The dead person, Nikki Nicholas, has been quoted as saying that no surgery would ever take place. She lived and presented as a woman, though, so I’ll use “she” in reference to her.
She was shot, her body was abandoned, and her murderers have not yet been caught. When her body was found, the police initially identified her as a woman, but they’re also saying that where (i.e. the location of the bullet wound) she was shot has not been disclosed.
I know there’s not a lot of information to work with on this one, so if you don’t want to debate it, that’s fine. I’m tossing it in here because it looks to me like there might be something in common with Araujo’s murder, and because Nicholas’ body was found in Green Oak Township, where I grew up.
And sorry about the bad header on the news article. Weird, because the Ann Arbor News is much better than that (I know, I worked there for eight years).
Persephone…I don’t think there’s enough information to unqualifyingly say that the crime was motivated by the victim’s transgendered status. Certainly, it is a reasonable hypothesis, but you never know. Non-transgendered folk get beaten and killed every now and again, as you may be aware…it could be that this individual was killed for another reason altogether, and her transgendered status is incidental. I’m not saying that’s necessarily true, just that we don’t know from the facts of the crime.
Not to diminish the severity of murder, but I find this story virtually impossible to believe unless there is more to the story (ie he gutted him like a trout and ate him afterwards). A high school kid sentenced to 25 years for hitting and killing a gay man trying to seduce him? Not good behavior in any sense (by either party), but very unlikely to generate a 25 year capital murder sentence for a high schooler. Do you have any kind of a cite for this?
Actually, my impatience wasn’t aimed at you so much. I knew that you had not made ANY posts since the one i critiqued, so i knew that it was possible that you hadn’t even seen my post. I’m aware that some of us have lives away from the computer screen.
My frustration was mainly directed at Hermann, who had made posts since mine, but had not deigned to respond to my direct rebuttals of his argument.
I don’t think the CA statute “demands [my] interpretation” at all. I do believe that, given the details in the various articles linked to in this thread, that a pretty good case for bias against the transgendered and the homosexual can be made. The quotations from the article that i gave above, in which one of the accused was "wailing that ‘I can’t be gay,’’’ suggests, to me at least, that homophobia was a factor.
I’m not sure that i agree with your assessment that sexual preferences are “hard-wired” in everyone. But even if i did, i’m not sure i support your assessment of the situation anyway. I certainly agree that each of us has his or her own sexual preferences, and that there are certain acts that we don’t want to participate in. But, in my opinion, to kill someone for deceiving us into committing a sex act that we wouldn’t otherwise do demonstrates a level of hatred that transcends the simple issue of deception. As others on this thread have pointed out, the accused were apparently happy enough to fuck the victim up the ass, so it’s not the actual act itself that they had a problem with. What they had a problem with was that the ass in question happened to belong to a biological male.
A lot of this depends on your definition of bias. You say that "one’s personal preferences for sexual activity do not constitute a de facto “bias.” Actually, it seems to me that, in a certain sense, they do. I’m a straight guy, and as such i have a personal preference not to have sex with men; you might say that i’m biased against gay sex, or at least against having gay sex myself. But if i picked up a woman in a bar, and we got home and she gave me oral sex, and it then turned out that “she” was a cross-dresser or a transgender who actually had male equipment, i like to think that i would be able to deal with the situation without beating the person to death. I would probably be angry at the deception, but violence isn’t going to change the fact that i’ve had my cock in their mouth. Nor does the fact that this has happened make me gay. I maintain that to kill someone for this type of deception demonstrates a hatred that goes beyond the deception itself and reflects a bias against particular groups of people, and not just a preference for particular sexual activities.
The problem with the “deception only” motivation is that deception in order to get someone to have sex with you is an old trick, used by men and women alike. It is also used most frequently, i’d be willing to bet (although i don’t have figures, obviously) in the heterosexual world, between men and women. I know guys who’ve lied to women to get them in the sack, and i’m sure it happens the other way around too. Yet, despite this, the only time we seem to hear of violence and death resulting from such a deception is when the deception involves a person’s gender rather than, say, how much money they make or whether or not they are married.
In terms of the analogy you provide at the end of your post, it would probably be possible to charge that person with a hate crime if he said something like “women are filthy, disgusting creatures. I can’t believe i put my dick in her.” IOW, if he said something that indicated a hatred of, or bias against women in general. I know this argument can end up becoming rather circular, but i think that killing someone for a petty deception like this is, in itself, indicative of hatred. But it is also the reason that i think hate crime legislation is not a great idea in general. I think we should just punish the acts, and doing that does not require knowing exactly what the perpetrators’ motivation was.
I realize that my position is one that is difficult to support with statistics, and that no-one except the accused in this case can ever really know what was in their heads, but it did seem to me that, the way the CA statute is worded, the bringing of a hate crimes charge is within reason. And the DA obviously thought so too.
I haven’t seen it mentioned here, but it isn’t a requirement that the victim of a hate crime be a menber of the group the hate is directed against.
If someone murders a person because they believe that person to be homosexual, he/she is guilty of a hate crime. Regardless of whether the victim is or is not a homosexual.
Did another poster alrerady make this point?
See what I’m getting at, hermann?
I agree with you. I would be angry at the deception, but that would not in my mind justify violence. But that’s me (and you). In the city where I grew up people have shot each other over parking spaces. I do not buy the position that the level of rage means that this must be homosexual hatred. People have killed over the most trivial of things; there’s no accounting for people’s irrational behavior. And, again, that doesn’t justify killing the person, or make the person any less dead. It just says to me that it’s possible that this is not a hate crime as I understand that definition.
And I think you misunderstood my hypothetical. I was suggesting that the “dupe” killed not the girl, but the friend who played a joke on him. Assume he had the reaction you suggested, but that he directed his rage at his “friend.” Read it again and see if you have the same reaction. Does it at least suggest the possibility that this needn’t be a hate crime by definition?
That’s right, because the person being killed is not a member of the group that is hated by the perpetrator, and the perpetrator knows this for a fact. Look, i realize that there are grey areas whenever we try to ascribe motive to someone. But, in the case to which this thread is devoted, i think the story we have indicates more than just anger at deception. Whether the DA is able to make the hate crimes aspect in court in another issue, but even if s/he doesn’t, these guys are going to spend plenty of time behid bars if found guilty.
Mhendo, I too noticed with interest and approval your quoting of the California statute. What concerned me most was getting the clarification of the identity of the victim straightened out, before we discussed whether it was a hate crime. Since it does become an issue what the motivations of the accused were in killing Ms. Araujo, the concept that she was in fact a person with serious gender dysphoria trying to determine if she was in fact a woman despite having male genitalia (which she seems to have settled on after some extensive internal questioning, based on comments by her mother and priest) seemed important to me.
What I’m wondering is why people are so determined to portray her as a male homosexual perpetrating a deception, rather than a (psychological) young woman with a male body (and no “Lesbian trapped…” jokes, please) trying to live out the gender role she felt that she “really” was, is so important to people. Surely nobody is suggesting that them killing a homosexual boy is less odious a crime than killing a transgendered person?
>think about that if you ever happen to find yourselves “surprised” as those four men were.<
Why don’t you go surprise four men and then take a short survey to discern their reactions and post it here.
I’ve learned so much in this thread:
1 A person with a penis is not a man
2 A man who has sex with another man is not a homosexual.
I suppose that if a black man went in disguise to a KKK rally, removed his mask and shouted ?Jefferson Davis was a fag! Where are all the white women?? and was subsequently thrashed, you could call it a hate crime, since it was racially motivated; but don?t you think he was looking for trouble?
>referring to a transgendered person as he is as offensive as calling a gay person a fag<
But what if the transgendered person is a female in the process of becoming male? According to your previous posts, she should have the right to be referred to as ?he.?
I agree with you here. The problem is that notions of sex and gender are essentially interchangeable terms for many people, and many are often unwilling even to question the binarism that characterises so much of the dialog on these issues. You’re either a man or a woman, they say; there is no grey area.
The concept of gender as a sociological construction is quite a difficult one to grasp, especially if you’ve been brought up to think that gender is a simple reflection of genetics. It’s not difficult to see why those who don’t have a particular interest in the topic find the whole thing a little challenging and get somewhat defensive.
It’s also worth remembering that, even among those who have no problem with such concepts, there is not total agreement. Some, for example, agree with Judith Butler’s arguments that even one’s “biological sex” is not the scientifically objective category that many think it is. Others reject Butler’s view as too radical. And there are myriad others debates within the GLBT community on these issues.
I think, in terms of the hate crime statute, it probably won’t matter whether it is seen as bias against “homosexuals” or “transgendered”; the result will probably be the same in either case. I agree, however, that these issues are important to discuss, and that those who simply categorize Araujo as a deceptive homosexual boy are uninformed regarding crucial issues of sex and gender.
I watched an episode of Jerry Springer in which a beautiful female offered a sensual massage. A macho punter leapt onto the stage and enjoyed every moment, until Jerry explained the masseuse was a pre-op female-to-male transsexual.
The punter ran back into the audience. (I suppose you would have expected him to beat the transexual to death, but not everyone thinks like you :rolleyes: )
It occurred to me from the context (just like picking up people in bars) that something unusual was likely to happen.
As a heterosexual, I would prefer to know something about in advance about people massaging me, but I didn’t get too worked up over this incident.
Well of course it does depend who the 4 men are.
Friends of mine (civilised, cultured) would express disappointment and probably give the lady some polite advice. (If really annoyed, they might call her names.)
Homophobic thugs (with the sort of attitude your posts display) would no doubt consider their ‘manhood’ was at stake and commit a violent crime.
It doesn’t appear you have learnt anything in this thread.
A pre-op female-to-male transexual has a penis, but doesn’t consider herself a man, and is prepared to undergo extensive surgery, counselling and risk public humiliation from ignorant boors (with the sort of attitude your posts display) in order to achieve some happiness.
Presumably even you would accept that a man who has sex with both men and women is bi-sexual, not homosexual.
Indeed.
Of course the attitude your posts display is more like that black man walking unknowingly past a KKK rally and being tortured and murdered. (Perhaps by being dragged behind a truck…)
Don’t you think he was looking for trouble?
Let me ask you something, Polycrap: if you happened to meet Mrs. Araujo and proceeded in having a sexual encounter with her (be it anal or oral, or whatever), would you have any problem with the fact that she had a penis? Or would this have no bearing on your decision of having sex with her.
I do understand the view of the transgendered. They believe they were born a male/female in a female/male’s body. Therefore, their social behavior do not match with the physical characteristics given to them at birth.
The thing is, that doesn’t make it ok to advertise yourself as a woman- especially to someone who you intend on having sex with.
