LUCHA

07/11/2019

The Texas Transgender Alliance has developed a brief survey to gather information about resources and service access. One of the goals of this project is to use this information to build a statewide transgender specific resource guide. This survey is for people who identify as transgender or otherwise gender non-binary, and we would greatly appreciate your input and perspective at the following link. Thank you! 🙂 http://tinyurl.com/TXTASurvey

06/04/2019

It's that time of year again when rainbow flags start to make their appearances. Have you ever wondered when Pride celebrations began?

The celebration of pride month originated on June 28, 1969 when the LGBTQ community of New York rioted following a police raid on Stonewall Inn, a bar in Manhattan known for being a gathering place for those who identified as gay, le***an, trans. The following year on the same day as a means of remembrance, the same community held a parade to honor those who were involved in Stonewall. ✊🏽 The riot and protests following that day paved the way for the modern day LGBT rights movement, leading to LGBT pride marches and parades across the country on a much larger public scale. It showed a positive stance against discrimination and violence toward the LGBTQ community and allowed the promotion of self-affirmation, equal rights, dignity, and increased visibility for the social group.

Curious about when it all started here in SA?
In 1982 the San Antonio Gay Alliance experimented with their own festival which gave start to the San Antonio Pride Festival. Before the establishment of San Antonio Pride, the San Antonio LGBTQ community celebrated Pride in Houston where there was a more established community. The festival in 1982 served as the foundation to build on for many years to come. An event which originally started with a few hundred people has now transformed into the Pride festivities we celebrate in San Antonio. This month's content will all be about the incredible work and lives of people in the LGBTQIA+ community, so keep an eye out 👀

03/18/2019

Come test your knowledge at thatluchalife.com 💪🧠

Chat now — we're no snitch. Chat is available Monday-Friday, 8a.m. - 5p.m. You can also leave us a message. The word “lucha” means “fight”—we’re here to provide what you need to deal with life’s challenges. This website is only intended for use by those 13 years old and above.

03/15/2019

This weeks “Highlight for a Cause” is the inspirational Monica Roberts.

Monica Roberts is an African-American blogger, writer, and transgender rights advocate. She is the founding editor of TransGriot, a blog that focuses on issues pertaining to transgender women of color. She was a founding member of the National Transgender Advocacy Coalition and served as it’s Lobby Chair from 1999-2002. She began writing the TranGriot blog in 2006 as a way to address the lack of trans blogs focused on people of color. In 2018, she was named one of "8 Houston Women to Watch on Social Media" by Houstonia . She also won Outstanding Blog at the GLAAD Media Awards. Monica has recently been featured for her work in helping to identify transgender murder victims. Whenever Monica discovers through Facebook that there’s been a death in the community she starts to look through local news reports of recent killings in the area. Monica then matches the name of the slain transgender person to a murder victim who has been identified only by their legal name in the media. She then takes her findings and reports them on TransGriot to help spread the news.

What Monica and other transgender anti-violence advocates have been fighting for, is for police departments to understand that ID’ing transgender victims is about making sure that they get justice. Monica has mentioned in several interviews that when a trans person is murdered and only ID’d by their legal name their friends may never know that they were killed or unable to find out till days later. This can lead to a loss of evidence and possible suspects. Monica told “The Daily Beast”: “We know for a fact that the first 48 hours are critical in any murder investigation in whether the person gets justice, so when you deliberately misgender a victim, then you’re delaying justice for that trans person who has been murdered.”

We at LUCHA would like to say a very heartfelt thank you to our fellow Texan Monica Roberts. Thank you for all that you do and for being a wonderful and inspiring woman.

03/01/2019

This weeks “Highlight for a Cause” is the powerful Malcolm X .
This February was the anniversary of Malcolm X’s assassination in Harlem back in 1965.
An articulate public speaker, a charismatic personality, and organizer, Malcolm X expressed the pent-up anger, frustration, and bitterness of African Americans during the major phase of the civil rights movement from 1955 to 1965. He preached on the streets of Harlem and spoke at major universities such as Harvard University His intellect, wit, and radicalism made him a formidable critic of American society.
He also criticized the mainstream civil rights movement, challenging Martin Luther King, Jr.’s central notions of integration and nonviolence. Malcolm argued that more was at stake than the civil right to sit in a restaurant or even to vote, the most important issues were black identity and independence.

In contrast to King’s strategy of nonviolence and civil disobedience, Malcolm urged his followers to defend themselves “by any means necessary.” Through the influence of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X helped to change the terms used to refer to African Americans from “Negro” and “coloured” to “black” and “Afro-American.”

Malcolm left the Nation of Islam in March 1964 and in the next month founded Muslim Mosque, Inc. In 1965 he founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity as a way to internationalize the plight of black Americans and to make common cause with the people of the developing world—to move from civil rights to human rights.
The growing hostility between Malcolm and the Nation led to death threats and open violence against him. On February 21, 1965, Malcolm was assassinated while delivering a lecture at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem; three members of the Nation of Islam were convicted of the murder. His martyrdom and speeches contributed to the development of the Black Power movement and helped to popularize the values of independence among African Americans in the 1960s and ’70s.

02/15/2019

This weeks “Highlight for a Cause” is the phenomenal Marsha P. Johnson.

Marsha was a transgender pioneer, activist, drag performer and, for nearly three decades, and a fixture of street life in Greenwich Village. She was a central figure in a gay liberation movement energized by the 1969 police raid on the Stonewall Inn. She was an amazing spirit and was even a model for Andy Warhol.
In a June 26, 1992, interview, Johnson said she had been H.I.V.-positive for two years. “They call me a legend in my own time, because there were so many queens gone that I’m one of the few queens left from the ’70s and the ’80s,” she said. Several days later, she was seen for the last time. On July 6, 1992. Her death was quickly ruled a su***de, a determination that many of her friends and acquaintances questioned. Johnson was mourned by her many friends, but her death did not attract much notice in the mainstream press.

Later in 1992, the authorities reclassified the cause, to drowning from undetermined causes, and in 2012, they agreed to take a fresh look at the case, which officially remains open.

Marsha has been the subject of several film projects, including “The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson,” focused in part on the efforts of Victoria Cruz, a transgender activist and a volunteer with the New York City Anti-Violence Project, to investigate the case.

In the years since, interest in her legacy has soared. She has been praised for her insistent calls for social and economic justice; for working on behalf of homeless street youth ostracized by their families for being gay or otherwise not conforming to traditional ideas about gender; and, later, for her advocacy on behalf of AIDS patients.

“As long as gay people don’t have their rights all across America,” she once said, “there’s no reason for celebration.”

Marsha was an amazing person who has paved the way for future generations and continues to inspire and move us all.

02/08/2019

This weeks “Highlight For A Cause” is the amazing Fred Hampton.
Fred Hampton was born in Chicago on 30th August 1948. A bright student, Hampton enrolled at Triton Junior College where he studied law.
Hampton founded the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party in November 1968 and immediately established a community service program. This included the provision of free breakfasts for schoolchildren and a medical clinic that did not charge patients for treatment.

One of Hampton's greatest achievements was to persuade Chicago's most powerful street gangs to stop fighting against each other. In May 1969 Hampton held a press conference where he announced a nonaggression pact between the gangs and the formation of what he called a "rainbow coalition".

The activities of the Black Panthers in Chicago came to the attention of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. Hoover described the Panthers as "the greatest threat to the internal security of the country" and urged the Chicago police to launch an all-out assault on the organization. In 1969 the Panther party headquarters on West Monroe Street was raided three times and over 100 members were arrested.

In the early hours of the 4th December, 1969, the Panther headquarters was raided by the police for the fourth time. The police later claimed that the Panthers opened fire and a shoot-out took place. During the next ten minutes Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were killed. Witnesses claimed that Hampton was wounded in the shoulder and then executed by a shot to the head. A life taken so quickly and violently.

02/01/2019

We wanted to kick off Black history month with this week’s “Highlight for the Cause” Ayanna Pressley. This amazing woman has done so much for her community and will be spreading that positive vibe all through Congress as one of the most recent women sworn in.

Pressley created the Boston’s City Council’s Committee on Healthy Women, Families, and Communities. The Committee is devoted to the causes that she has always been most devoted to: stabilizing families and communities, reducing and preventing violence and trauma, combating poverty, and addressing issues that disproportionately impact women and girls.

She has earned local and national attention for her efforts to provide pathways to graduation for pregnant and parenting teens, ensure Boston high school students receive comprehensive sexual health education, diversify economic and wealth building opportunities for women and people of color, and strengthen support services for families of homicide victims and sexual assault survivors.

In 2013, she formed the Elevate Boston coalition to ensure issues uniquely impacting women and girls and the LGBTQ community were part of the 2013 Boston mayoral race debate.

In 2015, Pressley earned the EMIILY’s List Rising Star Award and was named one of Boston Magazine’s Power Players. In 2014, Pressley was named to Boston Magazine’s Power of Ideas list, was a Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Ten Outstanding Young Leaders honoree, and earned the Victim Rights Law Center's Leadership Award.

And now as one of the newly sworn in Congress members we can only look forward to the changes she will be behind in the future.

01/31/2019

Today we are highlighting one of our team members, Ruben “The Goat” Lara. Ruben’s a late comer to our team, having joined in September 2018. Ruben likes The Office, soccer, and was raised by “The Streets”. Ruben never get’s it twisted. 🙌 🐐

01/18/2019

This week’s “Highlight for a Cause” is the brave Manal al-Sharif.

Manal, one of TIME Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world, and by Newsweek as one of the 10 tech-revolutionary in the world, is a prominent voice advocating for women's rights and empowerment. She is known to be the first Saudi women to specialize in Information Security with a career started back in 2002 with Saudi Aramco, the largest oil company in the world.

In 2011, al-Sharif co-founded and led the movement, to challenge the ban on women driving in her country. She was arrested and imprisoned for "driving while female". Released on the condition that she never drives again on Saudi lands, never to speak about it or do any interviews, she continued campaigning for and to end male guardianship in her country.
al-Sharif speaks to inspire, empower and drive change. We are so moved by her determination to show the world what she stands for.

01/11/2019

This weeks “Highlight for a Cause” is the one and only David Bowie.
Yesterday (Jan 10th) marked the 3rd year he has been gone and we at LUCHA are still missing him. David Bowie was a gender fluid, fashion forward, beautiful musician, actor, and painter. He managed all of this while trying to battle cancer in secret. His music inspired many others to embrace their gender fluidity and shined a light on a community that needed to be seen. It is hard to put into words why and how David Bowie was so amazing. He created legendary songs such as “Ziggy Stardust”, “Space Oddity”, “Under Pressure”,” Rebel Rebel”, “Heroes”, and so many more. He gave outstanding performances in “Labyrinth” and “The Man Who Fell to Earth. His flamboyant style opened up decades of conversations around sexuality, personal identity and self-empowerment and his rebellious spirit has spawned generations of people set on following the beat of their own drummers.
Bowie was also very involved in philanthropy and focused a lot of his time and money supporting research in HIV/AIDS. Bowie and his wife Iman also raised money for women and girls who were survivors of domestic violence and helped women who were currently in domestic violence situations get out. His life story proves that being different is a good thing, to always remember to embrace your fellow man, and that incredible success can be paired with incredible advocacy and activism. David Bowie played a major role in our lives here at LUCHA and truly opened our eyes to a new way of life when we were growing up. We will forever miss our Starman and are grateful for his existence. Bowie also gave us at LUCHA a saying to live by and think about as we move forward every year in our program “I don't know where I'm going from here, but I promise it won't be boring”.

12/28/2018

This weeks “Highlight for a Cause” is the inspirational Graciela Sanchez
Graciela Sanchez is the Director of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center.
“Graciela follows in the footsteps of her mother and abuelitas, strong neighborhood women of color cultural workers and activists of San Antonio. As a Buena Gente of the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, a community-based cultural arts/social justice organization, Graciela works with staff and community to develop programs that culturally ground working class and poor people of color, q***r people and women, individuals who are survivors of cultural genocide. Facilitating conversations on issues of colonization, genocide, power, violence, racism, sexism, and homophobia among others, Graciela works with community members to develop and curate programs such as CineMujer, Uprooted: Tierra, Gente, y Cultura, Palestinians and Other Occupied Peoples, as well as organize gente to challenge oppressive laws in San Antonio, the United States and the world.”- Taken from Graciela’s biography on the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center website.

We want to take the time to highlight this amazing woman and all the work she has done for our community. Check out the Esperanza website to see ALL of the amazing work being done by these wonderful people.💕