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 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.

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.

Last Friday, Titania Kumeh wrote an excellent blog post at Mother Jones about the International AIDS Conference in Vienna, and the over 100 sex workers and advocates who protested outside. The protest was about how U.S. funding to fight HIV transmission explicitly and deliberately excludes sex workers, even though they are one of the groups most vulnerable to becoming infected and transmitting the virus to others.

The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) requires that funds do not go to sex workers or those who work with sex workers, and has done so for years. In fact, it recently came up in a post that I wrote about police abuse against sex workers in Cambodia. But while the situation is nothing new, it is discussed far too little, and needs to be highlighted whenever an opportunity presents itself. Because it’s killing people.

Back in 2003, Congress mandated that in order for any group or organization to get US global HIV/AIDS funds, it must have “a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking.” (See: Sex, American Style). The 2008 PEPFAR fact sheet states “prostitution and sex trafficking are abusive and dehumanizing to women, and they fuel the spread of HIV.” It’s not clear whether former-President Bush—who implemented PEPFAR and its anti-prostitution pledge—recognized the difference between sex trafficking and prostitution, spoke to any sex worker-run organizations that combat exploitation, or spoke to groups that seek HIV preventative care and battle sex trafficking. The anti-sex worker, anti-trafficking pledge left sex worker organizations—which incidentally work with one of the most at-risk populations for HIV (PDF)—out in the cold.

“We need HIV treatment but we don’t need the mandate that sex workers are excluded,” says Pisey Ly of Cambodia’s Women’s Network for Unity (WNU), a sex worker advocate organization. When WNU applied for US HIV prevention funds, it was denied and told to drop its sex worker status, Ly says. It refused. “The original idea behind WNU was to be an independent sex worker organization, to provide sex workers with ownership and leadership to speak about the issues that effect their lives,” Ly says. Because of PEPFAR’s anti-prostitution policy, Ly says, many donors and NGOs that once worked with Cambodian sex workers have abandoned them for fear of losing their US funding.

Meanwhile, unprotected intercourse between sex workers and clients is the main cause of new HIV infections in Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Really, you should go read the whole post. I wholeheartedly mean that — quoting as much of Kumeh’s text as I would like to would genuinely constitute copyright infringement.

What it comes down to though, is this: U.S. policy is not only failing to help sex workers, it’s actively harming them. Through requiring that any group oppose sex work in order to receiving funding, we’re not just failing to provide funding to those who already didn’t have it and leaving them where they started — though when the situation is so dire, that would be unconscionable on its own. No, we’re ensuring that organizations that previously worked with sex workers and trafficking victims, providing them with information, resources, and care that they needed, no longer will. Because they can’t keep working with sex workers and trafficking victims and afford to stay open.

It’s very similar to the Global Gag Rule. It’s probably just as deadly, if not more so. And it deserves every damn bit as much attention from feminists and other people who care about women’s rights and welfare.

The PEPFAR policy is blatantly misogynistic and sex worker-phobic. It makes sense that organizations should be anti-trafficking in order to receive funds — kidnappers and rapists don’t need anymore money than they already have — but it certainly doesn’t make sense to say that organizations can’t even assist trafficking victims as a part of their work, as such victims are usually among those who most need assistance. To further extend anti-trafficking sentiment to anti-sex worker sentiment is to conflate two issues, and obscure them both. And to deny funding and services to sex workers because they are at particular risk for contracting and transmitting HIV is more than counter-intuitive, it’s downright nonsensical. No — it’s malicious.

I would go so far as to say (and do not doubt that I am not the first) that such a denial of funds constitutes a direct act of violence. With a vast majority of sex workers being women, it constitutes an act of misogynistic, gender-based violence. With sex workers also being disproportionately women of color, trans*, and/or non-straight men,  it further constitutes an act of racist, transphobic, and homophobic violence. And when the U.S. has such great financial power over those who are most vulnerable to it, the label of colonialist violence also applies. We know that when sex workers don’t have access to condoms and information about how HIV is transmitted and prevented, they die. And yet, we continue as though we’re not killing them, or as though their deaths do not matter.

I greatly resent the notion that PEPFAR’s anti-sex work rule has anything to do with “protecting” women. The paternalistic notion that sex work is inherently “dehumanizing to women” isn’t based on a concern for women’s health and well-being. If anyone was concerned about that, the rule wouldn’t exist. The rule is about shaming and punishing those women who step outside of society’s bounds, whether through choice or coercion or force, of what a proper woman acts like. The rule is about appeasing the concerns of religious groups and middle-class moralists and generally taking out society’s hateful, misogynistic disgust at sex workers at those who can be harmed the most. It’s about taking power and abusing it in the worst way possible, just because we can.

Just because we can, and because we can simultaneously tell ourselves that by doing so, we’re doing something good.

And until the rules regarding access to U.S. anti-HIV funding are changed, it’s just yet more blood on the nation’s hands.

h/t @audaciaray

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.

Trigger Warning for discussions of sexual violence and police violence, specifically including violence against sex workers and transphobic violence.

Earlier this year, I wrote about an Amnesty International report about sexual violence against women in Cambodia, and the judicial response (or more accurately, lack of judicial response) to sexual violence. A section of that report dealt with sexual violence against sex workers, and the fact that good portion of such violence is actually committed by law enforcement officials.

Now Human Rights Watch has released a more detailed report specifically about police abuses against sex workers in Cambodia, including but not limited to sexual violence. You can view and download the full report here. The Human Rights Watch press release states:

Police arrest sex workers in regular sweeps on the streets and parks of Phnom Penh. Some of the violence is opportunistic, while other abuses commonly occur in periodic crackdowns and raids by police and district authorities, at times targeting sex workers specifically  and other times picking up sex workers along with other groups of marginalized people on the streets.

Police abuse sex workers with impunity. Sex workers told Human Rights Watch that police officers beat them with their fists, sticks, wooden handles, and electric shock batons. In several instances, police officers raped sex workers while they were in police detention. Every sex worker that Human Rights Watch spoke to had to pay bribes or had money stolen from them by police officers.

A 2008 Cambodian law on trafficking and sexual exploitation criminalized all forms of trafficking, including forced labor. Human Rights Watch found that police officers at times can use those sections of the law that criminalize “solicitation” and “procurement” of commercial sex to justify harassment of sex workers. The provisions are also broad enough that they can be used to criminalize advocacy and outreach activities by sex worker groups and those who support them.

Human Rights Watch urged the Cambodian government to consult with sex worker groups, United Nations agencies, and organizations working on human rights, trafficking, and health to review and address the impact on the human rights of those engaged in sex work of provisions in the 2008 law on trafficking and sexual exploitation, before implementing those provisions.

In Phnom Penh, police refer sex workers to the municipal Office of Social Affairs and from there to NGOs or the government Social Affairs center, Prey Speu. Conditions in Prey Speu are abysmal. Sex workers, beggars, drug users, street children, and homeless people held at Prey Speu have reported how staff members at the center have beaten, raped, and mistreated detainees, including children. Local human rights workers, citing eyewitness accounts, allege that at least three people, and possibly more, were beaten to death by guards at Prey Speu between 2006 and 2008.

This is sadly the problem with far too many efforts that purport to be anti-trafficking: they actually don’t work to prevent or address trafficking, but merely serve as a cover to abuse all sex workers and trafficking victims. The stigma, revulsion, and misogyny (combined with many other prejudices) directed at sex workers is enormous. And verbal taunts and harassment easily lead to physical and sexual violence. Dehumanization of sex workers through slut-shaming, classism, transphobia, etc., enforces a culture that turns the other way to such abuses, or actively affirms them. And while not the only perpetrators, law enforcement is always first in line.

That’s why it’s absolutely vital that anti-trafficking efforts actually involve groups made up of trafficking victims and sex workers, to ensure that the law will truly be used to assist those who are victims and not work to create new ones. And it’s also why, as the report addresses (starting on page 60), the U.S.’s inability to do its job as a member of the international community without imposing moralization and anti-sex mandates on other governments is so problematic:

The US is one of Cambodia’s largest bilateral donors, and a major donor supporting antitrafficking efforts in Cambodia. Under the Bush administration, the US government maintained that in order to combat trafficking, countries should take steps against prostitution. National Security Presidential Directive 22 stated that, “Our policy is based on an abolitionist approach to trafficking…. In this regard, the United Statesgovernment opposes prostitution and any related activities including pimping, pandering, and/or maintaining brothels as contributing to the phenomenon of trafficking in persons.”

Since 2003, US legislation dealing with HIV/AIDS and human trafficking has required recipients of international anti-AIDS funding to have a policy “opposing prostitution and sex trafficking” as a condition of receiving funding. The legislation bars the use of funds, to “promote, support, or advocate the legalization or practice of prostitution.” This provision was retained when the law was reauthorized in 2008 and remains in force. In May 2010, the US government issued implementing regulations that largely mirror those imposed by the Bush Administration.

This anti-prostitution stance combined with the impact of the annual US State Department’s Trafficking in Persons report seemed to show US support for the Cambodian government’s efforts to criminalize voluntary sex work.

…

While there is no language concerning criminalizing sex work as a means to combat trafficking in the MOU, US policy on sex work under the Bush administration was quite clear. In supporting these efforts in Cambodia, the US failed to consider the context of a police force long known for its problems with corruption and for committing abuses against sex workers with impunity, when it pushed for the 2008 law [that authorized brothel raids and street sweeps].

Nice job, U.S., nice job.

One critique I had about the Amnesty International report was a failure to take a look at experiences by trans* individuals. The HRW report specifically interviewed multiple trans women sex workers. While the information provided about trans experiences is hardly comprehensive, and while it’s highly unfortunate that HRW seems to take pains to separate out trans women sex workers from “female” sex workers and uses other problematic language, some level of inclusion is both positive and illuminating. In the press release, a woman identified as Neary recounts:

“Three police officers beat me up seriously at Wat Phnom commune police station after I was taken from the park. One of the police officers pointed his gun at my head and pulled the trigger, but the bullet did not fire. They kicked my neck, my waist, and hit my head and my body with a broom stick. It lasted about half an hour. I begged them not to beat me. The police officers were cruel and they did not tell me any reason why they did this to me. “

And in the full report (page 33), she also states:

Sometimes the police say, “A-khtoey [a disparaging word for a transgender person] you fuck up the ass. You have HIV/AIDS and you infect other people. You deserve to be shot.”

Unsurprisingly, wherever there is misogynistic violence, there will also be specifically transmisogynistic violence, and it will always be magnified.

At over 70 pages, the report contains a whole lot more than I’ve highlighted in this brief overview, including many more personal testimonies from sex workers who have experienced abuse by police. I strongly urge you to take some time to browse through it, or at the very least read the full press release, and pass it along.

Trigger Warning for descriptions of sexual violence, poor responses to rape allegations, and discussion of a possible murder, possible suicide.

Last month, Akhona Geveza (above), a young South African woman who was participating as a cadet in the Transnet National Ports Authority’s Maritime Studies Programme, was found dead, floating overboard.

Only a few hours before she died, a report was made to the shipmaster that Geveza had been raped by a senior official.

Her death, which has just today been released to the media, is now being investigated to determine whether it was a murder or a suicide.

Geveza’s stint aboard the Safmarine Kariba ended tragically on June 24. At 10am that day she told Shipmaster Klaudiusz Kolodziejczyk that she had repeatedly been raped by a senior officer aboard the British-registered ship. According to a report by Kolodziejczyk, he immediately confronted the officer and convened a conference with him and Geveza for 11am.

When she failed to arrive for the meeting, a search was conducted. Kolodziejczyk, alerted by some pills and a bottle of thinners found on the forecastle of the ship, sounded the alarm and called sea rescue from the port of Rijeka in Croatia.

Three hours later, Geveza’s body was found floating in the sea.

Her father, John Geveza, said the career of the bright young woman – his only child – had represented hope for her unemployed parents.

“I won’t rest until the person or people responsible for my daughter’s death are in jail,” he said.

…

On the night before she died, Geveza confided in a fellow cadet, Nokulunga Cele. Cele made a statement, a copy of which the Sunday Times has seen. In it she explains how Geveza had told her that the chief officer had forced himself on her several times.

Cele said the Ukrainian officer, whose name is known to the Sunday Times, apparently first tried to kiss her while he was teaching her to swim early in May. The officer later apologised to her and called her to his room where he allegedly raped her.

Cele said Geveza was not willing to report the matter to the shipmaster because she feared that nobody would believe her.

The article details how Geveza’s experience with sexual violence on board the ship was not at all unusual — many other Transnet program cadets, both male and female, report being raped by senior officers, being sent home because they refused to perform sex acts, and/or being forcibly impregnated.

I think there’s a really good chance here that we’re looking at a murder case. Frankly, at first glance, the thought that officials were considering any other possibilities seemed ludicrous and offensive. But after looking at the details, a suicide does indeed seem just as likely as the alternative. Not only because sexual assault itself usually results in horrific, profound trauma, but also because the situation here was handled absolutely abhorrently.

First of all, there’s the detail that is included in the above article excerpt: Shipmaster Klaudiusz Kolodziejczyk’s solution to the report of Geveza’s rape was to convene a meeting between her and her alleged rapist (whose name has not been released). To repeat, the alleged rapist was also her superior officer.

What on earth was anyone thinking?

There’s no word in any article I found on whether or not Kolodziejczyk’s actions followed standard protocol. If they did, this is a dangerous, inexcusable system. If there is no standard protocol, that’s even more dangerous and inexcusable. And if there is a different protocol that Kolodziejczyk failed to follow, he needs to be out of a job immediately.

Setting up a meeting between an alleged rapist and alleged rape victim as though the situation constitutes some kind of “personal problem” is rape apologist in the extreme. There are indeed some cases where a victim would like the opportunity to privately confront hir accuser — it certainly doesn’t seem to have been the case here, though, and that decision should never be made for the victim. It should never be a default option. A “meeting” between two officers, the superior officer having been accused of rape, is not the same as an investigation. It is the same thing as retraumatizing the victim, and expecting hir to “work it out” with hir alleged abuser.

Of additional concern is a fact often left out or only expressed vaguely in most articles I found. It turns out that Geveza never reported the alleged assault at all. The friend she confided in, Nokulunga Cele — who admits above that Geveza was unwilling to report — reported it for her.

Let me repeat that: Akhona Geveza never reported her rape. She never wanted to report it. She expressly said that she did not want to report it.

And yet, it was reported on her behalf, regardless. Against her wishes. Without her consent.

I can’t bring myself to unabashedly beat up somebody who was most likely only trying to help, and who is likely already beating up herself worse than I ever could. But look. This needs to serve as an example, because people need to stop doing it. You can think you’re helping a rape survivor all you want. You can really, truly believe that you’re doing the right thing. But if your version of helping is doing exactly what the rape survivor told you she didn’t want to do, seemingly without consulting her, that is the very last thing from helping. It is putting her physical and emotional safety at extraordinary risk. It most likely won’t end with her death, as it did here. But it will result in damage. Betrayals of trust and violations of personal agency, especially when it comes to matters so incredibly dire, always, always do.

Akhona Geveza is dead. Whether she was murdered because she dared tell anyone what was done to her, or whether she committed suicide because she was raped and then severely revictimized by those who didn’t take her wishes and autonomy into account, we will have to wait to find out. The investigation might be biased to protect those in power; and in any case, it might take a while. But no matter what the outcome of the investigation into Geveza’s death, there is little doubt that, one way or another, rape culture is what killed her.

The ultimate goal here for the future ought to be and has to be to end the Transnet culture of sexual violence. But as much as I wish it weren’t true, that’s going to take a while. So in the  meantime, and as a part of achieving that ultimate goal, non-rapists in the Transnet program need to start acting responsibly, too. Setting up a private meeting between an alleged rapist and their alleged victim — unless specially requested by the victim — is not how you deal with sexual assault claims. When someone tells you as a friend that they’ve been raped, your job isn’t to make decisions for them, it’s to listen and ask them how you can best be supportive. Not bullying, not prying, not taking away their autonomy. And setting Transnet aside for a minute, these are rules that people could frankly stand to learn just about anywhere. They’re lessons we all need to learn, lest we risk putting other people in life-threatening danger.

Trigger Warning for graphic descriptions of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and police violence.

In Illinois, a sheriff’s deputy for Lake County has been arrested on charges of attempted sexual assault while armed and false imprisonment while armed, in neighboring Kenosha County. Both crimes are felonies. Jack Johnson (left) allegedly harassed, sexually assaulted, and physically restrained an ex-girlfriend while she was at work. He is currently on administrative leave and in jail with $5,000 bail for his alleged crimes:

According to a criminal complaint, Johnson went into the cell phone store in Twin Lakes about 10:45 a.m. to talk to the clerk, a former girlfriend.

The woman said Johnson had called earlier about a broken cell phone, but when he came into the store he insisted they resume their relationship, despite his marriage and her engagement.

“What’s it matter? It’s just a piece of paper,” Johnson reportedly said.

The woman said Johnson repeatedly asked her to kiss him and promised to leave if she just “gave him what he wanted.”

After suggesting a coin toss to settle the matter — “heads he gets what he wants, tails he’ll leave me alone,” the woman told police — but finding he had no coin, Johnson allegedly suggested a game of rock, paper, scissors, then said he’d leave the woman alone if she hugged him, the complaint says.

Johnson then admitted to “stalking me for months,” the woman said, including stopping at the store for weeks to try to see her; she was not there.

When Johnson again promised to leave in exchange for a hug, the woman said she hugged him briefly. Johnson, who was wearing his deputy’s uniform, including a bulletproof vest and gun, then asked to use the restroom. As the woman tried to get back to work, Johnson said a pipe was broken in the bathroom.

When the woman went to investigate, she said “he grabbed both my wrists up by my chest, blocking the doorway.” He also exposed himself, the woman said.

After Johnson let the woman out of the bathroom, she said he grabbed her and tried to put his hand down her pants. He also said he wanted to handcuff her.

Surveillance video reportedly shows Johnson opening and closing handcuffs and grabbing the woman’s hair.

Yet again, we have a case of a police officer using his status as a cop to bully, harass, assault, and detain a woman whose body he feels entitled to. If anything is unusual about the story, it’s the fact that the victim felt safe going to the police with a complaint of sexual assault by another officer, and was seemingly taken seriously and actively encouraged by investigators throughout the process. It’s of course good and important that they did so, but the fact remains that by the time the victim was filing a report, anything the officers did at that point was harm reduction. Damage had already been done on the force’s behalf. Responding appropriately is vital, but it’s not enough on its own.

I feel like I have been writing an awful lot, lately, about police officers using their positions of authority as a means to commit abuse, and specifically with regards to sexual violence. I’m not actively seeking out these stories — they’re finding me, whether it be through links that people send to me, or what comes up when I look for the latest news stories about gender-based violence. I choose to keep writing about them not because they’re fun or because I really enjoy repeating myself, but both because I think it’s really important to emphasize the magnitude of the problem, and because a couple of really important things need to be made clear.

Firstly, the issue of police violence is not one that should be centered on individuals. The individual police officers who commit violence are always 100% responsible for their actions, and deserve to be held accountable just as much as anyone else. Indeed, I actually think they have more accountability, due to the power that was abused as a part of their crimes. Further, some abusive police officers undoubtedly would have abused regardless of whether or not they ever wore a badge. Johnson here, particularly, strikes me as someone who likely would have engaged in harassment and assault whether or not he was in uniform, and then proceeded to use his role as a police officer to his advantage.

But a good number of abusive police officers — again, who are entirely responsible for their violence against others, no matter what their reasons for committing it — probably didn’t join the police force because they actively desired to beat or kill black men, or sexually harass and threaten and assault trans women, or use violent force against people with disabilities. Systemic problems within the force, combined with social oppression and prejudice that is present virtually everywhere, taught them that these things were acceptable, or even necessary. The gift of state power combined with public reverence for it has taught them that they have a right to abuse the same marginalized people they are supposed to protect. And taking one cop who took those lessons to heart out of the force is important, but it won’t solve the problem — because there will always be another officer who has been trained within that same system to take his or her place. Bigger things, much bigger things, need to change.

Secondly, while there are many, many systemic problems that work to create abusers, it’s important to remember that a good number of abusive officers were already abusive when they became cops. Plenty abused prior to joining, or had plans to use their state power to abuse from the very beginning. Yet, while the law enforcement system did not create these abusers, this is still a systemic issue for law enforcement.

I’ve made it clear in the past as well as in this post that I don’t buy into the “rotten apple” theory of police violence. I think it’s false, deliberately misleading, and incredibly dangerous. But if we were to ignorantly accept it as fact — and insofar as it is true that many abusive cops would have turned out to be abusive people regardless of whether or not they ever joined the force, or joined the force specifically to have an opportunity to abuse — we really need to acknowledge why exactly it is that so many individuals who want to commit violence are gravitating towards a career in law enforcement. We need to recognize that this is not an accident, and that it’s about more than access to a gun, but also about access to extraordinary, unquestioned, and undeserved power. It’s also about expanded access to a litany of excuses and justifications for their violence. We have to take notice of the fact that when so many abusers want to work for your institution and use it as a cover-up for their violence, you are doing something wrong. You are doing something to attract them, and to tell them that with you, they will be safe and supported.

This isn’t about rotten apples. Jack Johnson is not an abnormality, and neither are his crimes. This is about our system of law enforcement, and the violence, unquestioned authority, and sense of entitlement that it breeds among officers as an implicit part of the package.

Thanks to s.e. smith for the head’s up.