Recovered From A Trash Can

Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance.

This day was first commemorated in 1999,one year after African-American transwoman Rita Hester was found murdered in Allston, a suburb of Boston.  

Since then, hundreds of other trans people have become homicide victims.  Most of them--92 percent, to be exact--share something with Ms. Hester:  their killings have not been solved.  

One such murder is emblematic of the reasons why we have TDR and why we have to continue to draw attention to the ways in which we are killed, and the official response--or lack thereof.


On 8 November--less than two weeks ago--a woman's body was found in a trash can in Detroit.  While investigators do not have her name or other details of her life and death, they have identified her as a trans woman.

A woman and her son found the body when they were scavenging for cans, bottles and other scraps.  They made their gruesome discovery behind a bar.

From what you've read so far, you may have guessed--correctly--that the body was that of an African-American trans woman.  That, the way she was disposed and the way her body was discovered tell you much about the dangers we face, and the undignified ways in which we are treated in life and death.

I can hope only that someone gives her the honor and dignity in death that she did not experience in life--during the last moments of it, anyway--and that Detroit police are more diligent in investigating her murder than too many other law enforcement officials in other places are when the victim is a trans person.

After all, even though she--and Islan Nettles of Harlem--are trans women who were murdered, not all anti-transgender violence happens to people because they are transgendered or even to people who are transgendered.  You see, someone who kills someone over gender identity makes a judgment on his or victim's identity and decides that person is somehow lacking.  So a man who is not deemed "masculine" enough or a woman who doesn't seem sufficiently "feminine" can fall victim in exactly the same way as someone who is indeed known to be transgendered.  It almost goes without saying that someone who cross-dresses in public can meet a similar fate.

So, on Transgender Day of Remembrance, we're not only mourning people like Rita Hester, Gwen Araujo, Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar, Islan Nettles and the woman whose body was found in a Detroit trash can.  Rather, we are acknowledging the fact that someone who doesn't fit into someone else's notion about gender can end up in a trash can behind a bar.

Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar, One Year Later

The other day, someone sent me a link to a site that displayed one of my posts on this blog.  


I was a bit surprised, as the post is a year old.  But I am glad, for one thing, that someone is reading something I wrote a year after I wrote it.  My writing may not echo through the eons, but knowing that someone else is thinking, when I'm not, about something I wrote is nice.  


However, as much as I want to be a famous writer and all that, there is a far more important reason why I'm happy someone is referencing a post of mine a year after the fact.  You see, the post has had more views than any other I've made on this blog.  I'm happy for that, though not the occasion that prompted the post:  the murder of  Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar.


She was a young and beautiful woman whose given name was Edelbuerto.  Her death was ruled, not only as a homicide, but as a hate crime.  And, thankfully, her killer was caught.  But that makes her case almost one in a hundred.  According to Interpol, more than ninety percent of all killings of transgender or other gender-variant people since 1975 haven't been solved.  Some are never investigated in the first place; worse yet, no one hears about many other killings of trans people because so many have been cast aside by their families, friends and other communities.


Amanda experienced some of that rejection, I'm sure.  But people who knew her have told me that she was an outgoing, friendly woman who had a number of friends.  Apparently, she had not become alienated or hostile, as too many other members of marginalized minorities become.  That should serve as a reminder that hostile people are, for the most part, made, not born.  


I just hope that wherever Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar is, one year after she was killed, her spirit is appreciated and she does not have to experience the violence--to her body or spirit--to which she was subjected at the end of her life here, in Queens, just a couple of neighborhoods away from where I live.

Transgender Day of Remembrance: For The Truth About Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar

Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance.  For those of you who are just learning about it, this day commemorates those who met violent deaths on account of their actual or perceived gender identity and expression.  It commemorates the 1998 murder of Rita Hester in the Boston suburb of Allston.  


Like so many murders of transgenders--and that of Matthew Shepard, which preceded hers by a few weeks--it was notable for its gruesome overkill.  For all of those who think that we're trying to make our deaths, and the ways in which we are victimized, seem more important than crimes against everyone else, I want to say just a couple of things.


First of all, murders of transgender (and other gender-variant people) have some of the lowest "solve" rates.  When I wrote an article about the issue five years ago,  92 percent of such murders committed during the previous 30 years hadn't been solved, according to Interpol. That has much to do with the fact that they are not taken seriously by authorities in many places; among those in law enforcement and criminal justice, there is too often the attitude that we "had it coming" or that no one will miss us.  The latter notion is, too often, true, for many of us have been cast aside by the families into which we were born or the ones we made.  (In that sense, I am luckier than most, as my parents have been supportive even though they don't entirely approve of what I've done.)


Second, as I've mentioned, our deaths are some of the most gratuitously violent.  In those cases in which investigators actually investigate our deaths, much less take those investigations seriously, police officers and coroners as often as not say that our murders are the most horrible they'd seen.  As an example, just two weeks ago, a cross-dresser and a eunuch were tortured--Their eyes and nails were removed--and burned beyond recognition.  


You might be tempted--as I would have been, not so long ago--to say, "Well, that's Pakistan.  Things like that happen there."  Indeed it is a conservative Muslim country.  But there, as in India, there is a class of people--of which the two murder victims may have been part--called the hijra. They have been tolerated if not afforded equal status, but they have been increasingly marginalized, and even stigmatized, during the past sixty years or so.  Still, the fact that they were even tolerated--if only for their usefulness as sex workers--makes them without parallel in most of the Western world.


(Ironically, "Hijra" is also the migration of the prophet Mohamed and his followers to the city of Medina in C.E. 622.  Most Americans and Europeans know of that journey by its Latinized name, "Hegira." )




To his credit, the Police Superintendent Syed Amin Bukhari has actually formed separate investigative teams for each murder.  And while some people still seem to think that they brought it on themselves by "bringing misery to the streets," as one commentor said, others have lamented the brutality of those slayings.  


However, to find any of those attitudes expressed, or to know how brutal the murder of a gender-variant person can be, one needn't go to Pakistan.  At least, I don't need to.  All I have to do is ride my bike about half an hour from my apartment to Ridgewood, Queens, where Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar lived and died in March.  Hers is one of the (too) many names being read at Transgender Day of Remembrance events this year.   


Somehow, I don't think this will be the last time I mention her name.  I know that there are others--some of whom I saw at the vigil held in front of her apartment--who will also keep her name, and thus her memory alive, for themselves and in the minds of those who investigated her killing.  Even though they made an arrest and are to be commended for their work, I don't want them to forget, for her sake as well as that of anyone else who meets a fate as terrible as hers.  


And I want to remember, and be sure they remember, her and the others because of what Voltaire said:  On doit egards aux vivants; on ne doit aux morts que la verite:  To the living we owe respect; to the dead, we owe nothing but the truth.

A Plea From A Friend of Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar

Under other circumstances, I would be happy that someone left a comment to my post nearly three months after I posted it.  But the comment in question relates to what is probably the saddest and possibly the most terrible thing I've written about on this blog:  the murder of Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar.


To honor her memory, and to help a friend of hers, I am going to post that friend's comment here:

Hello
I am a old friend of Amanda's family.I am writing this because it has come to my attention that the district attorney Richard Brown, after stating to the press in April that he was going to charge Rahseen Everett with second degree murder(which carries a sentence of 25 years to life) and tapering with evidence, has changed his mind and is talking about giving him a plea deal for a lesser charge of manslaughter(which means he will be out in less then 8 years).They have all the evidence they need to convict him.There isn't need for a plea. I cant help put wonder:   if it was a woman, a mother, and wife, would the district attorney  be going for 1st degree murder, which carries the death penalty and no less than life in prison.


This isn't justice.When the press was watching Richard Brown to see how he'll deal with the case, he said he will charge him with 2nd degree murder.But now that Amanda is not in the news no more, he no longer cares about getting justice for Amanda and her family.


If you would like to help get justice for Amanda, please email me at delights1@msn.com and put (I want justice for Amanda) as the subtitle. Or email Richard Brown at www.queensda.org and let Richard Brown no that this is unbelievably wrong.That Rasheen Everett should be held to the fullest extent of the law.


There is power in number . And one person can make a difference.Amanda made a difference in my life, the life of her friend, and especially in the life of her family. She was accepted and adored by her friends, her community,and especially her family .She was just as beautiful and amazing, as others have said, but even more so. Please demand justice for Amanda.Her life meant SO SO SO MUCH MORE then 8 years.  Nothing will ever fill the empty place in our heart now that Amanda's gone.But you can help us give her family a peace of mind that justice is being served and the person that took Amanda's life will , be paying for his crime appropriately. If you want to help, email me at delights1@msn.com.

Fewer Degrees Than I Thought

How many degrees of separation are there?


And, how close can you come with an offhand comment?


Well, today I may have a better idea of what the answers to those questions may be.


Janet, an instructor in the department, and  I were just talking about one thing and another.  I mentioned that I'd gone to the vigil for Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar.  


"Where was it?"


"Ridgewood."


"Really?  Where?"


I mentioned the street where Amanda lived, and died.  Janet's eyes widened.  "How do you know the neighborhood so well?"


"I wrote for the Ridgewood Times,"  I said, "which, of course became the Times-Newsweekly.'


Her eyes widened.  "Then you knew Michael Rosario."  


I thought for a moment.  "Yes.  He was the circulation manager."

 "And soon he's going to be my ex-husband."


She then recited all of the names that would have been on the newspaper's masthead at the time my byline was appearing in it.  I recalled most of them.  "Practically all of them were at our wedding," she recalled.


"Wow."


"Now I understand something."


"What's that?"


"Well, when I found out your name, I thought it was familiar.  Now I know why:  I saw it on your articles."


"Yes, you would have."


"And now I know why i thought your name was Nicholas before you changed."


"That's because it was.  My byline usually read "Nick Valinotti."

 Now I have to wonder:  Of the people who know me now, how many knew me then?  I wonder now whether Janet knew Nick, even a little bit--and whether he or I knew her then.  

A Post-Mortem for Amanda--and Gwen and Yusuf

I'm still thinking about Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar, and the vigil I attended for her.


You might say I'm feeling a bit of survivor's guilt right now.  I never met her, but I couldn't help but to sense that she was actually as beautiful a person as her friends said she was.  I say that because, in spite of her violent death, everything about that vigil--from the way people spoke of her to the makeshift memorial by her apartment--radiated serenity that, because it was the reflection of a soul truly at rest, left us with more than grief.


Why was she killed so horribly, and at such a young age?   I guess I could answer that question as a Buddhist would and say that whatever she had to learn in this life, she learned, and it was time for her to pass on to another life.  But why was her exit such a house of horrors?  


Of course, it's terrible when anyone is murdered.  But it's been a long time since I've been so affected by the killing of someone I never met.  Probably the last time I felt as I do now was after I heard about the murder of Gwen Araujo.  And, before hers, there was the death of Yusuf Hawkins.


I actually met Yusuf's grandfather once, briefly.  There really wasn't anything I could say to him.   He probably heard "sorry" more times than anyone should.  And what good did it do him, his family--or Yusuf?  If I recall correctly, I offered to help him and his family in whatever way I could, even though I could not envision what that way might be, if there was one.


He died much younger than anyone should.  So did Gwen and Amanda.  Had they lived, Yusuf would be a man coming into the prime of his life, Gwen might be in the early stages of the career to which she aspired--that of a makeup artist.  And Amanda was probably just beginning to live the life she'd envisioned for herself; the beauty that all of those people saw in her probably had to do, in some way,  with her acceptance of them which, of course, was a result of her acceptance of herself.  Few people realize just how powerful that actually is; I would love to see what kind of a life she (or someone) could have had after developing a sense of his or her own self based on that willingness to be who one is.   I've come to it much later in life than she did; therefore, I will most likely never accomplish some of the things she might have been able to do had she lived.   The same could probably have been said for Gwen and for Yusuf.  Still, I can't help but to feel that I have at least one opportunity that they never had.   I have no idea as to why I was given this chance at the life I'd always dreamt about, but here I am.  

From Protest To Empathy: St. Vincent's Hospital and Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar

Today I participated in the rally for St.Vincent's Hospital and the vigil for Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar.  As I expected, they presented a study in contrasts, though to an even greater degree than I expected.


By the time I arrived at 25th Street and Ninth Avenue, the march to St.Vincent's was already underway. So I walked along windswept yet sun-drenched Chelsea and West Village Streets to the hospital, where about a hundred people gathered around a podium where various community activists and politicians spoke.  I could immediately feel the tense anger that grew more intense when Tom Duane, the chair of the New York State Senate Health Committee, took the microphone.


Duane, at times barely audible even though he used a microphone, said what others had already said:  that the people were angry and that the hospital's closure is an injustice that will lead to deaths and other tragedies and disasters.  Probably anyone chosen at random from the crowd could have said exactly the same things, verbatim.  Chants of "What are you going to do?" filled the air.  One mustachioed man very loudly reminded him that he's up for re-election in November.  That man, I'd guess, voted for him not only in the most recent State Senate election, but in earlier contests, including the one that made Duane one of the first two openly gay candidates (Antonio Pagan was the other.) to be elected to the New York City Council.   I would guess that a lot of other people in that crowd voted for Duane every time he ran for office.  Now they, like that man, were feeling some combination of disappointment and betrayal.


I recalled the time I met Duane in Albany.  That was about seven years ago, during the time I was going to my job as Nick but socializing--and working as an advocate and volunteer--as Justine. Only a few weeks before that, the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act (SONDA), which Duane sponsored, became law--about thirty years after it was first proposed.  Some of us were disappointed and even upset because there was no language to protect transgenders or others whose gender identity and expression do not fit into societal expectations.  We thought that perhaps SONDA would at least open the door a crack so that a more inclusive law could pass.  However, meeting him made me less hopeful that would happen.  Though I never met him before that day, I had the sense that the fight for SONDA took a lot out of him; today I had the sense that he still has not recovered from it.   And his sense of fatigue seemed to fuel the anger and hostility of the crowd.


On the other hand, if anyone at the vigil for Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar was there to express rage, I didn't notice.  It seemed that the atmosphere was the inverse of that of the St. Vincent's rally:  There was a profound sense of grief, even among those of us who had never met Amanda, that unexpectedly (at least to me) found expression as empathy.  Even if I weren't a trans woman, I would have been able, in some way, to identify with others who attended.  Many of them knew her and were lamenting the loss of a "dear friend" and "beautiful soul." Nearly all of us has lost someone dear to us; a few of those deaths were horrific, as Amanda's was.  


Now I am thinking of all of those times someone has endured a particularly violent, tragic, painful or simply protracted process of dying, and after that person died, someone said, "She's in a better place now."  I certainly hope that's true for Amanda.  Now I'm realizing why such a wish might seem banal to some people, and why some might deem me a simpleton or worse for echoing it:  That vigil, whatever anyone may want to say about it, was probably a better "place" than any she had experienced in this life.   


Perhaps her spirit was guiding us. The proceedings were free of rancor and hostility.  Those of us who had never met her could feel a connection to her, and even the cops who were there seemed, if not benevolent, at least less like the ones who aid and abet the harassment and violence that too many of us experience. In fact, someone even praised their work, even though the cops we saw weren't directly involved with the capture of the man who is charged with killing her.  Elizabeth Maria Rivera, who organized the vigil, said that she was orignally going to hold a protest on the steps of the local (104th) precinct house.  But, upon learning that the man charged with murdering Amanda had been captured and returned to New York, she changed plans.   She and I exchanged e-mail addresses and phone numbers; I did the same with a few other people there.  Perhaps I will meet her, and some of the others, again some day.

Rally for St. Vincent's, Vigil for Amanda. Where Do You Stand?

Is this when I turn into an activist?


What's a girl to do?


On Saturday at 1: 00 pm, there will be a rally for St. Vincent's Hospial.    Then, at four, there will be a vigil for Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar, who was murdered in Ridgewood, Queens.


If you're anywhere near either, I'm urging you to join in.  The rally will be held at 25th Street and 9th Avenue in Manhattan and everyone will proceed to the hospital.  The vigil will assemble in front of the apartment building where she lived, which is near the Fresh Pond Road station of the M line.


On 14 April, Rasheen Everett was arrested in Las Vegas and returned to New York, where he's been charged with killing her.  When the story of Amanda's murder first broke, a lot of people assumed that it was a date gone bad:  He thought he was meeting a "real" woman but found out she was a pre-op tranny.  The police say that it wasn't the case; it was, they believe, a dispute over money.  Perhaps that is the case:  After all, according to witnesses, he left her apartment seventeen hours after arriving and took two full bags (the contents of which included her cell phone) with him.  


However, I can't recall the last time a robbery-murder victim was strangled and then stabbed.  I also can't think of a case in which a thief who, after killing his victim, doused the body in bleach.  And when was the last time you heard of someone settling a financial score by destroying the debtor's Marilyn Monroe memorabilia?


Those rhetorical questions asked, I will say that if Rasheen Everett is indeed Amanda's killer, it will distinguish her case:  In 2005, when I was writing an article about the issue for Women's eNews about the mistreatment transgender women incur from police officers, I found out that, according to Interpol, 92 percent of all killings of transgender people are never solved.  Too many of those cases were simply not pursued with the same zeal investigators bring to their probes of other murders--or are simply not investigated at all.  Too many inside and outside the criminal justice and law enforcement professions believe, on some level, what I read in some of the comments I saw on online news  reports of Amanda's death:  She had it coming to her.  


Well, I just happen to believe that there is no way one human being can justify killing another.  (Paul Fussell, who taught a course I took when I was at Rutgers, voiced exactly that belief.  And he won a Purple Heart for wounds he suffered while fighting in France during World War II.)   But, if you must kill someone, I say do what you need to do to get the job done, and no more.  Why does someone have to strangle someone, then stab her?  Or--as in another case I've read about--beat the person to death, dismember her and leave the body parts in dumpsters? 


A killer does those things only when his or her motive is hate, pure and simple.     A thief who becomes a killer in the course of the crime simply kills; he or she doesn't resort to overkill.  Ditto for someone who murders from just about any other motive, let alone in the heat of the moment.  


I was reminded of just how great the potential is for any sort of hate-motivated violence when I read the comments some people left in response to news accounts of Amanda's murder.  (Thankfully, I didn't receive any such comments on this blog.)  The milder ones said she "had it coming to her."  Others contained the sort of jokes that adolescent boys in middle-aged men's bodies make.  And a few others said that, in essence, we deserve to be killed, or whatever other violence or cruelty we experience.


What's interesting--and even more chilling--is that none of the comments had any of the warped religiosity that ostensibly motivates so much anti-gay and -lesbian bigotry and violence.  None of them contained any "God Hates Fags"-type comments; they were all expressions of personal rage or echoes of someone else's hatred.  


One thing that has surprised me (and given me a sort of hope) is that none of the animus or pure and simple meanness to which I've been subjected has come from religious people.   In fact, I have been treated with respect, and even kindness, by people who have strong  religious beliefs.  Millie is active with her church; my mother attends Mass every Sunday and holiday and says she prays that I'll be safe and well.  My cousin says he doesn't "agree" with what I've done because of his religious beliefs, but he wants to be a friend to me--and, of course, I've taken him up on the offer.  And Bruce, who's been a friend for more than twenty-five years, is committed to his Zen practice.


I've also met other people who echo, in one way or another, what my cousin has said.  One woman who is about a decade or so older than I am (or so I would guess) and was a student at LaGuardia Community College when I taught there said, "My religion says that what you're doing is wrong.  But it also says God loves everyone.  And you're a really good person."  


I never thought I'd hear myself say, "Thank God for religion."  But I've found that at least some religious people are willing to entertain the possibility that I am not out to "convert" them, corrupt their children or destroy God's creation.  (Truth be told, doing those things is too much work!)  Or, they simply believe that if God made me as I am and put me on this Earth, He must have had a reason.


On the other hand, I've found that people who simply hate aren't reachable through human interaction or reason.   At least, I haven't found a way to change their minds.  Some of those people, like the ones who left the comments I saw, are "yahoos" or simply cases of arrested development.  But others--and these are the ones that disturb, scare and anger me most of all--are so-called educated people who profess to wanting a more egalitarian world as long as they don't have to deal with it personally.  Perhaps they see me as a threat, for whatever reasons, to whatever position they hold, or perceive themselves as holding, in the world in which live--or simply to whatever image they have of themselves.  In fact, one former longtime friend said, "I know the problem is with me.  But I just can't have you in my life."


In previous posts, I've said that sometimes I feel that other people have changed even more than I have, and that I see more change coming.  Somehow I expect that I'll see examples of one or both if I go to the rally and the vigil. But that, of course, is not the reason I would participate in either one.

Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar: More Thoughts About About A Transgender Woman's Murder

It was utterly gorgeous yesterday: the sort of fine early spring day one envisions during the dreariest winter hours.  So, of course, I went for a bike ride in the afternoon.  Almost all I could think about was Amanda, a.k.a. Edelbuerto, Gonzalez-Andujar.


It turns out that she lived and died only two blocks from the office of the Times-Newsweekly, the local newspaper for which I wrote.   Her apartment is also only two blocks, in another direction, from where Martin lives.  So, of course, I was thinking about him when I wasn't thinking about Amanda.


Perhaps the fact that it's Passover is influencing the way I'm seeing them.  As I pedalled the serpentine roads of Randall's Island, I saw a group of men whose long black coats covered all except the collars and top buttons of their white shirts.  Their wives--at least,that is what the women in wigs and long, loose-fitting dresses seemed to be--were serving various kinds of food and selling handicrafts that, I guess, they made.  I was tempted to stop and check it out, but even if I weren't unwelcome, I would certainly garner more attention than I would've wanted.


In other words, I couldn't have "gone stealth."  They can't do that, either, in any place save perhaps their own communities.  (Even in some of those places, such as Crown Heights, they stand out among their neighbors.)  That is why Jews are always under surveillance and suspicion and, as Jacobo Timerman and Primo Levi have written, they can't help but to think that any crime or misdemeanor committed against them is motivated by their identities.


And, of course, such is the case for any transgender who's the victim of any sort of violence, or who receives any kind of negative treatment other people aren't getting.  As an example, when I had a false accusation made against me at work, I couldn't help but to think that it had something to do with my gender identity--and, specifically, that I recently had my surgery.  


When you raise the probability of such motivations as a possibility, you're accused of being paranoid, if you're lucky, and psychotic if you aren't.  Some will even tell you that the fact that you entertain such thoughts--or that you are what you are and express it as you do--brings the ill treatment upon you. The latter, in other words, is a way of "blaming the victim" and of excusing the perpetrators of any responsibility for their own behavior.


I was reminded of what I've just described when I saw and heard some of the comments and reactions to the news accounts of Amanda's murder.  To be fair, there were a number of commenters who pointed out that no one deserves to die the way she did, or by the motivations of her killer.  A few said that the killing shouldn't be treated as a hate crime or even that hate crime laws are unnecessary because the authorities should treat the case as the brutal killing that it is.  My inner libertarian agrees with that position, but as a transgender woman, I cannot support it wholeheartedly.  Still, it is better than some of the other comments I read.  The more polite ones said that she "deceived" some man or, as one put it, "He was expecting a taco and found a sausage instead."  (Aside from the imagery, it is somewhat amusing in that it may be the first time I've read a bigoted comment that was pro-Mexican, however obliquely.)


Worse still were the ones who referred to Amanda as male, but worst of all were the ones were the ones that would have made "Dude looks like a lady" seem enlightened.  Such remarks reek of the sort of violence that was committed against Amanda, and too many other trans women.  They sound like they came from the sorts of guys who show what a dangerous combination alcohol and testosterone can be. (I'm not man-bashing:  My body has been filled with that caustic concoction, and under its influence, I did things I'm not proud of!)  Plus, they reveal the insecurities such people have about their own sexuality, if not their gender identity.


And that is what I and every other transgender woman fear.  In addition to the ostracism and suspicion we incur and the prospect of violence that underlies so much in our lives, we know that we are prone to some of the most particularly gruesome sorts of attacks.  It seems that every murdered transgender woman of whom I am aware was killed in a way that left grizzled police officers, detectives and coroners saying that it was the most grisly, or one of the most grisly, crimes they'd ever seen. Amanda was strangled and stabbed.  Gwen Araujo was strangled, beaten, hog-tied and buried in a shallow grave.  (I still can't read about it without crying.) Eda Yildirm's head and sexual organs were chopped off and thrown in a dumpster.  I could go on--but you get the picture.  All you have to do is type "transgender murder" in Google, click on to just about any link you find, and you will see some of the most horrendous kinds of killing you've ever heard of.


The standard explanation for such brutality is that nothing makes people more insecure than having their notions about their sexuality challenged--or, at least, to feel that their notions about their identities and proclivities have been questioned.  It makes sense:  After all, the most phobic people are the ones who know, deep down, that they are what they hate.  Are we shocked when we learn that some homophobic preacher was patronizing teenaged boys or when some segregationist reveals, on his deathbed, that he was the "love child" of his father and housemaid? How surprised would you be to know that, as a teenager, I committed a gay-bashing?


But I think that the challenge to one's notions of one's identity and sexuality are the nucleus, so to speak.  The atom is one's place in the social and economic hierarchies.  Why is it that gay-bashings and murders of trans people are so often committed by young men who seem to have few prospect in life?  They are the ones who have no chance of going to college or getting the kinds of jobs their fathers (if, indeed, their fathers are in the picture) have or had.  They feel that others--immigrants, queers or others whom they might see only at a distance--are getting all the breaks and resentment.  If alcohol and testosterone is a combustible mixture, almost nothing will ignite it more quickly or reliably than the resentment and rage such young men feel. 


That spark can also come from the friction between the pressure a young man feels to fit into one role or another and his feelings of inadequacy or unsuitability for that role. That is how I would explain the way I was as a teenager, anyway.


And, when rage and insecurities seek a target, what's better than someone who "won't be missed?"  That is to say:  who would make a better punching bag than someone who's despised more than anyone else--by society at large as well as by the ones who actually deliver the blows, the shots, the slashes?


While every human being is responsible for his or her actions, the terrible thing  is that most of those young men don't realize just how duped, how "had," they are.  The fact that they are committing such terrible violence shows that they have never had the opportunity to think through their own assumptions, most of which were passed on to them.  The night I kicked a gay man in the stomach while he was writhing on the ground, I was trying to redeem myself as a "real man" in the eyes of my co-conspirators.  And we were all, wittingly or not, acting out of assumptions about ourselves and our genders that were so inculcated within us that we didn't even know that it was possible, much less permissible or sustainable, to question such notions.


All of those notions govern what we, as transgenders, fear--and what we all have to live with.  Some of the people who knew Amanda are, I'm sure, saying that she's "in a better place now."  I hope that's true.

Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar: A Transgender Woman Murdered In Queens

Yesterday afternoon Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar, a transgender woman whose given name is Edelbuerto, was found naked and strangled in her ransacked apartment.


It's hard not to think it's a murder, although (at the time I'm writing this) the police and city officials can't yet label it as such, for legal reasons.  It's equally difficult not to think that her death had something to do with her gender identity and expression.  I mean, why else would her Marilyn Monroe photos have been destroyed? And why would she have been stabbed in the neck and chest several times in addition to having been strangled?


She lived and died in Ridgewood, a section of the New York City borough of Queens that's only a couple of neighborhoods away from mine.  For two years, I wrote for the Times Newsweekly, the community's local newspaper. I felt as safe in Ridgewood as I have felt in any urban neighborhood in the United States.  I had no fear of walking even the more remote streets of the industrial areas of the neighborhood's periphery after dark.  I even left my bicycle--admittedly, my "beater"--unlocked while I covered school board meetings and other events.  My wheels were as untouched as they would have been had I parked in Bhutan.  I brought Tammy there once; after that, we talked about buying one of the stone or brick houses that line the neighborhood streets.  I really thought I'd introduced her to an urban oasis, if not a paradise.


Then again, I was living as a man in those days, and my waist was sculpted by thirty to fifty miles of daily cycling and my shoulders from the weights I lifted every day.  And my clothes, hairstyle and other markers of gender identity were completely congruent with those of other  men of that neighborhood, and American culture generally.  Plus--I never thought of this until now, at least not in reference to the time I spent in Ridgewood--I'm about as white as one can be.


Also, at that time, I didn't know Martin.  He has lived in the neighborhood all of his life.  (Technically, his place is in neighboring Glendale, which is a very similar kind of neighborhood.)  And he's gay.  While he seems never to have worried about meeting a fate like Amanda's, he has recounted incidents of harassment that stopped just short of physical violence.  Among those with and around whom he's spent his life, he seems to have lived, and to be living, by a variation of "don't ask, don't tell."  It seems that everyone knows about his sexual orientation, but he cannot talk to anyone about, say, his boyfriend(s), the way straight people can talk about their dates, lovers or spouses.  He seems to find the arrangement no more bizarre than his neighbors and friends think it is.


In an environment like that, you get along by going along.  The highest compliment someone can pay a neighbor is that he or she "doesn't bother anybody."  And that is what someone said about Amanda yesterday.


It's not a hard sentiment to understand, especially once you've cycled the neighborhood streets and talked to local residents, most of whom are blue-collar workers and their families.  People move to the fortress-like (though still very atttractive) stone and brick houses that line many of the neighborhood streets after working for years to save for the down payment.  Those houses look almost exactly as they did when they were first built between 100 and 80 years ago by German immigrants.  They are investments, shrines, heirlooms and fortresses, all at once, and their owners don't want them defaced.  (Nowhere is graffiti more detested than it is in that part of Queens.)  They help to make the neighborhood all but irresistible to those who want peace, stability and security above all else.


Those qualities make such a neighborhood attractive to transgenders, too.  After Tammy and I split up and I started to live as Justine, I nearly moved there myself.  It's never been known as an LGBT enclave, as parts of Jackson Heights and Astoria (where I now live) are.  However, in addition to Martin, I know of a few other gays and transgenders who live there.  I won't tell you who they are, as the only person I'll ever "out" is myself!  Any LGBT person I mention on this blog has made his or her identity public or has been cloaked with a pseudonym.


Anyway...I never knew Amanda, so whatever I say of her thoughts or motivations is speculation on my part.  Still, I am confident in saying that she probably felt some level of safety and security in living there.  I'm guessing that she also lived "under cover":  From the photos I saw of her, I'd say that she "passed" well enough to go "stealth."  And, because most people in the neighborhood don't want to upset its serenity, they probably left her alone, even if they knew her identity.


Of course, the scenario I've just described has its own perils.  One is isolation.  Most people in the neighborhood are polite; some are cordial.  But the extent of people's interaction with their neighbors is dictated by the amount of time they spend outside those stone and brick walls.  This may have been one of the reasons why it took several days for anyone to realize that Amanda had gone missing, or that some other terrible fate had befallen her.


Now they are mourning her.  So, in my own way, am I.  If we--that is to say, our souls--go anywhere after this life, I hope Amanda finds love and acceptance there.