Questioning Transphobia

Yeah, that’s a sensationalist title, but Helen dropped this in my inbox this morning:

I’ve spent some time wondering why the Nikki Araguz case hasn’t had the entire Texas trans community up in arms. First I talked to Phyllis and then I popped over to Vanity’s yesterday evening to get her take on things. After a long talk, it occurred to me that it’s possible that I’ve not been direct enough about how this case may impact your own life.

So, in the interests of being really, really clear: If Nikki loses this case, you and/or the people you care about will be legally detransitioned.

When Attorney General Greg Abbott (R) refused to give an opinion about the legal status of transitioned and transitioning Texas and Texas-born TGs recently, he tossed the legal hot-potato to State District Judge Randy Clapp (R) of Wharton, Texas who will now decide whether or not Nikki Araguz is legally a man.

To be clear: This case is about whether or not Nikki is legally a man. If the court finds that Nikki is legally a man, it will apply to you, me and the people you love and care about as well. Worse, should this become case-law, it can be used in other states around the nation.

The rest at the link.

So yeah, I have dropped the ball on coverage of Nikki Araguz’ trial, which continues to be a pretty disgusting display of just how thoroughly discreditable trans people are in cis minds and eyes. I have so very little faith that the cis-centric legal system will make the just and correct decision and respect Nikki as a woman, wife, and widow. Given that the court was willing to freeze all of her assets, even those she had herself earned, I somehow suspect that the decision will not be in her, and thus not be in our, favor.

So a story that’s going around the news this week is about Nikki Araguz, widow of firefighter Thomas Araguz. She’s also a Texan and a trans woman.

Thanks to the Christie Lee Littleton case, there’s precedent that says trans women are not and cannot be legally female or women in the state of Texas, which can be used to deny trans women spouse benefits, although this primarily seems to come up when the spouse’s family wants a legal hook to deprive a trans woman of such benefits. This isn’t the first or the last time this will happen, and as much as it makes me sick to my stomach to see yet another trans woman’s life dragged through the mud because American (and specifically Texas in this case) law is regressive and oppressive.

But I think this story touches on somewhat larger, more encompassing issues that trans people have to deal with. Thomas’ mother, for example, insists that her son didn’t know that Nikki was trans and separated from her shortly before his death, and that Nikki herself married Thomas for the money – that she’s a gold digger. Nikki, on the other hand, says that Thomas knew all along and was fine with it.

I believe Nikki’s telling the truth. I believe Thomas’ mother, Simona Longoria, is appealing to the narrative that will ultimately purchase cis sympathy for her plight. Simona’s claim makes Nikki out to be an opportunistic predator, a stealthy deceiver, a liar who wormed her way into Thomas’ life in order to not only feast on his assets while alive, but to cackle merrily on the way to the bank after his death. It is dependent upon (in addition to the Littleton precedent), painting Nikki as someone who deceived Thomas in order to not only get into his bed, but also into his life.

This is how many cis people love to paint trans women. This is how Focus On The Family and its affiliated activist groups around the country talk about trans women – they claim we’re pedophiles and rapists just waiting to catch cis women and children alone in a restroom, or that cis men will pose as trans women to do the same. This is how murderers get light sentences after they murder trans women of color – by claiming they found out she was trans and killed her in an uncontrollable rage. Even when she’s been strangled after having slept with him for months, or when she’s been shot in the back. And then they walk free to kill again.

This is how cis columnists talk about how trans people are discreditable and dishonest if we don’t admit up front that we’re trans, or at least say so within the first few dates. This is how cis people describe that having sex with a trans person who doesn’t disclose is akin to rape or exposure to STDs. Cis people, on the contrary, are never expected to disclose their transphobia and unwillingness to date a trans person on any date. Cis people never feel the urge to say, “Oh, by the way? If you’re trans, I will bash your head in with a fire extinguisher.” And yet who takes the blame?

And as much as we talk about these things, these conversations fail to convey any amount of depth about the variety of trans people’s lives. It presumes that trans people are gendered properly a significant amount of the time. It presumes that trans people who are not gendered properly are perhaps not worth talking about quite as much. It presumes that trans people who are gendered incorrectly and recognized as trans are not often almost immediately subjected to hate speech and harassment, let alone threatened or even outright assault and violence. One of my friends on livejournal routinely talks about her encounters with cis people hurling hate speech and threats at her. To these cis people, apparently her very existence is too offensive for them to bear.

And that’s what it comes down to. It’s not about honesty, it’s not about disclosure, it’s about existence. Often, cis people see trans people as unbearable and intolerable just because of who we are, where we dare to go, who we dare to talk to, who we dare to find attractive, where we dare to work, what clothes we dare to wear, which street we dare to walk down. That we dare to breathe and speak, and be present.

So the problem is never “she lied to him” or any of that nonsense. The problem is that she’s trans and tried to live like a cis person, and that’s just not acceptable.

So, if we’re going to ever have a useful conversation about disclosure? It has to start there. It can’t be a debate about when or if trans people should tell cis people that they’re trans. It can’t focus on the needs and problems of trans people with reliable passing privilege (or who are assumed to have that passing privilege). It can’t even be about disclosure because disclosure is not the problem. It has to be about the fact that transphobia is a systematic, institutionalized force, and its primary purpose is to deny us the right to exist.

Edit: Apparently, all of Nikki’s assets have been completely frozen and she’s living off charity. If you want to donate to help with her legal fees (because this case could, if appealed far enough, change precedent in Texas), you can find the information here. Thanks to Drakyn for the link, and Charlie Butler for this link that also has more explanation.

Randy Cohen, the ethicist*, has declared that trans people are ethically required to disclose to their dates. He says:

Getting to know someone is a gradual process. I might panic if on a first date someone began talking about what to name the nine kids she’s eager for us to raise in our new home under the sea. Premature disclosure can be as unnerving as protracted concealment. But as partners cultivate romance, and particularly as they move toward erotic involvement, there are things each should reveal, things they would not mention to a casual acquaintance — any history of S.T.D.’s, for example, or the existence of any current spouse. Even before a first kiss, this person should have told you those things that you would regard as germane to this phase of your evolving relationship, including his being transgendered. Clearly he thought you’d find it pertinent; that’s why he discreditably withheld it, lest you reject him.

So he actually does use the word “panic” in that paragraph, which is kind of ominous. He also compares disclosing that you’re trans to disclosing STDs or whether you’re currently married to someone else.

As usually happens when it comes to trans people and dating, confidentiality and privacy are thrown out the window as soon as cis people insert themselves into the situation. Cohen (who is, by the way, a humorist and not an ethicist, who has written for the historically transphobic David Letterman show) says that it is fine for the cis woman who asked this question to out the trans man she dated to her friends, that her right to process something that doesn’t actually have a serious impact on her supercedes his right to privacy or any consideration for confidentiality.

He tries to soften it by saying “No handbills, and don’t ask him to announce it from the pulpit,” but as many of us have experienced, once someone outs you, the word can spread like wildfire. Cis people seem to think that learning that someone is trans is a particularly salacious and juicy rumor, one that will get passed around from person to person. It just takes hitting one cis person who doesn’t care more about your safety than about hir ability to get a cheap thrill exposing your secrets, and in my experience the majority of cis people are like this. Cohen even describes the trans man in question as discreditable, because he withheld this information until he was ready to divulge it. This is a pretty explicit acknowledgement of how many cis people view trans people: Our transness makes us discreditable. It doesn’t matter when we’re outed (by ourselves or others), once we are, we’re discreditable. Everything we say is doubted – about our competence, about our honesty, about our gender. Everything about us is false except what cis people allow us to have by inscribing upon us, usually against our will.

For an example, remember the trans man who crashed  a trolley while texting, and how many responses implied he shouldn’t even be allowed to drive a trolley because he’s trans? How about this cis man who caused the worst train crash in 15 years while texting? Somehow his cisness didn’t serve as a warning sign, right? The first story I linked even implies that Aiden Quinn was hired strictly because he was a minority, and not because he had any competence in driving a trolley. Okay, in both cases? Texting while driving is a really bad idea. Texting while transporting passengers is many times worse. But trans man crashes while texting? Trans people are dangerous. Cis man crashes while texting? Silence.

I read about this story on Bilerico, and Dr. Weiss dissects it pretty nicely. She also suggests writing the New York Times to complain about this:

I strongly suggest that Cohen is in need of criticism and education regarding transgender people, particularly from gay and straight allies of transgender people. He ought to issue a retraction. Here’s the address to write to him: ethicist@nytimes.com Letters to the editor may be addressed to letters@nytimes.com.

It is important to also mention the racial element of anti-trans hate crimes when discussing trans panic.

* Not really an ethicist.

News reports are coming in of the shooting last Wednesday (May 27, 2009) of a trans woman, Kelvin Denton, in Memphis. She was shot twice (in the neck and face) by her attacker, Terron Taylor, after Mr Taylor decided that he did not approve of Ms Denton’s genital topography.

At the time of writing, Ms Denton is in critical condition in hospital while Mr Taylor, who was arrested Friday, is being held on a $500,000 bond on two charges: attempted second degree murder and using a firearm to commit a felony.

Mr Taylor told police he carried out the attack because he felt he had been “misled” about Ms Denton’s gender – surely a clear indication that that Mr Taylor will be trying to use the trans panic defense to avoid taking responsibility for his actions. However, the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition have urged Shelby County authorities to “prosecute Taylor aggressively and not permit the use of the trans-panic defense”.

I’ve found sketchy reports of the shooting in The Memphis Flyer, My Eye Witness News, Memphis Commercial Appeal and My Fox Memphis – but one thing they all have in common is the persistent misgendering of the victim.

This is the fifth violent attack on trans women in Memphis since 2006; previous victims include Leeneshia Edwards (December 2008), Duanna Johnson (November 2008), Ebony Whitaker (July 2008), Tiffany Berry (February 2006).

It seems the global war against trans women continues with undiminished ferocity.

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ETA, June 6: I’ve read posts elsewhere in the blogosphere which query whether Ms Denton is a trans woman at all – nobody seems to have come up with any alternative suggestions and I feel I should point out the sources that make me think Ms Denton is indeed trans.

For starters, the Memphis Flyer specifically describes her as “a transgender woman”.

At the same time, all the news reports I linked wheel out the tired old trope about Mr Taylor having been “mislead”. My Fox Memphis also uses the classic cis apologist line about Ms Denton “misrepresenting herself as a woman”. History has shown us numerous times – most recently in the Angie Zapata murder trial – that this is the backbone of the infamous trans panic argument so beloved by defense lawyers, and I believe I’ve only ever seen it used in connection with trans women.

So yeah. My reading of it all is that Ms Denton is a trans woman and I can’t help thinking that we might be a lot clearer on the details if the media could only have resisted the urge to obfuscate through misgendering.

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Note: There are two useful pieces discussing the trans panic defense in more depth:

• This link via Holly in comments at Feministe and,
• This link (Banning the trans panic defense) by Dr Jillian T. Weiss at The Bilerico Project

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Cross-posted at Bird of Paradox

The following verdicts were returned:

• Count 1: First degree murder – guilty
• Count 2: Bias motivated crime – guilty
• Count 3: Aggravated motor vehicle theft (1st degree) – guilty
• Count 4: ID theft – guilty

Sentencing for the first count: mandatory life without parole.
Sentencing on the remaining three counts will take place on May 8th at 3PM MST.

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(Cross-posted at Bird of Paradox)

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This morning’s session has focused on Judge Kopcow’s instructions to the jury, and a brief summing up of the cases for the defense, and for the prosecution.

Wednesday morning, April 22

• Judge Kopcow read the jury instructions to the jury
• Instruction 6 related to circumstantial evidence
• Instruction 14 related to culpability due to mental state. (Autumn Sandeen noted: This will come into play esp. with the bias crime charge – via http://twitter.com/justiceforangie)
• Instruction 15 covered elements for the count of first degree murder (F1 felony)
• Instruction 16 – on the four lesser included homicide charges
• Instruction 17 discussed second degree murder (F2 and F3 felonies). An F2 felony would be premeditated, whereas an F3 felony would apply if the jury decided that Angie had been murdered in the “heat of passion” – the trans panic defense
• Instruction 18 – the conditions required to meet the definition of bias motivated crime
• Instruction 20 – identity theft
• Instruction 21 concerned vehicle theft (Andrade was charged with stealing Angie’s PT Cruiser)
• Instruction 22 defined other terms specific to the trial and included “sexual orientation” – a catchall term which includes “transgender status”
• Prosecution’s closing statement. DA Rob Miller said that the case is about intent – Andrade’s intent – and added that some elements indicated a bias motivated crime, and others described first degree murder. DA Miller believed that neither manslaughter nor criminally negligent homicide would be appropriate verdicts.
   
  DA Miller believed that Angie Zapata was not murdered in the heat of the moment, and that Andrade had enough time to do what a reasonable person would have done, namely, to walk away and get out of that situation. Andrade should be found guilty on all charges.
• Annette Kundelius, the Defense Attorney, presented the closing argument, saying that what happened was nothing to do with sexual orientation (ie Angie’s gender identity) but because Andrade had been deceived and therefore did not commit a felony (F1, F2 or F3). Finding out that Angie had male genitalia was “sufficient provocation” (to commit manslaughter or criminally negligent homicide) and Andrade “just reacted”
• DA Miller’s rebuttal: An attack to the head and face with multiple blows indicates intent, not deception – “Is she supposed to wear a sign that she’s transgender?”
• Judge Kopcow issued Instruction 24 on the process of jury deliberation and how to complete the paperwork for the verdict
• The jury retired to deliberate

The possible convictions are: 1st degree murder; 2nd degree murder; 2nd degree murder/heat of passion/manslaughter; criminally negligent homicide.

Andrade has three prior felony convictions, with another two pending (for rioting in jail, and misdemeanor assault), spanning 12 years.

Angie Zapata’s family will issue a formal statement half-an-hour after the verdict is made known.

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(Cross-posted at Bird of Paradox)