Lesbian couple threatened with death

Parker, Colorado – A lesbian couple were tagged by a death threat on two consecutive days last week in Parker, a town southeast of Denver.  On Friday, Aimee Whitchurch and Christel Conklin found a target symbol spray painted on their condo door and the phrase, “KILL THE GAYS,” tagged on their garage door in bright red paint for all the neighbors to see. The next morning, they opened their front door to find a noose laid on their door mat.  Whitchurch said that when they discovered the noose, they knew their lives really were at risk.

Not the types to let such serious matters go, the couple responded by complaining to the Home Owners Association of their condo complex, whose president haphazardly splashed white paint over the red spray paint Saturday.  His less-than-professional job barely covered the graffiti, and exacerbated the problem.  Whitchurch and Conklin responded by taping a sign to the garage door that read, “Solve the problem; don’t paint over it.”  The couple told Channel 9 News that they were sure their sexual orientation was the reason for the hateful graffiti attack and the noose. Whitchurch said the neighbors figured out they were not “roommates,” and took homophobic action against them.  As Conklin said in the same interview, “Being lesbians is okay, until you start living together,” in Douglas County. “This is where we live. We should feel safe. I am afraid to walk outside my place now,” Whitchurch said.  The couple have lived in the condo for nearly six months.

A feud had been brewing between the neighbors and the lesbian couple, according to the women.  The Advocate reported that the HOA had complained that they were not picking up the feces after walking their dogs. Conklin answered the charges in detail to Channel 9: “It ridiculous. We have a Mastiff and a Great-Dane, two of the largest breed dogs, if we didn’t pick up after them this entire place would be covered. It’s completely invalid. That’s just common sense,” she said. The couple also own an English Bulldog puppy.  Since the initial attack, the lesbians’ car has been keyed, and dog feces has been scattered on their property.  Channel 9 reporters have repeatedly tried to contact the HOA officers for a statement, but no one has returned the calls.

Douglas County Sheriff’s Office investigators have been on the case, but have surfaced no persons of interest.  Detective Ron Hanovan said to Channel 9: “Right now, we don’t have any leads and no one is in custody.” Two offenses are involved in this attack, Hanovan went on to say, criminal mischief over $1,000, and anti-LGBT crime.  Conklin and Whitchurch say they are taking this case to the FBI.

The HOA finally sent a reputable painter to cover the slipshod work the HOA president did on the couple’s garage door.  In the meanwhile, Whitchurch and Conklin are not going anywhere.  They still walk their adult dogs, and their little bulldog, Ellie May.  On electric green and pink poster board, they have put up new signs the neighbors cannot miss.  One of them declares, “We are not the gay couple!  We are Aimee and Christal!”

~ Stephen V. Sprinkle, Director of the Unfinished Lives Project

Seattle students celebrate Pride, photo by jglsongs

Washington, DC – The execution-style murder of a 15-year-old gay boy inspired an openly gay Congressman to author the Student Non-Discrimination Act.  Lawrence “Larry” Fobes King was shot twice in the back of the head two years ago by a fellow computer class student, 14-year-old Brandon McInerney at E.O. Green Middle School in Oxnard, California.  Now, even before McInerney stands trial for murdering his gender non-conforming classmate, Congress will consider the proposed law which for the first time would make it unlawful throughout the country for a any school receiving federal aid to discriminate against a person because of a perception that the individual is gay or lesbian.  As VCStar.com reports, “Under the proposed law, known as the Student Non-Discrimination Act, gay and lesbian students in public schools could not be excluded from participating in or be subject to discrimination under any educational program that receives federal assistance. Discrimination would include harassment, which is defined as acts of ‘verbal, nonverbal or physical aggression,’ as well as intimidation or hostility based upon a student’s actual or perceived sexual orientation.”  Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colorado), the author and primary sponsor of the bill said that King’s death was foremost in his mind as he framed this legislation and promoted it among his colleagues. “I absolutely had Larry King in mind and other kids like him,” he told reporters.  In an interview with DCAgenda.com, Polis said the legislation would give schools across the country tools to fight against discrimination that includes “everything from exclusion from prom, to banning clubs, to lack of actions addressing bullying situations.” Polis continued, “Gays and lesbians across the country face discrimination and frequently institutionalized discrimination in many school districts, and giving them a federal remedy, just as girls do and minorities, will help address this.”  The bill, H.R. 4530, has good support in Congress, with 65 co-sponsors including Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wisconsin) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts).  Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-California) is reviewing the legislation which Polis introduced in late January 2010.  Nine out of ten LGBT students in middle and secondary schools throughout the nation report that they have been harassed because of their actual or perceived sexual orientation, and 61 per cent of them say they feel unsafe in their schools because of attitudes about their sexuality, according to GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.  According to his school friends, Larry King suffered repeated harassment because of his feminine self-presentation.  He sometimes wore jewelry and dressed in high heels and feminine apparel.  Students have confirmed that he had tense exchanges with McInerney in the weeks before the fatal shooting.  Rep. Lois Capps (D-California), one of the bill’s co-sponsors and the Congresswoman representing Oxnard where King was murdered, told the VC Star, “Larry’s murder was particularly painful because it happened at his school, a place that should have been a sacred space where he could grow and learn in a safe and supportive environment.”  School officials in Oxnard contend they did nothing wrong, so the proposed law would not affect them.  Their critics, among them LGBT activists in Southern California, counter that nothing substantive has been done to address the underlying hatred that permitted one of their students to act out his phobia on another, to the point of murder.  McInerney, who is to be tried as an adult because of indications of pre-meditation of the crime, has pleaded not guilty to murder and hate crimes charges in the case.

Jorge Steven López Mercado

San Juan, Puerto Rico – The Associated Press is reporting that the arrested suspect in Jorge Steven Lopez Mercado’s grisly murder is claiming the infamous “gay panic” defense to besmirch the character of the victim, and appeal to anti-gay machismo.  Regional Police Director Hector Agosto said, “This was a ruthless crime.  Whoever did this just wanted to make the person disappear.”  Gay rights advocates in the Caribbean United States Territory have carried out a number of memorial events for young Lopez Mercado, as well as protests in the capital, San Juan demanding that police investigate the murder as a bias-related hate crime.  ”They are hurt and they are indignant,” gay activist Pedro Julio Serrano said to reporters. “They are calling for justice.”  Local island media are reporting that Juan Antonio Martínez Matos, 26, a father of four, was arrested by authorities for the murder.  Matos is alleging that he was in search of a woman for sex, and when he found out that Lopez Mercado was a gay youth instead of a female, he panicked.  Whether he is speaking under the direction of an attorney is not known at this time, but in any event, the suspect has appardently made the calculation that enough members of the public will buy his account that he will be more likely to receive a lighter sentence, if convicted.  On the mainland, the gay or trans-panic defense has been tried on many occasions in an attempt to cast enough aspersions on the character of the LGBT victim that public opinion will soften toward the defendant.  In recent court cases, such as the trial of Allen Ray Andrade, the murderer of trans Latina Angie Zapata in Greeley, Colorado, the panic defense has fallen flat.  Andrade, who made a similar claim, left both judge and jury unconvinced, and received life in prison without hope of parole.  According to Box Turtle Bulletin, Matos also claimed that Lopez Mercado demanded money from him. Police investigators have allegedly discovered a wig, a burned mattress, burned PVC pipe, and a knife at the suspect’s apartment.  Accounts also say that police found blood stains on the wall of the courtyard of the apartment.  Investigator José J. Bermúdez said to the press that he has no doubt that López’s murder can be prosecuted as a hate crime.  Since the public can easily be prejudiced by media accounts that are both uncritical of a suspect’s allegations about his victim, and unverified as to what actually may (or may not) have been found at a crime scene, the Unfinished Lives Project will pass these details along as currently unsubstantiated reports until properly and fully vetted.  Officials in Puerto Rico are now saying that the mutilated, beheaded and partially burned body of Lopez Mercado was discovered on Friday, November 13 in a wooded area near Cayey, only a few miles from his home in Caguas.  Both the LGBT community in Puerto Rico and the Puerto Rican population of New York City have expressed grave concern about the most savage murder of a gay person in Puerto Rico’s history.

Pat and Lynn Mulder at USF, Stephen Coddington photo for the Times

Families of LGBT hate crimes murder victims are on the front lines of grief and loss when a homophobic attack takes the life of someone they love.  This is especially true of their mothers.  That powerful truth was driven home for me again by learning of Pat and Lynn Mulder’s courageous appearance at the Hate Crimes Awareness Summit held this week at the University of South Florida.  Pat shared the story of how her beloved son, Ryan Keith Skipper, lived and died at the hands of brutal, anti-gay attackers in rural Polk County Florida on March 14, 2007.  The popular 25-year-old Skipper was stabbed over 19 times, and left to bleed out on a lonely dirt road in Wahneta, a rural town in the Winter Haven region. One of his murderers, Joseph “Smiley” Bearden has been sentenced to life without parole earlier this year, and a second alleged killer, William D. “Bill Bill” Brown is to stand trial on October 12.  Reporting on the Summit, Alexandra Zayas of the St. Petersburg Times, relates how Pat had to overcome her reluctance and nervousness about speaking in front of crowds about the worst tragedy in her family’s history.  ”The worst thing in the world that can happen to you has already happened. There’s nothing else to be afraid of.”  Speaking with passion and the conviction that no family should ever have to endure what hers has, Pat and her husband Lynn have tirelessly reached out to others bereaved by unreasoning hatred.  Barely a year after her son’s murder, Pat traveled to Fort Lauderdale to see Denise King, mother of African American youth Simmie Williams, Jr., who was shot for being transgender by attackers who have not yet been identified or apprehended.  At at town hall meeting dedicated to the memory of 17-year-old Williams, Pat introduced herself to Mrs. King as Ryan’s mother, and enfolded her in an embrace that King later said was deeply meaningful to her.  Speaking to the Times about that moment, Pat said, “It’s beyond being women. It’s beyond being different races, different backgrounds. It has nothing to do with that. It’s the hearts of two mothers,” Pat said. “For a moment, there’s someone who’s helping you hold up your pain.”  The real unsung heroes of the effort to win passage of the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act are women like Pat Mulder and Denise King who became “accidental activists” for the sake of their children who died so senselessly.  Elke Kennedy, mother of Greenville, SC victim, Sean William Kennedy, Pauline Mitchell, mother of Navajo two-spirit son, F.C. Martinez, Jr. of Cortez, CO, Pat Kuteles, mother of U.S. Army Pvt. Barry Winchell, murdered at Fort Campbell, KY, Kathy Jo Gaither, sister of Sylacauga, AL victim Bill Joe Gaither, and, certainly, Judy Shepard of Casper, WY who is currently touring the nation to promote passage of the LGBT hate crimes bill named for her son Matthew, are but a few outstanding examples of women whose love overcame untold obstacles to add their voices to the chorus of Americans, gay and straight, who want anti-queer violence to come to an end forever.  These courageous women and many other family members around the nation have become the most effective spokespersons for human rights because of their unsought-for mission to stamp out hate from the American vocabulary for all people, especially LGBTQ folk who are so much at risk.  How do mothers do it?  Pat Mulder says that for parents of gay murder victims, there is no closure, only the determination to turn up the volume on what hate crimes do to families.

~ Stephen Sprinkle for the Unfinished Lives Project

Dwight DeLee on Trial

Syracuse, NY – Dwight DeLee, a 20-year-old construction worker from Upstate New York was sentenced Tuesday to the maximum of 25 years in prison for the hate killing of transgender woman, Lateisha Green.  Green, 22, was a Male to Female transgender person, shot to death by DeLee last November as she and her brother sat in a car outside a house party.  Since the age of 16, Green had lived as a woman, wearing women’s clothing, and taking her female name, Lateisha, in preference to her male birth name, Moses.  In determining that DeLee’s crime was manslaughter rather than murder, the court found that he had not intended to kill Green in the attack, but only to terrorize and injure her.  Two aspects of the sentence are of particular note for the LGBT community as it seeks justice for Lateisha and all at-risk transgender persons.  First, the sentence was the maximum amount of time prescribed by New York law for the crime of manslaughter, indicating the seriousness with which the court took the case.  Second, in sentencing DeLee for an anti-transgender hate crime, Judge William Walsh noted the deplorable bias-motivation of the crime.  The jury found that Green was indeed selected for a violent attack based on her perceived gender presentation and gender identity, the hallmark of a transphobic hate crime.  This verdict and sentence are believed to be only the second in the United States explicitly against the perpetrator of an anti-transgender violent crime, the first being the conviction and sentencing earlier this year of Allen Ray Andrade to life without parole for the hate crime murder of 18-year-old Greeley, Colorado transgender Latina, Angie Zapata.

Trinidad, CO – The Pueblo Chieftain and the Examiner.com report that on July 15, 2009 a transsexual person was attacked in a hate crime reminiscent of the murder of Angie Zapata, an 18-year-old transgender woman who was bludgeoned to death in Greeley, CO last year.  The victim,  a 25-year-old M to F person in transition was lodging in the Trinidad Motor Inn awaiting consultation on gender reassignment surgery when she was targeted by a suspect identified as Marcus Lee Watlington.  No age or hometown of the suspect has been announced by the Trinidad police.  Police have reported that Watlington denies any part in the crime.  According to reports on the scene, the victim was pushed into her motel room by the attacker after answering her door.  He verbally denigrated her because of her identity, and proceeded to force sex acts on her.  He then raped her, using a wooden coat hanger to assault her sexually.  To finish the job, the attacker then plunged the victim in a full tub of water in the bathroom, and attempted to execute her by tossing an electric hair dryer into tub with her.  The breaker blew, preventing a fatality.  Frustrated in his attempt to murder the victim, the assailant dragged her back to the bed, bound her with a phone cord, slapped her repeatedly, and warned her not to come back to Trinidad because her “kind” were not wanted there.  The victim stayed bound in the bed until she was discovered late the next morning.  Her description of the attacker was detailed, and according to police, fit Watlington “to a T.”  Anti-trans hate crimes are notable for their brutality and for the abject disregard of the humanity of the victim, and transgender persons are particularly vulnerable to anti-gay as well as anti-trans bias, according to the Colorado Anti-Violence Program (CAVP).  If charged with the crime, Watlington would face sexual assault, attempted murder, and “false imprisonment” charges.  The Chieftain noted that Trinidad, which is a center for transsexual reassignment surgery, has a larger than usual population of transgender persons who are drawn to the town because of the famed practice of Dr. Stanley Biber.  The surgical practice, now run by Dr. Marci Bowers, carries out as many as four sexual reassignment surgeries a day, making Trinidad known as “The Sex Change Capital of the World.”  Local police report that crimes against transgender persons are rare in the town of 9,000.  While it is still unclear about whether hate crimes charges will be filed in this case, Colorado does have a hate crime statute that covers anti-transgender crimes.  Allen Ray Andrade, found guilty of the murder of Zapata earlier this year, was sentenced to life in prison by the Colorado hate crimes law, and is believed to be the first person to be successfully prosecuted under such a statute in the United States.  The Unfinished Lives Project awaits further developments in this case.

Attacks against LGBT people in the U.S. are increasing alarmingly

Violent crimes against LGBT people have increased in the U.S. population in the last two years at an alarming rate, especially among Latino and Black racial/ethnic groups.  The California Department of Justice, for example, noted 263 hate crimes based on sexual orientation in 2007.  Commenting on these statistics, Jason Bartlett, a California-based spokesman for the National Black Justice Coalition, a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights advocacy group, said, “We have a disproportionate amount of African-Americans being targeted that are LGBT, and we have a huge disparity where transgender people are attacked due to gender expression. Within the Black or Latino community there is more stigma attached to being gay or lesbian or transgender. It’s not talked about as much and within our religious institutions.  We have ministers that speak homophobia from the pulpit. Those kind of messages filter down.”  The same is true throughout the country, as the brutal murders of Angie Zapata, Latina transgender woman from Greeley, CO, and Lateishia Green, African American transgender woman from Syracuse, NY, show.

Latiesha Green, transwoman murdered in Syracuse, NY

The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act, would expand current hate-crimes laws and authorize the Attorney General “to provide technical, forensic, prosecutorial, or other assistance in the criminal investigation or prosecution” of any crime “motivated by prejudice based on the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim, or is a violation of the state, local, or tribal hate crime laws.”

Misleading anti-Shepard Act flyer, aimed at U.S. Congress

Against critics, supporters of the Act note that this is not a “hate speech act,” or a “hate thought act,” as detractors have charged.  This Act specifically preserves all First Amendment rights of speech and assembly.  Instead, this Act targets crimes perpetrated against LGBT people because of bias motivation against their sexual orientation or gender expression and identity.

Rachel Maddow, MSNBC News Commentator

Nobody seems to have gotten the rationale for the Matthew Shepard Act more clearly than MSMBC’s commentator, Rachel Maddow.  In her discussion of the controversy surrounding the Act since its passage in the U.S. House of Representatives, she put it this way on The Rachel Maddow Show of 4/30/09:

MADDOW: “The concept behind this kind of legislation is often misconstrued but here’s the deal as I understand it. The idea is that the federal Justice Department can get involved in a case to help local authorities or even to take the lead on a case if need be, in prosecuting individual serious violet crimes and murders in which the victim was selected on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, disability – the idea that crimes like that are intended not only to hurt or murder an individual, but to terrorize an entire community, and so there is a national interest in ensuring that those crimes are solved and prosecuted, particularly if local law enforcement doesn’t want to because they are blinkered by the same prejudice that led to the crime in the first place.”

Allen Andrade and attorney hear guilty verdict for the hate crime murder of Angie Zapata (Eric Bellamy photo, Colorado Independent)

Greeley, CO: Allen Ray Andrade was found guilty this afternoon on all four counts against him in the murder of Angie Zapata, a transgender teen woman.  The jury deliberated less than three hours before arriving at its verdict.  Andrade crushed Angie Zapata’s skull with repeated blows from a metal fire extinguisher on July 17, 2008 after spending 36 hours with her in a 400 square foot apartment.  The jury rejected the “trans-panic” defense mounted by Andrade’s attorneys and invoked the penalties in Colorado’s comprehensive hate crime law in what is being called by LGBT rights advocates a “landmark ruling” that demonstrates to Coloradans the need for their bias-motivated crime statute in the prosecution of homophobic killers.

Angie Zapata was 18 at the time of her murder

Judge Marcelo Kopcow read the verdict that found him guilty of first-degree murder, bias-motivated crime, aggravated motor vehicle theft in the first degree and identity theft.  Less than an hour later, Judge Kopcow sentenced 32-year-old Andrade to life without the possibility of parole.  Looking at Andrade, the judge then said, ”I will say, Mr. Andrade, I hope as you’re spending the remaining part of your natural life in the department of corrections… that you every day think about the violence and the brutality that you caused on this fellow human being. And the pain you have caused not only your family, but the family of Angie Zapata.”

Zapata Family at a vigil for Angie in 2008

Gonzalo Zapata, Angie’s brother, spoke to the press following the verdict on behalf of his sisters and his mother, who were also present:

“Angie was my sister. She was a member of our family. We loved her very much and we will miss her every day. Every day and every night, my mom has to deal with the great pain that she saw one of her babies being buried.

“Angie was brave. She had guts, had courage and was beautiful, was fun and was loving. Life was sometimes difficult for her. We learned along with her, to learn she was born a girl with a body that was wrong for her.

“This week, we are deeply saddened and angry as we witness graphic details about the last few minutes of my sister’s life. A big brother is supposed to protect … ” [he breaks down momentarily, and then regains his composure].

“I got it,” he said. “A big brother’s supposed to protect his little sister. It breaks my heart to think there was nothing I could do to protect my little sister.

“Only a monster can look at a beautiful 18-year-old and beat her to death. This monster not only hit my sister but continued to beat her head in over and over and over and over again until her head was crushed in and then left her there to die. He’ll never understand how angry we are at him and how much he has hurt us.

“We will always love you, Angie. And we will always miss you, hija. Thank you.”

Allen Ray Andrade, on trial for the Murder of transgender woman Angie Zapata, awaits his verdict in Greeley, CO today. Prosecution goes for first degree murder. Andrade, already confessed to the murder, was deeply homophobic, according to statements from the jail to girlfriends, such as “Gay things must die.”

Angie Zapata, 18, and alleged murderer, Allen Andrade, courtesy of ABC News

Denver, CO: Allen Andrade, 32, told investigators that he bashed Angie Zapata in the head twice with a fire extinguisher.  He confessed that he thought he had “killed it” when Zapata roused, and then he clobbered her again, delivering the coup de grace.  That was last July.  Now he is slated to go on trial for bias-motivated murder in Greeley, CO where he carried out the crime because he found out Zapata, an 18-year-old male-to-female transwoman, was biologically male.

Angie Zapata

Born Justin Zapata, Angie had been living as a woman since the age of 16.  She had striking beauty, attracting many admirers, though according to her sister, Monica, her loves ended by her boyfriends going back to biological women.  Angie was a gentle, graceful, loving sister, who suspended her life in Fort Lupton, where she was raised, to come to Greeley to help her sister take care of her children.  Monica found Angie’s battered corpse in her apartment, covered in a blanket.  

For two weeks, investigators sought the killer, and finally arrested Andrade on July 30.  He made an initial confession which a judge ruled inadmissible on a technicality.  He has been held in jail without bond since his arrest for the murder.  While behind bars Andrade made recorded phone calls to girlfriend claiming that when he discovered Zapata’s biological status, he “snapped.”  In another conversation, he told his girlfriend that “gay things need to die.”  The phone call transcripts and recordings will be admitted in evidence in the trial.

According to the Associated Press, Andrade is going to be the first person prosecuted for a hate crime under the sexual orientation section of Colorado’s hate crimes law.  Colorado is one of 11 states to have hate crimes enhancements in their statutes.  The comprehensive Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on April 2, 2009, would allow the FBI and other Federal Agencies to investigate such crimes, and to support the local authorities in carrying out their investigations, as well.  Passage of the LLEHCPA remains a critical element of deterring and punishing hate crimes offenders for violence related to sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.

While nothing can bring Angie Zapata back to her family, friends and loved ones, justice for her and for all transgender victims of hate crime violence, which has been so long in coming, may finally be on the horizon.  Stay in touch for further developments.

The Human Rights Campaign has launched its big federal legislative push to enact the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, also called the Matthew Shepard Act, named in memory of the most widely recognized LGBT hate crimes victim in American history.  Matthew Shepard was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by two Laramie, Wyoming men in October 1998.  Both pled guilty, and are serving life sentences for their crime.  Visit the HRC site for more information: www.hrc.org/sites/hatecrimes/index.asp.

Martinez casket header for Denver Post article on F.C.'s murder

Fred C. Martinez, Jr. (1985-2001), a sixteen-year-old Navajo, is featured in the HRC campaign.  He was one of the first subjects of research for the Unfinished Lives Project, and will figure prominently in Dr. Sprinkle’s forthcoming book, Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memory of LGBT Hate Crimes Murder Victims. The book is still in the writing stage at this point, with a projected completion date of September 2009.

"Dance to the Berdache," George Catlin, ca. 1830

Martinez was a Two-Spirit person, also called a berdache. F.C., as his friends called him, suffered harassment in the Cortez, CO public schools for his transgender identity.  In June 2001, on the night of the Ute Mountain Carnival and Rodeo, Shaun Murphy, a resident of Farmington, NM, lured F.C. into a narrow, deep canyon cut diagonally through the south part of Cortez, and cracked open his skull with a 25 pound rock.  Murphy left him to die of exposure and blood loss, bragging the night of the murder that he had “bug-smashed a joto,” slang for “fag.”  At the time F.C.’s body was discovered by small boys playing on the canyon floor five days after the homicide, his remains were so decomposed that his mother could identify him only by the blue bandana he wore when he left her home.

Shaun Murphy, F.C.'s killer

Murphy, 18, was sentenced to 40 years for F.C.’s murder.  There is little to indicate that F.C., the most famous person ever to live in Cortez, had ever existed.  Neither Colorado nor the United States has enacted anti-hate crime legislation.  His mother, Pauline Mitchell, still works as an advocate for LGBT people and for the memory of her son.  She visits his grave often, kneeling on the grass, talking to him in Navajo and English, thanking him for understanding that things are taking so long to change.

F.C. and his mom, Pauline Mitchell

There is strong medicine in the F.C. Martinez, Jr. story.  As a nadleeh, as Navajo people refer to their Two-Spirits, he was a sign of the balance between the feminine and the masculine in us all.  He walked the Way of Beauty.  As the Navajo Blessingway Chant says:

Earth’s body has become my body

by means of this I shall live on.

Earth’s mind has become my mind

by means of this I shall live on.

Earth’s voice has become my voice

by means of this I shall live on.

New York – As the Transgender Day of Remembrance approaches, a day when victims of anti-transgender bias are mourned around the globe, the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) has documented increases in severe violence directed at transgender communities across the country, especially against transgender women of color.

• Latiesha Green, 22, was shot on November 14 in Syracuse, New York.
• Duanna Johnson, 43, was shot in Memphis, Tennessee, on November 8.
• Aimee Wilcoxson, 34, was found dead in her apartment on November 3 in Aurora, Colorado, just outside of Denver.

Some of these brutal acts of violence occurred in the same communities that continue to mourn the murders of two transgender people of color earlier this year: Ebony Whitaker, 20, murdered in June also in Tennessee and Angie Zapata, 18, murdered in July also in Colorado.

Organizations such as International Transgender Day of Remembrance and Remembering Our Dead that have helped to initiate Transgender Day of Remembrance (held this year on November 20) also track anti-trans murders. They documented 29 anti-trans murders in 2008, a 65% increase over 2007.

NCAVP wishes to express our sadness and outrage about this ongoing, horrific violence. We stand in solidarity with transgender communities in Tennessee, Syracuse, and Colorado, the victims and survivors, and their loved ones.

Mixed Criminal / Legal System Responses

Memphis
Ms. Johnson’s murder comes on the heels of Memphis Police Department’s brutal beating of Ms. Johnson in February 2008. The following Police security camera footage of the beating has been widely circulated since June (warning: clip contains disturbing material):

[YouTube="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N1Bvlbh_ws"]

The Memphis Police Department had been attempting to settle a law suit that Ms. Johnson had filed for the beating she endured while in custody. Former officers Bridges McRae and James Swain were fired only after the video was released, but it is not yet clear whether or not any criminal charges will be filed.

Local community members have speculated that anti-trans bias is likely a factor, not only in the beating itself but in the lack of criminal charges being filed. “This is not the first time the Shelby County District Attorney’s office has shown indifference to brutality against transgender people,” observed Dr. Marisa Richmond, the President of Tennessee Transgender Political Coalition. “When Tiffany Berry was murdered in 2006, her alleged perpetrator, D’Andre Blake, was released on only $20,000 bond.” Dr. Richmond noted that people charged with murder in Tennessee typically get a $100,000 bond.

The FBI is now assisting in the investigation of Ms. Johnson’s murder. NCAVP calls upon the FBI to bring its full resources to in the investigation of not only Ms. Johnson’s murder but also Ms. Ebony Whitaker’s. NCAVP also demands that District Attorney Gibbons bring appropriate charges against former officers McRae and Swain.

Aurora
In Colorado, the Aurora Sentinel reported that local police have speculated that Ms. Wilcoxson’s death was a suicide. But friends of hers insist that explanation is very unlikely given her life circumstances and also given the condition the body was in when it was discovered. NCAVP is hopeful that local police will conduct a thorough investigation that takes into account these statements from people who knew her.

Syracuse
In Syracuse, Sage Upstate and other local community members report that Syracuse City Police Department Chief Gary Miguel has responded to this crime with sensitivity. The family of Latiesha ‘Tiesh’ Green and LGBT advocates in the Syracuse community are hopeful that the Onondaga County District Attorney’s office will be able to include hate crime charges in the prosecution of this case.

NCAVP commends district attorneys and police who identify and appropriately categorize hate-motivated violence. We are hopeful that district attorneys and law enforcement in other jurisdictions will follow suit and NCAVP will continue to monitor the violence against transgender communities, as well as the police response.

Transgender and gender non-conforming people experience violence and harassment everyday and most of it never makes headlines. NCAVP encourages LGBT people experiencing any form of hate violence, harassment, vandalism, or bullying to contact NCAVP or one of our member programs by calling 212.714.1184 or emailing us at info@ncavp.org.

The Hate Crimes Bill has provided an excellent summary of a new report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs showing anti-LGBT violence has been on the rise since the murder of Lawrence “Larry” King in Oxnard, California, at the beginning of this year.

“The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) reports a recent rash of at least 13 brutal and violent hate crimes that have occurred throughout the country on the heels of the murder of 15 year-old Lawrence King in Los Angeles and the brutal beating of Duanna Johnson, both in February of 2008,” says the Hate Crimes Bill’s website. “NCAVP reports that these hate crimes may indicate a frightening trend of increases in both the number and severity of anti-LGBT violence.”

The NCAVP findings come after several anti-LGBT hate crimes, including the police beating of a transgender woman in Memphis, Tennessee; the harassment and beating of a gay man on a New York subway; the murder of a transgender woman in Memphis, Tennessee; the alleged police beating of a gay man in Greeley, Colorado; the beating of a priest in Queens, New York, for protecting a group of LGBT youth living at a shelter for homeless youth; the midnight home-invasion and arson, in Central New York, by a self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi, who targeted a sleeping 65-year-old gay man (the victim was able to flee the home, unhurt); the fatal bludgeoning of 18-year-old Angie Zapata, a transgender Latina woman in Greeley, Colorado; the beating of gay man Jimmy Lee Dean, in Dallas, Texas, whose injuries were so severe that he was in intensive care and could not be interviewed or identified until five days after the crime; the severe injury of a man in upstate New York, whose two assailants beat, kicked, and shouted anti-gay slurs until they had broken ten bones in their victim’s face; the attack against an 18-year-old living in St Helens, in the United Kingdom, who died a week later from his injuries; the (at least partially) anti-gay-motivated shooting rampage in a Knoxville, Tennessee, church that claimed two lives and wounded seven others; the mob-beating and stabbing of a man perceived to be gay in Staten Island, New York; the ongoing and escalating harassment (for nearly 8 years) of a gay male couple living in Cleveland, Ohio, by anti-gay neighbors; and the ongoing and escalating harassment (for nearly 20 years) of a gay male couple living in a rural Pennsylvania town, who have suffered incidents of gunfire, vandalism, stalking, acts of intimidation, and the indifference from local police.

In a grim coincidence, more than one anti-LGBT hate crime has occurred in both Memphis, Tennessee, and Greeley, Colorado, since the beginning of 2008.

Unfinished Lives also offers our own analysis of the significance of anti-LGBT hate-crime statistics in the United States. The NCAVP’s findings and the Hate Crimes Bill’s detailed summary confirm what has been a growing concern for LGBT persons living in the United States.