Trigger Warning for discussions of sexual violence, prison violence, anti-trans violence, rape apologism, and transphobia and misgendering.

Recently, a woman was allegedly raped orally by a prison guard at Riverside Correctional Facility. She reported the assault to authorities, and an investigation was begun. During that investigation, officials learned that she was not cis, as they had apparently been assuming, and promptly transferred her to a male prison (trigger warning on the link).

Jovanie Saldana, who has been named by prison authorities and the media despite being the victim of sexual assault, has now had her basic rights violated many times over. She was violated when a prison guard entered her cell and forced her to perform oral sex on him. She was violated when her brave decision to report this assault resulted in an investigation that placed her under scrutiny and revoked her right to privacy. She was violated when she was sent to a male prison, both denying her true gender and placing her at extreme risk of further physical and sexual violence. And she was violated when her name was released and spread without concern for her privacy or safety.

Clearly, trans prison inmates are not seen to be deserving of the same rights as their cis, non-inmate counterparts. That Saldana is a black woman also could not have helped these already abusive and oppressive figures to see her as more human. (Indeed, trans women of color are at much higher risk of violence than white trans women.) Saldana’s cousin strongly believes that the transfer to a men’s prison is retaliation for her rape allegations; the timing, media attention, and reaction of the prison guard’s union certainly make these charges credible.

If true, it means that the Pennsylvania prison system essentially punished an inmate for reporting rape by subjecting her to likely future rapes. (Fifty-nine percent of trans women are sexually assaulted while incarcerated, and the vast majority of trans women inmates are housed in men’s facilities.) Even if retaliation was not the primary motive behind the decision to move Saldana, the facts remain the same; a victim of prison rape has not been protected, but instead placed in a position where future prison rape is more likely than not.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, however, is far more concerned with Saldana’s gender presentation and genitals than with the allegation that she was raped by a prison guard who had control over every aspect of her daily life. They also are far more concerned about the prison’s apparently lax policy on cavity searches than the fact that a woman is now residing very unsafely in a men’s prison so shortly after reporting that assault. Indeed, they seem more concerned about the threat that Saldana allegedly presented to her fellow prisoners merely by existing:

A source close to the prison system, who asked not to be identified, complained that the slip-up “jeopardized a lot of women over there [at Riverside],” adding that Saldana tallied at least two infractions for fighting with other inmates during Saldana’s stint in the female jail. On average, Riverside houses about 730 inmates daily, Hawes said.

Of course, it’s not noted how many “infractions” most inmates at Riverside have or whether Saldana is the one who instigated the fights. It’s also not explained how, exactly, Saldana is more of a threat than any other inmate at the prison. We’re simply supposed to “understand” that trans women are “really men,” and therefore threatening to all cis women. The specter of sexual violence is also present, as trans women are routinely portrayed by everyone from Christian Conservatives to self-identified feminists as sexually predatory men in disguise.

Through this defamatory portrayal of Saldana, we are supposed to forget that the true sexually violent perpetrator was a cis man. In reality, it’s Saldana who was the victim of sexual violence, and the real threat to the safety of all women in the prison, both trans and cis, was the armed cis guard lording over them. Only in a kyriarchal society could the black trans woman who was raped and then placed in a position where she is very likely to be raped again be effectively transformed into the “real” sexual threat against more socially valued womanhood.

Indeed, the corrections officers’ union plans to exploit Saldana’s trans status to brand her as a liar, unrapeable, or some combination of both (warning for misgendering):

Lorenzo North, president of the union representing corrections officers, declined to discuss the officers’ failure to perform the required cavity searches.

“I don’t know how [Saldana] got through,” North said, adding that all inmates should be searched. “If you don’t strip-search somebody thoroughly, then you’re not 100 percent sure of getting whatever [contraband] that inmate has. He may have something up his butt.”

But North claimed the goof proved that the officer whom Saldana accused of sexual abuse is innocent.

The officer was transferred to another prison after Saldana’s recent complaint.

“I’m trying to get him back to RCF [Riverside] as soon as possible, because he didn’t do anything wrong,” North said.

How, exactly, Saldana being trans — and officers failing to do their jobs, for that matter — proves that she lied about being raped is not exactly clear. We are either to assume that trans women are “liars” by mere fact of living their lives as women (and that people who lie sometimes cannot tell the truth about being raped), or that trans women have no right to bodily autonomy to begin with and therefore cannot be sexually violated.

Either way, the purposeful dehumanization of Saldana and all inmates by proxy is terrifying, as is the stark inability to accept responsibility and hold guards to a standard of professionalism. North’s attitude as a prison guard authority inadvertently makes it incredibly easy to see how the original sexual assault occurred in the first place. Clearly it’s because those tasked with protecting prisoner safety do not give a shit, and excuses for violations will always be made.

This woman’s safety has been severely jeopardized. She needs protection and recovery services for the assault she endured, not an incredibly more dangerous set of surroundings and public outing. The prison system has behaved abysmally, showing a blatant disregard for inmate safety. Rape is not supposed to be a part of the punishment for any crime. And this rule isn’t only supposed to apply if you’re cis.

via Transgriot

Berkeley, California has recently been considering beginning to provide some benefits to its trans employees for sex reassignment/affirmation surgery. It’s unclear precisely which procedures would be covered under such a plan, since all news reports merely use the outdated and offensive term “sex change” to describe what is being considered.¹ A vote on the very modest proposal has just been delayed:

The Berkeley City Council has postponed a vote on a proposal to use taxpayer money to pay for sex-change operations for city employees.

Council members on Tuesday decided to delay a final decision on the issue until Feb. 15.

The proposal calls for the city to maintain an annual $20,000 fund for gender-reassignment surgery, which can cost up to $50,000. The money would be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Berkeley health insurance providers Kaiser Permanente and Health Net don’t pay for the procedure under the city’s current health plans.

To be eligible for the fund, employees would have to have lived as the opposite sex for at least one year and undergone hormone therapy. They also would have to have worked for the city at least a year.

The San Francisco Gate notes that several of the city’s 1,500 employees have apparently inquired about such benefits.

So basically, even if this proposal were passed, trans people would have to race each other to claim the woefully incomplete benefits, the inadequacy of which any cis person who is supposed to be receiving health care through their job would rightly throw a temper tantrum over. Trans folks, on the other hand, not only have to fight tooth and nail for these minimal benefits and defend themselves against national furor and smear campaigns that seek to define their health care needs as frivolous, deviant, and unnecessary, but also stand neatly in line so that one person a year might succeed at obtaining them.

Particularly as a cis woman with mountains of privilege in this debate, I’m not arguing that that the benefits would not be very real for those very few who might be lucky enough to access them. My point is simply that more is deserved. And as a general rule, if we were talking about cis folks, more would be expected. But because it’s trans rights up for debate, those same cis people are looking at the proposal as “special rights.”

One also has to wonder precisely how many cis employees must first satisfy their employer’s medical, not occupational, requirements in order to access specific kinds of care. Surely, health insurance carriers have restrictions on what they will and will not cover, and when they will and will not cover it. But one’s employer rarely designs those restrictions themselves, and rarely leaves it up to themselves to decide which medical criteria must be met. The idea that trans employees seeking such benefits must “have lived as the opposite sex for at least one year and undergone hormone therapy” is all kinds of absurd and cissexist. (For a start, how can one’s real gender be “opposite,” and how can a gender be “opposite” when there are more than two genders?) As though trans folks don’t suffer enough cis gate-keeping regarding whether or not they’re “really” trans. As though they are likely to find any cis gate-keepers who would provide such surgery to them without these restrictions being met already.

The possibility of these crumbs being thrown trans people’s way has nevertheless ignited outrage, even in Berkeley, with its reputation of being as liberal as anywhere in the U.S. gets. We’ve got biased fear-mongering headlines like “Berkeley taxpayers may pay for sex-change surgery,” Fox News surprising no one with its sensational coverage, and others filing a story about basic health care access for trans folks under “strange news.”

The general spin is an old one: SRS is “weird,” it’s unnecessary, it’s wasteful, and it’s going to result in countless cases of fraud and abuse. There’s a reason, after all, why transition-related benefits are left out of most insurance, and why the right to these benefits was not guaranteed in the latest U.S. health reform. It’s not about actual cost. It’s about what the public believes is “deserved” and “legitimate,” and who they’ll tolerate being left out in the cold. Sadly, a vast majority of the population is cis, and couldn’t care less about trans health, the very real health reasons why many trans people need medical transition care, or what happens when that need is not met.

So we’re seeing Berkeley delay its vote pending “further research.” Because clearly, research is required to determine whether or not trans people should be afforded rights slightly more equal to their cis peers.

I’m so sick of debating whether all people deserve access to health care, or just the ones who meet some arbitrary standard of social approval. Until we view health care as a fundamental human right, there’s always going to be someone who is undeserving of it — whether it be because they’re poor, or sex workers, or disabled, or trans, or in need of care related to their reproductive organ that offends somebody’s sensibilities. Until health care is a fundamental human right, there will always be someone whose life is not worth as much as “our” tax dollars.

At the same time, it’s important to remember that even framing health care as a fundamental human right still wouldn’t fully solve the problem. “Human rights” rarely end up applying to those who society still sees as less than human, and even “universal health care” rarely works out well for trans people. So health care as right or not, until trans folks are properly understood to be just as human and deserving as cis folks, the equation of “our” (super special cis-only) tax dollars being worth more than trans lives is unlikely to change.

Trigger Warning for transphobic violence and police violence

At the beginning of December, an altercation between a trans woman and an off-duty police officer resulted in the woman being charged with assault (h/t). The problem is that this charge is in spite of the fact that she alleges the officer assaulted her — and that two witnesses corroborate her story. The Washington Blade originally reported:

D.C. police last week arrested a transgender woman for spraying a chemical repellent into the face of a man who she says called her names and assaulted her before identifying himself as an off-duty District police officer.

Chloe [redacted] Moore, 25, was charged with simple assault following a 2 a.m. incident on Dec. 1 along the 1500 block of K St., N.W. According to court records, Officer Raphael Radon alleges that Moore squirted him with pepper spray in an unprovoked action following a brief exchange of words.

But two police sources said a sergeant and detective who responded to the scene determined through interviews with witnesses that Officer Radon initiated the altercation and may have committed a bias-related assault against Moore.

The police sources, who spoke on condition that they were not identified, said a night supervisor apprised of the incident by phone while at her office at the First District D.C. Police station overrode the recommendations of the sergeant and detective and ordered that Moore be charged with simple assault.

Officer Radon was not charged in the incident.

According to the Washington Blade report (full details can be read at the link), Moore claims that she asked off-duty Officer Radon for a light for her cigarette, when he began shouting transphobic insults and slurs. She claims that he pushed her, and fearful for her safety, she pepper sprayed him and ran. Moore alleges that Radon chased her for two blocks before grabbing her by the back of the neck, throwing her to the ground, and only then identifying himself as a police officer.

For his part, Radon claims that Moore and her friend approached him and offered him sexual services for money. He claims that when he turned them down, Moore pepper sprayed him in the face, and then ran after Radon identified himself as a police officer.

Between “cis man randomly assaults trans woman” and “sex worker randomly assaults man for turning her down,” I personally know which story intuitively makes most sense and seems more likely to me. But my personal inclinations don’t count for much. The recommendation of the responding officers, however, probably should. And so should witness statements, which corroborate Moore’s version of events:

But the report says two other witnesses backed up Moore’s version of what happened. One of the two apparently is the transgender woman who was with Moore. The report, which does not identify any of the witnesses by name, suggests that Witness 3 may have been standing nearby and was not with any of the others involved in the incident.

“Witness 3 recounted the same story as D1 [Defendant 1—Moore],” the police report says.

Local attorney Dale Edwin Saunders, who practices criminal law in the District, described as “highly unusual” the decision by police and the United States Attorney’s office to charge Moore in the case.

“This person would have never been arrested or papered if the complaining witness had been a civilian,” Saunders said. “The defendant had two witnesses corroborating her version of the events.”

One also has to wonder whether she would have been arrested if she had been cis.

Officer Radon’s version of events just so happens to follow a convenient popular narrative regarding trans women as both violent (and therefore “manly”) and sex workers. The latter allegation, particularly, is one which a set of dangerous, (trans-)misogynistic cultural biases regularly allow to work against trans women. As both sex workers and trans women are portrayed as deviant and hypersexual as compared to all other people, trans women are regularly represented as sex workers even when they are not. Because sex workers are so devalued and scorned by dominant society, accusing a person of being a sex worker becomes not only an insult (oppressing both the target and sex workers in general), but a process of dehumanization. When sex workers are seen as generally undeserving of basic safety, and trans women are viewed similarly, accusing trans women of being sex workers is an easy way to reinforce the notion that they deserve violence, belong in police custody, and are unworthy of the same basic respect and rights as other citizens.

Ms. Moore’s story, on the other hand, follows a very real pattern of behavior that is generally ignored by dominant society, in which cis men feel their gender identities and sexualities are challenged by the mere presence of a trans woman, and lash out violently against her in rage and abject hatred. Trans women are a particularly “easy” target of violence anyway, since their rights and humanity are so widely disrespected. As a result, everyone ignores the highly tenuous sense of safety that trans women live with every day, and it is officially assumed that she is the one who must have done something wrong — often, by merely existing.

But as Sylvia Renee points out at The New Gay (Trigger Warning for graphic descriptions of rape against a trans woman in a men’s prison), most people are likely to believe Officer Radon’s version of events not only because they generally fail to recognize or simply do not care about the violence that trans* folks face, but also because Officer Radon is a police officer. And police officers? Well, they’re the good guys, right? They don’t behave violently. They must be telling the truth.

A week ago, the D.C. Transgender Coalition released a statement with regards to this case. They state, in part:

“What’s especially disturbing about this case is that it features several flagrant violations of MPD’s general order on dealing with trans people,” said Alison Gill, a DCTC attorney.  “Medical attention was apparently not provided promptly, and the use of degrading, transphobic language is expressly forbidden,” Gill continued.  Since June, DCTC has been working with several LGBT community organizations to train officers affiliated with MPD’s special liaison units in cultural competency and relevant MPD policies.  So far, roughly 70 officers have been trained in this program.  “What this incident shows us is that training self-selected volunteers is only a small step toward ensuring that MPD officers fully comply with DC’s human rights law.  We want to see a swift rejection of this kind of behavior from the highest levels within MPD, along with a real plan for making sure that every law enforcement officer knows and follows the law, including mandatory training for the entire force,” Gill said.

DCTC highlights a particularly disturbing part of this story that might have otherwise gone ignored: even though the responding officers apparently ultimately believed Moore’s version of events, only to be overridden by a supervisor over phone, they allegedly did not see fit to provide Moore with requested medical attention. Of course, whether they believed her version of events or not should be irrelevant to this issue — all people deserve medical care, no matter what they’ve done. But the point is that apparently even when a trans woman is seen as legitimately the victim of a crime, she is still not seen as fully human. Not fully human enough to have the injuries she incurred as a result of her victimization treated.

These allegations are despicable, but they are unsurprising. They are a part of a pattern — not only in D.C., but virtually anywhere that trans* people interact with law enforcement, or are the victims of crimes. They’re part of a pattern in which law enforcement generally treats marginalized victims as criminals. Only certain members of society are seen as entitled to safety. They’re the same members we view as entitled to commit violence against everyone else.

UPDATE: Title changed to add “cis” after critique of ciscentrism by Helen G

UPDATE 2: Change.org is running a petition demanding that D.C. police address anti-trans bias within their department. Click through to sign.

Last week, Tennessee Governor-elect Bill Haslam named Memphis prosecutor Bill Gibbons (left), a fellow Republican, as his safety commissioner. The state safety commissioner oversees state law enforcement, homeland security, and the highway patrol.

While Gibbons’ record as a strong death penalty advocate who believes that inmates should have fewer opportunities to file appeals for their lives is certainly disconcerting, to say the least, a state safety commissioner appointment is still not a  high-coverage event on feminist or social justice blogs. The tipping point, however, is not his frightening views on the death penalty, but his actual record as Memphis District Attorney, which shows a strong tendency towards discriminatory behavior against transgender victims of violent crimes. At her blog, Polerin reproduces a press release from the Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition, again copied below:

For Immediate Release: Dated December 10, 2010

Transphobic Politician Appointed to New Governor’s Cabinet

The Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition (TTPC) is extremely disappointed with the announcement this week that Governor-Elect Bill Haslam is appointing Shelby County District Attorney Bill Gibbons as the new Commissioner of Safety and Homeland Security.

Mr. Gibbons has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of concern over the safety of transgender people, especially African American transgender women, in Memphis.

After the February 2006 arrest of D’Andre Blake for second degree murder in killing Tiffany Berry, a 21 year old pre-operative transsexual, Blake remained free for two and a half years on a mere $20,000 bond even after he admitted to friends that he had killed Berry because she had “touched” him. On July 28, 2008, Blake was arrested again on the charges of first degree murder and aggravated child abuse in the death of his two year old daughter, Dre-Ona Blake, over “potty training.”

In an even more highly publicized case in June 2008, Gibbons’ office refused to file criminal charges against two Memphis Police Department officers who insulted and brutally beat Duanna Johnson, an African American transgender woman on February 12, 2008. The U.S. Department of Justice eventually filed criminal charges in Federal District Court of West Tennessee against Officer Bridges McRae, but Gibbons’ Office has still refused to take any criminal action in the case on behalf of the state.

Mr. Gibbons’ indifference to the safety of transgender people in Memphis has contributed to the perception that Memphis may be the most dangerous city in the country for transgender people.

Now, he will be responsible for the safety of all transgender people across the entire state.

Unfortunately, there is no legislative confirmation process in Tennessee for Cabinet officers, so this means that Mr. Gibbons will automatically assume his new position on January 15, but we do feel that Mr. Gibbons is totally inapprorpriate for this positon given his anti-transgender record. The continued refusal of his current office to stand against anti-transgender police brutality, and the lack of action in bringing D’Andre Blake to trial for the murder of Tiffany Berry nearly five years after the initial arrest and confession, is all the more appalling as anti-trans violence continues to plague the state, as the recent beating of Akasha Adonis in Jackson illustrates so vividly.

The Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition (TTPC) will have its bill back next year before the Tennessee General Assembly to add “gender identity or expression” to the state’s own hate crimes law. It is time for the State of Tennessee to go on record and state that violence against trans people has no place in the Volunteer State.

The 107th Tennessee General Assembly convenes on Tuesday, January 11. We urge all Tennesseans to contact your state legislators immediately and tell them it is time to take a stand against anti-trans violence in Tennessee, especially now that one of the key officials responsible is indifferent to the safety of transgender people.

Marisa Richmond
President

As the press release notes, Memphis is something of a hotbed of transphobic violence. The failure to treat hate-motivated violence against trans persons as seriously as crimes against cis victims, even in the face of overwhelming evidence, contributes both to the perception and reality that trans people, particularly trans women, and particularly still black trans women, cannot count on their safety being valued or protected.

In the case of Tiffany Berry’s murder, TTPC has held Gibbons’ directly responsible for not, in his capacity as District Attorney, being more aggressive in scheduling a court date for her alleged — and allegedly confessed — murderer D’Andre Blake. Though the murder was committed in 2006, and the original court date was set for 2007, the trail has still not been rescheduled.

As for Duanna Johnson, her case has been covered extensively at this blog. While her murder and related culpability for the failure to lay any charges is a more ambiguous topic, the police beating that caused her name to first make headlines is far more straightforward. The video clearly and unarguably shows a uniformed, on-duty police officer beating a woman in the face with handcuffs wrapped around his knuckles, unprovoked and for reasons that do not even begin to border on self-defense. The video shows an outright assault — against a vulnerable person in custody, no less — and irrefutably enough for even the highly transphobic federal government to take action against the assailant. And yet, Gibbons both initially and continually refused to file charges himself.

The fact that Gibbons not only has a track record of not taking violence against trans women seriously, but also of not taking violence committed by police officers seriously when his new job places him in charge of state law enforcement, sends a chill up the spine.

It’s also worth noting that all of this inaction occurred during a tenure which Gibbons praises himself as having been “tough on crime.” Tough on crime rhetoric doesn’t generally appeal to me in the first place — it rarely means anything other than promoting the prison industrial complex by targeting and criminalizing people of color. “Tough on crime” is hardly ever about actually making communities safer. But I think it is telling and notable that the crimes Gibbons was “tough” on certainly aren’t ones of horrific violence committed against black trans women. It’s significantly less likely but not outside the realms of possibility that a cis victim would have been treated the same way. But a white cis man? Not in this kyriarchy.

Frankly, at this point I don’t expect any better from U.S. justice systems. And from Republicans, I don’t even expect the veneer of attempting to “do better” when it comes to blatantly oppressive practices. But we certainly should be able to expect more, and trans citizens, who are currently left so unsafe, need more. This appointment is a huge and dangerous disappointment for the state of Tennessee.

Today is the Transgender Day of Remembrance. It is a day set aside to remember all of the lives that have been lost to anti-trans violence, most specifically in the past 365 days, but also further into the past.

I never know quite what to say on days like today, days set aside to mark the extraordinary impact that oppression has on people’s lives, the toll it takes, and the violence it inflicts. I especially don’t know what to say as someone on the “outside” — as a cis woman, transphobia and transphobic violence affect me both as someone who has friends who are trans* and as someone who cares about social justice. But I’m not the one living with the threat and fear of violence every single day. This day is not mine, and I cannot speak for trans* people, nor do I want to when they are perfectly capable for speaking for themselves.

But as a cis person, I feel the need to say something. Because if it wasn’t for cis people, if it wasn’t for our hatred and violence, there wouldn’t need to be a Transgender Day of Remembrance at all.

This past year, 179 people who we know of were murdered as a result of anti-trans hate. There are undoubtedly more who were killed, whose names we do not know and may never learn. In addition to those 179 murder victims, whose numbers are extraordinarily disproportionate to the number of trans* people as a whole, there were countless victims of non-deadly assault, sometimes sexual and sometimes not. And in addition still to those victims of physical assault, there were countless trans* victims of verbal threats and harassment on the basis of their identities. Trans women were by far the most likely to be victims, though trans men and trans people of other genders and non-genders were and are also at risk. Trans* people of color were by far the most at risk, though many victims were white, too. Poor trans* folks and sex workers also faced an extremely disproportionate risk, though money and occupation often do not protect. Almost all who were killed were horrifically disrespected and dehumanized after they were gone. And sadly, these trends are entirely expected to carry on into the next 365 days.

Almost all of these victims, virtually every single one, was killed or assaulted or threatened by someone who was cis. And while most perpetrators were cis men, cis women are as far as can possibly be from innocent.

And so, to my fellow cis people and to my fellow cis people only, I would suggest that we remember all of those who have died or suffered as a result of anti-trans violence, but to not stop there. For it would be letting ourselves off much to easy. I would suggest that we remember not only who died, but who killed them. That we remember how they died. Why they are no longer here.

It’s because of cis people. And that makes it our job to stop it. It is not the job of trans* people to stop cis violence against them anymore than it is the job of women, trans or cis, to stop men from raping. (Though it should always be trans* people from whom cis people take leadership and cues.) It’s on us. Especially those of us cis people who see ourselves as “the good ones” who “aren’t prejudiced like that.”

It’s up to us, cis folks, to stop treating this like it’s not “our” issue. It’s up to us to stop making anti-trans jokes, to stop treating gender like a binary, to stop using anti-trans slurs, to stop defining gender by genitals and reproductive capacity, to stop misgendering with wrong names and pronouns, to stop denying access to medical care and domestic violence shelters, to stop making “woman-only” spaces that are trans-exclusive. Just as importantly, it’s time to start speaking up whenever we see other people do these things, instead of waiting for trans* folks to do it themselves. Because while speaking out is not always 100% safe for cis people, it is a million times more likely to be safe for us than it is for those who are trans*.

And it’s time, too, for cis people to start recognizing all of these supposedly “small” things, the jokes, the assumptions, for what they are — the roots of violence, violence themselves against people’s identities, the precursors to even more severe violence. It’s time to recognize that when you make someone’s identity a joke, you make their humanity a joke, too. And there is no way for that to not end in violence.

So the Transgender Day of Remembrance reminds us, but which cis people need to do a much better job of remembering all year.

To those who have died, may you rest in peace. I will not forget you.

Trigger Warning for descriptions of sexual violence, rape apologism, and homophobia

David King, the Republican candidate for Wisconsin Secretary of State, has been accused of raping an unconscious woman and impregnating her, days before Tuesday’s election. It’s no big surprise that the media has run with such a story in a salacious and gossipy manner, seeing how much they love political “controversies.” It is, however, quite the inexcusable shame that they’ve chosen to turn it into a tabloid-style sex scandal, with headlines like MSNBC’s Candidate accused of getting lesbian pregnant. There is, of course, no mention of rape whatsoever in that headline, and you’ll probably be unsurprised to see that the body of the story itself isn’t any better:

A 31-year-old woman has filed a lawsuit accusing the Republican candidate for secretary of state of getting her so drunk she passed out, having sex with her and getting her pregnant.

Charlette Harris, 31, made the allegations about candidate David King just days before the election, NBC station WTMJ-TV reported Thursday.

Harris claims King took her to lunch in August, got her drunk, she passed out and he had sex with her at his apartment, the Milwaukee Journal reported.

“Now, I’m pregnant,” Harris told TODAY’S TMJ4 reporter Tom Murray. “Everything’s not OK.”

A doctor’s note filed with the lawsuit appears to verify the pregnancy. Harris insists there are no other possible fathers.

“I’m a lesbian,” she said. “I’m gay. I’ve been with the same woman for four years.”

TODAY TMJ4 does slightly better by actually quoting Harris as using the word rape — showing that MSNBC purposely edited her quote so as to exclude it — but certainly not with the headline, which reads Candidate Accused of Getting Drunk Lesbian Pregnant.

Now those are what I call high journalistic standards.

The “reporting” displayed here is straight up misogynistic, racist, homophobic bigotry. A black, lesbian woman claims to have been raped while unconscious, and all the media can do is talk about “sex” and prominently refer to her as “drunk.” Apparently hateful old stereotypes about the promiscuity and social deviance of black women and lesbians are just too appealing to ever avoid promoting, even when discussing a rape victim.

The failure to use the word rape is seemingly deliberate, and makes the case simply look like salacious, personal gossip — an angle which Harris’ sexual orientation is crudely used to play up. Her sexuality is almost entirely irrelevant to this case — it’s certainly not more relevant than, say, her profession, seeing as how the rape allegedly took place after King found Harris employment. She’s known as “Lesbian” — or even better, “Drunk Lesbian” — in headlines not because her identity as a lesbian matters for the purpose of this story, but because the identity of lesbian is still seen as depraved and salacious in a homophobic, heterosexist, misogynistic culture.

No matter how many times MSNBC wants to rephrase it as such, there is no such thing as “sex” with an unconscious person. As Harris herself points out in the part of the quote they chose to omit, “That’s rape. That’s sexual assault.” And while the pregnancy is both a product and evidence of the alleged rape, it is not the crime or the real story. The failure to properly name the nature of her allegations is nothing less than rape apologism, and any news organization that has engaged in this erasure should be downright ashamed of itself.

As a final note, I’d like to point out that while I don’t know any more than you do whether the allegations are true or false, the alleged victim’s decision to file civil rather than criminal charges should not be taken as an indication of her credibility. While many commentators like to portray such a decision as being evidence of a false claim and simple motivation of a monetary reward, there are in fact a whole host of reasons why a victim of sexual violence may prefer to go the civil rather than criminal route. While not providing the victim with the same anonymity that is afforded in criminal cases, civil suits do have other benefits — Jaclyn manages to list 10 of them. A lack of criminal charges is not indicative of credibility of the claim; cases that prosecutors fail to pursue show us that all the time. All the decision means is that the victim found a civil case more attractive than a criminal one. Attempts to infer anything else from that decision are pure speculation, and rather ugly, rape apologist speculation at that.

Thanks to Jill for the link.

Trigger Warning for extreme homophobia, including homophobic language and death wishes, as well as discussions of suicide.

Last Wednesday, as many of you are likely aware, there was a call to wear purple in response to the recent spate of publicized suicides by LGBT youth who had been extensively bullied, and the event was dubbed Spirit Day. Many activists who have been working on these issues for a long time have pointed out that these suicides are nothing new but are only now receiving media attention, and that most of the publicity has surrounded the loss of white gay men to the exclusion of trans* youth, bisexual and lesbian youth, and queer youth of color. There were also criticisms of Spirit Day specifically.

But while it would seem that all people could support not bullying people to the point where they feel there is no way out but to kill themselves, the day also inevitably brought out “criticisms” from homophobic and transphobic bigots who think that LGBT youth killing themselves isn’t really such a bad thing, after all.

One such bigot who spewed his homophobia¹ wherever he could was Clint McCance, who is notable because he is not just a private citizen/bigot, but a board member for Midland school district in Arkansas.

“Seriously they want me to wear purple because five queers killed themselves. The only way im wearin it for them is if they all commit suicide. I cant believe the people of this world have gotten this stupid. We are honoring the fact that they sinned and killed thereselves because of their sin. REALLY PEOPLE.”

After being challenged by a commenter, this was Mr. McCance’s reply:

“No because being a fag doesn’t give you the right to ruin the rest of our lives. If you get easily offended by being called a fag then dont tell anyone you are a fag. Keep that shit to yourself. I dont care how people decide to live their lives. They dont bother me if they keep it to thereselves. It pisses me off though that we make a special purple fag day for them. I like that fags cant procreate. I also enjoy the fact that they often give each other aids and die. If you arent against it, you might as well be for it.”

“I would disown my kids they were gay. They will not be welcome at my home or in my vicinity. I will absolutely run them off. Of course my kids will know better. My kids will have solid christian beliefs. See it infects everyone.”

In his post, McCance doesn’t just make light of queer youth killing themselves as a result of a homophobic society that supports extensive shaming, shunning, harassment, and violence; he suggests that such youth killing themselves is a natural response to a non-heterosexual orientation, and a deserved one at that. He argues that harassment directed at gay people is deserved and asked for by the very act of being gay. And the context of his statements further suggest that “if they all commit suicide,” this would be a good thing and a benefit to society — a breathtaking display of hatred.

I’m inclined to state here that suicide is no joke, but the fact is that I don’t think McCance ever meant his statements to be taken as one. He seems deadly serious in his convictions — and I place a particular emphasis on the word deadly. Because words have an impact. Words matter. They matter, as we’ve been tragically shown over and over again, when slurs are being screamed in your face and devaluing your very personhood every single day. They matter when they’re threatening you with violence. They matter when they’re telling you that you’re better off just not existing. They can matter very, very much when you’re thinking of killing yourself, and a person in a position of authority over the policies of your own school says that your identity is so repulsive to him, he hopes that you do.

Words matter, too, because they back up real attitudes. Many parents do actually disown their children because of their sexual orientations or gender identities. Kids end up homeless all the time for this very reason. Or they stay closeted and terrified and hate themselves because they fear exactly this happening, usually with very good reason.

And many people do believe that gay people who contract HIV/AIDS deserve to die. We saw the effect of this attitude most prominently in the United States when the AIDS epidemic first hit during the Reagan era, and countless people died painful deaths hated, alone, and afraid. People still die disowned by their families in the U.S. today, and human rights violations against HIV-positive people are a worldwide epidemic. Precisely because of attitudes like the one that Clint McCance expressed above, that people with HIV deserve to die — and, even worse, that HIV is a legitimately serious, deadly disease whose existence is both beneficial and thrilling to those who do not have it.

McCance’s words matter not just because the ideas behind them they have a concrete real world impact, but because he is in a position of authority, in one of the currently least appropriate places I can imagine. He is an elected official, and he works for a school. While the suicides of LGBT students are currently making the news in unprecedented numbers. At a time where it’s possible that homophobia (and transphobia to a lesser extent because of lesser coverage) and the bullying that accompanies it might just be starting to be taken seriously by mainstream U.S. — or at least one can hope — a school board member is telling LGBT students in his district that they are worthless and disgusting, and that he literally hopes they die.

And this is the best he can offer when the public responds with outrage:

I reached McCance on his cell phone this morning about 8:30 a.m.. “I really can’t comment right now,” he said. He said he planned a meeting with a lawyer this morning and didn’t want to say anything further until he’d had that meeting. He did comment that the matter had “been blown out of proportion.”

Blown out of proportion. People are dying because of the kinds of things he said, he not only refuses to mourn but actually celebrates their deaths, and then claims the issue has been blown out of proportion.

The Arkansas Education Department has responded a bit more appropriately:

The Arkansas Department of Education strongly condemns remarks or attitudes of this kind and are dismayed to see that a school board official would post something of this insensitive nature on a public forum like Facebook. Because Mr. McCance is an elected official, the department has no means of dealing with him directly. However, the department does have staff who investigate matters of bullying in schools and we will monitor and quickly respond to any bullying of students that may occur because of this, as we have with other civil rights issues in the past.

Of course, condemning the remarks as simply “insensitive” suggests a serious case of Not Getting It.

The Arkansas School Board Association said:

Members of the Arkansas School Boards Association Board of Directors and staff were appalled to read the comments purportedly made by the Midland School Board member in which he denounces gay students. Our organization expects school board members to support the education and promote the welfare of all students in their districts. With 1,500-plus school board members in Arkansas, we are saddened that the comments made by one individual will reflect poorly on other board members who work hard on behalf of the children in their communities.

ASBA has no tolerance for bullying or attacks on children, and we certainly would not tolerate such actions, either physical or verbal, by adults.

When school board members take the oath of office, they swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Arkansas. ASBA expects board members to adhere to state and federal laws, and bullying would certainly fall under those statutes.

A concern for those officials who don’t actively want LGBT students dead over those LGBT students themselves also suggests misplaced anger and sadness.

While an elected official cannot simply be fired, it’s unclear whether there is a process to remove from office those officials who do not uphold the duties of their jobs, and/or flagrantly violate them — as wishing harassment, violence, and death against students within a school board’s district would indeed seem to fit the bill with regards to a school board member. But if not, one would think that at the very least, these governmental bodies and his co-board members could and should make a loud public demand for his resignation.

A protest was apparently held this morning. It should really go without saying that in light of these comments, an apology is frankly and patently not good enough. Nothing less than McCance resigning or somehow otherwise being removed from his position on the school board is an acceptable response to an incident that should have never occurred, and in a world that took the safety of LGBT youth seriously, never would have. And until everyone else holding a position of authority over Midland school district does everything in their power to not only renounce the remarks but ensure that McCance no longer has a job on the board, they too are liable for and implicitly endorse what he had to say, and any effect it has on their students.

UPDATE: Clint McCance has resigned.

Trigger Warning for anti-trans violence, ungendering, victim-blaming, and police and media transphobia/transmisogyny.

Yesterday a man badly beat a woman who was riding in his car and then dumped her in front of an apartment complex before driving away, seemingly for no reason other than that she was trans. Though this is awful enough on its own, police and local media decided to add insult to that injury by fitting as many transphobic tropes as they possibly could into barely one hundred words. The KENS5 news story starts as follows:

A man was in for quite a surprise after learning the woman in his car was a transgender person.

Police say the suspect apparently snapped and beat the woman in the face repeatedly before dumping her off at an apartment complex in the 3200 block of Hillcrest.

The first sentence here is utterly despicable. Rather than identifying with the woman who was assaulted — who I imagine was in for quite a surprise when the man who she was in the car with started beating her in the face — the phrasing immediately and intentionally identifies with the man who assaulted her. Stating that he “was in for quite a surprise” suggests that any normal person — presumed to be cis, of course — would be “surprised” to learn that they were spending their time with a trans* person. And more than surprised, any such person would be rightly appalled. To say that trans* people are inherently “surprising” is to register them as inherently strange and abnormal, their very existence and identities as shocking and upsetting.

This sets the stage to suggest that the assailant had a good reason to assault his victim, just by virtue of who she was. And that’s exactly what the next paragraph goes on to do, even more explicitly.

KENS5 states that according to police, the unnamed assailant didn’t decide to beat his victim. He didn’t make a choice to enact transphobic violence, let alone a hate crime (more on that later). He just “snapped.” Snapping is something that anybody can do. Snapping is something over which we have limited control, which suggests that we are not acting like our usual selves. Snapping is something that is done under extreme stress, something that just sometimes happens, that may even be justified.

And what either police or KENS5 are suggesting here in this choice of words is that the mere presence of a trans* person is enough to make a cis person snap. That beating someone after learning they’re trans* isn’t desirable, but is understandable. That it’s an instinct. An impulsive reaction. Not something done out of hatred, or the desire to reinforce lines of privilege and oppression or to eliminate another human being. Just a natural response to exposure to too much transness.

Things stay just as bad in the next couple paragraphs:

Police are not sue (sic) where the victim was picked up, but they believe the victim had an arrangement with the male suspect.

Preliminarily, investigators think the man responsible for the beating thought he was about to have a good time with a biological woman. But, then he found things were not what they seemed. That discovery may have lead to the brutal beating.

The implication here is clearly not that the victim and assailant were two non-sex working people mutually looking for a casual sexual encounter, but rather a sex worker and a client.

It’s certainly possible that the victim is a sex worker — in which case her additional marginalization as such likely played into the perception by her assailant that she was less than human and deserved to be subjected to violence.

It’s also a simple fact that, due to false stereotypes about trans women and sex workers somehow both being inherently highly sexual, trans women are routinely portrayed as sex workers or automatically assumed to be sex workers even when they’re not. A result of misogynistic, racist, classist, etc. anti-sex worker stigma is that falsely calling someone a sex worker has become a means of attempting to insult and degrade them, and trans women are one of the groups that anti-sex worker slurs and bigotry have been most particularly weaponized against.

The implication, as with all of the “surprise”-related language above, also plays into the old, tired, hateful “trans panic” defense. The “trans panic” defense involves a scenario in which a trans woman “tricks” a cis man into a sexual encounter by not disclosing her trans status, and the man then “snaps” (seeing a trend here?) and assaults or kills her. The defense ignores that failing to disclose one’s trans* status is not in any way a “trick.” It ignores the false premise of the scenario, which is that most trans* folks do disclose their trans status out of concerns regarding potential attacks just like this. It ignores that in a vast majority of such cases, the assailant/murderer had an ongoing relationship with his victim, and knew that she was trans* all along. And it ignores that even if he did not, he still has absolutely no justification for assaulting her.

Which is all to say that even if all of the events occurred exactly as stated here, the framing is atrocious, irresponsible, needlessly salacious, victim-blaming, and transphobic. The tone of article has carried over into the comments — which I do not recommend, though it’s worth noting that clairelouise and zoebrain have started an attempt to educate the ignorant — where transphobia, transmisogyny, and victim-blaming abound. And if the events did not happen as stated, but were rather invented out of transphobic stereotypes, I would not be even remotely surprised.

One last issue I want to address is the police statement that, in spite their own claim that the assailant acted violently because of the woman’s gender identity, they will not be pursuing a hate crime charge. As John Wright states over at Dallas Voice:

Texas’ hate crimes law includes “sexual preference” but NOT gender identity. However, the new federal hate crimes law passed last year does protect transgender people and presumably could be used in this case. If the man beat the victim because she is transgender and not cisgender, then yeah, we’d say that’s a hate crime. Let’s get with it, San Antonio police.

The decision is appalling. Based on the police’s own description, this was absolutely a hate crime. The only possible way I see to interpret it as anything else is to come from the perspective that some hate-motivated crimes are justified, and don’t deserve to be punished — to believe that anti-trans hatred is just so natural that it doesn’t even really count as hate or a bias.

And that right there is fucked up. A woman was attacked. Police believe that she was attacked because she is trans. Hate crimes laws now protect on the basis of gender identity. It’s a hate crime. And calling it anything else is downright hateful in itself.

Trigger Warning for transphobia/transmisogyny and abuse by health care workers. Some links also contain transphobic language.

Fifteen years ago, a woman named Tyra Hunter was involved in a car accident and in need of emergency care. Adrian Williams, the firefighter/EMT who was the first responder on the scene began treating Hunter for her injuries — but upon cutting open her pant leg, abruptly stopped treatment and instead began mocking her to the other firefighters present, as onlookers begged him to help her and Hunter gasped for breath. When she was transferred to an ER, she apparently received inadequate care there, as well, and one doctor refused to treat her.

All because she was transgender.

Tyra Hunter died shortly thereafter.

Today, access to medical care remains an enormous issue for trans* people, but is regularly ignored by cis folks. I speak not just of trans-specific health care (i.e. medical treatment specifically related to transition or one’s trans status), though such care is extremely limited and surrounded by barriers. I speak not just of issues of poverty and ability to afford to see a doctor, though this is also an enormous problem that needs immediate addressing. In this context, by “access to medical care” I mean “the confidence that once one has actually procured a visitation with a medical professional, sie will not refuse to treat you.” Even if your condition is potentially life-threatening.

In mid-July, Erin Vaught went to an emergency room in Muncie, Indiana because she was coughing up large amounts of blood (h/t). While there, because she is a trans woman, she was mocked, humiliated, called names, and outright refused treatment. Thankfully it turned out that her condition was not immediately life threatening — though there’s no indication that medical personnel knew this with confidence at the time — and she is still alive to tell her story now.

Last week, Erin Vaught shared her entire story over at the Bilerico Project. I encourage you to read her full account in addition to my summary. (Though, Trigger Warning for lots of victim-blaming in the comments.)

After arriving, the intake nurse marked her down as “male” even though her ID clearly said female, and staff proceeded to become annoyed and/or laugh at her when Vaught corrected the mistake. Staff continued to mock her, tell jokes about her, and refer to her as “it” as she underwent routine intake procedures. Following this were inappropriate questions entirely irrelevant to her medical concerns, as well as a psychiatric examination, seemingly conducted based entirely on her gender identity and presentation. And then:

I was quite mad, but I kept it in check and said, “When are we going to see a doctor?” She told me that I could not be seen until I had my doc write orders. (For tests, I think she meant.) I said “Why do I need to do that? This is an emergency room.”

She said, “Well, we don’t know how to go about treating someone with your condition.”

I responded, “I don’t even know my condition. That’s why I’m here!”

She replied, “No. Your other condition. The transvestite thing.” I felt angry, and I was fighting my hardest to keep from crying, I was embarrassed and I grabbed my son and we left quickly so they wouldn’t see me cry

It constantly amazes me that those who are tasked with saving all of our lives — who presumably entered a profession requiring a significant amount of education and long hours because they wanted to save lives — can so easily discount and put at risk the lives of certain people whose identities and/or choices that they deem unworthy. Whether it be the cis woman who will die without an abortion, or the homeless person whose needs are scoffed at, or the trans* person who is denied treatment based on the bigoted and false perception of hir body as grotesque, those who are supposed to value life most have a too frequent habit of deciding that certain, marginalized lives just don’t matter much at all.

Of course, it really shouldn’t come as a surprise. Health care workers are people, too, products of the same prejudiced society as the rest of us. The problem is that while it shouldn’t be particularly stunning, it is especially egregious when health care workers let their personal prejudices dictate their behavior.

All of us have the responsibility to be decent human beings, a responsibility that is violated every time someone engages in acts of transphobia and cis supremacy. But health care workers have graver responsibilities above and beyond this one — not just the responsibility to treat all people with dignity and respect, but the responsibility to ensure their well-being to the best of their abilities. The ability to look after a person’s health, safety, and well-being is always compromised when there is a failure to provide them with dignity and respect. The further direct refusal to attend to their health and safety at all is an outright violation — of all ethics, medical and social, and of the law.

This kind of behavior — which again, is not uncommon — treats trans* people as “untouchables,” too disgusting and strange to so much as brush against. It suggests that those whose bodies don’t look how most of society narrowly expects them to look have the potential to “infect” those who are supposedly “normal,” and it supposes that by their very nature, trans* bodies are Frankensteinian. It would be appropriately called childish if it wasn’t so incredibly harmful. Such behavior denies trans* people not just their genders and identities, but their very humanity. It has put them at enormous risk, and done them untold physical as well as mental/emotional damage. It has, as detailed above, sometimes cost them their lives.

All because cis people just can’t get the fuck over themselves. Because some cis folks think that their egos and position of superiority and “right” to avoid cooties are worth more than the right of trans* people to live.

Erin Vaught is just one woman who was brave enough — and safe enough, with enough support systems in place — to come forward with her story. She is not alone. From what she now knows, she’s not even alone with regards to this particular hospital. And until privileged people stop calling marginalized folks “it” and expecting generic “investigations” to be a sufficient response, she’s sadly going to stay in abundant company.

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.