The Trans Women's Anti-Violence Project

Around midnight on June 5, 2011, a 23-year-old African American transgender woman named Crishaun “CeCe” McDonald was walking with four friends past Schooner Tavern in Minneapolis. A group of at least four white people outside the bar began harassing McDonald and her friends, calling the group, all of whom were African American, “niggers” and “faggots.” One of the men in the group, who would later be identified as Dean Schmitz, said “look at that boy dressed like a girl tucking her dick in.” As McDonald and her friends tried to walk away, Schmitz’s ex-girlfriend Molly Flaherty hit McDonald in the face with a glass of alcohol and sliced open her cheek, causing an injury that would later require stitches. The groups began fighting, and when McDonald attempted to leave the scene, Schmitz followed. McDonald took a pair of scissors out of her purse and turned around to face Schmitz; he was stabbed in the chest and died from the wound. Though she was injured in the scuffle with Flaherty and claimed the wound inflicted on Schmitz was in self-defense, McDonald was arrested that night and then charged with second-degree intentional murder.

Since her arrest last June, support for McDonald’s case and her self-defense argument has been steadily growing. According to Katie Burgess, executive director of the Trans Youth Support Network, a Minneapolis organization that McDonald was also involved with, this is because many believe McDonald was “on trial for surviving a hate crime.”

On October 7, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported that McDonald refused to accept a plea deal of first-degree manslaughter. That’s when prosecutors charged her with second-degree intentional murder, a charge that can carry a 40-year sentence. But as the jury was being selected for the trial on May 2, McDonald accepted a plea offer of second-degree manslaughter, which is likely to result in a 41-month prison sentence. In accepting the plea, McDonald had to give up her claim that she’d killed Schmitz in self-defense or by accident and had to forego a jury trial. At the plea hearing, Judge Daniel C. Moreno told McDonald that because she had a weapon and Schmitz was unarmed, “the law requires that you have a duty to handle that weapon in such a way as to avoid…anyone being harmed.”

Schmitz’s family expressed grief at his death in a news report by the local Fox affiliate. Jeremy Williams, his son, said, “He always used to go out of his way to help people…He would give the shirt off his back to help people. He was, overall, a great person.” However, the victim’s brother, Charles Pelfrey, told the Star-Tribune he wasn’t surprised at the allegation that Schmitz had used racist language. “At times he can be like that, yes…It depends on his mood, unfortunately,” Pelfrey said.

During the process of jury selection, Judge Moreno denied several motions from the defense to submit details about the victim and his past as evidence, including a photo from the autopsy report showing Schmitz’s swastika tattoo and his criminal record. According to Andy Birkey in the American Independent, “The judge ruled that his criminal history was sufficiently different from his actions on June 5 and therefore could not be shown to the jury.”

The judge also ruled that the defense could not call an expert witness who would testify to transgender people’s experiences of violence in their everyday lives. For supporters like Burgess and Lex Horan, the reports that Schmitz and his friends initiated the fight that night, shouted racist and transphobic slurs, and injured McDonald bring to mind other cases of violence against transgender people—a violence that’s endemic and likely underreported, according to the Population Reference Bureau, a DC-based nonprofit that analyzes data on demographics.

On April 27, McDonald’s friend Rai’vyn Cross spoke on Democracy Now about the threats and harassment she and McDonald regularly encountered, saying, “We experience this on a day-to-day basis.” Recent research and reports on violence against transgender women have found that, in 2010, 44 percent of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and HIV-affected hate-crime murder victims were trans women. In 2009, trans women accounted for 50 percent of LGBTQH hate-crime murder victims. A transgender woman named Brandy Martell was shot in her car in Oakland, California, on April 29, in what is being called a possible hate crime, and on April 16, a Chicago transgender woman named Paige Clay was found murdered in an alley.

For those who believe McDonald has survived a transphobic attack, the fact that she’s now facing a felony sentence and prison time is particularly upsetting. Transgender people are arrested and incarcerated at a significantly greater rate than the general population. In a 2011 report by the National Center for Transgender Equality and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force on discrimination and harassment facing transgender people, 16 percent of respondents reported they’d been sent to jail at some point in their lives. The numbers are higher for transgender women—21 percent—and black respondents, 47 percent of whom reported being sent to jail. As a point of reference, a 2003 report of the Department of Justice shows that 2.7 percent of the general American population is imprisoned at some point in life.

In a statement released after the plea hearing, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office acknowledged that it had “received some criticism from the LGBTQ community regarding this case,” but it defended the decision to charge McDonald, saying, “Gender, race, sexual orientation and class are not part of the decision-making process. The charges filed took into account the evidence in this case; this outcome is an example of the criminal justice responding proportionately to a tragic situation.”

Still, Michael Friedman, the executive director of the Minneapolis-based Legal Rights Center, which represented McDonald, says that while it’s not uncommon for murder charges to get reduced to manslaughter, the offer of a plea that could carry a much lower prison sentence is “perhaps a reflection that [the prosecutors] know there’s a lot of culpability on the part of the victims and companions of the victim in the case.” He also clarified that one-third of the sentence will be eliminated for “presumed good time” and the sentence will include the time she’s already spent in jail since her arrest. After sentencing, this could mean McDonald serves around 18 months in prison. “We have a few people in our office with 20 years of experience, no one can think of any charge of murder where [the prosecution] agreed to an 18-month additional sentence.”

The focus for McDonald’s supporters and legal team is now on her June 4 sentencing.

Which raises the question: As a trans woman, where will McDonald serve the rest of her sentence? Prison is a particularly dangerous place for transgender women. If not in protective custody or solitary confinement, they often serve time in the general male population, leaving them vulnerable to sexual assault and abuse. While awaiting trial, McDonald was held in segregated custody in jail and spent some time under house arrest wearing a monitoring bracelet. McDonald identifies and lives as a woman; however, Friedman says, “there’s no way she’s going to be sent to a women’s prison.” Solitary confinement, usually used as a form of punishment within prison, is far from ideal for trans prisoners, but Friedman says, “We haven’t figured out what we’re going to ask for yet. It’s all brand new.”

Though very little about the context of McDonald’s life as a transgender woman would have been admissible during the jury trial, this case has become a rallying point for local leaders and national activists. On the Melissa Harris-Perry show on MSNBC in April, during a segment on social and economic challenges facing transgender people, author and performer Kate Bornstein talked about the case. Comparing McDonald’s actions to those of George Zimmerman, who wasn’t arrested for shooting Trayvon Martin until nearly six weeks after the incident, Harris-Perry said, “In a certain way it feels like she stood her ground.”

Over 18,000 people signed a Change.org petition, asking that Hennepin County Attorney Michael Freeman “honor his committment [sic], in his words ‘to serve all of our citizens with understanding, dignity, and respect’ by dropping the charges against CeCe McDonald.”

Several local elected officials also commented on the case. Minneapolis City Council Member Cam Gordon wrote on his blog: “Here is another example [of a] transgender women of color being targeted for hate- and bias-related violence. It is unfortunate that in this case, as in so many, the hate crime itself appears to have been ignored.” According to Minneapolis Public Radio, Democratic Minnesota state Rep. Susan Allen wrote to Freeman, “urging him to remember the ‘extenuating circumstances’ of McDonald’s race and transgender, which she said ‘have cast unique question marks’ over the case.”

Lex Horan, a member of the “CeCe Support Committee,” says that approximately 30 supporters had been present in the court room each day. The judge prohibited supporters from wearing T-shirts and buttons that say “Free CeCe” and “Free Honee Bea,” McDonald’s nickname, so instead they wore purple. According to Katie Burgess, on the night after McDonald took the plea, there was a noise demonstration in which “hundreds of people marched around the jail and made a ridiculous amount of noise. CeCe said she heard us singing.” Mara Keisling, the executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality, who attended the first day of the trial, told press that, “People are being killed out there, and CeCe is being punished for not being killed.”

(By Nicole Pasulka, Mother Jones)

Monica Maldonado presents a re-watching of Ace Ventura that flips the script on Sean Young’s “Lois Einhorn,” rehumanizing the character a survivor of trans-misogyny:

In the face of re-contextualization I’ll say that I think Lois Einhorn is probably one of the better representations of a trans woman as a tragic character that’s been done. If I could re-write the film from her perspective, and cut out much of the -isms I’d take my version of her as a strong independent woman over nearly any of our modern representations, period.

“When attacked, both Paige and CeCe were 23-year-old Midwestern girls. Both were black transgender women. Paige was mortally shot; CeCe, a college student, was on trial, being punished for defending herself. Though in different ways, both stories tell the same truth about how society has come to accept, and even expect, the violence transgender people — especially young trans women of color — are often forced to face.

“This Spring, there’s been so much hate violence against us: Coko Williams in Detroit, Brandy Martell in Oakland, Deoni Jones in Washington, D.C., and Paige Clay in Chicago—all transgender women of color killed because of who they were.

“These are just the victims of murder and just the ones we know about. So much unreported violence occurred as well. Most decent Americans would be shocked and saddened to know how much violence many transgender people live with. We face higher levels of bullying violence, heightened domestic abuse, elevated assault by law enforcement, stunning rates of suicide attempts and off-the-scale levels of hate violence.”

[Full Article]

There are other woman we know about killed this year who are not listed: Renee “Rosita” in Miami Beach, Florida, and Crain Conaway in Oceanside, California.

“Republicans are willing to throw away the entire law now that it helps protect lesbians, gay men, undocumented immigrants, and Native Americans. Do they believe acts of violence committed against these groups don’t matter as much?”

[Trigger Warning: Discussing the Violence Against Women Act, Rape, Sexual Violence, Violence]

In late November, 2011 the United States Senate introduced the Violence Against Women Act (VAMA) for reauthorization. But with…a few changes. In a monumental show of empathy and step towards extending services to all victims. Essentially the grant monies that the VAMA offers would be denied to those who denied service to groups that are often prevented from receiving any care during a crisis. So, a rape crisis center that receives federal monies, and denies care/services to a lesbian would be subject to losing those monies.

The really amazing, and unexpected part of this was that they also included “gender identity” in the protected classes. Now, my reservations with the term aside, it’s the current accepted legalese for what essentially boils down to “trans status.” So without any protest, without any teeth pulling, without any glitter bombing…the Senate, out of its own back pocket, pulls out a bill that could possibly go monumental lengths to improving trans people’s, and particularly trans women’s, lives.

Without diminishing the importance of the inclusion of all the other minorities and protected classes listed, all of which either apply to me, or my family, I’d like to focus in on the singular point of trans inclusion. As survivor, I connect particularly with this issue.

Denied

Trans women have, historically, been denied access to resources.

[Follow the link to read the full article.]

As a Russian trans woman prepares to return to violence or worse if she is expelled from Sweden later this week, the latter country’s reputation as a less than welcoming place for the trans community is once more in the spotlight.

According to the woman, identified here as “Lita”, because the Russian state refuses to acknowledge her trans status, she faces a constant fear of arrest and potential imprisonment in a male prison – or mental institution – should she return.

This is borne out by documents seen by PinkNews.co.uk, which suggest that the Swedish Migration Board, responsible for hearing asylum applications, initially debated her case in terms of whether her “orientation” – as opposed to her trans status – was likely to cause her problems. This contributed to a decision that she could happily return to Russia with her partner, where they would be able to live out their lives as a gay couple “in stealth”.

Adding insult to injury, according to Lita, in hearing her case, the Board also frequently mis-gendered her, referring to her as “he” (“han” in Swedish).

Lita’s woes began in 2007, when, after a lifetime of living with dysphoria, she “came out” as a woman at the age of 21. There then followed a lengthy history of indignity, as first, the Russian state refused to treat her. Then, in October 2007, she was stopped on the street by a police officer, who took her to a police station. “State authority representatives” then made her strip nude, beat her, urinated on her. After passing out, she woke in an unfamiliar yard, to find her clothes torn and dirtied with urine and faeces.

She later lost her job when her boss at the Federal Tax Inspection Office told her: “You have a choice – resign or face big problems. Faggots are not welcome here.”

Still, Lita persevered, starting hormone treatment in 2009 and eventually undergoing gender re-assignment surgery in Thailand in 2010. Returning to Russia, however, her problems were only just beginning.

Russian streets are increasingly unsafe for anyone obviously identified as LGB or T, with violence, to which the authorities increasingly turn a blind eye, from groups calling themselves “patriotic fighters for national purity”.

An added worry for Lita is that her ID documents (national passport and travel passport) no longer conform to her appearance. This bars her from holding a job, studying, or renting a place to live: worse, the conflict between her IDs and the way she looks means a routine papers check could lead to her being arrested at any time for forgery (living under an assumed name with somebody else’s documents). Hence her fear of imprisonment or institutionalization.

However, according to Lita, attempts to regularize her position have been universally rejected by various Russian authorities, including the civil registry service, the courts and the ministry of foreign affairs.

In desperation, she and her partner travelled to Sweden, where they sought asylum in December 2010.

There, her experience at the hands of the Migration Board (Migrationsverket) may have been less openly hostile – but was nonetheless every bit as discriminatory.

In addition to viewing her case primarily as one of orientation, they also refused to permit Lita to change the name on her LMA-card (the local ID), thereby depriving her of the opportunity to find a job in Sweden. In March 2011, they refused her application for residence.

Appealing this decision to the Immigration Court in February 2012, Lita’s application was rejected again: this time on three grounds:

• The degree of persecution that Lita had experienced was not so serious as to merit asylum being granted;
• She had not made sufficient efforts to amend her documentation in Russia,
• Her inability to obtain appropriate hormonal treatment in Russia – and therefore her need to self-medicate – was not a major issue.

In March, the Supreme Court ruled that there were no grounds for further appeal. On Monday 23 April, Lita learned that the deportation process has begun: she has 7 to 10 days to lodge an appeal with the European Court of Human Rights – after which, her stay in Sweden is at an end.

Analysis

As with previous controversy over Sweden’s attitude toward gender identity, and a legal requirement for sterilization before trans identities are recognized, this case possibly sheds an unwholesome light on a deeper problem in the Swedish state.

Over the last few years, a succession of statements by the UN, the EU and CEDAW have expressed concern about the status of LGBT persons in Russia. In 2011, the European Parliament called for special protection of LGBT asylum seekers, while a recent EU Directive specifies that “gender related aspects, including gender identity, shall be given due consideration” in EU protection policies.

This is all very well as long as the flow of LGBT refugees from Russia remains but a trickle: however, with the passing of increasingly hostile anti-LGBT legislation and a rise in on-street persecution of LGBT individuals, that trickle may soon turn to a flood.

Is Lita’s case unique? Or is it, as she suggests, just the first signs of the Swedish authorities cynically drawing a line in the sand. For as one of the EU nations geographically closest to Russia, Sweden is likely to bear the brunt of any future LGBT exodus. By making life difficult for refugees now, it is possibly seeking to dissuade genuine refugees from coming to their country in years to come.

This – and the suggestion of prejudice at the sharp end, within the Migration Board – is hotly denied by Mikael Ribbenvik, the Board’s Director for legal affairs. He points out that Migrationsverkert is one of the very few institutions in Sweden that has made use of external consultants to challenge the institution’s bias towards heteronormativity. He says: “I know of no other organisation in Sweden or throughout Europe that has done this.”

Equally, he dismisses talk of a “line in the sand” as “rubbish”. It would, he says, be impossible for a Minister to lay down such an edict.

He is equally unimpressed by suggestions that front line operatives are operating any sort of hidden agenda. Highlighting Sweden’s track record over asylum seekers from Iraq – Sweden had 58% of Iraqi asylum claims in the world (18,000), and gave out permanent residence permits to 94% of these.

Over the last ten years, the number of asylum applications accepted annually has doubled and it is therefore “preposterous” to say that border staff are xenophobic.

So what is going on? Muddle, perhaps – and a lack of real awareness of trans issues seems to remain at the heart of Lita’s difficulties.

The view, backed up by two independent reviews of the Board and court documentation, seems to be that officials “just didn’t get it”. They didn’t understand the nuances of trans issues – or the difficulties that a trans individual can face in a country such as Russia: so they failed to assess the case properly. Now, the courts are being asked to review a poor decision already taken, as opposed to look at evidence from scratch.

The outcome of Lita’s desperate appeal could come as soon as this week. As journalists, we are not supposed to take sides: as human beings, we are desperately worried. Because, if Lita is sent back to Russia, it is anyone’s guess what will happen to her.

Downtown’s Metropolitan Detention Center will have a separate area for transgender arrestees as of the end of the month, according to City News Service. The area will be in the women’s jail, and will serve as a holding area for both transgender men and women.

The decision was announced by the LAPD at a meeting last night with transgender activists and community members. Karina Samala, director of the Transgender Working Group, told the LA Times that the group has “pushed for” this change.

Transgender women … are particularly at risk for violence when housed with other male detainees.

According to the Times, jail administrators believe that L.A. will be the first place to house transgender people separately. While they’re being held — which is usually for about three days, the time it takes between the arrest and their arraignment — they will be offered men’s or women’s clothing, and will have access to hormone treatments.

transradical:

[TW: Violence against trans women]

• A suspect has been arrested in the March 24 double shooting that killed one transgender sex worker and injured another
• Confessed murderer of trans woman Shelley Hillard has been sentenced to 25-40 years in prison
• Arrests have also been made in the torture and murder of Mexican transgender activist Agnes Torres Hernandez

As seasonal temperatures rise, attacks with some indication of anti-LGBT bias are also apparently increasing.

A shooting at a Columbia Heights IHOP Restaurant and a combined robbery and assault at Irving Street and Georgia Avenue NW grabbed the most attention. Both have been initially classified as hate crimes. Both attacks also left two gay men in the hospital and inspired friends of the victims to organize a march and fundraiser, scheduled for Tuesday, March 20.

But a look at the past month reveals at least four other incidents that have singled out members of the LGBT community for their sexual orientation or gender identity, including more marginalized populations, such as transgender individuals, youth and the homeless.

On March 12, a transgender woman in her 20s was assaulted near the intersection of Mount Olivet Road and West Virginia Avenue NE, in the city’s Trinidad neighborhood.

According to transgender activist Earline Budd, who knows the victim, the woman was attacked from behind by two male suspects and beaten unconscious. Budd points out that the woman was not robbed, which would seem to suggest she was targeted because she was transgender.

Budd says the victim required hospitalization for a concussion suffered in the attack.

On four separate attempts – the latest being March 19 – to retrieve the incident report from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), Metro Weekly was told the report was unavailable as it has not yet been written.

Also on March 12, two lesbian minors reported being stalked by a male suspect who threatened to rape them as they walked in the 4000 block of Minnesota Avenue NE, heading to the Minnesota Avenue Metro Station, 4:50 p.m.

According to the MPD report, the suspect approached the girls, ages 15 and 16, and stated, ”Yeah, little bitch, I’ll pull your pants down and rape you at the mother fuckin metro station; you and your dom,” before continuing to follow them to the Metro station. The suspect, a black male in his 30s, was later arrested.

The incident report says that because of the domestic relationship between the girls, MPD’s Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit (GLLU) was notified and responded to the scene. However, the crime was classified as ”felony threats” and is not being labeled a hate crime.

The area around the Minnesota Avenue Metro Station has served as the backdrop for at least two other anti-LGBT incidents. On Sept. 10, 2011, three transgender women reported being approached near the station by a man brandishing a gun. A month later, a gay male reported that his car, which he had parked in the 3400 block of Minnesota Avenue SE, had been vandalized with anti-gay graffiti and set on fire following several weeks of harassment by people in the area, who frequently attacked him with homophobic epithets.

A 24-year-old gay homeless man reported to the MPD that an acquaintance had threatened to kill him while he slept at a homeless shelter on the St. Elizabeth’s Hospital campus, in the 2700 block of Martin Luther King Ave. SE, on the evening of Feb. 26.

According to the police report, the man was lying on his bed at the shelter when he was awakened by the sound of someone talking nearby. The man said he saw the acquaintance standing over his bed talking to other residents of the shelter, and then stated, ”I should cut him now!” According to the victim, the suspect cuts hair for some residents of the shelter and keeps a blade with him. The incident has been labeled a hate crime.

According to the police report, the suspect is a slender black male with a dark complexion, in his 40s to 50s.

The incident at St. Elizabeth’s follows an assault against a transgender woman four months ago, in December 2011, who was called homophobic slurs, threatened and struck as she walked past the shelter.

Another local woman was attacked at her workplace by a female coworker March 8. According to the MPD report, the attacker threw a dustpan at the victim and punched her in the face multiple times. The victim told police that her coworker had previously confronted her, saying, ”I don’t like you or your lesbian lifestyle.” The victim also told police that her attacker’s husband had recently left her for a man. The attack is listed as a hate crime.

Brian Watson, director of programs for Transgender Health Empowerment, tells Metro Weekly he has heard of several other attacks against transgender women in recent months that have not been reported to police. He says that transgender women remain less likely to report assaults because they are distrustful of police and because they believe they will be blamed for their attacks and accused of engaging in sex work.

Watson says he doesn’t believe any of the recent LGBT attacks are related, but raises other concerns.

”There are many different people running around performing these attacks,” says Watson, fearing a culture in the city hostile to LGBT residents. ”Is it just a crime scene, or is this some form of hate against the community?”

Watson says that LGBT people, particularly transgender individuals, are often at risk because they are perceived to be ”easy targets” for robbery or assault, and that some attackers believe police will not take any action if a crime is committed against a transgender person.

”If it’s just pure hate going on, we need to have our community leaders step forward and do something,” he says.

At a Feb. 29 City Council oversight hearing for the MPD, Jason Terry of the DC Trans Coalition (DCTC) aired a number of complaints or concerns regarding MPD’s handling of cases involving transgender victims, including the quality of sensitivity training for GLLU affiliate officers, the closure rate for murders of transgender people, and the appearance of an inability to regularly track and provide updates on the development of crimes committed against transgender people.

The perception of indifference toward crimes against transgender people is also apparent in online forums, where people are allowed to vent more freely. One person, writing anonymously in response to a Metro Weekly article on the fundraiser and march for the victims of the IHOP shooting and robbery, posted the following comment:

”[W]hy does it take the attack of two gay guys to get the gayz in DC to organize a fundraiser and march when over the past year (and even just weeks ago) young trans women have been brutally attacked AND murdered on almost a monthly basis? (EVEN BY THE MPD THEMSELVES!). And what about the trans woman who was attacked but because she was KNOCKED OUT they don’t consider it a hate crime? The self-proclaimed gay activists in this city should be ASHAMED of themselves. What, because these young folks weren’t carrying iphones and ipads when they were attacked they don’t count? …Obviously the MPD and the Mayor don’t care much about them and it doesn’t seem the majority of gays in this city do either.”

Another reader, ”brian,” responded: ”*Guest* makes some very valid points and observations. The violent assault on a trans woman on Mar 12th, which occurred in MPD’s 5th District (WV Ave, NE/ Gallaudet U. area) was not even reported as part of the MPD-5D listserv Daily Report…not on the 13th, nor on the 14th. Is anyone at MPD-5D, besides GLLU, paying attention to assaults on trans women? One has to ask, was that intentional on MPD’s part? And if so, why?”

A spokeswoman for the MPD countered claims of selective pursuit of crimes.

“Part One offenses,” generally more severe, violent crimes, ”are automatically posted to the listserv in the reports,” Gwendolyn Crump, public information officer for MPD, told Metro Weekly March 19 via email. ”No one is reviewing the incidents and deciding what to include.” She added that she would be looking further into any possible discrepancies.

The group Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV), a program of The DC Center, thanked MPD for their ”prompt action” in response to the attacks and offered support to the victims.

”We expect MPD to respond by increasing patrols in the affected areas and tenaciously investigating the crimes committed,” GLOV’s statement reads, in part. ”As the weather warms, our community needs to be even more vigilant. Unfortunately, the historical trend indicates that higher crime, including bias-motivated crime, often correlates with warmer weather.”

A transgender woman was found dead with multiple stab wounds Thursday in her South Beach apartment in the 500 block of Michigan Avenue, according an incident report by Miami Beach Police.

Javier Menendez Cuesta Daniel, 36, a close friend of the woman, told police he had not seen her since before 3 p.m. on Tuesday and was concerned.

On Thursday morning at 10:55 a.m., he went to check on her with the Sanz Group Apartments building manager. Once inside, they found blood all over the apartment and the victim’s body, according to Miami Beach Police.

…

Miami Beach Police spokesperson Dolores Mejia told HuffPost Miami that investigators were not sure how long the woman had been dead before she was discovered.

As next of kin has not been notified, the woman’s name isn’t being released, Mejia said.