The Third Law: What Haters Will Do Next

Newton's Third Law of Motion says that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

There is a parallel to that, I believe, in the struggle for LGBT equality.

Now it is legal for same-sex couples to marry in 36 of the 50 US states and the District of Columbia.  People who, not long ago wouldn't be caught dead uttering the word "gay"--let alone "lesbian" or "transsexual" (most didn't know the word "transgender"--are now speaking up in support of gay family members, co-workers and neighbors.  I know, personally, two people who beleived that "the lifestyle" is against their religious beliefs and are now advocating for the rights of LGBT people.  One has even become a counselor to them--and to parents who face the same struggle she had when her daughter "came out".

According to every recent poll, the majority of Americans think that there should be no legal bars against same-sex marriage and that lesbians and gay men should be protected under civil rights laws.  Expressing hate against gays is taboo in many quarters; in others, people simply wonder whether the hater hasn't got better things to do and more important things to think about.


What this means--in keeping with Newton's Law, as it were--is that the remaining homophobes are becoming more virulent in their hatred or simply more ludicrous in their expression of it. For example, there are lawmakers--like one from Texas (who looks like she's having a fantasy or two involving Rick Santorum)--who want the "right" to refuse to do business with or employ, or other wise discriminate against, LGBT people.  Why?  They believe that anti-discrimination laws somehow infringe upon their right to religious freedom.

That argument's absurdity is equaled only by its lack of originality:  It was used as a rationale for racial segregation and slavery itself.  Oh, yeah, and discrimination against women, too, which makes it all the more ironic that it's being used by women.

The good news is that where laws like the one Donna Campbell has proposed in Texas have been put to the vote, they've failed--even in states like Kansas, which is about as conservative and Republican as they come.  That tells me that even those who don't care much about LGBT equality can see how ridiculous and just plain wrong (I doubt that even Antonin Scalia thinks it's constitutional!) it is.

What that means is that Campbell and her ilk will just become even more illogical and delusional until the campaign funds dry up.  Then they'll give up or get voted out of office.  

Even when that happens, though, we'll have another reaction to contend with.  You see, the non-officeholders who've been fighting against same-sex marriage and LGBT equality--I'm talking now about groups like Focus on the Family  and American Family Association (It's always about protecting "family", right?)--are turning their hatred, I mean attention, toward transgender people.  And they will fight us with the same virulence and belligerence they used against lesbians and gays.  

The bad news is that as our lives and struggles become more familiar to more people, those groups will become more truculent and, possibly, violent.  The good news is that it will last only for so long.  But we have to be prepared in the meantime--and to keep our allies close to us.

She Just Wants To Walk Home Night Without Watching Her Back

Even though I am happy to hear that an anti-sodomy law has been overturned, or some government or another has added language to its civil-rights laws to protect transgender or gender-variant people (or "gender identity and expression"), I long ago realized that laws and policies are not, by themselves, sufficient to protect us from physical harm, let alone bias.  And a country's laws and policies are no guarantee of a person's rights or safety in any particular part of that country.

Indonesia is a case in point.  Even though the nation, which is an archipelago straddling the Indian and Pacific Oceans, has no laws against homosexual acts--and its people are generally tolerant--there are parts of the country that are simply dangerous for LGBT people.  In a way, that's not surprising when you consider that Indonesia's population, the fourth largest in the world, includes more Muslims than anywhere else in the world, and among the Islamic community are conservative enclaves that live, in essence, under Sharia law.

One of those areas is the Aceh province, which was so devastated by the tsunami that struck exactly a decade ago this past weekend.  Less than a year later, the province gained autonomy in a special treaty that ended a three-decade old insurgency.  As a result, Aceh can create its own laws, including the one banning homosexual acts, which passed in September.

Authorities have said they'll wait until the end of 2015 to start enforcing it, ostensibly to allow people time to "prepare for it".  But haters don't need that time: Already there have been beatings and gay and trans people have stopped going out in public as couples.  Three years ago, a transgender makeup artist in Banda Aceh was stabbed to death after she held up a stick in response to a man's taunts.  And, Violet Gray, the area's main LGBT organization, began burning documents in October out of fear that they could be raided and put the area's close-knit LGBT community--estimated at about 1000--at risk.

Aceh is often said to be the most conservatively Muslim area of Indonesia:  That is no surprise when one considers that is where the Islamic faith first came to the area.  However, many fear that such restrictive laws and a dangerous climate will not be limited to that province, and that other conservative areas like South Sumatra and East Java could follow Aceh's lead.  Teguh Setyabudi, the Aceh Home Ministry's head of regional autonomy--and a Violet Gray member--expresses hope that the new Aceh law will be overturned (under newly-elected President Joko Widodo) and stop other provinces from enacting similar laws.  

All she wants, she says, is to be able to walk home without watching her back in fear.  "Being like this is a fate, not a choice," she says. "What makes people wearing a jihab and peci"--the woman's traditional veil and the traditional cap worn by Muslim men--" feel so righteous that they can condemn other people as sinful?"

What, indeed?

Speaking Of Allies...

Speaking of allies:  Caryn Kunkle is certainly one.

Two of her friends were brutally attacked by a group of fifteen (!) boys and girls in Center City, Philadelphia.  After asking whether the two men were a couple, the young thugs assaulted and robbed them while yelling, "Dirty faggots!"

One of the men was so badly beaten that police thought he was dead from a gunshot wound.  Now he and his boyfriend want to make sure no one else has to experience what they did.  So does Ms. Kunkle.

She is working with them, and others to change Pennsylvania's hate crime laws, which don't include crimes committed against people primarily because of their sexual orientation.   I, of course, have signed the petition.  I urge you to do the same.

Of course, there needs to be language to protect people attacked for their actual or perceived gender identity.  That's the next step after Kunkle and her friends see the change they're seeking.

Trans Woman Attacked In Bushwick

Over the past few years, as Williamsburg has become trendy and pricey, Bushwick has become Brooklyn's new haven for hipsters.  

Unfortunately, it also seems to have become a haven for haters.


On Sunday night, a trans woman was attacked on the corner of Bushwick Avenue and Halsey Street.  She was walking with a friend when four men approached them and demanded to know what they were doing in the neighborhood.

When she replied, the thugs realized she was trans.  They beat her with 2X4s while calling her "faggot".

It was the second anti-LGBT attack in the neighborhood in two weeks.


I can recall a time when it was risky for anyone who wasn't from the neighborhood--and for some people who were--to walk those streets at night.  It wasn't that long ago:  I was pelted with eggs on one occasion and, on another, a group of young men tried to stop me at an intersection when I was riding my bike through the neighborhood.

Back then, I was still living as a man.  I even had a beard and broad shoulders that seemed even wider next to my waist, which was smaller.  Most people took me as a straight, or at least a bisexual-leaning-toward-straight, man.  I can only imagine what it would have been like if I had begun my transition.

The neighborhood was dangerous for LGBT people in the same way any area that was ravaged by crime and poverty:  People whose existences were precarious saw any deviation from accepted notions about gender and sexuality as a threat.  There are still people--young men, mainly--with such fears who live in the neighborhood. And there are others who see LGBT people as gentrifiers, or the "canaries in the coal mine" who precede them.  In other words, they think we're going to "take over" their neighborhood and kick them out.

Truth is, most of the LGBT people in Bushwick--More are living there than most people realize!--are there for the same reasons as the folks I've mentioned:  It's still a relatively affordable neighborhood.  One of the undeniable facts about the LGBT world--especially trans people--is poverty.  For every one those conspicuously-consuming gay men living in Chelsea penthouses, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of trans people who are living below the poverty line--or who are homeless.

Now, of course, the trans woman and gay man who suffered bias attacks in Bushwick during the past two weeks may not have been attacked by denizens of the neighborhood.  Because those "in the know" know there's a substantial LGBT population in the neighborhood, it's not hard to imagine that haters from other neighborhoods, or even from outside of this city, might go to such a neighborhood during "hunting season":  the weekend.   That's the reason why so many attacks occur in Chelsea, Clinton, the Village and Jackson Heights.

Whoever the perps were, my thoughts and prayers go out to the trans woman and gay man who had the misfortune to meet up with haters (read: cowards) on a Bushwick street.

 

 

A Gays-Only Village?

I have always had mixed feelings about high schools specifically for LGBT people.  On one hand, such schools might shield students from bullying they might experience in other schools.  On the other, segregation always turns the ones segregated into second-class citizens.

Now a developer wants to build a gays-only neighborhood in the Dutch city of Tilburg.  Mayor Peter Noordanus has endorsed the idea.

I'd be curious to know how much support there is for this idea in the Dutch LGBT community--or across the Netherlands generally.

Proponents of the project point out that recently, there has been an increase in the amount of violence and oppression against LGBT people.  That, in the first nation to legalize same-sex marriage and reputed to have some of the most gay-friendly laws and policies in the world.

Moreover, more than one-fifth of all gay people report that they don't feel safe in their own neighborhoods.

How can that be in the Netherlands?

Well, as in much of Europe, "Skinheads" and other hate groups have increased their membership.  These home-grown terrorists blame gays, immigrants and others who are simply different from themselves for their society's ills--including their own inability to get a job.

Sound familiar?

Still, I don't see how any good can come of such a program.  If anything, segregation sends the message to haters that it's OK to harass and brutalize those who already exprience oppression.   That is what happened in this country between the end of Reconstruction and the beginning of the Civil Rights movement.

And, if such a colony is constructed in a country like the Netherlands, what does it portend for LGBT people in other parts of the world?

Violence Against Us

Tomorrow is International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia.  In light of that, I feel the need to present this:

Growing Issues Of Hate

In spite of (or, as some might argue, as a backlash against) the passing of laws to protect gender identity and expression, more violence is committed against transgender (or other gender-variant) people every year.  And, perhaps even more disturbing, the assaults committed against, and the murders of, us constitute an ever-increasing percentage of crimes against LGBT people, hate crimes and crimes generally.

From:  Think Progress

 

The "Knockout" Game

Perhaps you've heard, by now, of "the knockout game."  In it, groups of young people attack an unsuspecting victim.  The assault begins with a sucker punch and ends with the victim pummeled to the ground.  

This disturbing fad seems to have begun in Brooklyn but has spread to other parts of the United States, and even as far away as London.  At least one victim has died; so far, all of the Brooklyn victims have been older Orthodox or Hasidic Jews.

Now, some might use that last fact--and that the attackers are young people of color, and that the attacks have occurred in the same couple of neighborhoods--to minimze the terror.  People who don't live in those neighborhoods or in proximity to those religious and ethnic groups, and are thus sheltered from the tensions between them, might  believe that they have no reason to worry.   However, those very same facts should be reasons why everyone--particularly LGBT people, especially transgenders--should be concerned. 

As Kelli of planetransgender points out, we can all too easily become the next victims of such violence.  After all, who do the attackers choose as their prey?  People who are different (or, at least perceived as such) and more vulnerable than themselves. I can hardly think of any group of people who better fits that description than we do.

What makes us even more vulnerable, though, is that we have fewer people who can and will advocate for us than Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn (or, for that matter, almost any other minority group) have.  Not only are there Orthodox elected officials, there are many others who are lawyers and other professionals with the skills to help their communities.  And they have the support of many leaders of other religions and communities who see an attack on someone who happens to be of a racial, ethnic or religious minority as the act of hate that it is.

But those same advocates and supporters do not always extend their moral outrage, or even a simple sense of right and wrong, when it comes to prejudice, let alone physical assaults, against trans people. Or they simply run out of time, energy or other resources and decide to put us on the back burner because we are a less numerous and poorer population.

Perhaps the saddest and most frightening--but, when you think about it, least surprising--part of the "knockout" game is that the perps come from the very same groups of people who have been systematically terrorized in this city for the last two decades or so.  I'm referring, of course, to people of color, especially to young Black males.  The reason why it's not surprising is that those who live under the constant threat of harassment and worse, and don't have the knowledge or other resources to fight it, will too often take out their often-justifiable anger and resentment on the nearest person or people who are, in some way different and therefore (in their perception, anyway) aligned with the very power structure that is defining and constraining their lives with violence.
 

Trans Woman Killed Across From Police Precinct

When's this shit gonna end?

A couple of days ago,  I wrote about one hate crime against an LGBT person and a person of color. Now there's another.  The only difference is, the LGBT person and the person of color are the same woman.  And she's dead.

On Saturday night, 21-year-old trans woman Islan Nettles was out with a friend in Harlem when they were confronted by a group of young men. 

I haven't been able to find details, but from what I've learned, an argument ensued after the young men learned that Ms. Nettles was born male.

One of the young men yelled anti-gay remarks, and punches were thrown.  The friend ran to find help, and the young man was on top of Nettles. 

When she arrived at the hospital, she was still conscious but soon fell into a coma and was declared brain dead.  She was placed on a ventilator so family members could pay their respects and, tonight, police told NY1 that she'd died.

Police have arrested a 20-year-old male in connection with the case, but have not released his name because of a pending upgrade in the charges against him.

Now, I'll tell you what might be the most outrageous part of this killing:  It happened right across the street from a police precinct house.  



What does that tell us when haters and other thugs can assault and kill trans people with such abandon?

The Interracial Couple And The Phantom Gay Male Friend

A few years ago, blocks of abandoned industrial buildings that rimmed the East River were razed to build rows of "luxury condos" and glass-and-steel bars and restaurants (or, at least restaurants that look like they're made of glass and steel). 

This is all reminiscent of what happened in the Meat Packing District and the area just west of Lincoln Center.  The difference is that the place I mentioned in my first paragraph isn't crawling with cavorting celebrities, as the Meat Packing District so often is.  

Still, I think it's fair to say that most of the people who've moved into those condos and who frequent those bars and restaurants have a pretty fair amount of disposable income.  And most of them probably have no idea of what the neighborhood was before they came along.

But I know about it because I've witnessed its transformation. I frequent the area around it, which includes a pier with one of the best views one can find of the Empire State, Chrysler and UN Buildings.  Photographers, painters and other artists frequently do their work there for that very reason.  That pier is only a ten-minute bike ride from my apartment.

I'm talking about the far edge of Long Island City, near Hunters Point.  While it is certainly a well-kept area (as was the surrounding residential neighborhood, which was populated mainly by blue-collar Italian-Americans).  The newly-polished surface of the area, and its increasingly vibrant night life, give some the feeling--or, shall we say, illusion--of tranquility.

But an incident over the weekend revealed that the surface may be, as it is in so many other places, a veneer.   

Interracial couple Jacob and Billie James-Vogel discovered when left the Shi restaurant and club--one of those new glass-and-steel places--with a gay male friend whose name was not disclosed.  The assialant yelled the "N" and "f" words while attacking Jacob and throwing Billie to the ground when she tried to shield him.

I don't know what, if anything, happened to the gay male friend.  In fact, I learned about him only because of an acquaintance who lives nearby and was there when the police showed up.  This acquaintance is not the sort who embellishes or sensationalizes stories, so I am confident in mentioning the gay male friend.  Of course, that would account for why the assailant used the "F" word.  That begs the question of why that detail was reported but not the gay male friend.

If so many outlets can be so sloppy in their reporting, I guess it's too much to ask them to probe why such attacks occur when and where they happen.  Then again, knowing such things might prevent some of the attacks, which would put some of the so-called journalists out of work because they would have fewer sensational stories to report.

Capital Crimes Against Trans Women Of Color

In recent posts, I mentioned the spate of anti-LGBT crimes in New York during the days leading up to Pride.  It seems that any city with a visible LGBT community--particulalry one that's a destination for such events as Pride--experiences at least its share of such attacks.

However, in one such city, the "Pride Season" crime spress seems to have taken a particularly disturbing turn:  The victims are male-to-female transgenders of color.

That city is the capital of the USA:  Washington, DC. This past Saturday morning--the day before Pride--a transgender woman was shot and another was stabbed.  The attacks on them followed other attacks on trans women of color during the weeks leading up to Pride.  

Also, on the previous Saturday, a lesbian was shot to death in what was described as a botched robbery.  Whether or not that is the case, it's still disturbing to see that LGBT people--especially trans people, and those of color--are over-represented in the roster of hate crime victims, and that some of the more brutal of such crimes are happening in this nation's capital.

Why Crimes Against LGBT (Especially T) People Are Under-Reported

Whenever the number of assualts and other crimes against LGBT people increases--as it did for several years in the first decade of this century-- some observers minimize it by attributing it to "greater willingness to report" such crimes to the police.  However, when there is a decrease, as was reported from 2011 to 2012, the same reason is often given:  Increased reporting, it is said, leads to greater awareness and prevention.

While either, or even both, of these explanations may be plasible, the National Association of Anti-Violence Projects points out that LGBT people are disproportionately targeted for discrimination and violence.  The risk of experiencing everything from slurs to slaying increases exponentially if you are transgendered (especially MTF) or of color.  

Whether the rate is increasing or not, and whatever factors may be in play, it's still difficult not to think that crimes against LGBT people--especially trans women and those of color--are grossly underreported.  Some are mis-categorized--as, most famously, the death of Marsha P. Johnson was ruled a suicide while evidence indicates that she may have met her fate at the hands of one or more haters on the old Christoper Street pier, where someone saw her body floating in the Hudson River.

Recently, I have volunteered as an outreach worker for the Anti-Violence Project here in New York.  My own impetus to do so came from my own experience.  I did not experience physical violence in a relationship in which I was involved; however, my now-ex beau used my identity as a trans person to spread false rumors and outright lies about me.  He threatened more of the same if I didn't let him back into my life.  In doing so, he also exposed me to the threat of physical violence from others:  Too many people are willing to believe that trans people are committing all manner of sexual crimes, and more than a few are willing to kill us over such notions.  

I mention my experience not only to show that violence and abuse need not be physical in order to cause harm, or even death, to a trans person. Yet the very notions too many people--including the ex--have are one reason why many of us are reluctant to report the abuse and other crimes we experience.  Too many people--including many police officers, including all except one I encountered in my local precinct--believe that we "had it coming" to us for being who we are.  And some of us even experience harassment from police officers, as I did the first time I went to the local precinct.

I had to go to that precinct three times before anyone would even take a report from me--and they did that only after I went to the court and a counselor advised me on what to do.  (That counselor was also very sympathetic and supportive.  She is black; I wonder whether she also experienced threats and other abuse.)  And, to give more credit where it's due, the court clerks and officers were very helpful to me. Still, I can't help but to wonder, though, how many other trans women--and other LGBT people--had experiences like mine, and whether any gave up after experiencing such official hostility only once.  Even more to the point, I wonder how many people simply didn't report abuse, assaults or worse because they'd heard horror stories like mine about dealing with the police.

Whatever the year-to-year statistical fluctations are in anti-LGBT discrimination and violence, I believe that such violations will be under-reported for many years to come. Only after changes in training law enforcement officials and societal attitudes have influenced a generation or two of people will more of us feel confident that we can report the offenses against us without having to worry about experiencing more prejudice and even violence from those to whom we report those crimes.

Who Hates The Sin But Loves The Sinner?

Zack Ford posed the Question of the Year (or Pride Month, anyway) in his recent Think Progress article.

Actually, he didn't so much pose a question as he juxtaposed two different responses to the same sort of crime.

Back in August, a security guard was shot at the Family Research Council.  Floyd Corkins II has been convicted and will be sentenced in July.  

Of course, nearly everyone who paid attention was outraged.  Among the leaders in condemning the crime a coalition of LGBT organizations, including GLAAD and SAGE.  They strongly condemned the violence and wished a full recovery to the victim.

On the other hand, last month someone claiming to be the Newtown gunman hurled homophobic slurs at Mark Carson and chased him to the Papaya King restaurant on West 8th Street and Sixth Avenue in Greenwich Village.  There, the gunman shot Carson point-blank in his face.  At Beth Israel Hospital, Mark Carson was pronounced dead on arrival.

Two weeks ago, I volunteered in the Anti-Violence Project's outreach in front of that very restaurant.  People who live in or frequent the neighborhood seemed shell-shocked; I and my outreach partner were explaining to tourists and others who don't spend a lot of time in the Village that, in some ways, the neighborhood is less safe than others for LGBT people.  Just as hunters go to the swamp or woods or wherever they can expect to find whatever they're hunting, haters--often fueled by volatile combinations of testosterone and alcohol (Trust me, I know of whence I speak!)--go to the Village and Chelse and other places where they know they'll find LGBT people to harass, beat or kill.

All the time my partner and I were handing out flyers and collecting signatures and e-mail addresses, I was bracing myself for someone to make a comment or hurl an object.  I guess nobody "read" me or my partner, a lesbian who readily "passes" as straight, because neither of us encountered any bigotry.  (And, oh, my partner in "crime" is black.)  

I now have a theory as to why we lucked out:  Haters are almost always cowards. And, for better or worse, most aren't as tone-deaf as those who called Newtown residents to enroll members and solicit donations weeks after the mass shooting there.

Instead, the haters expressed themselves through their silence.  Not one conservative organization--including any that claims to be "Christian"--denounced Mark Carson's murder.  At least, they were silent about it until Daily Kos blogger Mark Wooledge produced an image critical of anti-gay movements and it went viral. 

When conservatives finally commented on Carson's killing, they watered down their condemnations, as Brian Brown of the National Organization for Marriage did,  by saying that it wasn't connected to the debate about "redefining" marriage--which, of course, caused some people to associate the two. He also took pains to say that opponents of same-sex marriage are "equally persecuted."  Or else, in their condemnations, they compared Carson's death to the Newtown tragedy. The only connection between the two is that a gun was used; the motives of the shooters were entirely different.  What happened in Newtown is indeed a tragedy, but it cannot be usefully compared to Carson's death any more than the Holocaust can be compared to the Third Passage.

In other words, the conservative groups who finally condemned the violence did so only to advance their own views about marriage and the family.  Other conservative groups and commentators--that is, the ones who bothered to say anything--were less charitable.  A few even praised the shooter for getting rid of another "abomination".

In contrast, the LGBT groups who condemned the shooting at the Family Research Council made no mention of the group's views--some of which include outright homophobia--and attempts to stop the "redefinition" of marriage.  I'm not here to suggest that LGBT people are better than than the religious (or simply far) right:  Why would I do a thing like that?  

Seriously, I think the difference in responses can be explained this way:  At least some members of LGBT organizations have been the victims of hate crimes, some of them violent.  And, most of us have, at one time or another, experienced discrimination in employment, housing, education or other areas, or have simply experienced bigotry and hatred (as with people who want nothing more to do with us when they learn that we are L, G, B or T).  On the other hand, I think it's pretty safe to say that almost no conservative has been the victim of a hate crime--at least, not a crime motivated by someone's hatred of his or her conservativism.  I also think we can pretty fairly assume that many have never experienced any sort of discrimination against them as a result of their political and social views.  Higher education (at least in certain segments) might be one of the few areas in which being a conservative could hurt their chances of hiring or promotion--and then only if they express their views openly.

Egging The Haters On

Normally, I prefer not to write about stories, topics or concerns other transgender bloggers cover unless I have another perspective or idea to offer.

However, I am going to make an exception today. Kelli Busey's Planetransgender--one of my favorite blogs on any topic--posted about something so disturbing (but not surprising) that I simply had to mention it here.

It's one thing to overhear transphobic comments in a private conversation.  It's something else when the comments are public and directed at someone.  But it's even worse when the co-host of a Sirius XM program voices his approval of a violent hate crime committed against a transgender person:


   

Can you imagine some teenaged boy--especially one who feels under pressure to prove that he's a man--hearing that exchange?

 "There's a teen that shot a tranny after finding out that it was a man after they had a little sexual encounter." 

"I don't blame him. I would have shot his ass, too. 

 First of all, the trans woman was referred to as a "tranny" and "it". And then, of course, the co-host, essentially endorsed the violence. 

Aside from the impression it could make on young, insecure men, that conversation is also an echo of what is going through haters' minds, especially during Pride Month.  It seems that every year,  the number and viciousness of attacks against LGBT people increase as the time draws nearer to the Pride March.  

Perhaps I'm being paranoid, but I can't help but to perceive that trans people are being singled out even more than usual this year. 

When You Can Get Away With Murder

Kudos to Kelly Busey of Planet Transgender (one of my "must read" blogs) for posting this story about Fernanda Carrico da Silva, a transvestite who was murdered in Brazil.  

Even though police officers witnessed her killing, no suspect has been captured.

I was able, from my knowledge of Spanish, French and Italian, to understand (more or less) the article in the original Portuguese.  However, I don't think you need to know any of those languages to get the message of its fourth paragraph, which I will render here:

When a parent of a heterosexual family dies, people notice.  When a rich man dies, people rally around him.  For the death of a gay person who has money or is "high society," people weep and gnash their teeth to decry homophobia.

But when a transvestite, a hustler dies, it is no more important than the death of a cockroach.

People sometimes wonder why such things happen in Brazil, a country with the most celebrated transgender or "womanless" beauty pageants. I've never been to Brazil, but I have talked with a few Brazilians.  From what they tell me, Brazilians have a well-earned reputation for partying and celebrating sexuality precisely because it is still, mostly, a conservative Catholic country. Extravagant shows of cross-dressing, ostentatious displays of sexuality and the seeming celebration of the beauty of trans women is, along with the fetishization of drag, confined to a few tightly-defined areas and time frames, such as certain beaches and during Carnival.  From what my Brazilian acquaintances tell me, expressions of sexuality and gender identity that differ from societal norms are not welcome outside those places and times.  

What makes this situation even more precarious for male-to-female transvestites or transsexuals are the prevailing attitudes toward violence men commit against women.  To put it bluntly, men literally get away with murdering women.  In fact, until 1991, it was not even considered a crime when a man killed his wife.  To this day, men who kill their wives still escape prison time or worse by claiming that the wives were unfaithful.  

When such violence is tolerated, you can be sure that people are allowed to do--and get away with--worse against trans women or transvestites.  

First Transgender Representative Elected in Cuba.

Her own father reported her to the Cuban authorities.  During the 1980's, she spent two years in prison for her "dangerousness."

This month, she was elected as a delegate to the municipal government of Caibarien in the province of Villa Clara.  Her office is more or less equivalent to that of a city councilor in the United States. Now she is eligible to be selected as a representative to the Cuban Parliament next year.

Adela Hernandez is now the first known transgender person to be elected to public office in Cuba.  Although she is known as a female to those who have worked and lived alongside her, the Cuban government still classifies her as male, for she has not had gender reassignment surgery.

Even so, her election represents a change in attitudes about homosexuality and gender variance that simply would have been unimaginable through much of Fidel Castro's regime.  Interestingly, although Castro allied himself with the Soviet Union and turned himself, and his country, to Communism, his persecution and imprisonment of LGBT people has more in common with such right-wing military (or militaristic) dictatorships as those of Franco in Spain and the Perons in Argentina.

Interestingly, Spain became one of the first countries to legalize same-sex unions.  And Argentina not only did the same; it passed what may be the most liberal laws regarding gender identity in the entire world.  Were she in Argentina, Ms. Hernandez could have herself classified as male and would probably be allowed to have gender-reassignment surgery, for which the government would pay.


To be fair, I should point out that Cuba's national healthcare system has been providing gender-reassignment surgery free of charge since 2007.  I don't know why Ms. Hernandez has not had it.  Perhaps the screening process has even more hurdles than it has in other countries.  Or, perhaps, she has some other mitigating circumstance, or simply wishes to live as the woman she has always known she is.  (She's been living as female since she was a child.)

Whatever the case, it will be interesting to see what, if any, influence her election has on the lives and treatment of transgender people in Cuba.

For Lou Rispoli, RIP

Far too many people are killed simply for being at the wrong place at the wrong time, for crossing paths with the wrong person or people.  Any murder is tragic; any seemingly out-of-the-blue slaying on the street should provoke grief and outrage.

Whenever the victim is gay, lesbian or transgendered--or seems to be--we cannot help but to believe that--or, at least, wonder whether--the killing is a hate crime.  And when said victim is a well-known activist, it's hard not to feel that the killing was an assassination and, perhaps, part of an attempt at genocide.

And so it is with the murder of Lou Rispoli.  Details of the crime are sketchy, but it seems fairly certain that two stick-wielding young men beat him while another kept watch in a nearby car.  Rispoli was killed around 2:15 am on 20 October, on 43rd Avenue near 42nd Street in Sunnyside, Queens.

It's not much more than a mile from where I live.  In fact, I've passed that spot dozens, if not hundreds, of times.  It's a quiet, almost quaint, neighborhood of prewar apartment buildings and row houses that abuts Sunnyside Gardens.  Like much of Queens, it is very diverse, with old Irish immigrants and their children, Italians and their children who came a bit later and more recent immigrants from India, Bangladesh, the Philippines and several South American countries.  And, like a few other Queens neighborhoods--notably neighboring Woodside and Jackson Heights--it has a population, if not community, of gay male couples (Rispoli, in fact, had lived with his husband, whom he married just last year, for more than three decades.) that lives under a sort of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.  

The good news is that in such neighborhoods, one's identity or orientation is almost never questioned, at least openly.  Most people tolerate, if not accept, their LGBT neighbors.  The bad news is, of course, that the revelation of a gay, lesbian or trans person's identity leaves him or her very vulnerable to haters, or simply to aimless young (mostly male) people.

Somehow I suspect Rispoli's attackers are from the latter group.  Whoever they are, they have left a man without the partner with whom he's spent most of his adult life, and two daughters without one of the people who raised them.  And from many other people they have taken a friend and ally--and robbed everyone of his humanity, which I sensed very strongly in the brief encounters I had with him.  That is what everyone recalled when they marched  and held a candlelight vigil in his memory this afternoon and evening.

Why Was A Trans Woman Stoned To Death In Brazil?

In Brazil, same-sex marriages are allowed, although the notaries are not required to perform them.  Furthermore, same-sex couples enjoy most of the same legal protections available to non-LGBT people.

Moreover, the Sao Paolo Pride parade is, by all accounts, the largest LGBT pride celebration in the world.  In addition, thousands of gays from around the world flock to Carnival in Rio de Janiero every year.

With these realities, gay men and lesbians are, in some ways, better off in Brazil than in most other countries--and, for that matter, most jurisdictions in the United States.  

And the country even provides free gender-reassignment surgery.  So far, it sounds like an LGBT paradise, right?

Well...not so fast.  Those free operations have strings attached.  For one thing, any candidate for surgery has to undergo a rigorous medical and psychiatric evaluation.  That, on its face, seems reasonable.  However, the Brazilian medical establishment mirrors much of that nation's society in that it clings to notions and stereotypes about transsexual people that were more common in Renee Richards' time than they are now in the US.

Plus, lines for the surgery--and the other health care and treatments the Brazilian government provides for its citizens--are very long. So, those with money go to private doctors, or abroad.

But even with free treatments and surgeries available to them, most Brazilian transgenders live lives that can be charitably characterized as pretty miserable.  The legitimate labor market is all but closed to them; they allowed to work only in nursing, domestic service, hairdressing, gay entertainment and prostitution.  Many of those who are hairdressers, domestic servants or entertainers in gay night clubs also double as prostitutes.  Very few trans people have university educations or professional qualifications.

Worst of all, transgender people in Brazil are subject to violence, as they are almost everywhere else in the world.  However, the frequency and severity of the attacks are greater in Brazil, as exemplified by the trans woman who went by the name Madona. (Her birth name is Amos Chagas Lima.)  She died three days ago, four days after a group of attackers threw stones at her.  According to Keila Simpson of the National Council to Combat Discrimination, Madona was the 100th trans woman to be murdered in Brazil since January.

The dangers trans people--particularly trans women--face in Brazil are part of another phenomenon for which Brazil is infamous.  In that country, men who kill their wives often go unpunished and police officers kill women (and, to be fair, men) with impunity.  In such an atmosphere it isn't surprising that the murder of a trans woman would be such a lightly-regarded crime.  But that disdain is also, in part, a product of the low status of transgender people and the fact that, in spite of increased tolerance for homosexuality, the old stereotypes and attendant hatred of trans people still prevail.

Trans People Of Color: An Endangered Species?

The other day I commemorated the tenth anniversary of Gwen Araujo's brutal murder.

During the four years I've kept this blog, I've also written about the murders of Amanda Gonzalez-Andujar, Rita Hester, Coko Williams and Thapelo Makutle.

Apart from the fact that they were transgender women and the sheer brutality of their killings, what else did they have in common?

You might have guessed:  They are all women of color, nonwhite, or whichever term you want to use.

Reports from Interpol and other investigative agencies show that no one runs a higher risk of being a homicide victim than a transgender person.  And, in the United States at any rate, people account for a disproportionate number of the corpses in the county morgue.

I was reminded of these facts by an excellent article someone passed on to me.  In it, Kimberly McLeod reports that, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence programs, violence against LGBT people rose 23 percent from 2009 to 2010, with people of color and transgender women being the most common victims.  Of the LGBT people who were murdered in 2010, 70 percent were people of color and 44 percent were transgender women.

As it happens, the murders of people of color and transgenders are also the least likely to culminate with the arrest and conviction of the person(s) responsible.  In many instances, no more than a perfunctory investigation is done, if any is done at all.

What further exacerbates the dangers and inequities faced by trans people of color is that many trans people are, essentially, alone in this world:  Their friends, families, communities and employers have cut ties with them, or they had to leave those people and places to escape harassment and in the hope of escaping violence.  And, of course, killings of people of color are simply not a high priority in many police forces and communities.

Arrest In Slashing At McDonald's

Yesterday, 44-year-old Keith Patron was arrested for the slashing of a gay man who defended his transgendered girlfriend at a McDonald's restaurant in Greenwich Village.

Patron allegedly made anti-gay remarks to the couple, not realizing that one was in fact a transgender.  They left the restaurant, but Patron followed them onto the sidewalk outside. 

As I mentioned in my post the other day, that particular McDonald's restaurant has been the scene of a few violent incidents in recent months, and the nearby streets and subway stations harbor hooligans who, frequently in alcohol-soaked and drug-fueled rages, seek out potential victims who are, or seem to be, LGBT.  If future incidents are to be prevented, people who venture into that part of town, as well as the NYPD, need to be more cognizant of those realities.