On the morning of June 5, 2011, a 23-year-old African-American transgender woman, Chrishaun McDonald, and her friends were walking down Lake Street in Minneapolis. As they passed Schooner Tavern, Dean Schmitz, a 47-year-old white man, began shouting racial slurs at McDonald, asking, "Did you think you were going to rape somebody in those girl clothes?" Schmitz and two other bar patrons then attacked McDonald.
During the attack, glass was smashed into McDonald's face and Schmitz was killed. McDonald was arrested and charged with second-degree murder.
The details of what happened are still not clear. However, considering the widespread discrimination, harassment and violence that transgender people face every day in the United States, McDonald and her friends had ample reason to fear that Schmitz's attack could lead to serious injury, if not death. A recent report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs found that 50 percent of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) murders in 2009 and 44 percent of LGBT murders in 2010 were of transgender women. This year, does not seem to be a safer year for transgender people either:
In January 2011, in Minneapolis, a transgender woman named Krissy Bates was strangled and then stabbed to death by her new boyfriend.
In February, the body of an African-American transgender woman, Tyra Trent, was found in an abandoned house in Baltimore.
In April, Chrissy Lee Polis, a 22-year-old white transgender woman, was brutally beaten by two black teenage girls at a McDonald's in Baltimore, Maryland. The vicious attack made news only because an employee filmed and posted it online. The video captured not only the assault, but the lack of intervention from both employees and other patrons. While the attack on Polis may not have been fully motivated by her gender identity, bystanders' unwillingness to intervene was.
Given these recent attacks and the lack of public outcry, or even sympathy, one can understand why McDonald and her friends feared for her life when attacked that morning.
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4 comments:
seriously who cares? no one is coming into their bedroom to witness the perverse acts they perform on each other. But when they go out in public flaunting their mental disorders and asking others to accept their perverted lifestyles, well one can see maybe they ought to be a little more careful! I don't put my self in situations where i can be mugged, beaten, shot etc. Maybe they just have no common sense!
I think the entire thing is disgusting. I am not for people getting hurt; however, I don't agree with LGBT people flaunting their sexuality and practically stuffing it down my throat. I do not care what they do behind closed doors but they should not be allowed to bring that stuff into public. If you are a man, dress like one. If you are a woman, dress like one. Act your gender. Act your age. Act normal. It seems that people are so worried about protecting the rights of these people that it is trampling the rights of people who live on the straight and narrow. I am not saying beat the crap out of people who don't jive with your thoughts but it should be legislated that people should not be able to flaunt sexuality. Straight, gay, bi, purple, blue, or cheese. No way is acceptable.
You two are part of the problem. They are dressing according to how they feel, not according to what is between their legs.
Personally I don't like it or want to be exposed to their lifestyle, but I won't advocate harm or death to come to them either.
Even the article had a disparaging remark in it: "two young queer people of color were murdered".
To each their own, live and let live, and all that.
The 19 year old that beat that transgender PERSON in McDonald's got 5 years in prison. And rightly so.
who cares really
I could care less what anyone else is doing or flaunting
what their color sex or politics or beliefs are
I certainly don't have time to be worried about how ignorant or confused people are or how nosy and bent out of shape about what others are doing others maybe
I find minding ones business and getting on with life and ignoring everything else is far more profitable than having to pretend to tolerated anyone's point of view conservative or liberal and what ever fruit flavor of the week
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