Massacre In South Carolina: The Confederate Flag Still Flies

Today I’m not going to stick to the topic of this blog.  Instead, I want to talk about something that, I’m sure, you’ve heard about by now:  the massacre inside the Emanuel AfricanMethodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina .

One of the cruelest ironies is that members of a Bible study group—including the church's pastor, who also happens to be a  South Carolina State senator—in one of America’s oldest historically black churches were gunned down by a young white man who sat with them on the eve of Juneteenth— a few days after the 800^th anniversary of King John issuing Magna Carta.

And the Confederate Flag flies in front of the State Capitol.

A century and a half after slaves in South Carolina and Texas and other states got word that they were free men and women, a young man hadn’t gotten the message that the Fourteenth Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees all citizens, regardless of their skin color, the rights enumerated in the first ten amendments (a.k.a. the Bill of Rights).  Heck, he didn’t even get the message thatthere’s no such country as Rhodesia anymore.  He was simply acting from the same sort of ignorance, the same sort of hate, that left earlier generations of young African Americans hanging from trees or at the bottoms of rivers.

And the Confederate Flag flies in front of the State Capitol.

More than a century and a half after the Emancipation Proclamation, in the state in which the opening shot of the US Civil War was fired, a young man entered a Bible Study group and waited for the “right” moment to shoot someone nearly as young as he is, people old enough to be his parents, grand-parents and great-grandparents.  He shattered the peace and sanctity they found in what, for many generations of African-Americans—and, perhaps, for those members of the Bible Study group—has been their closest-knit, if not their only, sanctuary.

And the Confederate flag flies in front of the State Capitiol.   

From the church's website.

A pastor was killed along with a deacon and laypeople.  Families lost sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers; friends lost friends and people lost spouses and other loved ones.  They loved and were loved; they raised families and were raised by families.  And they contributed to the lives of their communities through their professional and volunteer work, and the loves and interests they shared with those around them.

And the Confederate flag flies in front of the State Capitol.

Dylann Storm Roof, in an instant, ended the lives of Rev. (and Sen.) Clementa Pickney, Mira Thompson, Daniel Simmons Sr., Cynthia Hurd, Rev. Sharonda Coleman-Singleton, Tywanza Sanders, De Payne Middleton, Ethel Lance and her cousin Susie Jackson. All of them, one hundred and fifty years after Juneteenth.

And a Confederate flag in front of the State Capitol hasn't even been loweredto half-mast.

Bri Golec: Murdered By Her Father, Misidentified By Him And Local News Media

People have told me that I'm a good storyteller. Whatever may narrative skills may be, I don't think they account for the tears some people shed when I told them about some of the young people who participated in a group I co-facilitated for two years.

They were young trans people, most in their teens but a few in their early 20's.  Some had begun to take hormones; others had literally just gotten off buses or vehicles on which they hitched (or performed acts no one should have to do to get) from Alabama and Nebraska and other places I can scarcely even imagine.

Some had been kicked out of their homes when they "came out" or simply were caught wearing clothes or engaging in behaviors not considered appropriate for someone of their birth gender.

And they were the lucky ones.  Others were assualted, raped or otherwise endangered by family members. One literally ran out the door steps ahead of a mother who chased him (a trans male) with a knife.

That is why stories like that of Bri Golec enrage, but do not surprise, me. The 22-year-old was stabbed to death in Ohio by her father, who told investigators that his "son" belonged to a cult and that members invaded his home and attacked.

But Kevin Golec wasn't the only one who misidentified the gender of his child.  So did every local media outlet, according to the Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents blog.

Taja DeJesus Murdered In SF: If We're Not Safe There, Where Are We?

A Jewish man whose parents survived the Holocaust once told me that the only time he ever felt safe was when he was in Israel.

I mention that, not to take a side in the conflicts that tear that part of the world, but to relate something I thought about as I heard some more terrible news.

Taja DeJesus was raised in San Jose but moved to San Francisco because of the greater acceptance of transgender people found in the City By The Bay.  Some in our community think of it as our Israel, if you will.

She was found with stab wounds on McKinnon Avenue in the city's Bayview district around 9 last Sunday morning.  Authorities are not calling her murder a hate crime.  According to anonymous sources, the suspect was found dead, an apparent suicide, behind a warehouse not far from where De Jesus's body was found.

Even in a city with a reputation like San Francisco's, there are areas--Bayview being one of them--where trans people aren't accepted or that are simply dangerous.  Lord knows we have such places here in NYC.  Even the "gayborhoods" aren't always safe for trans people.  Actually, they can be even more dangerous because thugs come from other parts, and outside, of the city, specifically to get their thrills from bashing actual or perceived LGBT people.

Perhaps we need a place an Israel:  You know, a place where we can go and be accepted for who we are--or at least be reasonably sure that we won't experience bigotry or bullying, or get killed, just for being who we are. 

 

Transgender Woman Who Fled Georgia Attacked In San Francisco

"I'm very sorry for the nice man who was enjoying his McDouble when I ran in bleeding and screaming for the police."

It's only the fifth of January, but that statement might be the quote of the year for 2015, and a few more years to come.

It wasn't said by some comic-book character in a cheesy movie.  It was said, apparently, without irony or sarcasm. 

In other words, the one who said it is a much, much better person than I am, or probably will be.  At least, she did a much better job of embodying the principles of Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, Mother Teresa or Malala Yousafzai than I ever could.

The person who made that immortal declaration is Samantha Hulsey, a trans woman who grew up in Savannah, Georgia.  You might say she was being a gracious young Southern lady in expressing her sorrow for the man munching on a McDouble.  But I think there's even more than that behind her espousal of compassion in the midst of her own suffering.

She was with her partner, Rae Raucci, when a man harassed them as they were boarding a bus.  "He was saying a lot of hateful things," Hulsey recalled.  When she and Raucci got off the bus, the man ran after them and plunged a steak knife with a 3 1/2" blade into Hulsey's chest.

The bus she and Raucci were boarding was the 49 Muni in the South of Market neighborhood in San Francisco.

Yes, you read that right:  San Francisco.  Hulsey moved there from Savannah where, she hoped, she could live openly as a woman.  In Savannah, , "I was bullied and had things thrown at me," she recalled, "but no one tried to kill me."  She, like many others, lived in the City At The End Of The Rainbow with the believing "that sort of thing shouldn't happen here".

Unfortunately, it can happen anywhere.  Yes, even in San Francisco.  As Otis Redding noted, there are some things about Georgia you can't escape on the dock of the bay.

Maybe Justice Will Prevail Now

Good news:  Joseph Scott Pemberton, the US Marine accused of killing trans woman Jennifer Laude Sueselbeck, has been turned over to local authorities in the Philippines, where he was stationed and committed the murder.

The Philippines has been rated one the most gay-friendly nations in Asia, if not the world.  Even so, some lesbian couples report discrimination and I haven't read or heard much about what trans people face there.

Still, I am more confident that justice will be done in the Filipino civil system than it would be in the US Military, which has a history of covering up sexual assaults and hate crimes committed by its members.

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 Little Close To Home

When I visit my parents, I usually fly into Daytona Airport.  It's about a half-hour drive from their house and next to the world-famous Speedway and beach.  I've been to the latter many times and have shopped in  stores and eaten in restaurants along International Speedway Boulevard, by myself and with my parents and on a bicycle as well as in a car or on foot.  Thankfully, I have never had any problems and, in fact, I have found most people helpful and friendly. 

So it was disturbing to hear about the gender-variant person who was beaten in the Citgo station along the Boulevard.  William Jackson, who was wearing a black and white dress, was jumped by a group of men half an hour after he broke up a fight between his girlfriends and another group of girls.  He says he was attacked because he likes to dress as a woman.

The attack is being investigated as a possible hate crimes because the attackers used slurs while beating Jackson.

An Open Letter To A Young Victim Of Homophobia

For two years, I co-facilitated a weekly group for LGBT teenagers and young adults.  I was a volunteer and had to stop because of changes in the scheduling of my paid work.  However, I wonder how much longer I would have continued as a co-facilitator.  Few things I've done were more rewarding. However, few things are more  heartbreaking than to see a fourteen-year-olds who were cast out of their families or bullied out of their schools and communities because they were--or people perceived them to be--members of the LGBT communities.

I can only imagine how I would have felt had I known Zachary Dutro Boggess. He is the four-year-old boy whose mother thought he would become gay. "He walks and talks like it.  Ugh," Jessica Dutro wrote to her boyfriend, Brian Canady, whom she instructed to "work on him".  

Work on him they did.  Someone should have seen this tragedy unfolding, as Ms. Dutro had a history of abusive behavior toward other kids and her message to her boyfriend was not her only or most virulent expression of homophobia.

Now Rob Watson--himself a gay father--has written this open letter to Zachary, whose life ended so terribly:

Dear Zachary,
Goodbye. We, the world, have failed you little one. You came to us, bright and full of promise, and we left you in the hands of one who did not appreciate your brightness, and in fact, she sought to make you suffer for who she thought you might be.

I am sorry. I did not cause the force that killed you, and in fact, I fight it daily. You are dead, however, and for me, that means that I did not fight hard enough, not nearly hard enough.

You were killed by homophobia, my child. It came through the hands of parents, through the very hands and arms that should have been there to grab you, and hold you and love you. It was the force of homophobia that killed you however, not just those physical blows that delivered it. While your parents embodied that hatred, it was not created by them, it had been given to them in many ways from the world around them.

I am sorry you were born in a world where too many voices tell you not to be you. No one should have to fight for the right to be themselves, least of all, a 4-year-old child.

I am sorry you were born into a world where so many feel that the ability to physically make a child is more important that the ability to love and nurture one. Where people are writing court papers vilifying parents who do not physically procreate, they should be writing briefs condemning parents who do not love. Birthing a child is merely bringing it to life. Loving a child is truly giving it a reason to live.

I am sorry you were born into a world where people believe in misinterpreted Bible passages and tired dogmas. They hold onto them only so they can rationalize hating something they don’t understand. Something they see in you, even in your innocence.

I am sorry for all the beauty, magnificence, talent and life that you represented that is now gone. I miss the adult you were to become: the father, the artist, or the hero. I mourn the children you did not get to raise and the better world you did not get to help build.

A man named Fred Phelps died a few weeks ago, two years after you did. He lived his life being hateful, trying to get people to be more homophobic. He failed and his efforts made people not want to be like him. Homophobia lost. You lived your life being loving, and your efforts made two people hate you. Homophobia still lost however, because I will never ever forget you.

I pray that your short life is held up as the horrible cost of the homophobic mindset. That mindset is not an opinion. It is not a right to religious beliefs. It is a deep and ever-present danger that kills the innocent. I pray that your life robs homophobia of its glory and helps shame it into non-existence.

Nothing will replace the life we lost in you. You were our child and we allowed our world to inspire your fate. You deserved so much better.

With you in our hearts, little man, I promise you, we will do so much better. We will shut this intolerance, this indecency down even harder. We can’t give you back your life, but through your memory, we can take back our own lives and this world.

We have the power to make this world one of love, fairness and peace. You have reminded us why we need to do that for all the future little boys and little girls just like you. We owe it to them. We owed it to you. We will not fail again.

Did Islan Nettles' Killer Walk?

Three days ago--the 20th--was our fifteenth annual Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Now, right here in New York City, we've had another reminder of why the day is necessary: the only person charged in the murder of Harlem transwoman Islan Nettles saw his case dismissed.

Now, it very well may be that Paris Wilson, the young man accused of killing her, is innocent.  He was arrested after Nettles was found at the corner of 148th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard.  She was lying on the ground, unconscious, with one eye swollen shut and blood on her face.  For five days, she lay in a coma until she was taken off life support.  

After Mr. Wilson's arrest, another young man came forward and took responsibility for the attack.  That left the Manhattan District Attorney's office unable to pursue the case against Wilson even though the young man who claimed responsibility for the attack on Nettles' said he was too drunk to remember details of his crime.  

Further complicating matters is the fact that in that upon his arrest, Wilson was charged with misdemeanor assault and harassment.  Here in New York, someone charged with a misdemeanor must be tried within 90 days.  If he or she isn't, he or she goes free.  Since Wilson was arrested shortly after the attack on 17 August, he was sprung on the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Of course, one could argue--as the District Attorney's Office did--that had Wilson (or the young man who claimed responsibility) had gone to trial, there was a real risk of dismissal on some technicality or another.  If I were a DA, I'd probably think the same way.  And I certainly wouldn't want to see a killer--whether of a trans person or anyone else--walk free because the prosecutor's office "didn't have their ducks in a row".  Still, it's frustrating and sad to think that Islan Nettle's murder could become another hate crime that falls through the cracks of the criminal justice system.

 

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.

Conviction Set Aside In Killing Of Transgender Woman In New York State

Four years ago, Dwight DeLee became the second person convicted in the US for a hate crime in the killing of a transgender person.  His August 2009 conviction for killing Lateisha Green in Syracuse, NY came three months after a Colorado jury convicted Allen Andrade of beating Angie Zapata to death in Colorado after discovering that she was biologically male.

Andrade is still in prison, serving a life sentence he was handed because of his hate crime conviction and the long rap sheet he had before he killed Angie Zapata.  

DeLee also remains in prison, though it remains to be seen how much longer he will be there. For the moment, he's locked up on a gun charge.  However, his conviction on Manslaughter in the First Degree as a hate crime has been set aside.  The Fourth Appellate Division of New York's Supreme Court, which sits in Rochester, made the ruling because a jury found him not guilty of Manslaughter in the First Degree without the added element of a hate crime.
However, the same jury found him guilty on a weapons charge.

Onandaga County District Attorney Bill Fitzpatrick said his office will seek review in the New York State Court of Appeals, citing errors in the trial judge's instructions to the jury.

Transgender Employee of Desperate Housewife's Restaurant Attacked

Eva Longoria may one day have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  For now, she has a restaurant--Beso--along the Boulevard.

Vivian Diego was a barista in Beso.  Around 2:15 am on 31 May, she was leaving the restaurant when four men attacked her.  One of them, Nicol Shaknazaryan (Note the last five letters of his surname!) has been arrested.  The others are still at large.  At least the attack was caught on a surveillance tape:




Ms. Diego is transgendered, so the attack is being investigated as a hate crime.  

Now, even if none of the attackers yelled anti-trans slurs or say that they were motivated by the fact she's trans, I'd still say it's a hate crime.  After all, when four men attack a woman--trans or otherwise--what is it but hate against women, or against anybody?

Whatever happens to them, I hope Ms. Diego recovers from her wounds, both physical and psychological.  Of course, the latter ones will take much longer to heal.

Killer of Trans College Student Gets 30 Years

Every Transgender Day of Remembrance event I've attended has included a reading of the names of people who were killed for their gender identity or expression.  Usually, there is a procession to a lectern or microphone, and each person reads the name of one victim, the way he or she was killed (or where his or her body was found) and, sometimes, whether or not the perpetrator was caught.

No matter how many times I participate in those readings, I'm always shocked at just how brutal hate-fueled murders of transgender people are.  I remember reading the name of one victim who was shot and stabbed multiple times.  And then her body was burned.  

But, along with the shock I experience on relaying the brutality of their murders, I feel anger over how too many of those murders are treated.  The killer of the victim I mentioned received, if I recall correctly, a one-year susupended sentence.  Still, that's more justice than a lot of other murdered trans people get:  I've heard of too many cases in which the authorities didn't bother to investigate at all, or simply dismissed the killing as the result of a "lover's quarrel" or as a suicide.

So, it actually seems something like justice when the killer of a young trans person gets a 30-year sentence and is required to serve 80 percent of that sentence before becoming eligible for release.  

That was the sentence meted out to Virgin Islands native Sama Quinland for killing transgender college student DeAndre N. Fulton-Smith in South Carolina. Quinland stabbed her 22 times and shot her twice in the head. 

As awful as that killing was, it's not even close to being the most brutal murder of a trans person.  On the other hand, as I mentioned, Quinland got a longer prison sentence than most killers of trans people.  Both facts are simply outrageous.

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.

A Sad Anniversary: My Grandmother and Gwen Araujo

This date, 3 October, has been a sad one for many years, at least for me.

On this date in 1981, my maternal grandmother died.  As weakened as she was from her illnesses, she fought death until the end.  With her dying breaths, she called out the name of my grandfather, who predeceased her by fifteen years.

I was twenty-three at the time she died.  She was my last living grandparent. But that is not the only reason why her death affected me as much as it did. Probably the only person in this world who knew me better was, and is, my mother.  She died at a time in my life when I was angry, confused and scared.  I simply felt that I could not bear the prospect of any life that seemed available to me at the time:  I didn't want the careers, family structures or lifestyles that, it seemed, other people wanted me to want.  That strained some of the relationships in my life, including those with some of my relations.

My grandmother offered me a lot of emotional support, and sometimes advice.  The latter, I didn't follow most of the time, mainly because I almost never followed anybody's advice. (Some might say I'm still guilty of that.)  But she did listen, and sometimes helped me to see situations with my family and other people that, really, I otherwise couldn't at that time in my life.

Twenty-one years later, on this date, there was a death that has affected me ever since.  It was very different from my grandmother's, which came in a hospital room with my mother and other family members around her.  This other death was brutal, violent and spurred by anger and hate.  

Yes, it was the murder of a transgender girl:  Gwen Araujo.  Ten years have passed since she was beaten and strangled at a party in the working-class San Francisco Bay-area community of Newark.  Her killers then dumped her body in a shallow grave about three hours' drive away, in the Sierras.

While not as widely publicized as the killings of Matthew Shepard and Brandon Teena, it did start some discussion of the frequency and intensity of assaults on, and killings of, trans people.  Now it's fairly common knowledge that such crimes against trans people tend to be particularly brutal and even grisly:  Those who investigate them say as much.  Also, you could see the "learning curve" about transgender people reflected in media coverage. Most initial reports identified her as a boy who liked to wear girl's clothes; as more became known about her, some changed their portrayals of her.  (What that meant, of course, is that many of those reporters, editors and commentators were starting to learn that transgenders and cross-dressers are not necessarily the same people.)  

But one reason why her death affected me is that it came just when I was about to embark on my transition.  Tammy and I had split up, and I moved to a neighborhood where I knew no-one, only a few weeks earlier.  I was attending support groups as well as going for therapy sessions and medical evaluations.  On Christmas Eve of that year, I would begin taking hormones.

What happened to Gwen Araujo did scare me, at least somewhat.  I was going to work as Nick, and the friends and acquaintances I knew from my previous life still knew me as him. I was not "out" to any of my family. But I was going to various events, and roaming about during some of the free time I had, "as" Justine.  Sometimes I worried about people who knew me as Justine finding out about Nick, and vice-versa.  And, truthfully, I wasn't yet sure--even a little--about how anyone would react.

But I knew I had to do what I was doing.  Gwen knew she had to live as the girl she really was, or not at all.  Knowing about her life and death thus gave me a kind of hope, or at least the knowledge that I couldn't be anybody but who I am, and do anything but what I needed to do.  


My grandmother told me something like that.  I never discussed my gender identity issues with her. (Then again, I hadn't discussed them with anyone else.)   But the encouragement she gave me about other things, and her advice that, in essence, bad situations don't have to last but good people can, and do, has been about as good a legacy as anyone could have left for me.

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.  

Hate Served Up In Village McDonalds

In my youth, I spent a pretty fair amount of time in and around Washington Square Park and West Fourth Street in Greenwich Village.

Given that, for a brief time, I lived in the East Village, and for long periods before and after that, in New York City and its environs, that shouldn't surprise anyone.  There was--and to some degree, still is--a laissez-faire attitude toward just about everything.  Many of us went there to do or consume things we couldn't in our neighborhoods or workplaces.

What that meant, of course, is that you also had a decent chance of having your pocket picked or purse snatched, or of getting into an altercation, sometimes for no apparent reason.  Unfortunately, I suppose that was inevitable, as the very same atmosphere that attracted people who wanted the freedom to be themselves, even if only for a day or night, also attracted the people who exploited, or simply, hated them.

If you want any evidence of what I mean, just go to the West Fourth Street subway station, which is perennially one of the most crime-ridden in the city's transit system.  The fact that it is a big station that serves as a transfer point between several lines, and has multiple levels and remote areas, makes it an easy place for thugs to lurk, hide or get away.

Just outside the northeasternmost entrance to the station, on West Third Street, is the most squalid and crime-ridden McDonald's restaurant in New York City.  There have been several violent incidents there over the past year.  

The most recent incident took place Wednesday night and involved a 350-pound male being (I refuse to call him a man.) who yelled anti-gay slurs at two transgender women who used the women's room in the restaurant.  He threatened to "fuck" them "up". They left the restaurant, but he followed and tried to take a swing at one of the women.  

One of them returned the punch and kneed him in the groin. He tumbled to the ground. But then he pulled out a razor and slashed her in the elbow, face and neck.


These days, I rarely go to that part of town, in part because I no longer have friends living in the area and most of the places where I used to go to hear music, read or hear poetry or shop are gone now, or have become unrecognizable.  But I also lost much of my attraction to the area in the days before I started my transition, when I was actively "cross-dressing."  I soon realized that the haters went to that part of town simply because they could easily find the people they hated.  And, the fact that public consumption and intoxication were almost de riguer in those environs--cops looked the other way--made it all the more likely that some hater with chemically-lowered inhibitions would take out his hormonal rage on the objects of his hate.  

Although I haven't had any harrowing experiences in a long time (knock wood!), I suppose the memory still lingers.  Plus, I don't go anyplace to "be myself" anymore; I simply live my life as the person I am.  I suppose I am lucky to have come to a point in my life where I can do that.  For others--including many young trans people--there are the risks of having to share their spaces with the haters.  

What Will The Rest Of Her Life Be Like?

Last year, a video of the beating of a transwoman in a suburban Baltimore McDonalds went viral. 

Chrissy Polis said she wasn't even going to tell anyone her story because she was so embarassed.  Instead, it was told for her, in images, on YouTube.

The video thrust her into a spotlight she never sought.  She said she never even wanted to be involved in transgender causes.  Now, she shuns offers of help from strangers because she fears they are only trying to "use" her for a "greater cause." 

It's gotten so bad that she's afraid to go out of the house, according to her roommate, Heather Hock.

On top of everything, she has people calling her "sick," "in need of professional help" and worse.  In essence, they say, she had it coming to her.

All of this reminds me of what commonly happened--and still sometimes happens--to rape victims.  And, of course, the root of violence against Polis is the same as that of violence against any other woman:  misogyny.  Until that is rooted out, none of us are completely safe.