Burning Words

And the bad news.

Kellie Telesford’s murderer has been acquitted, despite the most ludicrous transphobic defence I’ve ever heard - that, completely out of fucking left field, she had really died in some sort of kinky sex act. This was, of course, on the basis that trans people are weird and just dig that kind of thing, despite a complete lack of any actual evidence to suggest that theory.

Nothing about this defence made the most remote vestige of actual sense, and yet Kellie Telesford’s murderer has been able to walk free because she was trans. This is evil.

Later edit: Or what Em said.

Tags: hate crimes, trans, trans panic defences

I’ve noticed in the years I’ve been out that incidents of transphobic violence seem to be relatively less common in Australia compared to North America. I can think of a few cases that I’ve heard about, none of them fatal. Given this, though, I’ve always been curious as to how our courts would react to the trans panic defence. Tonight, a Victorian Court of Appeal case from May, R v McRae, popped up on one of my lists, and it makes for interesting reading. On the plus side, the court rejected the trans panic defence out of hand - but on the negative, it is plainly obvious from the judgement that none of the learned judges could tell their arse from their elbow when it comes to trans issues, resulting in a two-year cut to the perpetrator’s sentence on other grounds.

I’m comforting by the central focus of the ruling, which did hold that the trans panic defence is indeed bullshit. The judgement contains a number of comments to the extent of “okay, so you might be a bit shocked, but no, you don’t get to beat the crap of her.” It was made very clear that his “shock” would be not be considered a mitigating circumstance whatsoever - and to that extent, I’m pretty relieved. It sends the firm message - from my home state’s highest court, no less - that violence against us will not be excused based on the ignorance of those who would attack us. And the perpetrator in this case, he walked away with a five-year prison term -not bad, considering how often our courts will simply let people walk free with assault and bodily harm convictions, no matter how severe the circumstances.

Unfortunately, this case also reveals two things that should be of serious concern: that the three justices presiding over this case didn’t have the faintest clue about trans issues, resulting in the perpetrator’s prison sentence being lowered from seven years, and that Australian jurisdictions desperately need hate crime laws, something which we currently lack in every state and territory.

There are a few issues here that suggest that the judiciary needs to gain an education in trans issues. The judgement repeatedly and uncritically uses the word “deception” to describe the victim daring to go home with this bastard. Of most concern, though, is the unbelievable ignorance displayed when hearing the details of some of his more tangential appeals (paragraph 22 and 23); the court actually held that the perpetrator’s referring to the victim as “it” was not an expression of contempt, and of stripping the victim of her humanity, but rather that he - and I quote - “simply did not to know how to refer to someone who was male or female.” Which is, uh, what the fuck?!? The panel then goes on to find, as a result, that the trial judge’s emphasis on this led him to place a too-severe sentence. When we’ve got judges ruling on cases concerning trans victims who, while noticeably not being based in their own prejudice, clearly remain very ignorant about fundamental things, this suggests to me that we’ve still got a lot of work to do.

The court also says - and I again quote here:

It must be remembered however that the appellant fell to be sentenced for his offending and not for his lack of understanding or the possession of a reprehensible attitude or bias against a person with the characteristics of the victim. After careful consideration of the transcript of the plea proceeding and the judge’s remarks I have formed the impression that this distinction may not have been properly made, that it probably contributed to the handing down of a sentence that, on any view of the matter, was very heavy indeed when comparison is made with the range of sentences and trends disclosed in the relevant ‘Sentencing Snapshot.

In other words, according to Justices Vincent, Ashley and Dodds-Streeton, that a crime was motivated by bias and hatred is an irrelevant consideration. This is a worrying sign, and it signals that we need to get our act together and start pushing for legislative action.  If the courts won’t do it on their own, we need to make it a consideration. I’ve always thought it a bit peculiar that Australia, which is light years ahead of most of the US on LGBT issues (outside of relationship recognition) never got hate crime laws; I suspect because we’ve (thankfully) never had a case like the murders of Mathew Shepard and Brandon Teena on our soil to make this hit home. This doesn’t mean that it’s not our problem, though - and in the wake of the failure of the civil unions legislation in my adopted home in the ACT, perhaps it’s about time we tried to set another legislative precedent.

And on a different note, while I’m on the subject of things legal, I discovered in the detail of the HREOC Report into sex and gender diversity issues (something which deserves a seperate post, but I’m sick and cranky) that there’s another trans lawyer doing the rounds apart from Rachael Wallbanks. As a hopefully future lawyer and as a trans person, it’s comforting to know that there’s actually even a couple people who’ve come before you; we lack so many of the prominent professional role models of those in the States.

Tags: law, trans, trans panic defence

I’ve been mentally putting together a post about a host of things - ‘trans panic’ defences, ‘deception’, victim blaming, and all the issues that’ve been swirling around my head in the wake of the Angie Zapata murder.

I’m not quite there yet, but there’s been a few excellent things written over the last couple of days, however, making some really excellent, and sometimes overlooked points when we’re talking about transphobic hate crimes. I put them here so I won’t forget as much as anything else, but they’re posts that really need to be read.

Brownfemipower:

So why is it just a given that “it”-that the dehumanization of Zapata-is not necessarily intertwined with and dependent upon her identity as a Latina? That is, would the panic defense be so easy to get away with if Angie wasn’t Latina? Would she be so easy to turn into “it” if we U.S. citizens weren’t already perfectly aware that Latin@s are people who could “trick” us if we aren’t careful? Even more to the point, would it have been so easy to kill Angie Zapata if she weren’t a Latina living in a country that actively criminalizes and dehumanizes people who look, sound, and have names similar to Angie’s?

Holly:

Seriously, don’t let anyone sell you the usual line that “oh, she tricked him and then he freaked out and killed her.” For one thing, even if that was the case, the appropriate reaction is not to kill someone. But more importantly, it’s often totally fabricated. But everyone just believes it because it’s so “plausible.” It’s the entire audience of listeners to these stories that need to wise up.

There’s also been quite a few people making the point that if you transfer the ‘deception’ bullshit so often used to blame trans murder victims for their own deaths into basically any other context, it just doesn’t make any sense at all.

Though I’m so unsurprised that even in these circumstances, some “feminist” folks can’t resist using our dead for a good old rhetorical debate: witness the turning of the Shakesville thread into a big ol’ debate about genderqueer pronouns. Ugh.

Tags: hate crimes, trans

The aftermath of the London Pride fiasco keeps going on, it seems, and it isn’t getting any better.

Sarah’s description of a meeting with the Metropolitan Police over the issue is, um, wow. I especially like the bit where the Pride London representative stated that the ban on trans women using the proper bathrooms was instigated by Pride London, had been done for “health and safety reasons”, and that they wouldn’t have done it if they’d known it was illegal. As Sarah said - “How about not doing it because it’s wrong?”

There’s also a variety of other trainwrecks on behalf of both the police and Pride London, the most horrifying being that a trans woman was sexually assaulted as a direct consequence of the actions of the police officer and Pride steward that night, after being forced to use the men’s bathroom. Sarah ultimately raises the prospect of a trans boycott of the 2009 event, which sounds like it’s well and truly warranted at this point. I’m struggling to think of an example of where an LGBT organisation has behaved this badly towards the trans community - I suspect even HRC would be incapable of something like this.

Thanks to Helen for the heads up.

Tags: assholes, discrimination, trans

Two weeks ago, Angie Zapata, a 20-year old trans woman from Colorado, was brutally murdered, murdered for merely existing. It’s a story we’ve heard all too many times in this community: a young life snuffed out because some utter scumbag freaked out and decided that she deserved to die for his insecurities.

Her killer, Allen Ray Andrade, was arrested by Weld County police on Tuesday. It’s chilling how low the bar is when trans women are murdered - that I’m actually surprised that an arrest has been made and first-degree murder charges (with hate crime enhancement) levelled at Andrade - instead of dismissing her life as disposable and refusing to investigate, as occurred with the likes of Erica Keel and so many others. Even then, the prejudice levelled at her was clear and apparent, with the local police chief (even while initiating a fair prosecution) making remarks to the media about Zapata’s “lifestyle” being responsible for her death. It’s a disgrace that it’s actually an improvement that about half the media actually made an effort to respect Zapata’s name, gender and pronouns, presumably because she couldn’t be painted as a sex worker and her family was very vocal in respecting her identity. Still, the wall of shame included such names as the Associated Press (in violation of their own printed guidelines) and ABC News, and some of the outlets that did ultimately use the right language had to be kicked into it by Monica Roberts.

We can now wait for the inevitable ‘trans panic’ defense at the trial of Andrade, the piece of shit who charmingly referred to Zapata as ‘it’ at every opportunity when interviewed by police. It makes me burn with anger that someone being offended at our existence can still be still routinely treated as a defense to murder, or at least as a path to lower charges. It’s comforting that the Weld County police seem to be holding the line so far, but I’m not optimistic about the odds of finding a non-transphobic jury.

How many years will it take, I wonder, to see legislation comprehensively banning that particular defense, just as we’re starting to see with the related “gay panic” defense in parts of the US? For until that day, and for as many years as that takes, our lives will always be less valued under the law, and there will never be justice for our dead. And when twenty or thirty people in our community are being murdered in hate crimes in the United States alone every year, it sends the chilling message that any of us might well be next.

Tags: hate crimes, media, police, trans

I’ve been sitting on this post, not knowing quite what to say, ever since returning from Melbourne. Reading (belatedly) a great post from cripchick tonight compelled me to finish it.

As a trans woman, so much of my life, and my own history, has and is defined by the influence the medical establishment has over that life. I am forced to rely on cis-appointed experts on whose say the medical treatments that have allowed me to get this far are dealt out. The policies, biases, ethics and powers of my doctors have had an enormous influence on my life ever since I was fifteen; for the last seven years. They determined that I couldn’t be seen by a doctor for the first three; that I was too young and too butch to be prescribed hormones for the next two, and that I had to prove my own sanity before being granted to the right to surgery, and thus a body that fits with my own self, for the last two.

I’ve not had a pleasant history with my particular doctors, the Monash Gender Dysphoria Clinic in Melbourne. Neither, for that matter, has anyone I’ve ever known under the age of thirty, with the exception of a trans couple who themselves have heard so many horror stories that they’re highly aware of how much in the minority they’ve been. I’ve had a treatment that has been profoundly influenced by both the sexism and homophobia of the doctors concerned, and their belief in 70s-era transphobic stereotypes, such as that trans youth are inherently suspect and should be delayed until they’re older. This is an environment in which patient respect and autonomy are things that other people do.

Last Wednesday, I went to see the Monash doctors for the first time in six months, and to my great surprise, was told that I was being referred for surgery after four years of ‘therapy’. The 18-month “trial” period assigned by Monash policy had finished, but I was not optimistic; many of those I’ve known over the years have been jerked around over the lot longer, and on my last appointment, I’d been harangued about my level of outness and queerness, and had to debunk some bizarre assumptions the shrink had made about my relationship with my parents based upon the sole fact that my mother had made the appointment. This time, however, I found that I was in luck - although I was left under little doubt as to why. Nonetheless, upon leaving, I was again nagged to participate in their research project, two years to the month after I first declined consent, and nine months after the lead psych attempted to blackmail me into participation.

Continue Reading »

Tags: ablism, homophobia, medical industrial complex, monash clinic, sexism, trans

I’m a bit late to this one too, but it warrants some angry words. Unsurprisingly, both the London Pride organisers and the Metropolitan Police have issued public apologies for the incident at last week’s event where trans women were denied access to the women’s bathroom and threatened with arrest. The London Pride apology can be seen here; the police apology can be seen here. And unfortunately, I have to say that I’m pretty unimpressed with either of them.

Frankly, the Pride apology reeks of arse-covering. They claim to be apologetic, but then instead of taking responsibility, try to create enough room between them and the incident to deny it. The entire mess is dismissed as a “mistake” on the part of the security company, with no further action to be taken for future years. The incident with the LGBT liaison officer demanding GRCs from the trans women present is labelled an allegation, and the press release uses the lovely language “…all legislation in relation to Trans”. I am not a “trans”, you ignorant fucks. The rest of the press release amounts to an “I’m sorry you were offended”, with a healthy dose of “please Roz Kaveney don’t hate us” thrown in, which really does pose the question of how they would have reacted if one of the more well known and influential trans activists in the UK hadn’t been one of the people affected.

The police apology starts with an actually apologetic cover letter from the commander responsible for the police presence at the event. The press release, however, proceeds to blame the women present for “using inappropriate language” and “barging a steward” who had tried to prevent them from using the bathroom, attempts to excuse the behaviour of the LGBT liaison officer on the basis that “their placards were getting in the way”, and tries to suggest that the behaviour of said officer was both laudable and helped the situation. This, not surprisingly, is evidently contested by those present. While Kaveney does state on her blog that the police have been otherwise helpful, the line taken by the police at least publicly seems to be pretty damned disappointing.

I’m sure both organisations are attempting to patch over this mess with the people present privately, but these attempts at a public apology are nothing short of an epic fail, and send a pretty dismal message about the extent to which they give a shit about relations with the trans community.

Tags: trans

I’ve been realising recently, in the wake of having gone mostly stealth as trans, just how much that experience tends to obscure the privileges one has in other quarters. When you’re trans, you’re always the one with the life that no one wants. Take that out of the equation, though, and the picture can be very different.

I work in a pink-collar job. It’s the sort of place where you’ve got women who’ve worked there for the majority of their lives, through to a few younger girls just starting out. It’s a lovely place to work, especially for those of us who’ve come from more troubled backgrounds; the stability of the place, and the way in which the older women tend to act as kind of mentors for us younger ones means a lot. It’s probably the nicest and most friendly place I’ll ever work. It’s also a job with relatively low pay and minimal career prospects, for those people who don’t have an out.

It’s a pretty social workplace, and most of my friends there tend to be in the latter group; mostly from working-class backgrounds who either didn’t graduate high school, or finished with just their high school certificate. I’ve never had the advantages that I have had illustrated so clearly as they have through having friends who will never have nearly as many opportunities handed to them. I love this job, but I also can expect that I won’t be in it forever; for several of these girls, if they don’t stay in this job, they’ll be looking to move up into the sort of public service work that many of those I go to uni with are doing already. I have a couple of other middle-class law student coworkers who, I later discovered, are completely fine and friendly to me, but will roundly snob off most of my friends. This is not a position I’m used to being in; being told basically “I wish I had your life” is not something I’m used to hearing. But take the trans element out of there, and it’s not bloody hard to see why I’ve been hearing it a bit lately.

I may have had a bloody hard time getting here, but I will walk away in a couple of years having, on paper, graduated in the top four percent of the state from a private school, and having a law degree from the top university in the country. I discovered recently that two of my senior supervisors can’t get public service jobs which I’d be considering seeking once I walk away with the arts half of my degree at the end of the year, despite their having twenty years experience and me being 22 and still at school. Getting here for me was unconventional in many ways, and not only for being trans (which is an issue for another post one day), but I’ve never had it hit home quite so obviously how much my own class privilege has saved my arse when it’s really mattered.

Tags: class, privilege, trans

I’ve recently returned from a week at the national student queer conference, Queer Collaborations, and while I wound up having a pretty awesome week, I’m a bit disappointed to say that not much of that had to do with the actual conference. It illustrated so much of what winds up trashing so many attempts at student political organising, and I dare say left a fair few people not too keen to come back. It’s a challenge for us next year, as we were the winning bid to bring the ‘09 conference to Canberra, but I think we’ll have a fair way to go.

The first day was the scene of many of the issues. Most of the day was taken up with navel-gazing issues around conference procedure that were really quite unhelpful. The womens’ caucus was the scene of a vicious two-hour long argument between the anarchists and the noiser normal people about just how much they hated the police, as people moved to take out a section of conference policy stating that law enforcement were not welcome/should not be cooperated with during the conference. This occurred despite the fact that none of this actually had anything to do specifically with women’s issues. The political pissing contest continued on for another hour on conference floor in the afternoon, with the offending section ultimately taken out, largely on the grounds that shaming people who’ve been assaulted is, y’know, kinda shit and all.

This meant that the better part of the entire first day - and the entirety of the women’s caucus, had been pretty much wasted. From what I heard, the culturally and linguistically diverse and disability caucuses at least functioned, although were also entirely dedicated to issues surrounding the running of the conference. The trans and genderqueer caucus, on the other hand, was a complete and utter fucking trainwreck.  Cispeople who didn’t get that it was supposed to be autonomous outnumbered the genderqueer and transpeople present combined, and the trans delegates in particular got swamped. Most of the session was spent doing trans 101 stuff, and I wound up storming out after one of the genderqueer delegates made some blatantly transphobic comments. No actual issues got discussed, either before or after I left, and I was pissed off enough to out myself to the entire conference so I could make an angry speech to conference floor later in the afternoon.

I’m not entirely surprised that such a big part of the day wound up being spent on internal issues, considering the conference’s history. Last year, some sort of misunderstanding, which turned out to be wrong, led to a vigilante group going to the hostel of one of the gay delegates accusing him of sexual assault, resulting in his attempting suicide and the entire conference feeling very, very unsafe. The previous year, Socialist Alternative plonked a stall blocking the fire exit at a public venue, refused to move, and nearly had the conference organisers call the police on them. A couple of years before that, the entire non-socialist section of the conference walked out and held sessions at a pub down the street. It’s had a history of crazy and often bullshit drama, and this year, for once, there was none of that. I suppose that’s an achievement, but it still doesn’t make the conference any more useful.

I was so fed up with the first day that I wound up missing most of the second. This did mean, unfortunately, that I missed Nix Williams, who I’m told showed up to the “how to be a trans ally?” workshop. The more non-political sessions, I’m told, went well; however, the more appealing a session was to the socialists present, the worse it got was the general vibe. The socialist delegates repeatedly disrupted the conference in the sessions I saw, basically trying to browbeat dissenters into submission, and even pre-scripting and arranging Dorothy Dixers in the plenary session to try to steer the discussion to their ends. It’s not as if I haven’t seen this sort of thing before: opposing some sort of socialist motion at the Queer Space NUS policy conference in 2006 basically saw threats of physical violence made against the independent delegates present. Still, it’s so fucking unhelpful, and does such damage to the prospect of anything actually useful coming out of the conference in terms of campaigns or networking, or fuck, even educating people there.

The consequences of this could be seen in the “action” on Thursday afternoon. The socialists wandered off down to the office of the Minister for Finance (because it was close) to do an impromptu protest for the not-especially-coherent manifesto of gay marriage, overturning VSU, and homophobia in schools, while the non-socialists fucked off into the city and went shopping. Did it actually achieve anything besides giving the trots an adrenalin high? Of course not. But hey, since when were we expected to try and, y’know, do something useful with the time.

The conference did wind up being a good opportunity to meet some queers from around the country and hey, to that extent I had the best week I’ve had in ages, but politically, it could have been so much more.

You’ve got a really rare chance to get a big group of lesbian students, of queer students of colour, of disabled queer students, and trans students together, in person. It’s such a great opportunity to actively network and attempt to share resources and foment potential campaigns. And instead, that time gets spent pissing about with conference procedure. You’ve got a great chance to get interesting speakers in to talk to a bunch of queers to learn from and be inspired, and instead these wind up being persistently hijacked by the bloody socialists and anarchists. You’ve got the best chance you’re going to get to give queer students from all over the country the chance to network with each other, and it perennially takes a backseat to drama and bullshit. Hell, you’ve got such an opportunity to make it a fun, inspiring, and insightful week, and half the time people just walk away feeling pissed. If it wasn’t for the people I met during the conference, that’s about all I’d have come away with. I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to try and make for a better conference in 2009, but god we’ve got a long way to go if it’s going to be a useful one.

Tags: queer collaborations, queer issues, student politics, trans

I’ve been meaning to get back into blogging again for a bit, after a couple of months where I’ve been dealing with a bit too much personal crap to be paying much attention to the world around. This incident of “what the FUCK were you thinking?” at London Pride, however, should prompt as much outrage and scorn we can raise.

UK trans activist Roz Kaveney’s account of what went down:

Official stewards who were running the toilets at Trafalgar Square announced that I, and any other transgender or transsexual woman, had to use the disabled toilets and was not allowed to use the regular women’s toilets. I pointed out to the stewards that I transitioned and had surgery before they were born; I was more polite than a polite thing. No dice.

Having this happen at any public event is worthy of a furore, but I can’t even comprehend the sort of cluelessness on the part of those at Pride that would allow for this to happen. It’s really not that hard: you’re organising an event which purports to include the trans community, nay, to represent trans pride, and yet everyone at the scene lacks the most basic awareness of trans issues, or just plain don’t care.

It gets worse.

I went and fetched a posse of transwomen and transmen and we made a collective fuss. Their response - and remember these were official stewards AT PRIDE - was to radio in ‘we’re being attacked by a mob of trannies! send backup’.

Just…fuck. Upon being challenged on an issue where they were firmly in the wrong, their response is not only to decide that they’re being attacked by a mob, but to do so with derogatory language to the minority involved, who, y’know, ARE IN THE GROUP YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BE REPRESENTING.

And worse.

They were joined by a policeman, who was a LGBT liaison officer, who claimed that we had to be able to show our Gender Recognition Certificates if we wanted to use the women’s loos and got quite upset when I explained to him that I had been involved in drafting the Act and that it did not take away rights that existed before it. At one point he threatened to arrest us for demonstrating on private property - those loos belong to Westminster Council, so you are not allowed to make a fuss there.

Both of these things greatly disturb me. Firstly, that you have an police LGBT liaison officer who appears to be both blatantly ignorant about trans issues, and not to give a shit about it. There’s something very wrong about the training of community liaison officers if the whole respecting transfolk thing gets missed altogether. This officer needs to be very promptly canned.

Worse than that, though, is the use of Gender Recognition Certificates in this way - and that’s something that might well be a warning to any jurisdictions using similar systems. They’re meant to be a legal document signifying a change of status under the state; they’re most certainly not meant to be a “gender card” if you will, signifying who you’re allowed to discriminate against. Nor are they expected to be something that one would be carrying on one’s person. If as it seems here it’s being used in that way, that needs to be stopped, and that law needs to be changed to make damn sure that pulling this sort of thing has consequences for those who do it. It’s something that I hope Press for Change get onto in the wake of this, and it’s a lesson to those pushing for the adoption of similar systems elsewhere to see that that gets included into any new legislation.

And here’s a big “fuck you” to the stewards concerned for further trying to justify it on the base that there had been a sex attack that night. The trans community gets enough of this absolute bullshit from the batshit right without having to get it from equally ignorant folks who are supposed to be on our side. Props, though, to the trans guys who stood by the women who’d been turned away, declaring that if Roz et al were being told they couldn’t use the womens, then they, beards and all, should have to use them.

To make matters worse, someone who appears to have been one of the stewards dropped by and commented anonymously on Roz’s post:

Amongst the stewards there were indeed a number of trans people and official Pride policy is to treat any individual as the gender they present as. But seriously, you want more trans recognition then it’s up to you to get pro-actively involved rather than complain after the event when something goes wrong.

And for the record a woman was attacked that was not just an excuse. It is possible that there was an over reaction in an attempt to prevent further problems. Unfortunate but surely in such a tense situation to an extent understandable. There proposed solution of asking you to use the disabled toilets (gender neutral) whilst far from ideal was an attempt offer a workable solution.

Yes this wasn’t good but your way of dealing with it only suceeded in putting more pressure on already tense and overstretched Stewards and police officers, which was far from ideal and in my opinion did no favours to tran gender issues and the way trans people are viewed.

It seems that, according to this lovely person, preventing us from using the fucking bathroom is our fault, associating our community with sex offenders is “understandable”, and crying foul in the face of treatment that would be atrocious at any event, let alone at a queer one, “does us no favours.” I say that it does London Pride no favours if these are the sort of volunteers it places in a position of responsibility that involves dealing with members of the trans community.

I think this sort of conduct on the part of an LGBT organisation warrants an international outcry; christ, if it happened to me here, I’d be seeing them again in court.

Here’s the contact details for Pride London. I suggest people drop them a line and let them know how unconscionable this is:

Email: info@pridelondon.org

Post:

344-354 Gray’s Inn Road
London
WC1 8BP

Phone: (in the UK) 0844 884 2439

People may also be interested in contacting the police department in Westminister concerning the actions of the gay and lesbian liaison officer. Their email address is westminster@met.police.uk, and there’s also a contact name and UK phone number for their consultation group, which is supposed to deal with minority issues: Julie Etheridge, 020 7641 3258.

There’s also an online petition about the incident going around; please sign that as well if you get the chance. (Thanks to Helen G in comments for pointing that one out)

Tags: assholes, calls to arms, queer issues, trans