On Casey, Jaycee and Idenitity

I find it interesting that the verdict in the Casey Anthony trial came down at around the same time that Jaycee Dugard told her story to Diane Sawyer.  Although Casey's and Jaycee's stories are about as different as those of any two young women can be, they are, in a strange way, two sides of a coin.  It currency is identity. 


According to stories that have circulated in the media, Casey Anthony might move somewhere, assume a new name and possibly change her appearance.  Given that she cannot go back to her family--or, apparently anywhere in or near her home state of Florida--those stories make some sense.  Her acquittal on murder charges angered many people, some of whom have talked--out loud or sotto voce--of meting out their own "justice" to her.  I don't see how she can live anywhere in the United States, under her current identity, without risking her life.  


My question is this:  How willing and able is she to, essentially, end her life as she's known it and live the life of another person whom she doesn't yet know? She would probably have to take on the identity of someone who is, at least on the surface, very different from herself.  How long can she go on living that way?  Will she ever blow her cover, or will someone ever blow it for her?


I think that if someone else doesn't kill her, she may end up killing herself from the stress of having to live as someone else, without any of the people or things she's ever known.  Plus, I don't imagine that she has very many marketable or other survival skills, or that she--at least as she is now--is willing (and, possibly, able) to develop them.


So, as Casey Anthony has to leave herself (at least as the person she has been) behind, Jaycee Dugard has to, for the first time, live her life as her self. I don't doubt that she can do that, although it will be a very long process.  What she has going for her is that surviving nearly two decades of captivity--which included, among other things, sexual assaults and giving birth to the children of her captor--has probably taught her more about herself than most people ever truly know about themselves.  Very few people, I believe, can make a more honest assessment of their own needs and strengths than she can make of hers.  I can't think of a much more valuable inner resource than that. 


In a sense, I can identify with both of them, although I can draw far more inspiration from Jaycee than from Casey.  After all, when any of us transitions, we are, if you will, moving toward, and with, our selves after being in a sort of captivity ("the closet," or whatever you want to call it).  And, yes, we do have to leave an old identity behind.  But we can--or, at least I've found that I can--use a lot of lessons that we learn from our former lives as our former selves.  And while we are, in a sense, structuring new identities through our names, appearances and other aspects of who we are, what we are really doing is constructing or reconstructing our true selves from the strands and fragments of it we carried in our earlier lives.  


Although Casey doesn't seem like a terribly likable or admirable person, I wish her well or, at least, I don't wish her harm.  On the other hand, it's difficult not to feel good for Jaycee in every victory, however small, she experiences.  Really, who couldn't use her as a role model in at least some area of his or her life?

Why Casey Anthony's Acquittal Matters To Transgenders

Not many people, it seems, are happy that Casey Anthony was acquitted of murdering her daughter.  I am not quite happy about it, either.  Well, to be precise, I'm not happy that a little girl died and the truth about her death may never be known.  However, I am one of an apparently small minority who believes the jurors did the right thing in not charging Casey Anthony with the murder of her daughter Caylee.


One juror has said, in essence, that if you are going to sentence someone to die, you had better be certain that person is guilty of the crime for which you're condemning him or her.  This, I think, is especially true in Florida, where the trial took place:  Since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, Texas, Oklahoma and Virginia are the only US states to have executed more prisoners than Florida.  This juror admitted that no one thought Casey Anthony was any sort of model citizen or mother:  I don't know very many people who'd want their daughters to grow up to be like her.  And I certainly don't, in any way, regard her as a role model for myself. 


However, being an unsavory character and generally difficult to like (I have little trouble believing the prosecution's depiction of her as "shallow" and "egotistical.") doesn't, in itself, constitute guilt.  Only evidence can, or at least should, do that, especially under the system of law that, thankfully, we still have in spite of some prosecutors', judges' and politicians' efforts to destroy it.  While I'm willing to concede that the evidence might indicate that Ms. Anthony was a terrible mother and a not terribly responsible human being, that alone does not mean she is a child-killer, although my "gut" feeling is that if she didn't drown or suffocate or in some other way kill Caylee, she was probably responsible for her death through neglect, if nothing else.  


Cops make arrests based on "gut" feelings all the time.  Sometime those instincts turn out to be accurate.  Whether they're right or wrong, though, juries aren't supposed to determine guilt or innocence based on them.  Instead, jurors are supposed to make such decisions based on evidence.  And, as the juror who was interviewed said, the evidence was inconclusive.


I think that LGBT people, and transgenders in particular, should be thankful for this decision and the system that allowed it.  Too often, we are seen as guilty for one thing or another--usually some sexual offense--because of the images people have of us.  What's even worse is that many of us have not done anything to merit the stereotyping and suspicion to which we are subjected.  And, worse yet, there are some people who are willing to paint or simply use unflattering portraits of us--whether or not they're based on our behavior or characters--in their attempts to destroy us.  I know:  It's happened to me.  All it takes is for one student who didn't like his or her grade, one person to whom one of us says "no," or one person who experiences any other kind of unfortunate and unexplainable event, and one of us can find him or herself fired from a job, evicted from our homes or even arrested or killed simply by painting unsavory pictures of us that others are all too willing to believe. 


It doesn't matter that I don't drink or smoke, almost never party and have always been monogamous.  It only takes one angry, vindictive person to use the stereotypes about trans people to "try" and "convict" me with people who have as much power over my life as those jurors and the judge had over the fate of Casey Anthony.