Questioning Transphobia

Holly posted this brilliant explanation in response to Cara’s post about Angie Zapata of how the trans panic defense is used to get a lighter sentence when it is often not even true:

Cara’s last post raises something extremely important that we should all be aware of:

“Deception” is the commonly told and commonly believed story in cases like this, but further investigation and examination of the facts has OFTEN suggested it’s a smokescreen.

Lisa links to a couple examples, and there are more. Seriously, don’t let anyone sell you the usual line that “oh, she tricked him and then he freaked out and killed her.” For one thing, even if that was the case, the appropriate reaction is not to kill someone. But more importantly, it’s often totally fabricated. But everyone just believes it because it’s so “plausible.” It’s the entire audience of listeners to these stories that need to wise up. Tell your friends. Here are some important points:

1) in quite a few of these cases, witnesses, friends, and continued investigation have attested that the murderers had an ongoing relationship with the victim, to the extent that it was quite unlikely they didn’t know about their trans status;

2) trans women, even young trans women, are not total fucking idiots. Especially the ones who have experience, who lived to see adulthood and have had to survive on the streets. Trans women know the risks associated with sex partners who aren’t aware of our status. Trans women are, by and large, experts at judging and negotiating this kind of situation. Part of the reason many community advocates think the ongoing wave of “trans panic” crimes involve bogus stories is that most trans women, sex workers included, make sure that potential sex partners are not confused as hell about what’s going on. Unfortunately, that doesn’t eliminate the unpredictable violent psychopaths of the world.

3) The victims of these murders are DEAD and cannot tell their side of the story. Seriously — Andrade killed her, he confessed it. He knows what kind of story is likely to elicit the most sympathy from other straight guys, and he’s telling it. He even included details about “she wouldn’t let me touch her, but she gave me a blow job.” This whole scenario is a classic myth — which doesn’t mean it never happens, but when the murderer is caught red-handed and then proceeds to give the most “sympathetic sob story,” why the hell does everyone believe him? Because most people find it impossible to identify with the victim, and far too easy to identify with the killer of a “thing.”This needs to change, but the dead cannot speak for themselves, cannot persuade people to empathize and listen. It’s up to the rest of us.

As for the whole “hate crime” crap, it plays into people’s ridiculous idea of what motivates other types of hate crimes as well. They’re thinking of cold-blooded strategizing Klansmen, not killers who freak out because they have emotional and mental problems related to race, or gender, or sexuality. But of course a lot of feelings of irrational hatred — for any group of people — are tied up with the killer’s own twisted, distorted feelings about all of that and how they see themselves fitting into the world. What’s truly disgusting is that people are just buying Andrade’s classic story, regardless of whether it’s true or not, and many patterns from similar cases in the past suggest it’s likely not true.

For that matter, Cara’s post goes into some detail about why this murder is a hate crime, whether or not Andrade’s stereotypical deception narrative is true:

“Duped.” “Fooled.” “Not a classic hate crime.” Why isn’t it a classic hate crime? The argument doesn’t hold up — the defendant did kill Zapata because of her gender identity. He sexually assaulted a woman, in the process discovered that she was transgender, and as a direct result he chose to beat her to death. Ergo, he killed her because she was trans, and this is not hard to follow logic. So allow me to translate. What Robinson really means is: “This is not a classic hate crime, because this time the defendant had a good reason.”

There’s no other way to put it. There’s no other reason to use language like “duped” and “fooled.” There’s no other reason to use this as an argument unless you’re trying to show that there was an understandable, if “irrational” reason for the murder. (Note that most of Robinson’s remarks are reasonable if inexcusably-phrased guesses about how the defense attorneys will behave, but the last paragraph seems to be his own opinion.) Usually, when one is trying to convince people that a crime was not a hate crime, they’d argue that the crime was committed for reasons other than the victim’s race/sexual orientation/gender identity/etc. This time, it is widely acknowledged that the reason was indeed Zapata’s gender identity, thus making one believe it to certainly be a hate crime (in jurisdictions where such a law is actually on the books). But it’s “not a classic hate crime” because this kind of hate is supposed to be considered justified.

This list is far from complete. If I miss someone, please tell me.

Transgriot: Arrest Made in Zapata Killing. Also, Monica covered this story before just about anyone else. She usually does.

A Secret Chord: This Shouldn’t Need to Be Said

Asperger Sqaure 8: Murdered Woman Called “It”

Burning Words: Angie Zapata’s Killer Arrested

Ideologically Impure: Trannies! Send Backup!

The Strangest Alchemy: Another young trans woman murdered…

Season of the Bitch: Angie Zapata, More on Violence Against Trans Women

La Chola: More on Angie Zapata’s Murder

Guanabee: Arrest Made in Transgender Teen Murder Case

Shakesville: RIP Angie Zapata

Bastante Already: Angie

The Bilerico Project: Murderer of Young Transwoman Says He Killed “It”

Uppity Brown Woman: Friday Night is Rage Night: The Sex Edition

Cara cross-posting to the Curvature.

Womanist Musings: Her Name Was Angie Zapata

RIP Angie Zapata

Safer Campus: It’s Still A Hate Crime If You “Panic”

Pam’s House Blend: Arrest In Killing of Angie Zapata

Fetch Me My Axe: The Murder of Angie Zapata: Why “It” Matters

NGBlog: Victims of Hate

In Memory of Angie Zapata

The Donna Blog

Susan’s Place Transgender Forums

Nick Kiddle: Hate Crime

Fire in the Bamboo: The Murder of Angie Zapata – This last has a paragraph I’d like to quote:

DeAndre Blake is another trans-person murderer. He killed Tiffany Berry in 2006. He that claimed “she deserved it,” for the crime of touching him, and being a trans-person. The judge in Tennessee let him out of jail on a $20,000 bond, apparently lenient because the victim was “only” a trans-person. In August, 2008, still out on bond, Blake murdered his own two-year-old daughter.

Link altered to TransGriot’s post on the same story – one in which she uses the correct name and pronouns, unlike the story linked from Fire in the Bamboo.

La Chola: A thought… – This one is important. Brownfemipower addresses the fact that Angie was a latina woman, and how people have been talking about her with regards to that:

So why is it just a given that “it”–that the dehumanization of Zapata–is not necessarily intertwined with and dependent upon her identity as a Latina? That is, would the panic defense be so easy to get away with if Angie wasn’t Latina? Would she be so easy to turn into “it” if we U.S. citizens weren’t already perfectly aware that Latin@s are people who could “trick” us if we aren’t careful? Even more to the point, would it have been so easy to kill Angie Zapata if she weren’t a Latina living in a country that actively criminalizes and dehumanizes people who look, sound, and have names similar to Angie’s?

Do you know how many comments I have read on articles that discuss Angie’s murder that bring up her citizenship status? Nobody knows how she could have afforded a car and an apt without a job. I’ve seen nothing that either confirms, denies or otherwise discusses her job status in the media–but apparently a lack of information means that it’s reasonable to assume criminality–a specific type of criminality that literally positions an entire body: cells, tissue, heart, hair, skin, fingers, teeth, gentiles, as “illegal,” as “criminal,” as “wrong,” as ‘better of not existing.”

Intersections are unavoidable, and I should have mentioned that. But yes, most trans women who are murdered are trans women of color – black and latina – and race absolutely plays into this.

So, in addition to discrediting Angie with the trans panic “She tricked me, defense!” what about

And if somehow, Angie’s murderer has lawyers that managed to throw some doubt on her citizenship status or the citizenship status of her family–will a jury of Angie’s peers, a jury comprised of people who may or may not have helped to vote some of the strictest anti-immigrant legislation in the nation into law–will they care?

I know what I hope will happen, and I know what I believe will happen, and I can’t express how much I wish the latter were the same as the former.

Brownfemipower also quotes Holly (the comment I quoted in this post) here.

Monster’s Creed: Triggers: Angie, May You Rest in Peace with Those Who Respect You

Every Body Matters: The Murder of Angie Zapata

Sweet Perdition: OMG! I’ve found the “Transgender Agenda”!

Bird of Paradox: Don’t Panic – Covers Larry King as well as Angie Zapata.

Dreaming of Butterflies: Getting Political – Angie Zapata

Corvid Diary: Angie Zapata should still be here

Uncool: “he thought he’d killed it”

Bastard Logic: On Bleeding Language of All Meaning

Mortality’s Thoughts: Fucked Up!

Modern Mitzvot: Angie Zapata

To to a T: Gender Journeys – Transsexual Deceivers

Traningrad: Better Late than Never – Primarily about the murder of Rosa Pazos

Daisy’s Dead Air

Flight Papers: It would be nice to think that we actually had respect for the dead, also posted at punkassblog.com

Just Another Opinionated Trannie: This is Serious and Angie Zapata