The Republic of T.

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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Then I’m walking in Memphis

Walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale

Walking in Memphis

But do I really feel the way I feel

~ Marc Cohn, “Walking in Memphis”

On my next-to-last day in Memphis, before flying home, I finally made my pilgrimage. No, not to Graceland. I never really had any desire to go there. Besides, I knew that when I got home, most of the people who knew me and knew about my trip wouldn’t ask if I went to Graceland. At least not first. If I was going to visit anywhere in Memphis, there was one place I had to visit first. So when I co-worker told me that several people were planning to visit the National Civil Rights Museum — which includes and incorporates the Lorraine Motel, where Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated — I knew that was where I was going to go, if I went anywhere else in Memphis.

I remember walking through the exhibit, and finally making my way to the King Room, looking through the glass that protected and preserved it, and then walking through an adjacent room and stepping out onto the balcony next to where King was shot. I remember looking across the street and seeing the window of the boarding house where James Earl Ray made the fatal shot. I remember walking through a tunnel, across the street to that house, and looking into the room from which he made the shot. And I remember walking past James Earl Ray’s car when we finally left the museum.

I stepped out into the sunlight, at last, with the rest of the group —all of us blinking our eyes, trying to get used to the light, grateful for the awkward silence, yet feeling the need to fill it with something profound or moving, but coming up short. The thought I kept to myself was how strange it was that in Memphis people ended up visiting a monument to someone’s death, both named — at birth or at birth as a celebrity — “King.” I didn’t think about then, what comes to mind now: how many deaths will receive no monument in Memphis, or be remembered even a year later.

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Saw the Ghost of Elvis

Down on Union Avenue

Followed him up the gates of Graceland

And I watched him walk right through.

~ Marc Cohn, “Walking in Memphis

My one trip to Memphis didn’t include the expected pilgrimage to Graceland, and I never saw the ghost of Elvis (impersonators notwithstanding) even though I stayed on Union Avenue. Even if I had I’m not sure I’d have followed him to Graceland. I say expected, because almost everyone I met who wasn’t connected with the conference asked me if I was going to Graceland. I said no, but what I didn’t share was that I’d already made up my mind where I was going while in Memphis, and my itinerary didn’t include Graceland. Not even a walk down Elvis Presley Blvd.

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Then I’m walking in Memphis

Walking with my feet ten feet off of Beale

Walking in Memphis

But do I really feel the way I feel

~ Marc Cohn, “Walking in Memphis”

I only went to Memphis once, and I left knowing there was much of it I hadn’t seen. It was 1998, and it must have been August, because the city was crowded with people there for the anniversary of Elvis Presley’s death. I was there for a conference about HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment. It was an odd coincidence, and one that made it fairly easy to tell conference attendees from the tourists who were there to celebrate or experience one of Memphis’ three major attractions: Elvis, Barbeque, and the Blues. They were all everywhere.

You weren’t out of the airport before you encountered all three in some form, and they were still there when you left, so you could take them home with you. (You could even — I was amazed to find out — order your barbeque at the airport and have it Fed-Exed home. Depending on how long your flight was, it might arrive before you.) Downtown, Elvis’ images and impersonators were in abundance. (I think every hotel may have had one of the latter.) You could stand in the street and be wrapped in the sent of barbeque and the sound of the blues. And that was just the block where my hotel stood.

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I wrote this yesterday:

Sometimes I’ll come across an article focusing on family and friends remembering the victim, and may be able to glean a little more information. But just as often, those friends and family may not have known — may have guessed or inferred, or may have assumed since they were not told — that their loved-one or their friend was gay. Co-workers who have worked beside the victim for years, friends and family who have known the victim even longer, may simply not have known who their friend and love-one really was. That is, until they become the victim of a hate crime.

That was the case with the murder of Victor Manious. When I filed away an article on Manious’ murder a couple of months ago, I intended to get back to it, and I did. But I didn’t expect to find so much information on the case, or to spend much time with it. But the more time I spent looking in to it, the more I was reminded of a few other stories, which raised some questions for me.

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In the previous post, I wrote:

Basically, I had someone say to me that if a hate crimes case didn’t get widespread coverage, didn’t spark large protests, or catalyze new legislation, then it wasn’t noteworthy enough to warrant its own entry. Well, part of the reason I started the project was because so many cases don’t get the kind of coverage that a Matthew Shepard or Brandon Teena gets. In fact, many don’t get coverage beyond their local areas, and don’t spark huge protests in part because the victims are already members of marginalized groups; people we tend to care even less about in death than we do in life.

This is one of those stories.

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One of the things that surprised me after starting the LGBT Hate Crimes Project is the amount of email I get. Much of it is from people who knew, or were related to the victim. Sometimes I’ve heard from family members who didn’t know the outcome of their loved one’s cases. Sometimes it’s from people who want to let me know about cases that they think should be on the site.

In the latter case, I usually take them and research them, unless they’ve been covered in depth elsewhere. If, for example, they’re already covered in depth on Wikipedia I may decide not to duplicate efforts. I started this project on Wikipedia, by the way, but stopped posting entries on Wikipedia when it became clear that their notability guidelines would cause many of the cases I was writing about to get deleted, because one editor or another didn’t think they were noteworthy enough. In one case, one person asked me “What makes this different from any other crime story?”

I thought I’d scream, but it got worse.

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I mentioned earlier that the shooting at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church had jump-started my return to the LGBT Hate Crimes Project. Specifically it was Joe Lauria who put it into a context that immediately gelled for me.

Even if this man hopefully acted alone it is chilling to all progressive people and groups, like the Unitarians. Are we free to express our views, indeed to allow our children to perform in a church play?

Th answer, of course, is no. Well, sort of. Maybe. Not really.

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[Ed. Note: In light of the Knoxville shooting, I've decided to spend most of my blogging this week focusing on hate crimes.]

I rarely set foot in a church these days, for the most part, except for weddings and funerals. I did a few months ago, when a D.C. area “welcoming church”, offered Rainbow Families DC a space to gather and decorate our tricycles, bicycles, wagons, scooters and skateboards for the Capitol Pride Parade. But if I were, I’d probably feel most comfortable in a Unitarian Universalist church.

So, when I heard about the shooting at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, and the motives behind it, my first thought was that my own family could have been sitting in that sanctuary if we lived in Knoxville. (In a place as conservative as Knoxville, the church was described as an “oasis” to the city’s LGBT community, and I suspect it was to anyone who held progressive/liberal views.) Sad to say, I’m used to the idea that my family may be targeted simply for being the kind of family we are. But what struck me was that the hatred was so deep in this case, that the gunman lashed out not just at gays, but at those who supported gay and lesbian equality.

In the pre-civil-rights south, whites who supported equality for African Americans were called “nigger lovers,” and as such were as much targets as blacks who stood up for their rights. Now, are heterosexual supporters of LGBT equality the new public enemy?

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It’s been a while since I last updated the LGBT Hate Crimes Project. That was partially due to life events (adopting a baby, losing a baby, adopting a baby, etc.), but also due to the nature of the work. Spending so much time researching each story inevitably, for me, means spending a lot of time feeling a story, as much as researching and writing it. Having a new baby, for a while, made me less inclined to focus on the uglier realities of the world my family and every other family lives in.

But the shooting at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Church nudged me out of nesting mode a bit. Dylan, now eight months old, is not only sitting up, but surpisingly mobile in his own way. A combination of rolling and scooting himself backwards allows him to cover quite a bit of ground. (Though it doesn’t necessarily take him where he wants to go, but moves him further from it instead, leading to frustration on his part.) Crawling may be a month or two away, but he’s actively exploring the world around him now, where he used to just gaze at it from the safety of our arms.

He’ll be walking soon; probably sooner than I expect. And, like all children, he’ll walk out in to the world someday; probably far beyond the reach of our arms. So, now I’m back to looking at the world our children will walk into and walk through, as we all have. We are all somebody’s child, after all.

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It’s been a while since I’ve made any updates to the LGBT Hate Crimes Project. Honestly? The project requires more research and writing than I have time to do right now. So, though there are more stories I want to add, it just hasn’t happened. And even some of the cases I’ve written up so far need updating that I haven’t gotten a chance to do. (In fact, I almost didn’t get the chance this time. Right after I wrote the previous sentences —the first tiny bit of writing I’d been able to do all day — at about 11:40 p.m., our entire neighborhood lost power.)

I wanted to update at least one case, briefly; the murder of Thalia Mosqueda, which I compiled back in November 2007, but never posted here. So, I’m posting it now, along with an update on the conviction and life sentence in this case.

Thalia Mosqueda

Thalia Mosqueda, a transgender woman, was shot in the head in the parking lot of a Daytona, FL, nightclub on July 29, 2007, and died soon after. Her killer, Cesar Villazano, said he became enraged when Mosqeuda made sexual advances toward him.
The Background

Thalia Mosqueda

Born Oscar Mosqueda, in Mexico, Mosqueda, 34, was a member of the Farm Workers Association of Florida. She lived in the United States legally, worked at a fern farm, and regularly sent money to her mother in Mexico.1) On July 29, Mosqueda went to Garibaldi, a restaurant which operated as a club in the evenings, and catered to a clientele of Latino crossdressers, transgender Latinos, and gay men.

Mosqueda encountered Cesar Villazano at Garibadli when, according to Wesley Rosser, a friend Mosqueda’s, Viillazano was trying to persuade a drag queen at the club to go with him in his car. When she refused, he pulled her hair and tried to force her into the car.2)
The Attack

The shooting occurred when Mosqueda intervened, saying to Villazano, “Leave her alone. Can’t you see she doesn’t want to be with you? Villazano argued with Mosqueda before pulling a gun, firing two shots in the air, and then fired a shot at Mosqueda, striking her in the head.3)

Villazano shot Mosqueda in the head at about 2:30 a.m. Police were called to the scene around 3:30 a.m. and arrrived to find Mosqueda lying on the ground.4) Mosqueda was transported to Halifax Medical Center, where she died at about noon on July 29. 5)
The Aftermath

Villazano & Acosta

Following his arrest, Villazano told police that he was in the United States illegally, and police reports showed two warrants against Villazano for failure to appear in court on a charge of driving without a license. Villazano said that Mosqueda approached him in the restaurant, and that he became angry because he is not gay.6) Villazano said Mosqueda grabbed him by the penis, and that angered him because he was not gay.7)

Rosser said that Villazano was a regular at Garbaldi’s, and though he did not identify as gay, engaged in sexual activity with other gay men. “In Spanish culture,” Rosser said, “you’re not considered gay if you have sex with another guy as a top.”8)

Villzano later fled the scene after the shooting.9) Around noon, Villazano was stopped by a Volusia County police officer, arrested, and charged with second degree murder. The driver of the car, Louis Acosta, 21, was arrested on a cocaine possession charge.10)

On July 7, 2008, Cesar Villazano was convicted of Mosqueda’s murder and sentenced to life in prison. Villazano rejected a plea deal offered by prosecutors, which would have sentenced him to 25 years in prison. 11)

What he said. In solidarity with the Day of Silence, I’m not posting anything else today.

If you’ve come here looking for something to read, I invite you to spend some time reading the stories collected in the LGBT Hate Crimes Project. (Which I’ve decided needs to be taken up again.)

Update: It’s encouraging to hear that so many schools in Montgomery County, MD, are participating, including the school our boys will eventually attend.

[Hat-tip to Kip for the reminder.]

When it comes to blogging these days, when I come across something I want blog about days — even weeks or months — go by before I get around to actually blogging about it. Half the time, I let it go because it’s not news anymore, and I can just imagine people asking, “Why’s he blogging about that? It’s so, like, last week.” (As a result, I have tons of half-written draft posts sitting in queue, most of which will never see the light of day.)

The up side is that almost everything comes around again, and when it does I’ve got something partially written, and maybe even a few links already in hand. So, when I read Billy Wolfe’s story in The New York Times, and how he and his parents finally dealt with bullying, I knew exactly what wanted to say; even though I’m still a couple of days late in saying it.

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It’s an old cliché, but nonetheless true: even a broken watch is right twice a day. The same can be said for even the most bigoted organizations of the religious right. (Maybe it’s just that if you keep moving to the right, you eventually meet up with the left?) The American Family Association is that broken watch right about now.

I don’t remember the last time I thought the AFA was right about anything, and I don’t ever remember saying the AFA was right about anything. Ninety-nine and nine tenths of the time, they’re not. But their response to the Day of Silence this year, actually had me nodding my head and thinking they might have gotten a couple of things right this time.

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I didn’t mean to go off, really. But I had just had enough. It was one of those moments when you mutter to yourself, “That’s all I can stand. I can’t stand no more.”

We were out grocery shopping yesterday. It’s not unusual for one group or another to have a table set up outside the grocery store. Sometimes it’s the Girl Scouts, selling cookies. Sometimes it’s people raising money for charity. Sometimes It’s people protesting property taxes in Montgomery County (Usually people who don’t have children in public schools, because they’re retired or just don’t have kids. So it doesn’t matter to them that we have some of the best schools in the area, and even in the country.)

Someone was setting up a table when we went in, but I didn’t look to see what it was. We were too busy getting the kids situated and getting into the store. But on the way out I saw this guy sitting at the table, with a sign asking for signatures to repeal a law that would “allow men in women’s restrooms.”

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It’s been a while since I did a round-up based on the “What I’m Reading” column. With work stacking up to fill out the rest of my day, now seems like as good a time as any. And there’s plenty of great stuff out there. Like this post by Aundi over at QueerCents on small towns and “big religion.” I’m planning to include it in a post I’m writing about religion and politics.

There’s a sentence in Aundi’s post that I think I’ll be returning to and quoting again and again, as I return to the topic of religion and politics, religion in politics, religious politics, political religion, etc. You can guess which one it is.

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When Chanelle Pickett was working at NYNEX in Brookline, MA, I was working at HRC in Washington, DC. While Chanelle Pickett was being harassed and fired for being transgender, I was working on ENDA, among other things. While Channelle Pickett was unable to find work and turning to prostitution as a means of survival, I was working at HRC, trying to pass a version of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act that did not include gender identity. But that’s a historical matter now.

That was over 10 years ago. I don’t know what I was doing on November 19, 1995, the night that Pickett met with her killer, William C. Palmer. They already knew each other, and Pickett’s sister said Pickett liked Palmer, and thought of him not just as a “trick” but as potential relationship material. I don’t know what I was doing the moment Palmer strangled Pickett death, apparently consensual sex that resulted in Pickett’s semen and Palmer’s saliva being found on his jeans afterward. Do the math and you’ll probably guess that Palmer clearly knew Pickett was transgender.

I don’t know what I was doing the exact moment that Palmer “sat on” Pickett for 10 minutes, strangled and struck her, and stuffed part of a comforter down her throat (no doubt to stifle her screams). I don’t know what I was doing that exact night, while Palmer slept for six hours with Pickett’s body in his bed before he called his lawyer, who then called the police; or what I was doing the morning after, when the police arrived to find Pickett lying in a pool of blood.

Whatever I was doing, it wasn’t enough to help protect Pickett from the workplace discrimination that helped put her on the path to Palmer’s fatal embrace. I don’t know what I was doing, either, on May 3, 1997, when a jury acquitted Palmer of murder and merely convicted him of assault and battery. Nor do I remember what I was doing on May 15, 1997, when the judge sentenced Palmer — after acknowledging the brutality of the “beating” meted out to Pickett — to 2 1/2 year in prison, and then suspended the last six months of the sentence.

Most of us probably don’t remember what we were doing that long ago. But we’re still debating ENDA and gender identity, ten years later. Are we we much closer now to preventing stories like what happened to Chanelle Pickett from happening today.

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In honor of Transgender Remembrance Day, this week I am updating The LGBT Hate Crimes Project with transgender or trans-related hate crimes.

Amancio Corrales had only just come home. He was living in Phoenix, AZ, when his mother asked him and his sister to move back home to Yuma, because she was concerned for their safety. Corrales was born in Mexico, but had grow up in Yuma and graduated from Yuma High School before going on to work as a cosmetologist. He also worked as a female impersonator, and under the stage name “Dalia” had performed in Phoenix, Mexicali, and Tijuana, with an act that paid homage to his favorite female artists, including Jennifer Lopez and Thalia.

But on May 2, 2005, he moved back to Phoenix, mostly to ease his mother’s mind, as she worried for his safety. She had reason to worry. Within days of moving back to Phoenix, Amancio Corrales was found dead; beaten, stabbed and floating in the Colorado River.

current events, gay bashing, gay rights, gender, hate crimes, homophobia, politics

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It looks that way. In a more-than-a-little-ironic twist so soon after the ENDA debate, it looks like the hate crimes bill may get hung-up in Congress, because it would include anti-gay hate crimes.

The fate of a gay- and transgender-inclusive hate crimes bill was called into question this week when gay-supportive members of the House of Representatives threatened to vote against a defense authorization bill to which the measure is attached.

As many as 20 House Democrats who are strong gay rights supporters indicated they might vote against the National Defense Authorization Act because it includes provisions that support President Bush’s efforts to continue the Iraq war, Capitol Hill sources said.

At the same time, as many as 180 House Republicans and conservative Democrats who voted against a freestanding version of the hate crimes bill in May threatened to vote against the Department of Defense authorization measure this week unless the hate crimes provision were taken out,

congressional insiders said.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was expected to join Senate Democratic leaders Thursday morning in announcing a postponement of a vote on the entire bill until at least Dec. 1, when Congress returns from its Thanksgiving holiday recess, according to a knowledgeable congressional source.

The House and Senate were scheduled to vote on a final version of the combined hate crimes-DOD authorization bill by Friday after a House-Senate conference committee made last-minute changes.

In my mind, this calls a few thins into question.

anti-gay violence, bush, current events, gay bashing, hate crimes, homophobia, politics

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