A Dahl’s House

Liss at Shakeville has some good words and a summary list of the more than 100 trans people (that we know of) who died violently during the last year for being who they were. That’s nearly 1 person every three days. Each individual and their story has also been memorialized at the TDOR site.

It’s a list that’s far too long — as is the equivalent list at Rainbow Memorial — and it elicited tears and expressions of sympathy from a number of the cisgendered Shakers. Which is appreciated.

But more than tears and hugs, what we need some ass-kicking anger channeled into changing things.

For example, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act — which would ban job discrimination due to sexual orientation and gender identity — has gotten held up in the House, with no word on when it will get back on track — and passage is still uncertain in the Senate.

In 29 states, it is still legal to fire someone because they’re gay; and in 38 states, it is legal to fire someone because they are transgender. The wingnuts have been reportedly been flooding Congress with calls arguing that it’s a “special right” not to be fired for who you are. Your Congress critter needs to hear that there’s a lot of their constituents who feel it’s time to overturn the “special right” of being able to fire someone out of bigotry.

We need your help in lobbying for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009 (ENDA) — a bill that protects everyone, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) Americans, from losing their jobs just because of their sexual orientation or their gender identity/gender expression.

(Yes, it’s perfectly legal in 29 states for someone to fire you for your sexual orientation and in 38 states for your gender identity or expression — and yes that includes straight people too. Appellate courts have ruled it’s legal to fire a woman for not wearing make-up at work.)

We are coming into the second week of August, and support for ENDA among legislators is slowly inching up. Here’s the status as of today.

In the House, where we need 218 yes votes, there are 172 confirmed yes, and another 35 who will probably vote yes, though they have not yet confirmed this, making a total of 207 likely yes votes. Not enough. 76 Representatives are unconfirmed either way, and these need to be persuaded by you. Here’s a spreadsheet with the latest updates about where people stand.

In the Senate, where we need 60 yes votes because of the likely Republic filibuster that requires 60 votes to stop, there are 47 confirmed yes votes, and another 11 likely yes votes, making a total of 57 likely yes votes. Not enough. 52 Senators are unconfirmed either way, and these need to be persuaded by you. This spreadsheet shows who’s wavering.

What you can do:
The key fight is going to be in the Senate. Please take whatever time you can to call the Senate swing votes, which you can find here.

• Sign up to meet with your legislator in your district in August. You will need your Representative’s name, which you can find at http://votesmart.org.
• Call your Senators and Representative to request their support of an inclusive ENDA that protects sexual orientation and gender identity from job discrimination. Contact your legislators by giving your zip code to the U.S. Capitol operator at 202-224-3121.
• Contact other unconfirmed Senators and Representatives by email, telephone or fax. Contact links for the Senate and for the House.

Useful Links:

• NCTE’s toolkit for talking to legislators (PDF).
• PFLAG has a tidy letter to send to your legislators — although I’d suggest updating it to point out that ENDA protects all Americans.
• Inclusive ENDA Facebook group, which has updates on how things are going.

This is important folks. PLEASE DO THIS.

Join the Great Nationwide Kiss-In is scheduled for Aug. 15 at 11 a.m. Pacific time (2 p.m., Eastern). Events are planned for at least 50 cities in the U.S. and Canada. If you’re in the San Francisco area, meet at Union Square. We’ll have 10 drag queens doing songs about kissing and a portable birthday boy kissing booth.

Why a kiss-in?

After incidents in San Antonio, TX, El Paso, TX and Salt Lake City, UT – where different gay and lesbian couples were harassed or detained by law enforcement or other people for the simple act of kissing in a public place – we need to make a strong statement to everyone everywhere: kissing is not a bad thing, nor has it ever been. It’s not vulgar or inappropriate. It’s a sign of affection that is as old as time itself. And it’s a beautiful thing that we share with our loved ones every single day.

Not gay, but like kissing? Perfect. Straight allies, never fear! Come support your commitment to equality and public displays of affection, and smile at your neighbor to let them know its 2009 and that you’re happy we’re able to live our lives.

More info and locations at http://www.GreatNationwideKissIn.com

I’d run across “Bobbi with an I” by country singer Phil Vassar a few months ago and was intrigued. The song tells the story of the singer’s friend Bobby, a former “linebacker, a quarterback sacker,” who drives a tow truck and bench presses 335—and who shows up one night at the local bar “in his pink party dress.” Jaws drop, but over time nobody gives it a second thought, it’s “just Bobbi with an I.”

Given that country music isn’t known as a bastion of social progressivism it was a pleasant surprise, with a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor (one reason Bobbi gets respect is because “he’s been known to knock a few teeth out if you ask him for a beauty tip”) that doesn’t make Bobbi the butt of a joke. It seemed like Vassar either knew someone who crossdressed, or at least had run across crossdressers hanging out at a bar somewhere.

Vassar just released a music video for the song and it’s got some, ah, interesting differences.

The video adds a prequel where Bobby is invited out by his friends, but demurs because he’s broke. But his eyes light up when his friend mentions “it’s Ladies Night, free drinks for the girls!” Did someone say: free drinks? Cue the music. Bobbi enters the bar, a cigar-chomping burly “man in a dress” (in fact he’s wearing sunglasses to conceal the fact that he’s not wearing any make-up). And in interviews and his “behind-the-scenes” video, Vassar says: “Bobbi is actually a guy I knew—this outrageous guy who showed up at a club one night dressed as a girl. It was just a funny way to pick up chicks.” In other words—it’s all just good fun, it’s a one-time thing, and Bobbi doesn’t really want to be seen as a woman.

I’ll take Vassar at his word, he seems like a decent guy—but also a guy who comes across as savvy enough to know how far he can push things with his fans. Not that that might be a reason the video is at odds with the actual lyrics. (And don’t think too hard about how Bobbi, who’s flat broke, manages on short notice to get decked out in a cocktail dress, high heels, earings, platinum wig, fashionable women’s sunglasses and a black sequin purse, or why he’s got seemingly hairless legs.)

But even if the video undercuts the lyrics, Bobbi’s having a great time, his friends are having a great time, in fact everyone’s having a great time except an eye-rolling old man, who’s presented as a curmudgeonly killjoy. The “big-boned girl with a platinum curl” is the life of the party. As Vassar sings: “That’s how it is, nobody gives a second thought these days.”

Would I have preferred that the video stayed true to its roots and cast someone like Victoria “Porkchop” Parker* as Bobbi? Hell ya. But if the “lite” version ends up making life a little easier for some trans person in some shitkicker bar somewhere, I’m not gonna complain too much.

* Before anyone kvetches, yes I know Porkchop is a gay man who’s a professional female impersonator. But she’s burly enough as a guy to be a convincing Bobby and femme enough to be a Bobbi who would’ve left viewers stunned and amazed.

Just wanted to give a heads-up about the TransOhio’s 2nd Annual Transgender and Ally Symposium coming up on Aug. 14-16 in Columbus.

Helen Boyd, author of “My Husband Betty,” will be the keynote speaker and there are more than 25 workshops and presentations, focusing on:

• Health & Safety
• Legal & Employment Issues
• Partners, Spouses and Family
• Religion and Spirituality
• Youth & Students
• Arts, Culture and Media

All for the low, low price of $10-30. ($50 at the door.) Check it out.

OK, work has been crazy so I’m late on this, but Obama’s fierce urgency of “don’t call us, we’ll call you” on LGBT rights is important enough that I didn’t want to let it go uncriticized unnoticed.

For those of you who don’t follow LGBT issues, the short version is that two weeks ago the Justice Department issued a brief defending the Defense of Marriage Act, which is the law that protects the right of states to not recognize same-sex marriages and denies same-sex married couples federal benefits. Now maybe the Obama administration is obligated, as it argued, to defend the law — although critics quickly found examples of other instances where the Obama administration (like numerous previous administrations) is choosing not to defend or enforce laws they dislike. But they didn’t have to go out of their way to parrot incorporate numerous right-wing talking points including, arguing that same-sex marriages are no more legally valid than than incestuous ones between an uncle and neice. Oh, and Teh Gays aren’t really discriminated against because they can marry any person of the opposite sex they want. onus points for doing so on the anniversary of the Loving vs. Virginia Supreme Court decision — you know the one that allowed Obama parents to get married.

For many LGBT people, it was the last straw in a series of disses from the Obama administration, which — despite promises to be a fierce advocate on our behalf — has clearly been wishing we’d just go away. I’m not a big fan of AmericaBlog, but one of their writers astutely diagnosed the problem: political homophobia.

Political homophobes aren’t gay-hating in the traditional sense. In fact, publicly, most are strong supporters of LGBT equality. But, behind closed doors, many Democratic leaders, consultants, Hill staffers and the rest will vociferously argue that there is no political benefit to actually supporting LGBT rights. Political homophobia is rampant among some Democrats. In some ways, it’s worse than blatant homophobia, since we think most Democrats are on our side. And outwardly, they are.

Political homophobia dictates policy in DC more than we’d like to think. I believe it’s happening in the West Wing right now. I’ve been told by several people that while the president’s chief of staff, Rahm Emmanuel, isn’t a homophobe in the traditional way (he always voted the right way when he was in the House), he is always the first person to suggest that his colleagues (and now boss) avoid gay issues. He’d rather not deal with them because he thinks they’re bad politics.

Now, maybe in 1993 that was true. But Rahm, if he truly is the problem behind the throne, doesn’t grasp the change in society over the past two decades. He also doesn’t understand that the American people think Obama is a different kind of politician — one who will do what he says because it’s the right thing to do.

Predictably, Obama defenders came out of the woodwork to tell LGBT people to STFU because “there’s more important things to get done first” — privilege anyone? Or to argue that it’s all part of Obama’s 11th dimensional chess strategy and not to worry our pretty little heads.

On the LGBT side there was definitely some over-the-top vitriolic rhetoric, but people are pissed. Myself, as Jere says, I’m angry, but I’m not burning an effigy (yet).

The thing is… Yes it has only been five months since Obama took office, but it’s been 40 years since Stonewall, 35 years since the first queer non-discrimination bill was introduced in Congress, 16 years since Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was enacted as a “compromise,” 14 years since the Employment Non-Discrimination Act was introduced in Congress (yes folks it’s perfectly legal in 38 states to fire someone for being LGBT), 12 years since marriage discrimination was enshined in federal law, and 7 years since the Matthew Shepard Act to extend federal hate crime protections to LGBT people was introduced in Congress (yes folks, in 18 states there’s no penalty for beating the shit out of targeting someone because they’re gay or bi, and in 39 states there’s no penalty because they’re trans or gender variant).

When a number of bloggers organized a campaign to cut off the gAyTM for DNC fundraising — and resulted in the boycott of a major LGBT DNC fundraiser that reportedly caused a major drop-off in money raised — that the Obama administration hastily started throwing us crumbs: moving expenses for the partners of federal workers, woohoo! As usual Stephen Colbert said it far better than I can. Money quote: “See, he’s giving you things, just not your rights.”

Since then there’s been more crumb-tossing. Such as not appealing the $500,000 judgement in a job discrimination case filed by a trans woman, whose Library of Congress offer job was withdrawn the day after her interviewer found out that she was transitioning. Oh, and a bunch of A-list gays were invited to the White House for a 40th anniversary of Stonewall cocktail party (but no politics please… and no trans peeps of color.) All well and good.

But Mr. Obama the ATM is closed until we see some results. Promises to keep promises aren’t enough.

If you’re an ally, as Jere says, it’s time to step up to the plate.

[D]on’t tell me to calm down. Don’t tell me to be patient. Don’t tell me to trust that the Democrats will get around to my issues. Instead, listen to what we, the actual victims of legal inequality, are concerned about and help us.

And sometimes being an ally means more than just expressing a general belief in equality. Sometimes it requires you joining us in contacting lawmakers, writing blogs, writing letters to the editor, withholding your donations and volunteer hours for politicians and parties who stall on LGBT equality, speaking out, and telling your stories. We need you to make an effort for LGBT equality. The time is now. No more excuses, no more delays, no more empty promises.

–

Postscript: my irony-meter broke watching the very same white, well-to-do, well-connected (often conservative) big-name gay bloggers — who told trans people to STFU and sit on their hands quietly when we were dropped from ENDA two years ago — be so full of righteous outrage when they were told the same thing by Obama apologists supporters.

First posted at Shakesville, then at Trans Group Blog and Bilerico.

Last Wednesday was a bit of an emotional roller coaster for me.

I took grim satisfaction that the Library of Congress was ordered to pay Diane Schroer nearly $500,000 in what is the largest award in transgender job discrimination case. (Short version: Schroer, a former Army Special Forces commander, was widely agreed to be the most qualified applicant for a job as a terrorism analyst, but when the woman who offered the job found out that Schroer was transitioning from David to Diane, she had a blatantly transphobic freak-out and yanked the job offer the next day. We’re still waiting to see if the Obama administration will appeal the decision.)

I was pleased to see the U.S. House of Representative once again passed a bill expanding anti-hate crimes laws to include both sexual orientation and gender identity/expression. (The real test will be when the Senate votes on it.)

I was ecstatic when the New Hampshire Senate unexpectedly passed a marriage equality bill, making that state poised to become the fifth one to allow same-sex marriages.

But there was also some news you probably didn’t hear about. That same morning, the New Hampshire senators unanimously — let me repeat that, unanimously — voted to kill a bill that would have extended housing and employment anti-discrimination protections to trans people.

This came after the fundamentalist haters used a campaign of bearing false witness lies to portray it as a “bathroom bill” — a nickname picked up and used by the local media — that would allow male sexual predators in dresses into women’s bathrooms. (Never mind that there’s been no bathroom incidents in the 13 states that have similar laws. Or that trans people are already in bathrooms, because you know… sometimes we have to pee too.) Now evidently there was some sort of political maneuvering behind the vote, since even the sponsors voted against their own bill. One of the sponsors said that passing it now would only worsen the situation for trans people because of the way the bill was portrayed. (I guess they had to destroy the village to save it….) But whatever the good intentions, the 24-0 vote wound up sending the message: You don’t deserve the same rights as everybody else. You don’t even deserve a valient-but-losing effort. You just don’t matter.

It was yet another Prop. 8-like moment for trans issues, particularly given the contrast to the same-day marriage equality vote. I feel the same sort of bitter aftertaste to sweet success that I felt on Election Night. I’m beginning to feel like we trans people are human shields, taking the brunt of the anti-LGBT hatred out there while marriage equality is becoming mainstreamed. We’re “those people,” the ones who can be demonized, the ones who by comparison make the shiny, happy sex-same couples waiting to walk down the aisle looking ever so “normal.” Because after all, they’re the ones who matter.

You probably didn’t hear about the vote, not even in the LGBT media/blogosphere. I guess having a ghost at the banquet is a bit of a downer. (FYI, I know a number of these sites knew about the story because I personally alerted them to it.) The thing is, it’s just latest incident in their all-too-frequent deafening silence when it comes to trans-related issues and news. Schroer’s victory was also MIA today. A week ago, a jury in rural Colorado took less than two hours to convict the killer of Angie Zapata of first degree murder and committing a hate crime — the first U.S. hate crime conviction ever in the murder of a trans person. It was the trans communities’ equivalent of the Matthew Shepard murder and attracted hordes of attention from the mainstream media. The gay and lesbian media… not so much (with a few notable exceptions) — even on the eve of the federal hate crimes bill going to a vote. Because apparently the T in LGBT doesn’t seem to matter.

But I wouldn’t give the MSM a cookie either. All too often their coverage began: “A man who claimed he snapped after discovering a transgender woman was actually male…” — repeating as fact the exact same self-serving “trans panic” defense, the same “deceptive tranny” victim blaming, that the jury specifically rejected. Nor did they bother to mention that the evidence showed Zapata’s killer knew she was trans 36 hours before she died, that there was no evidence that Zapata had sex with him that night she died, that he returned to finish her off when he realized she wasn’t dead yet. Because we don’t matter enough to get the story right.

I’ll admit it, my nerves are a bit raw about this. In the past few weeks, we’ve seen a feminist blogger crack a tranny “joke” and then tell people who objected to lighten up (and STFU). Because after all, it was about “Mann Coulter” so it was OK. We’ve seen similar “you’re just being too sensitive” comments posted over at Bitch Magazine directed toward those who thought a cartoon about lesbians who fetishize trans men was embodying the very attitudes it supposedly was critiquing. We’ve seen a series of problems with trans people being silenced in the comments discussions at Feministing and Feministe. (Though to their credit both sites are trying to address the problems.) These problems ranged from plain old privileged cluelessness — “stop the discussion until someone explains what ‘cisgender’ means because I can’t be bothered to figure it out for myself,” to “I want to talk about how I deserve a cookie for being so enlightened about those exotic trans people,” to “I know the post was about trans rights, but I want to talk about how I don’t like sharing bathrooms with men” — to insisting that people’s lives conform to someone’s pet ideology, to outright transphobic attacks. When men engage in this sort of silencing behaviors, especially in feminist spaces, many feminist women are quick to anger and quick to call them on their shit. But when some of these very same women do the exact same thing to trans people… well, not so much. Because we don’t matter.

Except, we do.

When I started this blog, I mentioned that there might be odd pauses and occasional silences. I just didn’t realize that they might last as long as they had. But after some folks mentioned they were bookmarking me (hi Shakers!), that’s given me a needed kick in the ass. More coming soon…

At least 150 locals in Silverton, OR showed their support for the first openly transgender/gender queer person elected major – Stu Rasmussen, who sees himself as male but who had breast implants and presents himself as a woman — drastically outnumbering the quartet of Westboro haters who had come to protest and get their media fix.

Best sign of the day: “My love is bigger than your hate.” And there was this heart-warming encounter:

A woman pushing a baby jogger past City Hall did a doubletake on her run, backing up to question 16-year-old Victoria Phelps, whose family runs the small Kansas church.

“I’m a Christian,” Lesley Brighton said, clearly perplexed by the girl’s “God Hates Fags” sign. “This is some kind of joke, right?”

No, it’s deadly serious, Phelps replied. Electing a transgender mayor, she said, was an abomination.

“I don’t expect for it to sink in but it’s our duty to come out here and preach to these people because they’re so proud of having a transvestite mayor,” Phelps said. “It’s disgusting. And where was it? Was it Isaiah? Deuteronomy? About it being an abomination?”

Brighton shook her head. “I’ve read the Bible cover to cover,” Brighton said. “Bottom line: love beats hate.”

Even the comments about the newspaper story — which are all-too-often seem to bring out the haters whenever it’s a trans-related article — were a pleasure to read.

Finally, one of the locals gives his account of the counter-protest (and thanks for showing your support Barry!). As he put it: “[T]he good guys won. And we did a good thing.” That you did, that you did.

* For those who didn’t get the headline reference, here’s an explanation (be sure to read the plot outline).

Today is the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, where the trans communities remember those of us who died violently almost 40 this year. Given the relative sizes of the LGB and T communities, it’s probably comparable to 400 gays and lesbians being killed annually. (Huuuullo… Mike Huckabee.) Not all identified themselves as trans — i.e. a transsexual, crossdresser, transvestite, drag queen/king, gender queer, etc. The best known of the victims — Lawrence King — may have been on his way to growing to be a trans woman, or as an femmy gay man. But thanks to his killer, we’ll never know. But those who hate us don’t bother to draw the distinctions that those of within the LGBT communities can be so insistent on making.

Some of them died in “classic” hate crimes. Others died as a result transphobia and homophobia that put them at risk — such as those who ended up as sex workers because they couldn’t find work elsewhere  — it’s legal to fire someone for being LGBT in 31 states. In some cases, hate crime charges could not be filed, since LGBT are excluded from them in a number of states.

But words fail me, so I’ll let the dead speak for themselves.

Elly “Sayep” Susanna
Location: Jl. Latuharhari, Central Jakarta, Indonesia
Cause of Death: During a police raid, I was pushed into a river by police, who threw stones at me until I drowned.
Date of Death: November 2007

Brandon Griffin
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Cause of Death: I was 17 when I shot several times and found lying face down in the bushes. Police say the alleged killer was angry because he believed I was telling people that he slept with transsexuals.
Date of Death: November 8, 2007

Thanawoot Wiryananon
Location: Patong, Thailand
Cause of Death: I was strangled, stabbed in the neck, and hit in the head with a blunt object, and then dumped in the woods.
Date of Death: November 16 2007

Sally (Salvador) Camatoy
Location: Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Cause of Death: I was a Filipina transsexual who performed in drag shows, and featured in the documentary “Paper Dolls.” I was found dead in the street with my head bashed in.
Date of Death: November 19, 2007

Kellie Telesford
Location: Thornton Heath, UK
Cause of Death: I was strangled with my own scarf, which was so tight around my neck that it needed to be cut off. My accused killer Shanniel Hyatt, was acquitted — despite being the only person seen entering and leaving my apartment, and having stolen some my possessions.
Date of Death: November 21, 2007

Brian McGlothin
Location: Cincinnati, Ohio
Cause of Death: I was 25 and dressed as a woman when I shot in the head with an automatic rifle by Antonio Williams who is serving a six year sentence after pleading guilty to involuntary manslaughter.
Date of Death: December 23, 2007

Gabriela Alejandra Albornoz
Location: Santiago, Chile
Cause of Death: I was attacked and stabbed. Police suspect a group of neo-Nazis were responsible.
Date of Death: December 28, 2007

Patrick Murphy
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Cause of Death: I was a drag performer and icon in the local LGBT communities. I was 39 when I was shot several times in the head and found dressed in women’s clothes.
Date of Death: January 8, 2008

Stacy Brown
Location: Baltimore, MD
Cause of Death: I was 30 when I was shot in the head
Date of Death: January 8, 2008

Adolphus Simmons
Location: Charleston, SC
Cause of Death: I was 18 when I was shot to death
Date of Death: January 21, 2008

Fedra
Location: Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
Cause of Death: I was a “known transvestite” in my 20s when I found lying in an alley in a pool of blood, my cause of death was not reported.
Date of Death: January 22, 2008

Ashley Sweeney
Location: Detroit, Michigan
Cause of Death: I was shot in the back of the head and dumped on a vacant lot. In a press release I was described only as a young transgender woman.
Date of Death: February 4, 2008

Sanesha (Talib) Stewart
Location: Bronx, NY
Cause of Death: I was 25 when stabbed to death. In reporting my murder, the New Yorker Daily News referred to me using masculine pronouns under the headline: “Fooled john stabbed Bronx tranny” — despite any actual evidence that I was a sex worker and denials from my neighbors that I engaged it.
Date of Death: February 10, 2008

Lawrence King
Location: Oxnard, California
Cause of Death: I was 15 when shot twice in the back of the head by a classmate because I liked to wear girl’s shoes and clothes, called myself Leticia at times, and had a crush on him.
Date of Death: February 12, 2008

Cameron McWillams
Location: Doncaster, England
Cause of Death: I was 10 when I hung myself after telling my mother that I wanted to be a girl. I had been bullied in school after having been caught wearing girl’s clothing.
Date of Death: February 18, 2008

Note: 11-year-old Cameron MacDonald died that same month in what police described as a copy-cat suicide. There was no indication of whether MacDonald was LGBT.

Simmie “Chris/Beyonce” Williams Jr.
Location: Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Cause of Death: I was 17 when I shot to death and found wearing women’s clothing.
Date of Death: February 22, 2008

Luna (no last name reported)
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Cause of Death: I was brutally beaten to death and tossed into a dumpster.
Date of Death: March 15, 2008

Karrie Bone
Location: Prince George, British Columbia, Canada
Cause of Disappearance: I was a 36-year-old sex worker who got into a semi-trailer and was never seen again.
Date of Disappearance: March, 2008

Lloyd Nixon
Location: West Palm Beach, Florida
Cause of Death: I was 45 when I was beaten to death with a brick while dressed as a woman.
Date of Death: April 16, 2008

Felicia Melton-Smyth
Location: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Cause of Death: I was an HIV activist on vacation from Wisconsin when I was brutally stabbed to death by Francisco Javier Hollos, who claimed he killed me because I would not pay for sex.
Date of Death: May 26, 2008

Silvana (Valjdet) Berisha
Location: Hamburg, Germany
Cause of Death: I was 19 when I was stabbed to death in my home.
Date of Death: June 24, 2008

Ebony (Rodney) Whitaker
Location: Memphis, Tennessee
Cause of Death: I was 20 when I was shot to death while wearing women’s clothing.
Date of Death:July 1, 2008

Rosa Pazos
Location: Sevilla, Spain
Cause of Death: I was found in her apartment, stabbed in the throat. In the months before my death, I had demonstrated daily outside the local courthouse protesting the “police mafia” in the city.
Date of Death: July 11, 2008

Juan Carlos Aucalle Coronel
Location: Lombardi, Italy
Cause of Death I was 35 when I was severely beaten causing fractures to my head and face before being run over by a car.
Date of Death July 14, 2008

Angie Zapata
Location: Greeley, Colorado
Cause of Death: I was 18 when I was found in her home with my head beaten in with a fire extinguisher. Alan Ray Andrade, who told his girlfriend that “I killed it” and that “gay things need die” has been charged in my murder. His defense attorney argued that Andrade was provoked by discovering Zapata was biologically male and because Zapata smiled at him.
Date of Death: July 17, 2008

Jaylynn L. Namauu
Location: Makiki Honolulu, Hawaii
Cause of Death: I was 35 when I was stabbed to death
Date of Death: July 17, 2008

Samantha Rangel Brandau
Location: Milan, Italy
Cause of Death: I was 30 when I was beaten, gang raped and stabbed numerous times before being left for dead.
Date of Death: July 29, 2008

Nakhia (Nikki) Williams
Location: Louisville, Kentucky
Cause of Death: I was 29 when I was shot and left by a dumpster next to my home. Newspaper accounts used masculine pronouns to refer to me, even though I had been living as a woman.
Date of Death: August 20, 2008

Ruby Molina
Location: Sacramento, California
Cause of Death: I was 22 when my naked body was found floating in the America River. Police say my drowning occured under “definitely suspicious” circumstances. Newspaper accounts used masculine pronouns to refer to me.
Date of Death: September 21, 2008

Krissy “Lil’ Romeo” Pye
Location: Browns Plain, Australia
Cause of Death: I was a 25-year-old popular drag king when I was stabbed multiple times during a robbery.
Date of Death: August 24, 2008

Aimee Wilcoxson
Location: Aurora, Colorado
Cause of Death: Undetermined (police have yet to reveal cause)
Date of Death: November 3, 2008
Aimee was found dead in her bed. She was 34 years old.

Duanna Johnson
Location: Memphis, Tennessee
Cause of Death: I was 42 when I was shot “execution style” and found dead in the middle of the street. At the time I was suing the Memphis police department for a videotaped incident in which I was beaten while in police custody. I had been living in a house without water or power after they had been shut off because I was unable to pay the bills.
Date of Death: November 9, 2008

Dilek Ince
Location: Ankara, Turkey
Cause of Death: I was shot in the back of the head with a shotgun. I had testified against the suspects who were accused of a series of attacks against transvestites and transsexuals living in Eryaman neighborhood of Ankara, forcing them to flee the area. These suspects were subsequently set free by the court a few weeks before my death.
Date of Death: November 11, 2008

Teish (Moses) Cannon
Location: Syracuse, New York
Cause of Death: I was 22 when I was shot point blank with a rifle while sitting in a car with my brother, who was wounded. Police accuse my murder of getting the gun after “making profane and vulgar comments in regard to the sexual preference of the two victims.” News accounts initially described me as a gay man, my family telling them that I lived as a woman.
Date of Death: November 14, 2008

Ali
Location:Iraq
Cause of Death: After an interrogation, which police recorded on their cell phones for their amusement, I was executed for living as a woman. I had been living in a safe house after receiving death threats.
Date of Death: 2008, Month is Unknown

2 other Iraqi trans woman, names unknown
Location:Iraq
Cause of Death: We were executed at the same time as Ali. Seven gay men were also executed.
Date of Death: 2008, Month is Unknown

Also worth noting… On August 18, 2008 a Philadelphia judge acquitted Terron Oates of murdering of Alexis King and instead convicted him of voluntary manslaughter, apparently accepting his “trans panic” defense, i.e. he was provoked by discovering that King was biologically male (even though the area he picked up King was a known district for transsexual prostitutes). Oates defense attorney argued that King was shot while fighting Oates for his gun — even though she was shot in the back and side. The lesser charge meant Oates could be release after only 30 days because of credit for time served. Also, in Yuma, AZ the killer of Amancio Morales plea bargained down an attempted manslaughter charge. Morales, was a 23-year-old female impersonator, who was dressed in as a women when he was killed by what police called “violent trauma” from numerous stab wounds and was found floating in the river. Court records said Morales killer became enraged when he realized the Morales was biologically male.

Also, a number trans people were attacked in apparent hate crimes, including: an unnamed “man dressed as a woman” in Miami was the victim of a drive-by shooting on Sept. 29. He survive the attack; in Sacramento on May 27, a man described by police as a skinhead attacked two transgender homeless people, stabbing one of them.

Finally, while this is the Transgender Day of Remembrance, let us also remember our LGB brothers and sisters who have been beaten and killed during the past year. This includes 37-year-old Randolph Hunter who was brutally beaten to death in Washington D.C. and several others. (My apologies for not having a complete list of LGB victims.)