Strange Fruit #83: TransGriot Monica Roberts; High School Poets Write about Identity

You know her from her groundbreaking work as the TransGriot, and a frequent commentator on Strange Fruit. We know her as our Auntie Monica! Award-winning blogger Monica Roberts stopped by the Strange Fruit Studios on a recent visit to Louisville, and we checked in with her about the state of trans human rights. While Monica's blog covers a little bit of everything—"sports, feminism, human rights, whatever I feel like talking about," she says—the overarching focus is the lives of transgender women of color. Why a trans women of color blog rather than a general trans women blog? "Trans people of color experience a transition much differently from our white counterparts," Monica explains. "We are impacted negatively by racism that we deal with in our parent society, and even in the LGBT ranks." Even within the transfeminine community, there are challenges unique to different segments of the population. "The issues that I face as a trans woman of African descent, and the issues that a trans woman of Latina descent faces are two different issues," she says. "I don't have to deal with, like a Latina woman does, being jacked up on the street for immigration issues. But both of us do have to deal with stop and frisk." We also take you along as we visit an after-school spoken word poetry workshop, where high school students—largely LGBTQ and African American—work through tricky subjects like oppression and identity, through their writing. And in our Juicy Fruit segment, we get an update on Michael Sam, released by the Rams, picked up by the Cowboys' practice squad, and obsessed over by ESPN when it comes to showering with the team. We also talk about a conservative commentator who thinks gay people should pay more for life insurance, and learn about Dr. Story's first book, "Patricia Hill Collins: Reconceiving Motherhood."