With all the coverage of LGB issues and the It Gets Better Project, the end of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and the push for gay marriage rights and the end of DOMA, transgender issues have received little to no coverage. The biggest crime is that the most liberal shows (Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, and Ed Schultz) either offer no coverage of transgender issues, or else mention them on rare occasions.

When Chrissy Lee Polis was attacked and beaten into a seizure in a Baltimore McDonalds, recorded by employees of McDonalds as they watched, laughed, and encouraged the attackers, MSNBC offered no coverage. For many trans folk, our collective feeling was that this was the turning point for coverage of transphobia and trans hate crimes, televised for all to see. Chrissy didn't die, but the silence is the same on behalf of the media - it wasn't for lack of effort on behalf of her attackers, nor those of all but one bystander, a middle aged woman who tried to fight off the attackers with her purse, and was herself assaulted for her reward.

On August 26th, D.C. Police Officer Kenneth Furr assaulted three trans women and their male friends with a "dangerous weapon" after one of the women turned down Furr for sex. That is to say, after leaving the parking lot of the CVS where the first encounter happened, Furr jumped out of his car at a stoplight and began shooting at the other car. When the driver lost control of the vehicle and hit Furr's car, Furr jumped on the hood of the other car and began shooting through the windshield. Two of the trans women and one of the male friends were injured. Again, MSNBC did not offer coverage of this incident.

A routine guest on Rachel Maddow's show is Representative Barney Frank, an openly gay US Congressman, who is well known for his frequent and unrepentant transphobia. He makes frequent and crude references to the "transgender penis," yet suffers no repercussions for his damaging tirades. His views harm trans social advancement and bills like the expansion of the ENDA bill to cover transgendered individuals.

Finally, today, a story broke in the news about a young trans woman in Detroit who was murdered on October 23rd. Though full details have not yet been released, we do know that 19 year old Shelley Hilliard's body was found burned on the side of a highway in Detroit. Rachel Maddow had time to cover a game of basketball on an air craft carrier - granted, an important and significant event in our nation's history and today's news, yet not the murder of transgendered person in Detroit?

I think it's time that Rachel and all of MSNBC wake up to the call that the "T" in LGBT is not silent, and it's not lower case. We demand coverage, acknowledgement, and recognition, because to sweep us under the rug is to sweep Matthew Shepard, Tyler Clementi, and all the other LGB, and yes, T victims of hate and indifference under the rug with us. Stand now with your transgender family, as we have stood with you since Stonewall.