What next?

Every time I ran for Ms. Transgender San Francisco, I went in with an action plan...work on support groups, bring different groups in the Bay Area together, be active in outreach, and that type of stuff.

Even after not winning, I still worked on being a liaison to SF-TEAM from TGSF, and, of course, I am still involved with a number of speaker's panels.

This year, I went in with a little different angle.

The Day of Remembrance activities in San Francisco proper have been lacking the past few years. Sure, Marty has been trying to hold a ceremony at Congregation Sha'ar Zahav, but a lot of people like the candlelit marches. I commend Marty for keeping the tradition alive in San Francisco, but I think a lot of people still want to see the march happen. I still hear stories of people randomly meeting in Dolores Park on the evening of November 20th, and honoring those people that were killed because they didn't fit the gender binary.

And, so, my initiative here is to see some type of official gathering in San Francisco. I hope to start work on this soon, but will also be looking to a few groups to help sort out some details.

I was involved with Gwen Smith on a number of past DOR's in San Francisco, so I'm not new to this ballgame, but I think the San Francisco tradition needs to be kept alive and strong.

Before I go into a lot of other stuff I want to do with my year, I figured I'd also bring up the usual stuff that Ms. TGSF does. She is typically required to attend a lot of the court system events, especially San Francisco's Coronation. She is also involved with SF Pride and a few of the other local pride activities.

In the transgender world, though, she usually attends a lot of the TGSF activities such as the monthly socials and the outreach events like Castro Street Fair. Ms. TGSF also makes the rounds of local transgender organizations like Diablo Valley Girls, River City Gems, Carla's, I Love It, and others.

I know that Ms. TGSF has been involved with float building in the past. It's a lot of work...from what I remember in my past days of helping build it. I'm still up in the air about what to do for this, but I believe the TGSF Ex-Com has some great ideas to work with. I know that Prop-8 has been a big issue this past year here in California, but I think for the transgender world, ENDA may be closer at heart. Perhaps a float with all of us in business attire would 'suit' us well.

I need to get a binder so I can track all of these activities, and I have a friend working on business cards for me. I also set up a Facebook account (and a Myspace page) to network a little better and keep up with the local activities, as well as the national activism.

One of the upcoming activities I'd like to attend is the Transgender Leadership Conference in San Diego (event on facebook). I went to the one in Berkeley last year and made a lot of good connections, and learned a bit in one or two sessions. And if anyone knows anything about my love for the word 'energy', well, there is a lot of it at this conference.

Another thing...I have never been to a transgender conference outside the Bay Area, and the only one I have attended here has been California Dreamin' in San Jose. I hear about Southern Comfort, Gold Rush, and Chicago's Be All...to name a few...and have seriously thought about attending in the past. Perhaps this is the year when I make a cross-country jaunt to attend them.

One thing I have mulled over the past few years...ever since missing out on the Transgender version of the Vagina Monologues in LA, has been the idea of doing a Transgender Monologues program here in San Francisco. It would be a collection of perspectives from the transgender world, presented by transgender people and their allies from all walks of life, talking about all the different issues we deal with...both good and bad. This will take a lot of work, but it's something I'd really love to pursue...especially with so much talent here in the Bay Area.

Finally, another of my goals is to get more contestants for TGSF's 2010 Cotillion. As I and the TGSF Ex-Com ate breakfast the morning after the Cotillion, I joked that next year was 2010, a Space Odyssey.

(The 2010 film is actually entitled 2010: Odyssey Two, but that doesn't work so well as a Cotillion sequel.)

I have never seen a room grow as bright as it did from all the light bulbs going off. Ideas came from all different directions...monoliths, HAL-9000's, red lights, and space ships. They even came up with a theme: 2010: A Trans-Odyssey. The geek in me loves it.

So, I plan on hitting up as many people as I can to run for Ms. Transgender San Francisco 2010. It's only an action packed year away.