The Republic of T.

Over the past week, I had some downtown from work, and I used it to do some much needed editing on the LGBT Hate Crimes Project. (Yes, to those who emailed me about the various spelling and typographical errors, I did read your emails. And, no, the errors are not a sign of lack of care on my part. But the sheer volume of these stories makes me more driven to record as many as I can than to spend time editing the ones I have recorded.) It brought be back to some stories I’d researched and intended to write up. So, I’m getting back into that now.

One of the reasons I started the LGBT Hate Crimes Project was to because, while researching a post on the Hate Crimes Bill, I noticed several that I was aware of (had read and/or written about) weren’t listed on Wikipedia. I soon found out why they weren’t — and never will be — listed on Wikipedia. The story of Narcisso P. Leggs’ murder is a prime example.

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The unpredictable nature of hate crimes isn’t something that gets a lot of consideration, but it’s a factor in the increased level of stress LGBT persons often experience. At least according to researchers at UCLA.
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One of the major lasting effects of hate crimes is the fear that they spread through the community at which they’re directed. In many ways, that’s the intended outcome: to make people afraid to do that which they have every right to do and every right to expect to be safe in doing.

There’s a ripple that spreads through a community that’s just experienced a hate crime. For one, people see themselves in the victim, and see their everyday actions reflected in the story of the victim’s activities just prior to being attacked. We say to ourselves “I walk down that street just about every night, on my way home,” or “I love that bar! I go there two or three times a week.” And, seeing how vulnerable the victim was in the same circumstances, we change our routine. We take walk a different route home. We decide not to go to that particular bar tonight.

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When Dr. George Tiller was murdered, it immediately occurred to me to write the series I’ve been publishing all this week. That’s because my first thoughts were of the women who faced heartbreaking choices after getting devastating news late into what were often very much wanted pregnancies. What choices would they have now that there was one less doctor who offered the procedure they need? What options does the other side offer?

The point I tried to make in the series was that opponents of legal abortion have not offered these women any alternative, except one. The other point I wanted to make was one that I remembered from a previous post that actually inspired the series posted this week.

Talk is cheap, and easy. So is telling people where they should be than meeting them where they are. So is taking away the choices of some families, rather than looking at the realities of all families and changing in order to help all families, whatever their circumstances. It’s easier, and simpler, to see that help as “rewarding” them for “immoral” choices, rather than choosing to help all families in order to help – and heal – our whole society. It’s easier not to see helping “them” as helping us, because it doesn’t require us to change.

That’s the intentional choice we’re making. Still.

Anyway, after writing the series, I wanted repost the piece that inspired it. So here it is.

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In the previous post, I wrote that neither posthumous abortion rights icon Gerri Santoro or the anonymous nine-year-old raped and impregnated by her father are representative of the women who sought Dr. Tiller’s services, or who seek late-term abortion in general. It’ safe to presume that neither of them wanted to be pregnant, each for her own reasons. Opponents of legalized abortion in all case would have both of them give birth.

There’s no way I know of to come up with exact numbers, but many of the women who sought Dr. Tiller’s services, and who seek late-term abortion in general, seem to be women who very much want to be pregnant, but found out well into their pregnancies that there were severe complications, as Dr. Tiller himself pointed out in a 1991 interview.

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(WARNING: IMAGES BELOW FOLD NSFW, DISTURBING, POTENTIAL TRIGGER.)

In the previous post, I wrote:

What is the saying? “When God closes a door, he opens a window”? How many windows are there?

…The Doctors Tiller — father and son — like Hearn and others, are in the business of keeping a window open, up against people who are dedicated to eliminating windows.

What the politics of the right means is a life without windows for many of us. Just as they drive people like Dr. Hearn away from windows, their politics drives them to board up the windows that might otherwise be available when life closes other doors, for those of us whose lives don’t fit into the narrow opening they leave — the narrow window they leave open, after boarding up all the others.

It’s worth noting that Tiller’s murder took place just a week shy of the 45th anniversary of the death of a woman for whom all windows and doors out of her desperate situation were firmly closed.

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Lately, I’ve become interested in timelines, and their usefulness in helping to create a kind of narrative. So, when I saw the AP list of abortion-related violence, after Dr. Tiller’s murder, I thought it would make a good timeline.

But then it seemed to be missing something.

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A couple of years ago, I’d never heard of Dr. George Tiller, but I posted a couple of times about late-term abortion, and some of the reasons why some women seek a medical professional who’s willing and able to do the procedure. Later, I posted about the stories of two women with difficult, even tragic late-term pregnancies, and the different choices they made.

I thought about those stories in the days after Dr. Tiller’s murder, and went back to read them again. And then I read more stories of women who found themselves in need of Dr. Tiller’s services, and the circumstances under which he provided it to them. I read stories of women who weren’t patients of Dr. Tiller, but met with desperate circumstances and even disastrous news late into pregnancies they had wanted very much.

I realized, then, that Dr. Tiller’s story was really one about a man of conscience.

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One of the most striking things about some hate crimes is how little it takes to provoke them. A look that lingers longer than usual. Words, or even a word, sometimes spoken casually and, yes, sometimes in flirtation. Any of these can be enough to warrant a beating, or even murder in the eyes of some people. At least when the object is someone of the same sex.

Among the many comments about Larry King’s murder, a few such as these served to remind that the “rules” are very different for LGBT people.

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One of the most striking things about tracking hate crimes in such detail is how long it takes for any given case to play out, and how long those involved have to wait for resolution. I started to say “how long those involved have to live with what happened,” but — whether its a victim who survives an attack, or the love-ones and family who survive the victim — in most cases, some one will live with what happened for the rest of their lives. Some, like Jimmy Lee Dean, have to come face to face with it, everytime the look in the mirror. 

You might look at Jimmy Lee Dean’s face as one that has been scarred by hatred. And most reasonable people would agree. Someone kicking you and stomping on your face while yelling “gay ass motherfucker” and “punk ass bitch,” would probably seem to you like a hate crime, and one based on your real or perceived sexual orientation. If your assailants also tell police that they targeted you because they were looking to rob  gay man (beause they thought it’d be easier), and you fit or seemed to fit the bill. The police might even thing it’s a hate crime.

But once your case finally makes it to court, you may find out that — as far as the court or to D.A. is concerned — you weren’t a victim of a hate crime at all. Or, at least, the guys who stomped you a new face while calling you a “gay ass motherfucker” and “punk ass bitch” didn’t commit a hate crime, as far as the court is concerned. They won’t be charged with one, anyway.

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When Larry King was murdered, just over a year ago, his death drew nearly as much media attention as Mathew Sheppard’s. But two more murders happened within a month of King’s murder, and while they both got a fair amount of attention in local media and in the blogosphere, they didn’t register much beyond that. That may be due to the some of the same reasons Larry’s case got some surprising responses.

One of them, which I wrote about earlier, was the murder of Simmie Williams, which happened the same month that King was shot and less than a week after King’s dead. Of course, the circumstances were different.

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I’ve wanted to write something about the murder of Larry King for a while now. But it’s been more than a year since his murder, and I haven’t written anything substantive yet. I started a couple of blog posts, and even began working on an entry for the LGBT Hate Crimes Project (despite my usual aversion to writing about things I know have been thoroughly covered elsewhere).

But every time I started, as some point I found myself backing away from the story the way I might back away from a fire or someone wielding a weapon. Something in me instinctively knew that immersing myself in Larry’s story, as I usually do when I’m researching a hate crime story, would be painful, and would probably bring back memories I’d long tried to forget as much as possible.

As the anniversary of his murder approached last year, I wanted to have something ready to post about his story. Again, some of it felt too painful, and I had to stop and focus on something else. So often, in fact, that the anniversary of Larry’s death came and went before I finished anything. B

ut in the course of writing I discovered what it was that was that made thinking and writing about Larry’s murder so painful. (more…)

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get to the promised land. And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

~ Martin Luther King Jr., “I’ve Been To the Mountain Top”

“Its been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.”

~ Barack Obama, Victory Speech, November 5, 2009

Yesterday ended, really ended, an election more haunted by history than perhaps any other in this nation’s history, and particularly haunted by a man whose dream of equality and justice gave voice to the hopes of many in his generation, and literally gave hope to so many in mine. So, it seems appropriate that — bookending his campaign — Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech for the Democratic party’s nomination on the 45th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, and took the oath of office and give his inaugural address one day after the holiday acknowledging what would have been King’s 80th birthday.

There is much, so much to celebrate in this moment. And much sobering reality we must remember.

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Yes. Once upon a time.

I took this survey via Lifehacker.

CNET reports that Wikipedia has received $890,000 in funding specifically aimed at creating an easier to use interface for readers with a low level of tech knowledge. Wikipedia’s goal is “to identify the most common barriers to entry for first-time writers, and then work to systematically reduce or eliminate them.” It’s an excellent idea, considering the obvious fact that there are presumably countless potential contributors with a lot of knowledge but a low level of tech skill. Still, since most of our readers are a tech-savvy bunch, it got us wondering:

Have you ever edited Wikipedia?

Well yes. But I soon stopped.

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I read about an attack on a lesbian student at Wayland Union High School, near Grand Rapids, MI, via Ed’s blog.

Police in Wayland, Mich., are investigating an attack by two 14-year-old girls on a third girl in Wayland Union High School. The victim was identified as a supporter of gay rights. The June 10 attack was purposely recorded on a cell phone video by another female, police say.

Wayland is located south of Grand Rapids and according to the city’s Web site has a population of 3,939 people.

Police told Grand Rapids-based WOOD-TV 8, the NBC affiliate, the two girls attacked the victim because she was a “gay rights advocate.”

Chief Dan Miller of the Wayland Police told the Kalamazoo Gazette the 14-year-old victim identified herself as a lesbian.

“I guess some say she’s pretty outspoken, and the other two girls didn’t like that,” he said in the Gazette. “We were told by the two suspects it was over the sex-orientation issue that they don’t believe in.

It was around the same time that I was researching the murders of Simmie Williams and Lawrence King, both of whom were harassed in school. I guess it interested me because of that, and because I was harassed in school. But I was fortunate never to experience something like this.

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I started researching the murder of Simmie Williams back in August, around the same time I began researching the murder of Lawrence King. I started researching King’s story because of the Newsweek article about his murder that came out in July, and there was a lot of controversy around it. I starting researching Simmie William’s murder because the similarities with King (gay youth, of color, non-gender conforming, etc.) and the reality that —though his murder happened little more than a week after King’s — William’s murder got far less attention.

Maybe it was because of race, maybe it was because of the difference in age between him and King, whose murder has arguably received the most attention since Matthew Shepard. But, then, that’s no different from any number of anti-LGBT hate crimes that rarely make headlines outside of the communities where they occur. Memorials are held, sometimes vigils on the murder site or where the body was found or outside of hospitals. Local groups organize. Sometimes a suspect is caught, and even tried and convicted.

But most of the rest of the world never hears.

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If nothing else, this election revealed how far we have come and how far we have yet to go.

Yes, there’s the irony of celebrating the historic election of Barak Obama while simultaneously mourning the passage of Proposition 8 and the other anti-gay ballot initiatives in Florida, Oklahoma, and Arizona. But this started way before November 4th. It started, this time, with a decision — conscious or not — by the McCain campaign to play to the basest of its base.

I said to myself at the time that, whether McCain won or lost, there would be a price for that tactic; one that John McCain would be among the last to ever have to pay. As president, there would have been no way he could have united the country. And even in the aftermath of his loss, we will continue to live with the belligerent bigotry and racism he and his running mate stirred up from their bottom-of-the-barrel base.

The evidence? The rise in hate crimes in the wake of the election.

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Yesterday was the Transgender Day of Remembrance. My intention was to post something yesterday featuring some of the stories from the LGBT Hate Crimes Project, but I was swamped with work, and then got called into meeting. So, it didn’t happen.

But since I missed posting this yesterday, I thought I’d post it today.

It’s not all of the transgender stories, though. You’ll find more here.

In the time since I started the LGBT Hate Crimes Project, I don’t ever had a follow-up or an update in which the victim of an earlier attack is eventually murdered. Until now. Via the LGBTPOC listserve, I learned last night that Duanna Johnson — whose case I wrote about in August — has been murdered.

The videotaped beating of a transgender woman in police custody in Memphis last February led to charges against two officers and national condemnation from gay rights groups. The officers were fired, and the Police Department overhauled some of its procedures and began sensitivity training for the entire force.

But a week ago, the woman, Duanna Johnson, 43, was found fatally shot near downtown. Ms. Johnson’s death has revived scrutiny of the case as the department is under pressure to find the killer.

“Duanna Johnson’s case was tragic before, and now it’s an almost unimaginable loss,” said Jared Feuer, the Southern regional director of Amnesty International. “Her treatment demonstrates a culture of violence against transgender people that must be addressed.”

Ms. Johnson sustained a gunshot wound to the head late on Nov. 9, the police said, and officers found her body after responding to a shooting call in North Memphis. Investigators said three men were seen near the crime scene before the officers arrived, but police officials say they have no suspects, have made no arrests and do not have a motive for the killing.

The Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay civil rights group, called for a federal investigation.

It’s a terribly sad ending to what was, by all reports, a hard life.

To say that 43 year-old Duanna Johnson leads a difficult life would be an understatement.  At her small, rundown, North Memphis house you’ll find condom wrappers on the ground outside her door. 

Her power meter is missing.  Not that it matters because her electricity was turned off months ago after she stopped paying her utility bill.

She has one extension cord running from her bedroom window to the neighbor’s house.  They charge her $20 a month to plug into their electricity.   It powers the single fan Duanna uses to cool her house.

And because Johnson has no running water in her home, neighbors often let her use their bathrooms to wash up and take care of her personal hygiene.

And, as I posted before, her position is one that many transgender women face.

The D.C. media, in contrast, wants you to believe that it was the “lifestyle” that Bella and Emonie were living that led to their deaths – as if their transgender status was a simple life choice, and that this choice somehow forced their killers’ hands.

Being transgender can be a recipe for a difficult life. Many transgender people are cut off from the employment and education opportunities that are basic expectations in our culture, and discrimination leads many into sex work as their only means of survival. Such may well have been the experience of Emonie and Bella.

Some studies have put transgender unemployment as high as 70 percent, well above even the worst levels in these economically troubled times. While many places have enacted legislation to protect the rights of individuals seeking and keeping employment – regardless of their gender expression or identity – no such protections exist nationally, or in Washington, D.C.

And they still have to find a way to make a living.

During a press conference following Evengelista’s murder, Budd told how transgendered women informed her that they turned to prostitution only after they had been denied jobs because of their appearance.

“It’s a matter of simple survival,” Budd said. “Some of the girls have no other choice but to turn to the streets for survival.”

… Mara Keisling, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, said about 50 people attending a transgender “speakout” meeting in the District on Sept. 9, discussed a wide range of issues and problems faced by transgendered people, including the issue of prostitution.

“It’s about economic opportunity or the lack of opportunity,” Keisling said. “I call it survival sex work, which is not the same as commercial sex work,” she said.

“If you were thrown out of your house at 10 and you didn’t finish school, what are your chances of going to college at Georgetown?” she said.

I don’t know much about Johnson’s story before the jailhouse beating that turned a spotlight on her life, but it probably took a course similar to other transgender women’s stories.

I won’t speculate about who might be responsible for Johnson’s murder at this point. But I hope the matter is thoroughly investigated, and every potential lead followed-up.

Most of all, I hope she can finally rest in peace.

Now that the election is over, and in light of Johnson’s murder, I’ll probably dedicate a bit more time to updating the hate crimes project.

Yesterday was the 10th anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s murder. I didn’t get chance to blog about it (or much else) yesterday.

Ten years ago yesterday, I was in a hotel in Albuquerque, NM — helping to facilitate an HIV/AIDS prevention and education training for a Latina organization — when heard about Matthew Shepard. I was brushing my teeth while listening to the morning news on television. (I still watched TV news back then.) At some point during the report about Shepard, I came out of the bathroom and sat down on the bed. I may have still had my toothbrush in my mouth. I know I was only half dressed, and had to hurry to finish dressing and get downstairs for the training.

It was an hour before I could speak to anyone, and even then I could only manage to tell them what I’d seen on the news. I kept running back up to my room to catch the news during breaks. At some point my update was that Matthew had died. Later, I flew back to D.C., and the first thing I did was to go to a huge rally at the Capitol, where I met up with some of my friends who were also trying to get their brains around what happened.

The response to Shepard’s death was huge. But, like Cathy wrote, a lot has happened since then. A lot of people have been targets and victims of hate crimes.

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