The Trans Women's Anti-Violence Project

Police in the Miami Beach, Fla., area are reaching out to the public to try to solve a three-month old killing of a local transgender woman. According to South Florida Gay News, Rene “Rosita” Hidalgo was found bludgeoned to death in her home March 15, after friends reported her missing to police. 

Renowned drag performer Amy Rivers — a close friend of the victim who reportedly arrived on the scene with police — told Victoria Michaels of SFGN, “Somebody had the nerve to stab her, cut her neck and put something in her mouth so she wouldn’t scream. It’s not fair what they did to her. She didn’t deserve this. I loved her and everybody loved her.”

Detectives are asking area residents for any information that might lead to finding a perpetrator, confirming Hidalgo was found with multiple stab wounds but staying mum on other details of the crime pending the ongoing investigation. The Miami Beach Police Department has come under criticism recently for a press release calling Hidalgo a “transvestite who was known to have profited from sex.” (Hidalgo was actually a transgender woman, not a cross-dresser — the definition of the archaic term ‘transvestite’ — and her friends told SFGN that she was not a  sex worker.)

Detective Oldy Ochoa, however, told SFGN that the case was top priority: “It’s the LGBT community that has allowed Miami Beach to thrive over the years and it’s our honorable duty to protect and serve them no matter if they are gay, lesbian, or transgender because they are all human beings. I want nothing more than to catch this criminal because I think the LGBT community deserves it for all that they have done for our city.”

According to SFGN, police have said the shootings of two other trans women in April are unrelated to Hidalgo’s killing.

(Diane Anderson-Minshall, Advocate — June 28 2012)

Dear NOW-NYC,

Please don’t refer to victims of violence as “sacks of bones,” as your President Sonia Ossorio decided to do in this Letter to the Editor on March 19th, 2012.

Shannan Gilbert, Amber Lynn Costello, Megan Waterman, Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes and those who remain unidentified, all discovered on Gilgo Beach, were the loved ones of families and friends. Their lives extended well beyond what they did for work. Their involvement in the sex trade does not entitle you to refer to them as “sacks of bones.” The brutality of their murders is horrific enough, their deaths something our community mourned deeply over the past two International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers (December 17, 2010 and 2011). The gravity of this loss does not need to be furthered by dehumanizing them in death.

NOW-NYC’s President is not incorrect in stating that legalizing prostitution would not end the violence, danger and health risks associated with the sex trade. However, decriminalization - or the removal of all criminal laws relating to the operation of the sex industry – has been shown to increase the safety and well being of sex workers, while simultaneously decreasing violence and stigma. Decriminalizing work in the sex trade would allow for victims of violent crimes in the sex trade to seek police assistance, free of reprisal, and minimize the institutional barriers sex trade workers face when seeking healthcare or other social services.

Still, neither legalization nor decriminalization of sex work willstop organizations and individuals from further marginalizing workers in the sex trade, by using hateful language to describe them because of their work, even in death. That is something that we have to work on together: creating discussions acknowledging that every person in the sex trade has human rights that should be respected.

For this reason, it is tremendously insulting to the sex worker community that NOW-NYC would refer to victims of violence in this fashion. This type of stigmatizing language would never otherwise be acceptable to an organization that prides itself on demonstrating respect and promoting equality. We would like to remind NOW-NYC that in 1973, they passed a resolution calling for the decriminalization of sex work. We urge NOW-NYC to reconsider both their language and politics around sex worker issues.

That is why we ask you to stop referring to the victims in the Gilgo Beach murders as “sacks of bones” and consider thoughtful conversations with sex workers regarding sex worker rights. We also encourage you to work with sex worker organizations, such as the Sex Workers Outreach Project, Sex Workers Action New York and the Sex Workers Project, when considering how better to speak about individuals in the sex trade with care and consideration. We believe that open dialogue between advocates and sex workers is the best way to combat violence against people in the sex trade and we welcome that discussion.

Sincerely,

SEX WORKERS OUTREACH PROJECT OF NEW YORK CITY (SWOP-NYC)
SEX WORKERS ACTION NEW YORK (SWANK)

Last week the Washington Blade reported on the story of a transgender woman who was upset that the man who shot her in the neck was given a lesser charge to plea to:

District resident Darryl Willard, 20, pleaded guilty on Thursday in D.C. Superior Court to a charge of aggravated assault while armed in connection with the shooting. His plea came after prosecutors agreed to drop a more serious charge of assault with intent to kill while armed.

[…]

“I told them I was willing to go to a trial and testify” if prosecutors went with the more serious charge, said the victim, who spoke on condition that her name was withheld.

But the prosecutors told her that her “lifestyle” would be brought up if she went to trial. They were referring, presumably, to the fact that she’d allegedly had sex with the man for money in the past. Practically speaking, it’s not a surprise that the prosecutors decided to go that route. But there’s something troubling about the assumption that a person who has had sex for money can’t be a victim who’s worth fighting for.