Tuesday, January 01, 2013

Happy 7th Anniversary TransGriot Blog!

January 1 also happens to be the anniversary date for TransGriot.  At midnight EST on January 1, 2006 the first post went up on this blog.  

You can also thank Jordana LeSesne for pushing me to get the blogging party started as well thanks to a phone conversation we had in November 2005.  I was griping about the dearth of transgender blogs at the time focused on trans issues from an Afrocentric perspective, and she said after patiently listening to my lament, "So when are you going to start it?"

She didn't leave it there.  Jordana also made me commit to a start date for the soon to be born blog and I chose January 1.      

This is the closing paragraph from that initial post.

One thing I can promise you dear reader is that you won't be disappointed. There will be times I'll make you laugh. Other times I'll touch your heart. Then there will be the occasional time or two when I piss you off. But my goal is to make you think and expose you to some of the drama that African-American transpeeps (and transpeople in general) deal with.

The mission statement and hit counter came later, but the humble beginnings of that first post have now led to several awards and me having over 4.5 million people around the world reading the over 6000 posts I've compiled in this electronic space.   

And what's the TransGriot Mission Statement you ask?

The TransGriot blog's mission is to become the griot of our community.  I will introduce you to and talk about your African descended transbrothers and transsisters across the Diaspora, reclaim and document our chocolate flavored trans history, speak truth to power, comment on the things that impact our trans community from an Afrocentric perspective and enlighten you about the general things that go on around me and in the communities that I am a member of.

Hopefully in the now seven years this blog has been in operation, I've lived up to that mission statement. 

I know I've lived up to everything I said in the closing paragraph of that January 1, 2006 post.

Happy anniversary, TransGriot! 

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