss child star Danny Pintauro announced that he was living with HIV...
In my home state of Arkansas, in the capital city of Little Rock, on October 11, 2015 the city held its annual Gay Pride.
This is going to be a blog of gratitude for my sisters, cisgender and transgender alike. I am humbled by the genuine care and concern that my sisters have shown me in what has quickly proved to be the most traumatic event of my life.
I'm sitting here packed the night before I have to be in D.C. to fulfill my role as a reviewer for a highly respected and reputable organization. I can't help but to feel sometimes alone in my fight with life, and at times I feel extremely spoiled and selfish. I have been open about my HIV status and have gotten to be a part of something that is so much bigger than me. Yet, at the end of the day, I don't feel as though I have that one somebody who is able to relate to most of what I am going through. I say that only to say that this ideal person hasn't been found in Arkansas. I face adversity...
As a person living with HIV, I feel it is absolutely vital to my mental wellbeing to be around likeminded people who share with me the hurts and struggles due to fear and stigma attached to having a positive diagnosis. I attend a support group for people living with HIV and we have become a family who care about each other. On Wednesday, June 24th, I went to the group, For Life, and we had a speaker come in from Miami Dade who works with a pharmaceutical company. I sat and listened to her presentation about HIV and its replication within cells. It was a very uneasy situation for me because...
I was invited to attend the Saving Ourselves Symposium in Memphis, Tennessee this past weekend from June 4-7. I made a promise to myself that before I wrote about the experience, I would calm down first.
Michael Johnson is a young black man living with HIV who has recently been found guilty of recklessly infecting another person with HIV without disclosing his status. It seems befitting that I make my first blog entry about HIV criminalization because as a Black transwoman living with HIV, his fate could very well be my own. I am extremely disappointed in the judicial system who continues to stay uneducated about the science of HIV. People living with HIV are first and foremost people. We are not bioterrorists simply because we have HIV. It would behoove the nation to become educated because...