Trigger Warning for descriptions of police violence and forcible miscarriage, as well as discussions of racism and victim-blaming.

LaDonna Dixon claims that last June, an Indianapolis police officer beat her severely after she argued with him — even though she was in handcuffs, and even though she says that she told him she was pregnant at the time. As a result, she received two black eyes, numerous other bruises, and miscarried her pregnancy shortly thereafter at the jail processing center, after being refused medical treatment. (Note: links contain graphic images of Dixon’s injuries.) Local NBC affiliate WTHR reported on the alleged assault a month and a half ago, but wider dissemination of a local television report has produced new interest. From the WTHR report:

An Indianapolis woman is suing the city in federal court. LaDonna Dixon claims the officer beat her so severely during an arrest that she had a miscarriage.

“[He was] punching me, kicking me, after he maced me,” Dixon said.

“This person was angry, was enraged and just beat her,” said Dixon’s attorney, Everett Powell. “I would say it’s a crime.”

LaDonna Dixon is suing the city over what she claims happened in her yard last June. She says she was helping a friend who collapsed from a seizure and needed medicine.

When police arrived, the complaint says Officer Scott Childers told Dixon she was disrupting emergency crews and that she needed to get in her house.

Dixon admits she argued with Childers, but says that’s when the officer turned violent.

“He says I was resisting arrest, but I don’t see how I’m resisting when I’m already handcuffed and maced,” Dixon said.

Dixon claims that the beating continued even after she told the officer she was three months pregnant. She says she miscarried at Marion County’s arrestee processing center, just hours after her arrest.

“She was beaten so bad that she passed out,” Powell said. “She was hemorrhaging directly after getting beaten like this.”

Dixon says she was refused medical attention at the jail.

Police officers should never enact violent assaults against the citizens they are hired to protect. They certainly shouldn’t enact them as a response to a citizen’s supposed audacity to verbally disagree with them. That “talking back” is what apparently prompted the officer’s outrage and beating shows the extent not only of police authority and power, but also of the expectation that this authority and power will not ever be questioned.

It’s unclear what, exactly, Dixon was being arrested for, but it’s only relevant inasmuch as the arrest itself may have been another act of corruption. What is known is that the kind of beating Dixon endured is never acceptable, and especially not once it is taken into consideration that Dixon was handcuffed and on the ground at the time of the beating. Even if Dixon had been neither restrained nor pregnant at the time of the assault, it would have still been monstrous. That she was apparently both only makes the facts all the more egregious. The assault was not only an act of violence against a woman, it was an act that also showed a deliberate and specific disregard for her health as a woman.

The video makes clear that Dixon is still deeply mourning the loss of her pregnancy. The miscarriage of a wanted pregnancy is always a tragedy, but a violent, forcible miscarriage is an even more profound trauma. With his alleged actions, Officer Scott Childers decided to override LaDonna Dixon’s bodily autonomy and make her reproductive decisions for her. With his fists, he took control not just of her body but also of her reproductive life.

Dixon is a black women, and so there is little doubt regarding the perpetuation of racist state violence in this case. The fact is that there is a long, continuing history of police violence against communities of color, especially black communities. I do not doubt for a second that a white women — and especially, a white middle-class woman — would not have suffered the same fate under otherwise identical circumstances.

I do not need to know the alleged assailant’s race (which is currently unknown) to make that assertion. As I’ve said before (and as many others have said before me), racism isn’t just white people being mean, or even cruel or violent, to people of color. Racism is bigger than that. It’s the structures that makes such violence easy and acceptable. It’s the structures that keep non-white people disproportionately poor. It’s the social attitudes and structures that keep reinforcing that people of color are lesser people than white people. Structures like the law enforcement system as a whole. Racism is bigger than any individual person. And while white people are the most culpable for upholding racist systems, they’re not the only ones who can and do actively participate in them.

In response to all of her claims and their wider implications, LaDonna Dixon is not exactly receiving unconditional sympathy from the pubic. She is, largely, being treated like a rape victim. No, I don’t mean that she’s being treated with sensitivity and compassion and tenderness. I mean that in comment sections across the interent (trigger warning) she’s being treated like a liar who made the whole thing up. A liar who should have come forward sooner if all of this really happened. A liar who just wants money. A liar who was never even pregnant, and certainly never really believed she was one way or the other. A liar who is black, and therefore deserving of racialized scorn, slurs, and stereotypes, who must be a liar, because just look at the color of her skin. A liar whose boyfriend probably beat her up, anyway, and yet is still not a victim. A liar who is incapable of being genuinely victimized.

I’ve written before about how many women — all women, really, but marginalized women most of all — are viewed in our culture as unrapeable. Women like LaDonna Dixon — and women like Duanna Johnson, for that matter, whose on-duty assailant just pleaded guilty after his first trial resulted in a hung jury and is likely to receive less time than lots of individuals do for drug possession — are apparently similarly unbeatable. So repulsive just by being who she is that she is seen as not worth anybody’s time to beat, and certainly not worth getting all upset about if she was. She’s perceived by countless misogynistic, racist bigots as simply unable to be abused, because any abuse committed at her doesn’t matter.

It’s these attitudes that make assaults like this alleged one possible. It’s these attitudes that makes them absolutely guaranteed to be committed again.

via radicallyhottoff

Trigger Warning for graphic descriptions of violence against people with disabilities, school violence, and victim-blaming.

As evidenced by a recent post, violence of all kinds is a major problem in schools, and school administrations not only frequently fail to respond appropriately to said violence, they’re also often a direct part and/or cause of the problem.

Another example, this time of a lawsuit launched in response to non-sexual violence, was recently sent to me by Kali at Ithaca PAVE. Two years ago, a disabled child was assaulted by a bully on his school bus — as he screamed and cried for help, the school bus driver two seats in front of him watched the attack and did nothing. It took another student to stop the assault. The circumstances of the assault get even more egregious once it’s taken into account that the child’s individualized education plan states that he is to have an aide with him on the school bus — an aide who was most certainly not present on the day of the attack.

Now, years later, the elementary school student remains traumatized, afraid of school, and in need of further services as a direct result of the assault. And the school refuses to make appropriate changes to his education plan.

According to court documents, on May 5, Coolbaugh’s son got on the bus after school and sat three seats behind the bus driver Jeffrey Postle. Another student got on shortly after and sat near him, purposefully pushing into him. The student began slapping and kicking Coolbaugh’s son, which her son apparently interpreted as horseplay and not bullying in nature, the complaint says.

Coolbaugh’s complaint states the student then began kicking and pushing Coolbaugh’s son in a violent manner. He borrowed a pen from Postle and began making threatening stabbing motions toward Coolbaugh’s son.

The complaint states that an on-board video camera captured the events, and that the driver can be seen in the video glancing up in the rear-view mirror at the activity in the bus. The boys were within hearing and view of the driver, Coolbaugh alleges, but the driver made no attempt to stop the harassment or protect Coolbaugh’s son.

The student then began “beating (Coolbaugh’s son) with his fists and violently threw (him) into a seat behind Postle and upon the floor under the seat and then proceeded to pound (him) about the head and shoulders with his fists,” according to the complaint.

Coolbaugh’s son called out for help from the bus driver. The boys were eventually pulled apart by another student, court documents say.

…

“My client approached the district with these circumstances and the school district responded by failing to provide any of the specific request that my client had made,” Kopko said. He said the district refused to accept changes to the boy’s individualized educational plan. “Our contention is that this boy was emotionally traumatized by this assault such that he is in desperate need of additional educational services. That is the aim of the lawsuit – not so much monetary damages, but to give this child FAPE [free and appropriate public education].”

Surveillance footage of the assault as it is described above can be viewed here.

There are several things going on here, with regards to failures by the educational system to protect the students in its care and the treatment of people with disabilities by society at large.

Most readers here who have ever ridden a school bus will have at some point been on at least one end of bullying and harassment. Many will have at different points throughout their childhoods and adolescences acted as both bullies and victims — myself included among them. Big news stories since I stopped riding a school bus have left me with the impression that little has changed. School buses are places where bullies, harassment, and violence thrive. And as all current or past school bus passengers know, students with disabilities, particularly cognitive or intellectual disabilities, are especially vulnerable.

Bullies seek out targets that are particularly vulnerable and who lack social support. By therefore choosing targets who face systemic marginalization on the basis of identity, they’re simply being perceptive about who society values and will bother to support.

In terms of how the driver in this case responded, I think that we’re talking about a case of basic human decency. A student was literally screaming out in distress, and not only did he fail to pull the bus over and help the student, he didn’t so much as utter a word. Adults, no matter what their occupation or relation to the children involved, are ethically obligated in situations like that to do something. That it took another child to take action is despicable.

But recognizing the bus driver’s individual failure and placing the responsibility where it belongs, it’s also important to note that while things can vary greatly among different school districts, training for bus drivers in handling such episodes is frequently limited or even non-existent. It’s not just an individual failure, but a systemic one. Further, while this was clearly a major episode, recognizing and responding to smaller ones while trying to do one’s primary job — safely driving a bus full of children — can be extremely difficult.

I know that when I was a kid, I would have met suggestions of school bus chaperons with horror. For me, at the time, the bus was a place of freedom. And I still think that places where kids can be kids without facing the constantly watching eye of adults are important. But I now know that a part of that supposed “freedom” was my ability to pick on students more vulnerable than I was and the ability of students less vulnerable than I was to pick on me. I know that a part of the “freedom” was enabling of racist, ableist, sexist, homophobic, classist, and fatphobic harassment. I know that it was watching plenty of assaults, most of which I have probably forgotten, including numerous sexual assaults against my friends — all of which faced no repercussions.

And I know that all of this didn’t happen because “it’s what kids do,” but because it’s what kids think adults do. And I now know that as kids, we sadly weren’t all that far off in our suspicions.

Schools have a responsibility to counteract this perception not only through not tolerating this kind of behavior among students, but also by modeling their own behavior to ensure that the perception is at least a little bit less true. Right now, the Trumansburg Central School District is clearly doing a very poor job on all fronts.

After failing to provide an aide to the student who was explicitly supposed to have been provided with one,¹ the school has since failed to take responsibility for its disregard for students with disabilities and willingness to treat their needs as secondary to those of other students. The disregard continues, with the school claiming that the assault was not their fault, and therefore it’s not their responsibility to provide the student with a new education plan — even though the student needs such a plan to effectively learn in their school. This final point is what the lawsuit is most directly about. Despite the fact that it should not matter who is responsible when it comes to whether or not the school is obligated to provide all of its students with an accessible and appropriate learning environment, the school’s line is “not our fault, not our problem.”

They’re also engaging in some mighty nice victim-blaming:

The complaint says that the district failed Coolbaugh’s son in several ways, by not protecting him from bullying, not properly implementing the provisions of his IEP, not adequately training and supervising its employees, and other ways. Prior bullying leading up to May 5 put the district on notice that Coolbaugh’s son was facing a dangerous situation and the district could have anticipated further problems, the complaint says.The district denies that anyone could have foreseen the alleged harassment and claims Coolbaugh’s son instigated the altercation, that he was a voluntary participant in the conflict and was aware of the risks of roughhousing on the bus.

So no one could have foreseen that something like this might happen, but dammit, that kid knew what he’d be getting himself into if it did. This kind of talking out both sides of their mouths excuse-making — who knew that this could happen? except the victim, of course, who totally should have known better — ringing any bells for any one else? These are clear echos of rape culture and more proof of how all forms of violence and oppression are connected.

Many members of the community are also doing a poor job modeling basic decency and anti-ableist attitudes. While seeming to be a clear-cut case, the comments on the linked article (trigger warning) are also filled with victim-blaming, both against the child and his mother. They range from calling the mother “sue-happy” to saying that bullying is a part of growing up to arguments that the mother could just place her child in a private school to allegations that this is her fault for not driving him to school herself.

There’s a lot of apologism and classism in these comments — not everyone can afford private school, not everyone has a car, not everyone’s job has a schedule that allows them to drive their kid to school — but also a lot of ableism. The understanding here is that abled kids are “normal” and deserve to have their needs met, while disabled ones do not. The attitude is that students with disabilities, and all people with disabilities, are on their own, with no obligation from society at large to be decent and as equally accommodating to them as it is to those without disabilities. The consensus for these folks is that we — as individuals, as institutions, as a society — do not have the same responsibility to protect people with disabilities as we do towards all other people. In these people’s view, the rights that abled people have to be safe and go about their lives free of violence do not apply to people with disabilities.

And that’s how these kinds of assaults happen — not just because one kid was an ableist jerk, but because far too many of us are generally ableist jerks, who will similarly deny certain people’s bodily rights and autonomy.

Trigger Warning for rape apologism/denialism and discussions of sexual violence and rape culture.

School is supposed to be a safe place for students to learn and interact with their peers. But as far too marginalized persons know, schools frequently present an environment that is the exact opposite, from being sites of sexualized gender-based violence, to racialized violence, to homophobic and transphobic violence, and other forms of physical assault and emotional injury. Too often, we think of harassment and violence in schools as “the way things are” — how they have always been, how they will always be, and something we are all helpless to change. Rarely do we recognize that these kinds of traumas don’t have to be a part of growing up, but are usually just an exaggerated (or usually exaggerated) reflection of what takes place in adult spaces.

And even more rarely do we discuss how the schools themselves, those tasked to protect students and make schools a safe place, are actively reinforcing and/or perpetuating violence themselves.

This weekend, Amandaw linked to an article on her Tumblr about a lawsuit in which a school allegedly made a rape victim “bait” in a “sting operation” to catch teens “having sex” after school. But it gets worse. Because Upper St. Clair High School failed to provide safe exit from the school to the victim, as one responsible teacher originally proposed, and instead forced her to stay on school grounds, she was raped again, along with another girl.

According to the brief by the student’s attorney, on Feb. 4, 2008, the girl went to one of her teachers, Esther von Waldow, and told her that a boy, with whom she’d had previous problems, had forced her to have sex with him after school. The Post-Gazette does not identify victims of sexual assault and has not identified the accused rapist, who pleaded guilty in juvenile court to sexual assault.

The girl told Ms. von Waldow that he forced another student to have sex, as well.

Ms. von Waldow, according to the brief, immediately went to school administrators with concerns and offered several options to make sure the girls in question got home safely. They included offering herself to walk the girls to their school bus.

But, the filing said, school Principal Michael Ghilani had a different idea.

“Instead, Ghilani wanted to keep Jane Doe on school property and not let her leave. Ghilani’s plan, known as the ‘sting operation,’ was to use Jane Doe as ‘bait’ to lead the school administrators to [the boy] and perhaps other girls.”

According to a court filing submitted by the school district, Dr. Ghilani didn’t believe that the students were in danger or that any safety concerns were present. Instead, he thought students were having consensual sex in school after hours.

He devised a plan to have school police officers follow the students in question to determine who they were and where they were going.

“Security personnel followed the students. Whether the sexual activity was alleged to be consensual or nonconsensual would not have altered the plan,” Upper St. Clair said in its brief. “The plan to was to monitor the students and stop the students before any sexual activity occurred.”

The officers followed the students and believed that they had gone home for the day.

However, an officer working night duty later saw on a school surveillance camera that the boy and another girl were back on the premises.

Though the officer then did rounds to find them, he never did.

The girl’s attorneys contend that two girls were raped in the stairwell that afternoon, including their client.

“Ghilani’s ‘sting operation,’ which prevented von Waldow from placing Jane Doe on her bus and out of harm’s way so that she could be used as bait, resulted in her being violently raped. Ghilani and the school district acted in utter disregard of her welfare.”

Oh boy.

If the allegations against the school district are true, I really can’t imagine a greater breach of student safety and trust. I don’t care how many security officers are following or supposed to be following the students in question — rape victims should never be used as “bait,” let alone as a means to catch students having consensual sex. That this was the plan doesn’t seem to be denied, but instead rather implicitly confirmed through statements by school representatives reproduced up above.

The logic behind the idea is terrifying.  One is left presuming that Principal Ghilani saw Jane Doe’s report of being rape as not falling under the category of “real” rape, and thus related to the consensual sex he was trying to stamp out. It’s an incredibly revealing tactic, as it shows that Ghilani strongly prioritized busting students having consensual sexual contact (in an admittedly inappropriate location) over adequately and responsibly responding to claims of sexual violence. As is so common, consensual female sexuality is seen as a bigger threat to order than male sexual violence.

In its defense, the school district only confirms that this was their line of thinking.¹ Rather than denying that any “sting” was planned at all — apparently, there’s too much evidence that it was real — they’ve just resorted to calling Jane Doe a lying whore:

But in court documents filed by the school district, there are allegations that relationships between the boy in question and several of the girls who claim to be victims were consensual. The district argues that the girls liked him, and were jealous of the others.

In one court filing, the district said that it could dispute whether the student who filed the lawsuit has been raped.

But following the incident, the girl’s attorneys contend in documents, the suspect sent the girl this text message:

“im soo sry i didn’t mean 2 make u cry. i’m cant believe i just raped u well bout time u read dis i mite b dead.”

School officials also claim that they knew nothing of any sexual assaults by the boy until the morning of Feb. 5, 2008 — the day after the alleged “sting.”

So not only did Jane Doe make up both rapes, but the sting operation came about because the principal thought that the student had reported consensual sex to her teacher? Yes, I see how that makes sense. Throw in something about how victims of sexual violence really wanted it and like to fight over their rapist, and no one will notice the illogical nature of the claim! Everyone eats that jealous, boy-obsessed teenage girl shit right up. Also, stuff about how girls and women who claim rape are really just dirty sluts in denial.

I’m honestly not even sure which facet of this case I find most appalling — the lesson that if you report being raped to your school, they’ll use you as a method to catch other students doing allegedly naughty things rather than protecting you; or the lesson that if you report being raped to your school, they’ll respond to their own culpability in the situation by telling the national media that you wanted it, anyway.

I guess that if there’s any “good news” in this case, it’s the fact that we don’t have to choose between condemning the two. The entire story is filled to the brim with victim-blaming, rape apologism, and enabling of sexual violence. And barring an enormous bombshell that the Upper St. Clair School District has in its back pocket, what they’ve admitted to alone shows that they’re responsible for repeatedly and persistently fostering an environment where sexual violence is encouraged, both by placing the situation on the back burner and refusing to listen to rape victims when they come forward.

I’m incredibly pleased to be able to pass along some great news for a change — the Tribal Law and Order Act, which I  had previously urged all of you to support, and which the infinitely awesome Pretty Bird Woman House vocally approves, has passed both houses of Congress and it set to be signed by President Obama today.

A measure designed to ease stubbornly high rates of violent crime, including rape and sexual assault, within Indian reservations will be signed into law by President Obama on Thursday.

Advocates of the Tribal Law and Order Act, which took three years to put together and passed the Senate last week, say it will ensure that more crimes, including murders and serious assaults, are reported and prosecuted amid worries that many cases go unpunished.

The measure gives tribal courts tougher sentencing powers and sets stricter rules to gather and collect more data on crimes. Special U.S. prosecutors will be appointed to tackle what advocates of the law describe as an epidemic of violence.

The president is due to sign the bill into law during a ceremony at the White House on Thursday afternoon.

In the U.S., there is currently an epidemic of sexual violence against Native American women — the rate of rape against Native women is 2.5 that of all other women in the U.S., and more than one in three Native American women will be raped in her lifetime. While some perpetrators are indeed Native themselves, a vast majority of the rapists (86%) are non-Natives, usually white men, who have come onto Native land. Until now, such rapists have often been able to rape with impunity, not only because of the socially marginalized social status of their victims (something rapists tend to seek out), reluctance by victims to report, and poor handling of cases by police — all serious problems and facets of this issue on their own — but also because of confusion and loopholes regarding legal jurisdictions for non-Native perpetrators on Native land.

The Tribal Law and Order Act works to correct several of these problems:

Under the new rules, the Justice Department will have to maintain data on the cases it does not pursue to prosecution. It will also have to share with tribal justice officials any evidence in cases not prosecuted.

The act also aims to clear up jurisdictional loopholes that allow some crimes to slip through the net. It will allow selected tribal police officers to enforce federal laws on Indian lands, whether or not the offender is Indian.

The National Congress of American Indians says it hopes the measure will mean that more sexual assaults carried out on the reservations by non-tribal members will be punished.

Tribal courts will be allowed to sentence offenders to up to three years in prison, increased from the current one-year maximum sentence.

All tribal and federal police officers in the reservations will receive extra training to interview sexual-assault victims and collect evidence from crime scenes.

That the new law will not only provide stronger oversight to U.S. federal handling of sexual violence against Native women, but also strengthens the power of tribal officers and justice systems to enforce the law is absolutely vital, for several reasons. Firstly, victims may simply not believe in U.S. models of justice, holding their faith rather in their tribal systems. Secondly, the U.S. justice system has been known, as has been extensively documented on this very blog, to treat rape victims very, very poorly. The more marginalized a victim is, whether on the basis of race, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, class, or other identifier, the worse treatment they are likely to receive. Further, the U.S. government has done more harm and violence to Native peoples than can be easily or adequately expressed. It makes sense that rape victims would not trust the U.S. justice system to fairly and reasonably handle their case, and may trust their own tribal systems to treat them better. It also makes sense that victims would not trust the U.S. government to do any harm to them as Native people, and would better trust their own tribal systems to better respect their rights and humanity.

Most importantly, whatever a victim’s reasons and whatever a victim’s inclinations, it’s my understanding that the law will give them something of a choice regarding how to proceed.

The sad news is that while this should be a bill that absolutely everyone who’s not a rapist can get behind, 92 Republicans actually voted against the bill in the House. Interesting that they chose a vote regarding the physical safety of Native women and their ability to find justice for the violent crimes committed against them to make a “statement” about legislative procedures. At least we know where their priorities lie.

Trigger Warning for descriptions of sexual assault and explicit victim-blaming and sexual assault apologism.

Earlier this week, a jury ruled against a woman who sued the Girls Gone Wild franchise on the grounds that they damaged her reputation when they included footage of her being forcibly disrobed in one of their DVDs (h/t). The woman, identified in the case as Jane Doe, never gave consent for her breasts to be showed on film, audibly refused to lift up her top for cameras, and never signed a consent form. Nevertheless, when another woman came up from behind Doe and suddenly pulled her tank top down — sexually assaulted her — her breasts were exposed and the footage was used.

A St. Louis Circuit Court jury deliberated 90 minutes before ruling against the woman, 26, on the third day of the trial. Lawyers on both sides argued the key issue was consent, with her side saying she absolutely refused to give it and the defense claiming she silently approved by taking part in the party.

The woman, identified in court files as Jane Doe, was 20 when she went to the former Rum Jungle bar in May 2004 and was filmed by a “Girls Gone Wild” video photographer. Now married, the mother of two girls and living in the St. Charles area, Doe sued in 2008 after a friend of her husband’s reported that she was in one of the videos.

“I am stunned that this company can get away with this,” Doe said after the verdict. “Justice has not been served. I just don’t understand. I gave no consent.”

But Patrick O’Brien, the jury foreman, told a reporter later that an 11-member majority decided that Doe had in effect consented by being in the bar and dancing for the photographer. In a trial such as this one, agreement by nine of 12 jurors is enough for a verdict.

“Through her actions, she gave implied consent,” O’Brien said. “She was really playing to the camera. She knew what she was doing.”

There is something gravely, gravely wrong in the U.S. court system when a jury foreman can say that a sexual assault victim “knew what she was doing” and therefore deserved what she got, as a means for deciding how he did in the case.

There is a long, well-documented history of coercion in the making of the Girls Gone Wild films. The women who are featured in the videos are not paid, but rather compensated with tee-shirts. They are plied with drinks by the crews, and then incessantly cajoled and egged on until they do what the cameramen want. Oh, and the company’s sleazy founder Joe Francis has been informally accused of rape. There’s no doubt that some women do actually want and choose to be featured in the films. But their agency and choices don’t erase or excuse Girls Gone Wild’s long track record of gaining “consent” that is not informed, meaningful, or enthusiastic, from women who are known and desired to be in no state of mind to make a decision that very well may stick with them for the rest of their lives.

But that’s not even what we’re talking about here. Girls Gone Wild’s history is relevant, as this case is a part of a long line of purposefully coercive, non-consensual, and potentially illegal behavior. But the issue in Jane Doe’s lawsuit wasn’t the more complex one of whether her consent was meaningful and adequate under the terms it was obtained. The issue is that there was no consent. And Girls Gone Wild knew that, and just didn’t give a shit.

I don’t know the law well enough to know whether or not the jury made the technically correct decision. But I do know that something is seriously wrong here when a woman’s sexual assault is used by a company for profit, without her permission. I do know that something is seriously wrong when “implied consent” — in spite of explicit non-consent, no less — is taken as a valid legal defense. And I do know that something is seriously wrong when a jury decides that a woman who is in public has no legal right to how her body is used by other people.

It’s rare that classic victim-blaming memes are used quite so blatantly and explicitly in court. Usually, lawyers try to be a bit more covert about exactly what kind of prejudices they’re playing into. I feel as though this example is so clear that it hardly needs my parsing, but I’ve been known to overestimate other people’s understanding of rape culture.

When O’Brien despicably said, “She was really playing to the camera. She knew what she was doing,” what he was saying was, “She was being a tease. She totally wanted it. And if she didn’t actually plan to give it up, she deserved to have it taken from her against her will.” What he was saying was, “Look what a slut she was being, dancing in front of our cameras.” What he was saying was, “She’s a slut, and sluts deserve what they get.”

One has to wonder how he sleeps at night. But what went ignored in his argument, and apparently by the rest of the jury, was the simple fact put forth by Doe’s lawyer:

“Other girls said it was OK. Not one other one said, ‘No, no,’” Evans said. “She is entitled to go out with friends and have a good time and not have her top pulled down and get that in a video.”

This truth, that women have a right to be in public without being assaulted and then having their assaults distributed for profit, seems irrefutable to everyone who views women as human beings. But clearly it’s an easy thing to dismiss for Girls Gone Wild and the jury who sided with them. In their eyes, women who leave their homes, who have the audacity to dance for cameras, who “know what they’re doing,” simply cannot be violated, because they have no right to consent or non-consent at all.

Warning: quoted text and linked articles contain transphobic language.

This story is enraging and heartbreaking all at once. A woman named Nikki Araguz recently lost her husband Thomas, when he died while working as a firefighter on July 3. Instead of being allowed to mourn this horrific and sudden loss of her life partner, Nikki is instead being sued by her late husband’s family.

The lawsuit attempts to void the two year marriage of Nikki and Thomas, for the purpose of preventing her from having access to his death benefits. The family brutally alleges that the entire marriage was a fraud, revealed personal details about Nikki’s life, and have dragged her into court and before television cameras during this grieving period.

All because Nikki is transgender.

A Wharton county judge is expected to hear evidence on Friday in the first step toward sorting out the estate of a firefighter killed in the line of duty, in dispute because of a lawsuit between his parents and his widow who was born a male.

Nikki Araguz on Thursday decried allegations lodged in the lawsuit by her late husband’s family that she is a fraud because she was born male.

“I’m absolutely devastated about the loss of my husband, a fallen firefighter named Thomas Araguz III, and horrified at the horrendous allegations accusing me of fraud because they are absolutely not true,” Araguz said at a Thursday press conference. “And that is all I have to say.”

She spoke briefly at the law office of Phyllis Frye, a transgender attorney, who said her six-lawyer firm is poised to fight the family’s lawsuit. Moments after her statement, Araguz stood up in tears and walked out of the press conference.

“She cries,” Frye said after the abrupt departure. “It’s been 18 days since her husband died.”

The Associated Press outlines:

In a lawsuit filed July 12 in Wharton County, his mother, Simona Longoria, asked to be appointed administrator of her son’s estate and that her son’s marriage to Nikki Araguz be voided because the couple were members of the same sex.

…

Voiding the marriage would prevent Araguz from receiving any insurance or death benefits or property the couple had, with these things only going to her husband’s heirs, said Chad Ellis, Longoria’s attorney.

A Friday court hearing is planned to determine whether to extend a temporary restraining order granted Longoria that prevents Araguz from receiving insurance or death benefits or having access to bank accounts or property the couple had.

Ellis said his client’s efforts to void the marriage are supported by Texas law, specifically a 1999 appeals court ruling that stated chromosomes, not genitals, determine gender.

The ruling upheld a lower court’s decision that threw out a wrongful death lawsuit filed by a San Antonio woman, Christie Lee Cavazos Littleton, after her husband’s death. The court said that although Littleton had undergone a sex-change operation, she was actually a man, based on her original birth certificate, and therefore her marriage, as well as her wrongful death claim, was invalid.

“The law is clear, you are what you are born as,” Ellis said.

Let me say, first of all, that when it comes to the issue of marriage, the courts are wrong. Any person should be able to marry any other person of their choosing, regardless of gender. The end. The fact that one cannot is an act of blatant bigotry and discrimination. And that Simona Longoria is attempting to use this prejudiced law to invalidate her son’s marriage, no matter what the circumstances, is utterly despicable.

But it’s all the more despicable that she is attempting to do so here, where the Araguz’s marriage was clearly not same-sex. While in a better world their genders would not matter with regards to such issues, the fact is that their union was between a man and a woman. The only way to counter this objective fact is to invalidate another person’s identity, and to engage in cis supremacist tropes about what it means to “really” be a man or woman.

For her part, it is worth strongly emphasizing, Nikki strongly states that her husband knew about her history, and was fully supportive of her.

But Mrs Araguz said her husband knew everything and even supported her through reconstructive surgery.

“We had a completely honest marriage, a 100 per cent loving, honest marriage,” Mrs Araguz said.

“I am grieving the loss of my husband and best friend.”

She said the couple lied under oath in April during the custody dispute, swearing that Mr Araguz did not know about her gender.

They lied because they thought it would help the child custody arrangements, she said.

For what it’s worth, I absolutely believe her. It also makes absolute sense to lie about Thomas’ knowledge of Nikki’s trans status during a custody hearing, seeing as how prejudices against trans* folks ensure that they are regularly misconstrued as sexual predators and deviants who have no place around children. Social prejudice regularly forces trans* people to lie, whether it be with regards to custody, employment, immigration, or a myriad of other matters. But it’s also worth noting that in what I deem to be the highly unlikely event that her husband did not know of her trans status, there’s also no evidence that Nikki ever lied. She is a woman, and always presented herself as one.

This lawsuit stands for a lot more than the personal family vendetta that it quite clearly appears to be on the surface. It also seeks to invalidate the genders of countless people, the marriages of countless couples. It seeks to reinforce the role of the state in people’s identities, to deliberately perpetuate oppression and uproot people’s lives. Even if Thomas Araguz’s family had reasonable grounds on which to deny his wife access to his death benefits, the grounds of this lawsuit are cruel, bigoted, unethical, and disgraceful. All of it reeks of transphobia, cissexism, and the urge to use one’s access to social power to crush a marginalized person by any means necessary.

There have also been side effects of this decision to sue Nikki Araguz. She has been widely outed as trans, something that will put her at heightened risk of discrimination, harassment, and more direly, violence. The fact is that trans* people are not safe everywhere — indeed, it’s pretty clear that they’re not safe most places. If Nikki wanted to choose to be public about her trans status, that’s entirely her choice — but the decision of Thomas Araguz’s family to make that choice for her is unconscionable.

As a result of the public outing, the name that Nikki was given at birth has been widely published. As in the quotes above, it is stated everywhere you look that she “used to be a man” or “was born a man,” even though there’s absolutely no evidence that she personally identifies this way. The validity of her gender and her marriage and her humanity have been entered into public debate. And she has been mocked and called countless hateful, transphobic slurs — things I will not link to, but which it would not take you long to find for yourself.

All, it bears repeating, in a time where she is trying to mourn the tragic death of the man she loved.

If you are as outraged and stricken by this case as I am, please know that there is a way you can directly help. The TG Center has launched the TG Center Nikki Araguz Fund to pay for her legal defense. Details below:

This is a rare opportunity for each of us to influence the arc of history by donating to the TG Center Nikki Araguz Fund.  Every $1000 donation received puts us one step closer to justice for Nikki.  Individual contributions at any level are appreciated, even those as little as five dollars.  We also encourage you to use your influence to persuade capable people, organizations, and foundations to contribute at higher levels.

Mrs. Araguz is represented by Phyllis Randolph Frye, a longtime supporter and member of the Transgender Foundation of America (TFA) and a transgender pioneer in her own right.  You may drop off or send contributions to the TFA at:

Transgender Foundation of America
604 Pacific
Houston, TX 77006

Make checks payable to Transgender Foundation of America.  Please make sure to note that the payment is for the TG Center Nikki Araguz Fund.

Credit card contributions can be made using the following link:

www.tiny.cc/nikkisfund

Please assist Nikki Araguz’s defense if you can, and be sure to spread this information far and wide.

UPDATE: Ali provides the latest in the comments:

Unfortunately, it looks like the judge is already siding with Mrs. Longoria; he granted her request to freeze NOT JUST insurance payouts but also ALL joint property – including income earned by Mrs. Araguz during the marriage.

http://www.tgctr.org/2010/07/24/nikki_araguz/?awesm=fbshare.me_AQ6Lv

Longoria is quoted as saying her goal is to “freeze Nikki out,” and so far she’s gotten her wish. Mrs. Araguz is currently living off of donations, so ANY amount donated at this point is desperately needed.

Yesterday, a new domestic violence law went into effect in Alabama. The changes provide greater privacy to victims filing protection orders, and expand the definition of abuse to include a wider range of relationships — namely, dating relationships.

Changes to Alabama’s abuse protection law will now cover more people when it comes to domestic violence.

Before the new changes went into effect Thursday, there must have been a connection by marriage, a child being involved in the relationship, a common-law marriage, or the abuse include a former household member in order to file a protection order.

Now, the law includes people who have been dating for at least six months.

Kelly’s Rainbow Executive Director Carolyn Crump said she thinks the changes are for the better.

“I think [the law] had gotten so broad it was losing its effectiveness,” Crump said. “If we have it down to intimate, partner relationships, I think it can be more effective this way.”

The law also changes the age at which a victim can file a protection order from 19 to 18 and removes the victim’s contact information from court documents to keep the abuser from being able to track the victim down.

I want to celebrate this achievement, I really do. And I do offer my very sincere congratulations to those who worked hard to get the law this far. But apparently I’m feeling a lot less optimistic than I was yesterday, because my most prominent reaction to this news is: That’s it?

For those who will be directly impacted by the law, who will be able to file for protective orders where they weren’t able to before, it is of course an awful lot. But the problem is that it still leaves far too many victims of abuse out in the cold. Specifically, while allowing 18-year-olds to file for protective orders, under the new law minors still have no recourse. And while including dating relationships without cohabitation or children in the law is vital, it’s also way overdue and not nearly enough. After all, the rules includes a restriction stating that a couple must have been dating for at least 6 months before anything can be done.

And what the hell kind of protection is that? It’s well and good for people who have been in a relationship with their abuser for some time, but a victim should never have to keep seeing hir abuser until some arbitrary timing benchmark has been met for hir to have support in getting out of the relationship.

Here are the facts: little instances of abuse start early on. And from there on out, those little instances tend to progress pretty quickly into bigger ones. While hardly universal among abusive relationships, it’s not even remotely unusual for abuse to be occurring six months in. In fact, I’d say that among abusive relationships, it’s incredibly common. And while I honestly have no idea how common it is for someone to try to escape an abusive relationship that early on, it should certainly be the absolute last thing our laws are discouraging. And if someone leaving an abusive relationship early on needs a protective order, they need a fucking protective order. Four months versus six months doesn’t mean a whole lot when it’s your safety on the line.

I see absolutely no reason whatsoever to refuse to allow minors to obtain protective orders, as well as to set the relationship benchmark at a minimum of six months dating. The only “official” reason I can surmise is a bogus concern that people will abuse the law with situations that don’t actually require protective orders. But I say that in the highly unusual situation that someone is seeking a protective order after seeing someone for only a week, some really terrifying things are probably going on. To suggest otherwise is to fall back on the old “bitches lie” meme that says intimate partner violence victims are inherently untrustworthy. It’s to give into the fear that poor innocent men will be punished (by not being allowed to contact someone they apparently don’t even want to contact?). It’s to perpetuate the abhorrent, punitive notion that even if a couple assholes were wasting everyone’s time with petty, non-abusive disagreements, keeping them out of the system is more important than letting in people who desperately and legitimately need help.

Which means that the only real reason for these restrictions is to police what really counts as a relationship, and what really counts as violence. It’s about the state having further control over deciding which romantic and intimate partnerships are valid and legitimate. It’s about the state having control over whether it really matters that you’re receiving harassing phone calls, being hit, and/or being raped. It’s definitely not about protecting victims or the community — in fact, it only serves to take away what little power victims have left.

Through all of this outrage at Alabama, though, I thought it might be a good idea to find out if their new law is really so abnormal. What if Alabama is just putting itself in line with what other states are already doing? To at least a certain extent, it sadly looks like they are.

According to the Breaking the Cycle 2010 State Dating Violence Law Report Card (pdf), until this new law was passed, Alabama was among 8 states¹ that did not allow victims in dating relationships to file protective orders. They don’t, however, explain how other states define a dating relationship, and whether they also include dating length requirements². Further, only nine states and the District of Columbia allow minors to file protective orders on their own behalf, and nine states — including Alabama, and seemingly still so — don’t allow minors to file protective orders at all.

Even more really disturbing details from the report below:

Access
Minors have access to protection orders (eligibility as a minor and/or in a dating relationship) in forty-five states and the District of Columbia. Missouri is the only state that explicitly prohibits minors from accessing protection orders, although a person is considered an adult at age. Four states, North Dakota, South Dakota, Ohio and Wyoming do not specify whether minors are able to access protection orders.

Minors’ Ability to Petition
Although minors may have access to protection orders, state laws vary as to whether minors can petition for orders on their own behalf. Only nine states and the District of Columbia explicitly allow minors to petition on their own behalf: California, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah and Washington. While most states do not specify whether minors can petition for protection orders on their own behalf, nine states prohibit all minors from petitioning: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, New Jersey, Texas and Wisconsin.

Protection Orders against Minor Abusers
Fifteen states allow petitions for protection orders to be filed against minor abusers. While a majority of states do not specify whether protection orders are available against minor abusers, five states prohibit protection orders against minors: Maryland11, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey and Oregon.

Restrictions for Same-Sex Relationships
Montana, North Carolina and South Carolina specifically offer protection only to individuals in opposite-sex relationships. Louisiana law specifies that to qualify for a domestic violence protection order as a cohabitant, the victim must be living with an abuser of the opposite sex. In Idaho, the text of the civil domestic violence law does not exclude same-sex couples; however, when the law was adopted, the Idaho Legislature stated that the law was intended to exclude same-sex couples.

In other words, Alabama’s new law only just puts their rules up to the general U.S. standard on some issues, and leaves them below that standard on others. Further, while the old law was abhorrent and this one remains painfully inadequate, they’re frighteningly really not so far behind as you might expect.

Of course, it’s also important to note in all of this that while ensuring that victims can simply obtain a protection order is important, the strategy is limited. Protection and restraining orders are notoriously difficult to enforce effectively. To what extent they can be enforced, police too frequently ignore violations and courts too frequently refuse to act. Among those who are likely to have protection orders go unenforced, some are particularly vulnerable, including but not limited to women of color (unless enforcement is seen as an excuse to lock up another man of color), low-income victims, trans* folks, and people experiencing abuse in same-sex relationships (if they can obtain protective orders at all). Not to mention that for far too many, having technical access to assistance from law enforcement doesn’t make contact with law enforcement safe.

Which is all to say the usual. A small victory has been won. The safety of some people has been disregarded and/or sacrificed in order to get there. And so, so much more is still desperately needed.

h/t @abyss2hope

By now, most of you have probably heard of SB 1070 — the abhorrent Arizona immigration law that is soon to take effect. For those who haven’t heard of the law or who need a refresher, SB 1070 not only has the effect of legalizing racial profiling, it requires it of police. Once in effect, police will be required to demand proof that those they have stopped for other reasons are in the country legally, whenever “reasonable suspicion” of undocumented status is aroused. If one cannot prove that they are in the country legally, police also have the authority under SB 1070 to arrest hir for “trespassing” — i.e. being in the country.

As few white folks are likely to arouse such “reasonable suspicion” in a border state where the law was designed to deal with the influx of undocumented immigrants from Mexico, it has rightly inspired great outrage and fear in much of the Latina/o community. I’m of the opinion that anti-immigrant laws are virtually always racist, but SB 1070 is particularly and astonishingly blatant in its intentions, even if many of its supporters refuse to acknowledge as much. While not technically going into effect until July 29, it has already had a chilling effect on many communities and activists.

Today, the Justice Department sued Arizona over the law. To that I say “thank god,” and while I’m disappointed (but not surprised) that the basis for the suit has nothing to do with human rights and racial profiling, I wish them all the best of luck, and sincerely and desperately hope that they manage to prevent enforcement from beginning.

But the Justice Department’s suit isn’t the only one challenging the law, and it’s not the one that I want to write about today. Last week, the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence, which represents 35 shelters and other organizations, joined a multifaceted lawsuit from the ACLU. The lawsuit includes documents from over 80 other groups across the country.

The brief, filed by Los Angeles law firm Manatt, Phelps and Phillips, claims SB 1070 “will cause immigrants to refrain from seeking federally established protections” and also “undermines the ability of domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centers, and other victim-services providers to bring crime victims to court, to meetings with prosecutors, and to the hospital for treatments of critical injuries.”

The latter claim is based on the section of SB 1070 that makes it illegal to knowingly harbor illegal immigrants.

Supporters of the law argue that SB 1070 allows law enforcement broad discretion to protect crime victims who may be illegal immigrants.

As state Sen. John Huppenthal, R-Chandler, wrote in The Arizona Republic, “No questioning is required when it would ‘hinder or obstruct an investigation.’ Crime victims and witnesses would never be questioned because questioning is limited only to those who have violated some law.”

Under federal law, domestic-violence victims who are illegal immigrants may qualify for two types of visas, the “T visa” and the “U visa,” for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking.

According to the legal brief in support of the ACLU lawsuit, “Under SB 1070 an immigrant crime victim will have no incentive to, and in fact will be afraid to, reach out to law enforcement for federally guaranteed crime victim social services in Arizona, for fear of detention, separation from her children, and removal.”

The problem with state Sen. Huppenthal’s claim that “Crime victims and witnesses would never be questioned” under SB 1070 is that people like him who support the law, and indeed the language of the law itself, makes absolutely no distinction between “criminals” and “victims” when it pertains to undocumented immigrants. According to nativist anti-immigrant folks, all undocumented immigrants are criminals — criminals who should be immediately jailed and deported — simply by being in the country. By being on our super special, stolen U.S. soil, a criminal is all that one can be, no matter what hir extraordinary virtues.

The column quoted above — already clear in its bias with its insistence on using the term “illegal immigrant,” though this is true of virtually all mainstream media — goes on to perfectly display this attitude, that there is no difference between victim and criminal, and that victims should always be considered both.

Still, I asked her how she would respond to supporters of SB 1070 who might say, “If these women didn’t come here illegally in the first place, they wouldn’t be so vulnerable to abuse.”

“I would say that a very small percentage of these women and children cross the border willingly,” Leiby said. “They were trafficked here and brought by their husbands or significant others. The abuse was started there and was brought here, and in this state the abuser has even more power over them.”

Thank god, E.J. Montini, that you were there to ask that question. If not for you, who else would blame victims for their own abuse and insinuate just how much they had it coming? This, my good readers, is what we call muckraking at its finest.

As for Leiby’s answer? Well, let me say first of all that I’m sure she’s doing the best she can with racists to convince and a victim-hating columnist to respond to. But while I have no doubt whatsoever that some women are indeed brought into the U.S. by their husbands against their will — and of course, many others are brought in by career traffickers — I am, I will say, skeptical of the claim that only “a very small percentage” of women undocumented immigrants entered the country willingly. I think a claim like that needs a whole lot of backing up, and here that evidence is not provided. Further, women need to feed themselves and their families just like men do. And I find it rather unlikely that crossing the border is a decidedly male way to do it.

But I think that even if Leiby’s claim was true, her answer concedes far too much — namely, the idea that women who cross the border without documentation only have themselves to blame for domestic abuse. It concedes that women who enter the U.S. illegally do have it coming. That they don’t deserve services. And that if SB 1070 does harm them, that’s just too bad, and they should have thought about that before setting their feet on our land.

To suggest that women make themselves vulnerable to domestic abuse, rather than abusers and the society that props up abusers with bullshit like this, is misogynistic. To suggest that only certain women, those non-white, non-U.S. women who enter the country without some special, really expensive papers, make themselves vulnerable to abuse is racist. To say “It’s not my business or responsibility what happens to them, because they crossed a line I drew in the sand after taking it from the people originally standing on it” is additionally xenophobic and colonialist. The whole thing is just the most repulsive, sickening display of outright hatred and dehumanization that I’ve seen in a while.

And so to Montini’s question, I say not that most victims didn’t enter the U.S. of their own free will and are therefore innocent, but that even if every single one of them happily skipped across the border while thumbing their noses at the Constitution and wearing a burning U.S. flag on their backs, they don’t deserve violence, not any violence, and that includes in their own homes. Suggesting that how they entered the country — it should go without saying, none of them as dramatically imagined above — determines whether or not they deserve to be beaten, whether or not they deserve to have access to safety, and whether or not their abusers should be held responsible for their violence, is cruel. It is ugly. It is inhumane, it is racist, it is misogynistic, it is victim-blaming, and it is the reason why so many women continue to live in terror. That “suggestions” like that one are made is the perfect example of why the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence’s worries that victims will not feel safe coming forward under SB 1070 are entirely well-founded.

Trigger Warning for descriptions of sexual violence, specifically sexual violence against sex workers.

Continuing in an unfortunately long line of stories about police officers using their state power as a means to commit sexual violence against women, comes this one out of Oregon. An officer named Joshua Jensen (left) was alleged to have forced two women, both sex workers, to perform oral sex on him while he was on duty.

When Joshua Jensen twice arranged to meet a prostitute in a Beaverton parking lot for sex, neither woman knew he was a cop until he showed up in uniform and ordered them behind a garbage container, investigative reports show.

Both women said they were upset and felt they had to go with the officer.  

“When he first took me back behind the Dumpster … my hands were shaking,” one of the victims told The Oregonian Wednesday.

“I was scared – his whole demeanor was very intimidating,” she said. “I really didn’t know what to expect or what would happen.”

In the first incident, Jensen told the woman what she was doing as a prostitute was wrong. Then he asked for oral sex. She asked if she had to, and he said she didn’t. Afterward, he paid her $40.

But with the second woman, Jensen asked her why he shouldn’t arrest her. She replied that she wouldn’t do it anymore.

He said, “Well, if there’s something I want out of it,” then unzipped his pants, reports show.

The woman told investigators and The Oregonian that Jensen then “grabbed me by the back of the head and forced my head down, and I really didn’t have a choice.”

The good news is that Jensen has pleaded guilty. The bad news is that what he pleaded to doesn’t quite add up with the details presented above:

Jensen, 25, pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of prostitution, two counts of official misconduct and one count of coercion, and was sentenced to 30 months in prison. He was not charged with a sex crime and will not have to report as a sex offender when he is released.

Um, what? I’m sorry, how exactly is this not a sex crime?

Detectives who investigated the case were considering first-degree sodomy and first-degree sexual abuse, both Measure 11 crimes, police reports show. Those charges require evidence of “forcible compulsion,” said prosecutor Roger Hanlon. Based on the evidence, he said, “he didn’t commit those crimes.”

Forcible compulsion requires an expressed or implied physical threat, Hanlon said. Coercion occurred because of his implied threat to arrest the victim if she didn’t perform the sex act, he said.

“He didn’t force them, but he certainly coerced them,” Hanlon said. “He didn’t threaten to kill them or hurt them, but there was this element of coercion.”

Look, I’m ambivalent right now about categorizing sexual violence via forcible compulsion and sexual violence via coercion as two different levels of criminal offense, though I think the often blurry line between coercion and force creates a strong argument against. What I don’t see any argument whatsoever for, though, is not even classifying sexual violence via coercion as a sex crime.

Because coercion is not consent. And sex without consent is rape. So this, as described, and as Jensen apparently confessed to, is rape. It is rape. Further going back to that often blurry line between force and coercion — again, neither of which count as consent — I think there’s a strong argument to be made that a man ordering you to perform a sex act on him while he has a gun strapped to his hip and a badge saying that he can arrest you anytime he likes very much crosses it. And while I don’t exactly expect prosecutors to recognize as much, contrary to what Hanlon expresses up above, the threat of arrest is a threat of force and violence, especially when the threat is made against someone marginalized and particularly at risk for police violence, like a sex worker.

There are, it seems, at least two things going on here.¹

The first is the often special treatment that police officers who commit crimes receive at the hands of the judicial system. Sadly, with all of the victim-blaming and rape apologism in the legal system, it’d be absurd to suggest that “anyone else” who committed such a crime would receive harsher treatment. But it is probably safe to say that most people who committed such a crime,  saw their case progress to the point of charges being pressed, and then confessed, would in fact probably receive harsher treatment, and would have been charged with a sex crime and been given a longer sentence. This is in spite the fact that law enforcement officials who commit acts of violence while on the job should be held to much higher standards than the average civilian, what with their positions of enormous power and role in representing the government. And yet, the legal system cares a lot more about protecting its own than it does with ensuring that the state doesn’t represent fear and violence.

Just as important and influential in these cases is that unique brand of misogyny reserved specifically for female sex workers. While the victim-blaming doesn’t seem explicit in this case, from what’s being reported, a lot of victim-blaming tropes are poking their heads out. The two most notable among them are the myth that a victim who has had consensual sex with her attacker previously cannot be raped by him at a later date, and that a sex worker cannot be raped at all. While it doesn’t seem that either the prosecution or defense has directly made either of these arguments — and thank god for small favors — it’s difficult to believe that in spite of their exceedingly common nature, they’re not playing a role here.

It’s next to impossible to honestly look at a case in which all evidence suggests that two women who do sex work were raped by a man who had previous paid them for sex, and think that these misogynistic, victim-blaming, sex worker phobic myths had nothing to do with the decision to not charge the perpetrator with a sex crime. All women are at some risk of this level of atrocity, but some of us more than others — and it’s difficult to think that there is an equal likelihood of this happening to a woman who does different work. It’s hard to believe that for most other women, the standard for force would just as readily be placed so high.

One of the two known victims told the Oregonian that she is upset with how the case was handled, and says that she continues to fear for her safety. And why shouldn’t she, when prosecutors have devalued her safety so much that they won’t admit it was ever at risk to begin with?

via Woman Undefined, h/t SAFER

Trigger Warning for discussions/descriptions of homophobic and transphobic violence, including but not limited to sexual violence.

Yesterday, two really important stories were released about LGBT youth in the U.S. — one in the Nation about incarceration, one from the Center for American Progress about homelessness. The fact that LGBT youth face much higher risks of both as compared to straight and cis youth is no surprise, nor is the fact that they are at greater risk for violence and other abuse once incarcerated or homeless. But the extent to which these things are true is something that is often obscured for those who don’t live it everyday — and they are definitely issues that don’t get nearly enough attention.

The Nation article is really fabulous, from my view, and it’s extremely difficult to pick individual quotes. Do go read the whole thing, but here’s a brief intro:

Across the United States, the brutal and dysfunctional juvenile justice system sends queer youth to prison in disproportionate numbers, fails to protect them from violence and discrimination while they’re inside and to this day condones attempts to turn them straight. Antigay policies aren’t just a problem in the Deep South or rural regions. According to Jody Marksamer of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, one of co-authors of a recent report on LGBT youth in the juvenile justice system, “These things happen in every state.”

The road to incarceration begins in pretrial detention, before the youth even meets a judge. Laws and professional standards state that it’s appropriate to detain a child before trial only if she might run away or harm someone. Yet for queer youth, these standards are frequently ignored. According to UC Santa Cruz researcher Dr. Angela Irvine, LGBT youth are two times more likely than straight youth to land in a prison cell before adjudication for nonviolent offenses like truancy, running away and prostitution. According to Ilona Picou, executive director of Juvenile Regional Services, Inc., in Louisiana, 50 percent of the gay youth picked up for nonviolent offenses in Louisiana in 2009 were sent to jail to await trial, while less than 10 percent of straight kids were. “Once a child is detained, the judge assumes there’s a reason you can’t go home,” says Dr. Marty Beyer, a juvenile justice specialist. “A kid coming into court wearing handcuffs and shackles versus a kid coming in with his parents — it makes a very different impression.”

And the issue that Dr. Beyer references is where the Nation article and Center for American Progress (CAP) report tie together. While I call this method of determining who is and is not detained very far from acceptable — and as the article states, blatantly against official standards — it is true that a lot of LGBT youth have nowhere safe to go. Homelessness and incarceration are intricately linked, with high rates of imprisonment among homeless people and a dramatically increased risk of becoming homeless after one has been incarcerated. And for LGBT youth, both problems tend to start with homophobic and/or transphobic rejection and abuse from loved ones.

One CAP document on LGBT homelessness notes:

1.6 million to 2.8 million: The estimated number of homeless youth in the United States.

20 to 40 percent: The portion of the homeless youth population who are gay or transgender, compared to only 5 to 10 percent of the overall youth population.

320,000 to 400,000: A conservative estimate of the number of gay and transgender youth facing homelessness each year.

14.4: The average age that lesbian and gay youth in New York become homeless.

13.5: The average age that transgender youth in New York become homeless.

And once LGBT youth are homeless, abuse levels are staggering, even when compared against the general homeless population:

58 percent: The portion of homeless gay and transgender youth who have been sexually assaulted, compared to 33 percent of homeless heterosexual [or cisgender/cissexual] youth.

44 percent: The portion of homeless gay and transgender youth who reported being asked by someone on the street to exchange sex for money, food, drugs, shelter, or clothes, compared to 26 percent of straight [or cisgender/cissexual] homeless youth.

Back to the Nation article, which features the story of a young trans woman named Krystal who was locked up in juvenile hall for boys at a young age, LGBT youth are at extremely high risk for sexual violence behind bars:

LGBT kids are often targeted for sexual assault. A 2009 Department of Justice report shows that across the country, LGBT youth are twelve times more likely than straight youth to report being sexually assaulted by a fellow inmate. In Louisiana alone, 10 percent of all youth — gay and straight — reported abuse by a staff member. Krystal reports that she was propositioned twice by guards when she was 14. When she refused, she was verbally abused and called a “bitch.”

The article also details at length — again, please go read the whole thing — other forms of violence employed against LGBT inmates both by guards and other prisoners, as well verbal harassment, and isolation:

Guards are often bullies themselves. Krystal reports that staff called her “a disgrace to mankind,” a “punk” or “fucking faggot” on a daily basis and threatened her, saying, “I’ll beat your fucking ass.” When staff called Krystal “faggot” or other names, sometimes she talked back. “Sometimes I would even say, I’m proud to be that,” Krystal says. She would receive more tickets for talking back.

There are even reports of staff members sending youths to attack other kids. “When it happened, it was something all the youth knew,” Krystal says. “Basically, someone would be left out there in the open.” This is not unique to Louisiana. A 16-year-old gay man in Los Angeles interviewed in 2008 reported that staff members used other youth to intimidate him. Another child in the California system reported that “a female staff member set up a bisexual youth and let straight guys into his room to beat him up. I woke up and saw blood on the walls and on the ground.”

And, as is virtually always the case, the more sites of oppression that a vulnerable person lives at, the more at risk sie is. From the same New York study that determined the average age that LGBT youth became homeless, the full CAP report (pdf) indicates:

That research also suggests that homeless gay and transgender youth are disproportionally youth of color. Among the homeless youth who identified as gay, 44 percent were black and 26 percent were Hispanic. The transgender homeless youth were even more likely to be people of color. Sixty-two percent were black, and 20 percent were Hispanic.

Personal safety nets and support systems are, of course, extremely important. But the way that access to such systems tend to fall along lines of privilege and oppression cannot go ignored in any such discussion. It’s unlikely that we’re just talking about a simple issue of parents of color being more homophobic and/or transphobic — a racist assumption — rather than one of youth of color having more risk factors and far fewer resources and options, on average, than their white counterparts when their parents reject them.

And that’s where we as a society fail vulnerable youth a second time, by not providing them with a safe backup plan. The CAP report points out:

78 percent: The portion of gay and transgender youth who were either removed from or ran away from their New York foster care placements due to conflict and discrimination related to their sexual orientation or gender identity.

88 percent: The portion of professional staff in out-of-home placements who say that gay and transgender youth were not safe in group-home environments.

$53,665: The estimated cost to maintain a youth in the criminal justice system for one year, while it only costs $5,887 to permanently move a homeless youth off the streets and prevent them from reentering the criminal justice system.

…

$195 million: The portion of the federal government’s $4.2 billion budget for homeless-assistance programs that is targeted toward homeless youth.

And the Nation article argues:

Courts and law enforcement officials often fail to recognize the factors that drive LGBT youth into the system. Of a 16-year-old client who was a runaway, Picou says, “Everybody refused to allow him to be in a group home or foster care home. He was in super-custody like he’s a terrorist. Nobody asked him why he ran away or whether he was prostituting to stay alive.” And while a toxic home life leads LGBT youth to live on the street, an unwelcoming school system leads many to avoid school altogether, leading to truancy.

We’re talking here, in other words, not just about social systems of prejudice and oppression, but also about institutionalized violence and oppression. We’re failing kids and subjecting them to violence not only because of small-minded hate, but also through deliberate neglect and the conscious decision to direct funding towards prisons instead of, say, housing.

I don’t want to say too much more. As someone who is both straight and cis and does not have direct knowledge of the needs of incarcerated and homeless LGBT youth, I don’t feel it’s my place to impose my ideas about what solutions should look like. I want to let these numbers and stories speak for themselves, with a simple note that none of these horrifying figures would be a reality in a society where people of all sexual orientations and gender identities mattered and were seen as equally human. And I want to encourage those of you who are not already very familiar with these issues to take the time to click the links and start reading.