Trans bashing

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Trans bashing is the act of victimizing a person physically, sexually, or verbally because they are transgender or transsexual.[1] Unlike gay bashing, it is committed because of the target's actual or perceived gender identity, not sexual orientation. However, a trans person may be gay bashed if the person perceives them as gay rather than transgender. The term has also been applied to hate speech directed at transgender people[2] and at depictions of transgender people in the media that reinforce negative stereotypes about them.[3]

Discrimination, including physical or sexual violence against trans people due to transphobia or homophobia, is a common occurrence for trans people.[4][5][6] Every 3 days a murder of a trans person is reported,[citation needed] and many murders are believed to go unreported.[citation needed] Hate crimes against trans people are common even recently, and "in some instances, inaction by police or other government officials leads to the untimely deaths of transgender victims."[7]

One of the most famous incidents was the December 1993 rape and murder of Brandon Teena, a young trans man who was raped and murdered by two male friends after they found out that he had been assigned female at birth.[8] The events became internationally known when told in the feature film Boys Don't Cry, which earned Hilary Swank an Academy Award for best actress.

In Seattle's gay village of Capitol Hill, there is some evidence of an increase in incidents of trans bashing over the past two years.[9]

Differentiating trans bashing from gay bashing

At least since the Stonewall riots in 1969, people from the greater trans communities have often been politically aligned with the lesbian, gay, and bisexual communities.[10] However, researchers and some activists from the greater trans communities argue trans bashing should be categorized separately from violence committed on the basis of sexual orientation ("gay-bashing").[7][11] Anti-trans* bias crimes have been conceptually and characteristically distinguished from homophobic crimes in the scholarly research.[12] One argument is that conflating violence against trans* peoples with violence against gay people erases the identities of people in the greater trans communities and the truth of what happens to them. However, campaigns against gay bashing and trans* bashing are often seen as a common cause.[13]

In one case, perpetrators accused of hate crimes against trans people have tried to use a trans panic defense, an extension of gay panic defense.[14][15] The jury deadlocked, but there is evidence they rejected the trans-panic defense. One law journal provided an analysis of the trans-panic defense, arguing in part that the emotional premise of a trans panic defense (shock at discovering unexpected genitals) is different from the emotional premise of a gay panic defense (shock at being propositioned by a member of the same sex, perhaps because of one's repressed homosexuality).[16]

U.S. hate crime laws covering gender identity

Current U.S. LGBT hate crimes laws by state. A national hate crimes law encompasses both sexual orientation and gender identity.
  Sexual orientation and gender identity recognized in state hate crimes law
  Sexual orientation recognized in state hate crimes law
  Sexual orientation recognized for data collection about hate crimes
  State hate crimes law uninclusive of sexual orientation or gender identity

In the United States, currently ten states plus the District of Columbia have hate crime laws protecting people victimized on the basis of their gender identity (they are Hawaii, California, Connecticut, New Mexico, Mississippi, Missouri, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Washington state[17] and Washington, D.C.).[18][19]

The Matthew Shepard Act expanded the federal hate crime laws to include gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Guilty plea over transsexual bashing By Mariza O'Keefe in Herald Sun
  2. ↑ Demagogues of defamation Gay: Where is the outrage when cable TV’s talking heads trash trans people?
  3. ↑ McNamara, Mary (2001-02-08). "Transgender Artists, Work Gaining Acceptance". Los Angeles Times. 
  4. ↑ Trans Health Project: A position paper and resolution adopted by the Ontario Public Health Association
  5. ↑ Hill, D.B. (2001). Genderism, transphobia, and gender bashing: A framework for interpreting anti-transgender violence. In B. Wallace, & R. Carter (Eds.). A multicultural approach for understanding and dealing with violence: A handbook for psychologists and educators. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing.
  6. ↑ Namaste, V.K. (2000a). Invisible lives: The erasure of transsexual and transgendered people. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Frye, Phyllis (Fall 2000). "The International Bill of Gender Rights vs. The Cide House Rules: Transgenders struggle with the courts over what clothing they are allowed to wear on the job, which restroom they are allowed to use on the job, their right to marry, and the very definition of their sex". William and Mary Journal of Women and the Law 7: 139–145. 
  8. ↑ Ramsland, Katherine. "Teena Brandon". TruTV. p. 5. Retrieved 2009-02-22. 
  9. ↑ Holt, Emily. "Gentrification ousting local gay community". The Spectator. Archived from the original on 2 May 2008. Retrieved 2 January 2011. 
  10. ↑ Kay Dayus, Transgenders Protest HRC Exec's Visit to Houston, Hous. Voice, Sept. 29, 2000
  11. ↑ Discrimination and Hate Crimes Against Gender Variant People, It's Time Illinois . . . Political Action for the Gender Variant Community (May 2000)
  12. ↑ Anti-Transgender Hate Crimes: The Challenge for Law Enforcement, at http://jointheimpactma.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Victimization-Study-Report.pdf
  13. ↑ 'Zero tolerance for gay-trans bashing': Protests mount
  14. ↑ Transpeople: Repudiation, Trauma, Healing by Christopher A. Shelley.
  15. ↑ "Two murder convictions in Araujo case", Zak Szymanski; Bay Area Reporter 15 September 2005.
  16. ↑ Steinberg, Victoria L. (Spring 2005). "A Heat of Passion Offense: Emotions and Bias in "Trans Panic" Mitigation Claims: Hiding From Humanity". Boston College Third World Law Journal 25. 
  17. ↑ HB 2661 - 2005-06: Expanding the jurisdiction of the human rights commission
  18. ↑ National Center for Transgender Equality: Hate crimes
  19. ↑ Human Rights Campaign: Mississippi Hate Crimes Law

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