Questioning Transphobia

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From Preparing For Travel and The Screening Process through to Reporting Travel Issues Or Concerns, the TSA website has all the information you’ll need when travelling into and around the US.

I hesitate to jump into these shark-infested waters, but here goes.

I certainly have my own opinion on the “transsexual” vs. “transgender” debate that has ignited many a flame war on the internet over the last few months between those who want to separate our community based on those who have had or, at least, want to have, SRS, from everyone else, but I’m not going to express that here. Instead, I’m going to take a position that I’ve never seen expressed by anyone else, although some have come close. My position comes from my background as an attorney and my understanding of how anti-discrimination laws are written and are intended to operate.

Here’s what I know to be true: the dispute about who is transsexual and who isn’t is irrelevant to the fight for protections for transsexual, transgender, genderqueer and every other gender variant or gender nonconforming person in this country. Why? Because of how anti-discrimination laws are written for both practical and constitutional reasons.

Read the rest of this entry »

TRIGGER WARNING: Some of the external links in this blog post contain graphic descriptions of violence and may well be triggering. PLEASE approach them with great caution.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the murder of a cis man in a Philadelphia hotel room and the subsequent arrest of Peaches Burton, who was charged with murder.

Now, via The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News and others, I learn that a second suspect has been arrested in connection with the incident.

Twenty-year-old Richard Collins of Bridgeton, N.J., was taken into custody Monday and charged with criminal conspiracy, theft, abuse of a corpse and related offenses. Authorities accuse him of helping another person try to cover up the Oct. 30 slaying of 49-year-old Patrick Michael Brady of Chester County in the Omni Hotel.

Police said Burton called Collins after the killing. Collins hurried to the hotel and allegedly helped the prostitute arrange the slain man’s body to appear as if he had died accidentally, said Lt. Ray Evers, a police spokesman.

After staging the crime scene, the pair allegedly took Brady’s cell phone, credit cards, and identification. Collins took a Bose radio belonging to the hotel, police said.

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Cross-posted from Bird of Paradox by Helen

TRIGGER WARNING: Some of the external links in this blog post contain graphic descriptions of violence and may well be triggering. PLEASE approach them with great caution.

Via CBS News, Philadelphia Inquirer and others:

Police arrested a transgender prostitute believed responsible for the death of a Thorndale, Pa. man whose body was discovered a week ago Saturday after a fire at an upscale hotel in Philadelphia’s historic district.

The woman, who goes by the name of Peaches, was arrested Tuesday and charged with the murder of the cis man Patrick Brady. Mr Brady is believed to have died on Friday night during “an extreme physical altercation” in his hotel room.

According to police, Brady had been robbed, beaten, and strangled. Police say his eighth-floor hotel room was then intentionally set ablaze by the [trans woman] to cover the crime [...]

Further updates to follow as and when available. I predict that, as the case develops, the following transphobic tropes will be repeated by the media: all trans women are sex workers; trans women are deceitful/men in dresses (followed closely by the inevitable trans panic defense); trans women aren’t “really women”; misgendering; detention in gender inappropriate conditions; denial of basic human rights, etc.

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Cross-posted from Bird of Paradox by Helen

TRIGGER WARNING: Some of the external links in this blog post contain graphic descriptions of violence and may well be triggering. PLEASE approach them with great caution.

Via San Jose Mercury News, SFGate (San Francisco Chronicle) and others:

A transgender youth leader was charged with murder Monday in the fatal stabbing of her boyfriend in Walnut Creek, a prosecutor said.

Akira Tajah Jackson, 24, of Oakland was also charged with an enhancement for using a large kitchen knife to kill 56-year-old Alan Gray in his home on Santa Rita Drive at about 9:20 a.m. Thursday.

Further updates to follow as and when available. I predict that, as the case develops, the following transphobic tropes will be repeated by the media: all trans women are sex workers; trans women are deceitful/men in dresses (followed closely by the inevitable trans panic defense – even though Mr Gray was apparently aware that Ms Jackson is trans); trans women aren’t “really women”; misgendering; detention in gender inappropriate conditions; denial of basic human rights, etc.

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Cross-posted from Bird of Paradox by Helen

TRIGGER WARNING: Some of the external links in this blog post contain graphic descriptions of transphobic violence and may well be triggering. PLEASE approach them with great caution, if at all.

Although I’ve been slow to spot this story, it seems that the mass media reporting it have been even slower, for reasons that I can only speculate about.

Reports in the Los Angeles Times, LA Examiner, LA Weekly and others tell the story of a horrific beating of a transgender woman by as many as five cis people.

The unnamed victim had just left a bar near the intersection of La Brea and Melrose Avenues at around 1am on October 4th when she was attacked by three women and two men.

Police have not yet classified the attack as a hate crime but said the investigation was continuing, said Grasso, who called the attack “unusually vicious.”

The suspects fled in a white Chevy Suburban. Anyone with information is asked to call the LAPD Wilshire Division’s Major Assault Crimes Section at (213) 922-9234 or (213) 922-8268. [LA Times]

KTLA has posted a video of its news report about the assault on its website – here’s the link – but again, please be aware that it contains graphic descriptions of transphobic violence and may well be triggering.

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ETA: I’m starting to see other reports, as yet unconfirmed, suggesting that the victim may have been a transgender man, not a transgender woman – I’ll post any clarifications that I come across.

If true, it’ll be further proof (not that any is really needed) of the sheer ineptitude and downright ignorance of the mass media.

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Cross-posted from Bird of Paradox by Helen

Further to my and Lisa’s recent posts about the murder of Victoria Carmen White in Newark on 12 September, I see from NJ.com, APP.com and others that two suspects have now turned themselves into the authorities. That’s the same authorities whose County Prosecutor’s office so comprehensively misgendered Ms White in its official report of her death, by the way.

A second suspect in the death of a 28-year-old Newark woman has turned himself in to authorities.

Acting Essex County Prosecutor Robert D. Laurino said Monday that 23-year-old Alrashim (al-RAH’-sheem) Chambers of Newark walked into a Newark police station and surrendered late Sunday night.

The other suspect, Marquise Foster of North Plainfield, surrendered on Saturday.

Both have been charged with murder in the Sept. 12 death of Victoria Carmen White in Maplewood.

Laurino has said authorities are investigating whether White was killed because of her gender identity. She was described as transgender.

Chambers is being held at the Essex County jail on $1 million bail. Authorities did not know if he had retained a lawyer. [Via APP.com]

Apparently both Mr Chambers and Mr Foster have been “charged with murder and weapons offenses in the slaying on Sept. 12” [Via NJ.com].

The Prosecutor’s bias crimes unit is investigating the case, and both could face an additional charge of bias intimidation, [Acting Essex County Prosecutor Robert Laurino] said. [Via NJ.com]

Given the previous failure of the County Prosecutor’s office to respect and accept Ms White’s legal status, and the continuing misgendering of her by various “newspapers”, I can only hope that justice will finally be served in this brutal murder of a young woman.

Further updates to follow as and when they become available.

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Cross-posted with minor edits for continuity from Bird of Paradox by Helen.

I’ve just been reading a news report of what appears to be the murder of yet another trans woman, known only by her first name (Stacey), this time in Point Breeze, Philadelphia. I’ve only seen this one report so far and, as ever, some of the language – mostly from the Police Department’s report – is, well, just plain wrong. Offensive and demeaning, frankly. Really, if someone lives as a woman and is known to her family, friends and neighbours as a woman, why would you want to misgender her?

Usually it’s because of a legal system which is too busted, and those who run it too bigoted and transphobic, to allow for the possibility that, although some women may well be trans, that’s no reason to dehumanise them by denying appropriate documentation. By the look of it, the local PD in this instance is another one which has yet to make that great leap forward into the 21st century, where trans women are treated like the humans we are.

So via the Philadelphia Daily News, the main points (edited for clarity) seem to be:

A [transsexual woman] whom neighbors described as “beautiful” was found dead in her Point Breeze home Monday night by her live-in boyfriend.

Initial reports from police said the victim [...] was found with a pillow case around her neck, but Homicide Sgt. Bob Wilkins denied that yesterday.

He said there were no visible signs of trauma to the victim, such as stab or bullet wounds, but he declined to speculate on a cause of death until an autopsy report is released.

As of last night, police still had not received autopsy results, and declined to classify the death as a homicide.

But several neighbors who said they knew [Stacey] said police on the scene Monday night told them that the victim had been found face-down – either naked or half-dressed in provocative clothing – and that she had been strangled.

Wilkins said [Stacey] was found on the floor of a second-story rear bedroom in her home, on Manton Street near 18th, but he declined to elaborate.

[...]

Neighbors described Stacey and her boyfriend, who had lived on the block for less than a year, as a quiet, private couple.

One neighbor who asked to be identified only as Darlene said she would sit on the steps and talk with the victim some mornings while she waited for a cab. She described the victim as “really nice and very friendly.”

[...]

Darlene said she remembered watching a hulking, white, bald man leave Stacey’s corner rowhouse sometime before 4 p.m. Monday.

It was several hours later that neighbors said Stacey’s boyfriend came home and ran out of the house screaming.

Police said the victim’s roommate called them to the scene about 9:30 p.m. and flagged them down as they arrived.

RIP Stacey; I hope justice is served against your murderer very soon. My condolences to your loved ones.

Via The Times Herald, yet another report highlighting cis society’s fixation on TS/TG women and men’s genitalia, and using its own essentialist prejudices to justify its transphobia.

Asia Santana, accused of stabbing her boyfriend to death in a Norristown apartment on 13th August, is being held in the maximum security section of the county lock-up “for her own safety”.

But a transgender prisoner’s appearance is one criteria for segregating them at the Eagleville facility to avoid a possible assault. In the prison vernacular it’s called “administrative segregation/protection.”

“You wouldn’t want a male resembling a female in the male section (of the general population),” he said.

Because Ms Santana allegedly admitted the offence, she was placed in the facility’s maximum security section because of the seriousness of the charges against her.

As with all inmates entering the county prison, Santana underwent a medical screening before being assigned a cell. And though the defendant is referred to by her brother as “she,” in the lock-up Santana’s sex is considered male.

“It’s exclusively based on a person’s genitalia,” he said.

A preliminary hearing for Ms Santana is scheduled for 15th October.

This article in The New Mexico Independent seems to offer good news for the state’s trans people:

The New Mexico Motor Vehicles Division in July established a new form to help facilitate changing a person’s gender designation on a drivers license. In doing so, the MVD clarified that gender surgery is not a requirement for a person seeking to change their gender. All that is required is the signature of a medical provider or clinician, stating their opinion that the person will not change their gender again in the foreseeable future.

Alicia Ortiz, deputy director of the MVD, said this week the new form should make things like traffic stops less of a problem for transgender people, who might not have changed their gender marker before due to lack of standard procedures at the MVD. The new form standardizes the process by which gender can be changed throughout the department.

Although the MVD looks to be playing it down as a simple administrative change to make bureaucrats’ lives easier, it seems as though there will be a very real benefit to trans people. OK, so it doesn’t sort out the problems of SS no-matches, but it certainly seems like a step in the right direction.

“Many [trans people] can’t afford surgery, so to require that is discriminatory economically,” [said Adrien Lawyer, executive director of the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico]. “This new policy relies on a person’s own interpretation of their gender, whether they are living their life as a male or female.”

“Document mismatch is a big problem for transpeople,” he continued. “For instance, I have a beard now so if I have an identification saying I’m female, it’s difficult.”

Jordan Johnson, interim director of Equality New Mexico adds:

“We have some of the best laws when it comes to gender identity expression [...] and many people move here from outside because there’s a sense of protection … you see more people comfortable about being able to express they are a transgender person. This is a really progressive thing that is happening for this community.”

[...]

Examples of laws that protect transgender people in New Mexico are an employment non-discrimination law that protects a person from losing their job while they are transitioning from one gender to another. Additionally, a hate crimes statute that increases penalties for people who target people for characteristics like race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. A law that Equality New Mexico would like to see pass is a “safe schools” bill that would establish anti-bullying procedures within the schools.

I don’t know if there are any drawbacks to this change regarding gender markers in drivers’ licenses, but superficially at least, it seems to me like a definite move forward; one which I can only hope less progressive states will follow.