Michelle Dumaresq: 100% Pure Woman Champ

Today is Transgender Day of Remembrance.  

This day was first observed in 1999, one year after Rita Hester was murdered in her Allston, Massachusetts apartment.  She was killed just two days before she would have turned 35 years old.


Her death came just a few weeks after Matthew Shepard was beaten and left to die on a cold night in the Wyoming high desert.  Their deaths helped to bring about the hate-crime laws now on the books in the US as well as many state and local statutes.  Moreover, Hester's killing--while not as widely publicized as Shepard's--galvanized transgender activists all over the world.

Because I am--at least to my knowledge--the only transsexual woman with a bike blog, I am going to use this post to honor one of the greatest transgender athletes of our era.

Michelle Dumaresq was born in 1970.  In 2001, she entered and won her first competitive mountain biking event--the Bear Mountain Race in British Columbia, Canada.  After she won two more races, her racing license was suspended in response to complaints from other female riders.  The cycling associations of British Columbia and Canada, after meeting privately with race organizers, tried to pressure her into quitting.  Of course, she wouldn't, and after a meeting with UCI officials, it was decided that she could continue to compete as a female.

Other female riders felt she had an unfair advantage.  Their resentment was, not surprisingly, based on a common misunderstanding.  Dumaresq had her gender reassignment surgery in 1996, five years before her first victory, and had been taking female hormones--and a male hormone blocker--for several years before that.  By the time she started racing, she no longer had any testosterone in her body (Biological females have traces of it.) and she had lost most of the muscle mass she had as a man.

I know exactly where she's been, as I also had the surgery after six years of taking hormones and a testosterone blocker.  A few months into my regimen, I started to notice a loss of overall strength, and I noticed some more after my surgery.  Trust me, Ms. Dumaresq, as talented and dedicated as she is, had no physiological advantage over her female competitors.

I remind myself of that whenever another female rider (usually, one younger than I am) passes me during my ride to work!

But I digress.  Michelle Dumaresq had the sort of career that would do any cyclist--male or female, trans or cisgender, or gay--proud.  She won the Canadian National Championships four times and represented her country in the World Championships.  That, of course, made the haters turn up the heat.  When she won the 2006 Canadian National Championships, the boyfriend of second-place finisher Danika Schroeter jumped onto the podium and helped her put on a T-shirt that read "100% Pure Woman Champ."

Ms. Dumaresq would have looked just fine in it.

He Tried To Kill In The Name Of God

When it comes to LGBT equality, Israel has one of the best--if not the best--record in the Middle East.  

That makes what happened in Jerusalem yesterday all the more distressing.

Yishai Schlissel, an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish man, stabbed six marchers in the city's Pride parade.  Two of the victims are in serious condition.  Not long after he attacked, Schlissel was pinned to the ground and arrested on a central Jerusalem street.

He had just been released from prison after ten years of incarceration.  He was locked up for a very similar attack not far from where he struck yesterday.  In his rampage a decade ago, three marchers were stabbed.

The Jerusalem Pride march is smaller than the one in Tel Aviv.  But, the one in Jerusalem attracts more ire from ultra-religious Christians and Muslims as well as Jews, who see homosexuality as an "abomination", as Schlissel put it and the march as a "defilement" of their sacred city.

They probably think what Schlissel said out loud:  He'd come to the march to "kill in the name of God."

Haven't we heard that one before?

Murdered Trans Women Of Color Remembered On Valentine's Day

Depending on which sources you trust, a transgender person is anywhere from 10 to 116 times as likely to be murdered as a typical person in the US.

I don't know how likely the 116 figure is.  But I would bet that 10 times is a low number, given that crimes against transgender people are disproportionately unreported.

As if those numbers aren't bad enough, a trans woman of color is (again, depending on who you believe) anywhere from twice to twelve times as likely to be murdered as any other trans person.

One reason for the risks trans women of color face is that, in addition to bearing the double stigma of falling outside accepted gender norms and being of the "wrong" race, they disproportionately live in high-crime areas such as impoverished urban neighborhoods and parts of the South where there is easy access to guns.

Parts of cities like St. Louis and New Orleans happen to fit into both categories.  So it's unsurprising (though still tragic) that Penny Proud, a black transgender woman, was found shot to death early Tuesday morning in the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans.

Thus, it's heartening to see that yesterday, Valentine's Day, a group of people gathered in the Central West End of St. Louis to honor transgender women of color and denounce the violence against them.

Even with greater public acceptance of transgender people, the violence against us continues and, for trans women of color, seems to be escalating.  In 2014, thirteen transgenders were murdered in the US.  In the first six weeks of 2015, five transgender women of color have already been killed in this country.

Some might argue that the numbers are higher because more crimes are being reported, or because more of the victims are identified as transgender and not solely by their assigned-at-birth gender, as has been the tradition.  Even if that is the case, though, we are being disproportionately attacked and killed, and it's even worse for trans women of color.

Where's The Justice?

An old joke says that examples of "oxymorons" include "dietetic candy", "business ethics" and "military intelligence".

To that list I would add "military justice", at least in matters of domestic and sexual violence, and in hate crimes.

Perhaps you think I'm embittered by my experience of having been sexually assaulted during a college ROTC training weekend.  It took me 33 years to talk about it for the first time, as I did last summer.  To be fair, at that time, very few people went public with accounts of sexual violence committed against them in any arena. Still, I think it says something about the culture of the military that I knew, even then, that if I said anything about what had been done to me, I'd probably be in more trouble than the perpetrators.  In fact, I even knew somehow that they'd get off scot-free because they were my superiors.


It is from such experience, and with the knowledge of other incidents of rape and other sexual (and domestic) violence that I lament the US Marines' retaining custody of one of their own, Joseph Scott Pemberton.  He is accused of killing transgender woman Jennifer Laude Sueselbeck in the Phillipines, where he was stationed.  

Filipino activists want him turned over to their criminal justice system.  I can't blame them:  The US occupation of their islands includes countless cases of abuse against ordinary Filipinos and, especially, Filipinas.  And they know that their overlords (i.e., the top of the American military command chain) have a way of covering up crimes and abuses committed by their cronies as well as those who serve them.   And Pemberton, if he's charged, will probably claim "transgender panic" or some such thing (which, by the way, is what Dominick tried to do when I filed for a restraining order against him).

You might say that such is an emotional response to the crime.  All right, I'll stick to pure-and-simple jurisprudence (at least, as I understand it:  I am not a lawyer).  If a civilian, or anyone in a non-combat situation, kills someone in a country other than his own, he would (and should) be tried by the local authorities.  So, why shouldn't Mr. Pemberton, if he is guilty of the crime.  He was in uniform but, to my knowledge, we're not at war with the Phillipines.

I say:  Hand him over!

 

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.
 

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. 

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.

More Violence

As we used to say in my old neighborhood, "When's this shit gonna stop?"


A report released today "reveals" something too many of us know:  In spite of all of the tolerance campaigns, violent crimes against LGBT people rose 13 percent in 2010, according to a recent report.  


Transgenders and people of color are most likely to be harassed, beaten or killed, according to that report.  


Unfortunately, I don't think many of us are surprised.

Why We Should Be Worried About Anti-Islamic Hate

Although I still have something that resembles a belief system, I have just about no use for religion.  Still, I am very, very afraid when I see people using their influence to spread hate against other people on account of their religion.  After all, if you learn nothing else from the Holocaust, you learn that when they go after the Jews, it's only a matter of time before they go after you.


A certain amount of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment has long existed in this country; 9/11 simply pushed it to the forefront and made anti-Muslim and anti-Arab bigotry socially acceptable, at least in some circles.  But lately, it seems that the Islamophobes have "turned up the volume," if you will.  Whether or not there has been more violence and hatred against Muslims, I don't know.  But I've certainly been hearing a lot more about it lately.


The Florida pastor who burned the Koran is just the latest example.  You just don't do that to someone's holy book, even if it's The Whole Earth Catalogue or Mad Magazine.  I mean, what if some imam in Afghanistan burned Bibles or copies of the US Constitution?  I'd be willing to bet that the same people who preach hate against Muslims would be purple with rage.  


Among those people would be folks like Congressman Peter King.  His hearings on terrorism turned into an anti-Moslem referendum.  Until those hearings, I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt: I suspected that he lost someone close to him on 9/11.  However, I've met other people who lost loved ones that day and have not heard--from them, anyway--the kind of bilge coming out of King's mouth.  Yes, they're still grieving; they're probably angry and some may well hate Muslim or Middle Eastern people.  However, they're not acting the way King has acted. 


Plus, as Diana has noted on her blog, violence against Muslims and people who are (or are thought to be) of Middle Eastern descent has increased and shows no signs of abating.  The FBI says that there are now about 1000 hate groups operating in the US.  Many of them are white supremacist groups, or include white supremacy in their goals and mission.  It's not a stretch to say that the ones who haven't openly expressed a wish to make life more difficult or even to deport or kill Muslims are engaged in doing so.  


And once they're finished with Muslims, they'll come for you!