Pretending to be Gwen can be fatal

[Gwennie!]

Born, Edidie, Araujo took her first name from No Doubt singer Gwen Stefani.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gwen_Araujo

Gwen Amber Rose Araujo (February 24, 1985 — October 4, 2002) was a
teenager who was killed at a party by a group of transphobic men
angered by the discovery that she was a transwoman. ...

In their trial, the men did not contest that they had killed her, but
used a variant of the gay panic defence and claimed that it was not
unreasonable, pleading for manslaughter rather than murder. The jury
however, deadlocked, and a mistrial recorded. The jury appears to have
rejected this defence, but was unable to decide whether the murders
were premeditated...

Five Facts Missing from Coverage of the Murder of Gwen Araujo

1. Gwen Araujo was not deceiving people by telling them she was a woman.
Transgender people are not deceiving others by expressing their gender identity. When Gwen began living as a woman, it was not an act of deceit. She was expressing her true self to the world and deserved to be recognized for the bravery of that. Thousands of transgender people throughout California go through this transition every year.

2. Gwen was in no way responsible for her murder.
Except for self-defense, the actions of a murder victim are never relevant to the motivations of their attacker. Gwen was a victim of a violent murder. Nothing she did justifies what was done to her. As a society, we have moved beyond the point of blaming women for the violence that men commit against them. No justifiable reason exists to treat this crime any differently.

3. "Transgender Panic" is not a valid defense.
Murdering someone because you discover that they are transgender is never a justifiable or understandable response. The "heat of passion" defense is only valid if the actions of the defendant are ones that the "average" person would have taken. The average person would not murder a young woman simply because she is transgender. The men who killed Gwen had a number of legitimate options open to them (including telling Gwen to leave their house and never speak to them again). Instead, Gwen's attackers chose to beat, strangle, and murder a young woman simply for being her true self.

4. Gwen did not steal Michael Magidson and Jose Merril's "right" to be heterosexual.
Any sexual conduct in which Magidson or Merril engaged with Gwen was completely consensual. If these young men had sex with Gwen, they did so because they found her attractive. Being attracted to a transgender woman does not mean that a heterosexual man is bisexual or gay. To conclude that it does demonstrates a misunderstanding of Gwen's identity and sexual orientation.

5. Exposure to school based education about transgender people could have prevented Gwen's murder.
Effective school-based curriculum about transgender people and gender identity might have prevented this tragedy. Age-appropriate education about transgender people and gender identity would have introduced Gwen's attackers to information that could have helped them to act more responsibly. Little is known about transgender people, and much of what is known is innaccurate. Correct and accessbile information about what it means to be transgender should be made available to all school age youth in California.

[Sun_Sparkz]

how could you NOT tell that was a man?!?! or at least question it?

[Perry Winkle]

Definately one of those 'women' who you give the Dundee test.

[breakingnews]

Rolling Stone did a moderately decent story on this back in March (starts out really well but then draaaaaagggs through the end).

If almost every week a girl claimed she was on the rag and only let you (and your buddy) plug her in the ass, you'd think nothing of it, right?

Took two guys a while, like two months or so, before they started questioning Gwen's behavior. And according to the story, it wasn't really one person's suspicion, but instead the entire group's inquisition. Also disturbing that another guy's girlfriend, who uncovered Gwen's transsexuality and witnessed the murder, couldn't tell and, worse, didn't do anything to stop them. Makes you wonder.

[Clodfobble]

On the one hand, what was done to her was horrifying and obviously completely unjustified. These people should be locked up for life, IMHO.

On the other hand, I completely disagree with "fact" number one. Only rarely is sex voluntarily based on misrepresentation; usually people expect that sex between two people implies an honesty and openness not shared by two people on the street.

Lying by omission is still lying. If I sleep with someone, and later find out they have an STD that they did not tell me about voluntarily, they have lied to me. I don't care if they were "expressing their healthy identity" or not, I had an expectation and an understood assumption about what this act entailed when I consented to it, and disease wasn't on the list.

In the same way, unknowing partners of transsexuals have an expectation and understood assumption that the act involves no penis. It doesn't matter if the penis is attached to someone who feels like a woman on the inside; it would be just as wrong to hide any other pertinent secret from a sexual partner. She should be having sex with people who know that she's a woman on the inside (and not on the outside.)

In summation... zips up flame-suit To me it almost feels like she kind of raped them, because they would not have consented had they known the truth, and she knew that or she wouldn't have hidden it.

[breakingnews]

From what I read, she was extremely aggressive from the beginning. She approached these guys at a party, looking to get bombed and do drugs and whatnot. Started hanging out at their house frequently, and soon become "that" girl. When I was reading the article, I couldn't help but feel that she was really outwardly flaunting her new self.

Still, no one deserves what happened to her, and for that those guys should get the maximum penalty. But she still lied. Living, in the normal course of life, as a transgender may not be deceit, but she was not honest about her true self when it came to a sexual encounter.

There's an equal and shared responsibility here - both sides should have been honest before having sex. That's the way it always should be, for anyone, anywhere, but sadly, it's not.

[hot_pastrami]

Yup... It's a bit like a guy who is married, and has kids, who "feels" single. Does that make it ok for him to go meet some single girl, omit the fact that he's got a family, and sleep with her repeatedly? No, it makes him pretty horrible for concealing very important information about who he is. Would he deserve to die for that? Absolutely not. But he IS an asshole.

[lookout123]

gwennie/rock steady - did you start this thread before or after you disclosed your "true self"? if it is after - please pick a personality and stick with it. it doesn't pisss me off, it is just annoying.

the brutal murder of another person in this manner is... i don't know how to express it. bad doesn't suffice, but that's what i'll leave it at.

that being said. guys, take yourself back to 17/18 years old. you are finally getting your first real "piece" she pursues you, gets what she wants, and fulfills some fantasies. then you find out you have been F*cking a guy. assuming that you are hetero, you are 17/18, really just trying to figure yourself out, and now pretty much everyone you know finds out you've been nailing another guy in the arse - how do you feel? what do you do?

murder? no. but what do you do? put yourself in their shoes for just one moment and ask yourself - "would i calmly walk away and chalk it up to the lessons of being a young adult?" or "would i want to inflict pain and humiliation upon the person who did this to me?" what DO you really do?

[russotto]

I've gotta disagree with point 1 and to some extent points 2 and 3. If a person still has male plumbing (he/she was pre-operative) and represents him/herself as female to people he/she is going to have sex with, that certainly is misrepresentation.

On point 2, s/he may not have been legally responsible for her murder... but "not in any way responsible" is going too far. If you walk the streets of Philadelphia flashing a lot of cash, and you get mugged, you're not legally responsible for it either, but you're still responsible in some way.

On point 3, I might buy such a defense if the killing had happened immediately after the discovery, particularly if that were during or immediately after sex. This case doesn't seem to fit that scenario.

And if you're banging someone and somehow didn't notice the plumbing issues, you've got problems of your own.

And personally I don't care whether gwennie/rock uses 2 ids or one.

[Gwennie!]

Thanks to all for discussing this. It has so many gray areas and it is bothersome at several levels. Everyone made good points.

I lifted the "five points" from some special-interest web site to which I now lost the link. They obviously are at the far end of spectrum on these issues. But I found that it made me think some things through again.

There was a case on Long Island of a gay house guest killed by the gay host because the guest revealed his AIDS after the fact. The host was convicted but the guest was clearly comitting a crime.

We were all angry at the deception by Brianna's professor. It appears no crimes were committed, but the professor is a slimeball for taking advantage of someone in a vulnerable position.

[wolf]

I guess there's no right or easy way to put this ... but if despite what you feel you are, if you have the original equipment on board and misrepresent your sex, you should not be surprised if you get the shit kicked out of you at the very least. This individual was indeed deceiving others by his actions.

Do I think the killer should be convicted, absolutely. As to what exact charge, I'm not sufficiently familiar with the differences between manslaughter, murder, and homicide to state which would be the most appropriate. I do think that an "average person's" reaction would be to be repulsed by the revelation at the very least. How an individual responds to that varies.

[cowhead]

had 'she' gone all the way thru the operation? other wise one would think the ball slapping sound ought to be obvious... no, no reason to kill 'her' they ought to be drawn and fucking quartered.. my thing is that both tolerance and intolerance have reached such a point that.. man.. it's time for some common sense! as I've siad before and I will stand behind. if we are to execute someone, and that to be a deterant.. let's do it in the town square.. THAT is a deterant.(deterent.. whatever.. you know what I mean)

[lookout123]

let's do it in the town square.. THAT is a deterant.(deterent.. whatever.. you know what I mean)

i've been present for that style of execution. it really isn't as impressive as you might think.

[Lady Sidhe]

Originally Posted by Gwennie!

There was a case on Long Island of a gay house guest killed by the gay host because the guest revealed his AIDS after the fact. The host was convicted but the guest was clearly comitting a crime.

I have to agree--although not all the way to the host murdering the guest, although I clearly understand his motive, and I would call that manslaughter--that the guest was committing a crime. If you know you have AIDS, and sleep with someone anyway, without telling them--that, to me, is akin to premeditated attempted murder. What I mean by that is you KNOW you have a terminal illness that has no cure and you are exposing someone else to this illness on purpose. It's the same as if you cooked up some anthrax and diffused it over a city. Not everyone will get anthrax and die, but some will, and it will be because of you knowingly doing what you did.

Wolf:

First-Degree is premeditated--"malice aforethought" usually with aggravating circumstances;

Second-degree is without premeditation, but with some intent,

Sometimes first-or second-degree murder is called "Depraved-Heart murder" :the result of an act which is dangerous to others and shows that the perpetrator has a depraved mind and no regard for human life


and Third-degree is murder during the course of another felony;

Manslaughter can be voluntary or involuntary: voluntary is like "reckless disregard for human life" which can include vehicular homicide such as drunk driving...; involuntary is "heat of passion."

Hey, I finally got to use my criminal justice degree!! Whoohooo!!!

So technically, the host would probably be guilty of voluntary manslaughter, minimum...

[Lady Sidhe]

So basically, what I understand is that she was going through everything to actually CHANGE her gender from male to female, including the operation, but in the meantime, she was putting herself forward as an out-and-out born (not born-again *grin*) FEMALE?

Hm. I can understand the guys being freaked out, but...I honestly don't know any men who would freak out so badly that they would kill the person. Maybe beat them up out of embarassment and frustration, but not kill them. I mean, if I slept with someone who looked like a man, whom I later found out was a woman, I might be kind of embarassed, but I wouldn't kill the person. It wouldn't cast any doubt on my sexual orientation, in my mind, because I THOUGHT it was a man, and for all practical purposes, it was.

It seems like only men are homicidally homophobic. Just because they slept with this person doesn't mean they're gay--they thought she was female, and the intent was to sleep with a female--but some men just don't seem to get that. And IMO, if your sexual ego/identity is that fragile....you need therapy or something.