Unfinished Lives

Remembering LGBT Hate Crime Victims

Teen Blinded In Anti-Gay Middle School Attack

Kardin Ulysse, 14, blinded in anti-gay bullying attack at a Bergen Beach middle school (New York Daily News photo).

Brooklyn, New York – A 14-year-old student was blinded in one eye in a brutal anti-gay attack at his middle school in Bergen Beach. The June 5 attack was part of a pattern of hate attacks against Kardin Ulysse, whose parents chose Roy H. Mann Junior High School for their son because they thought it was the best school in the area, according to the New York Daily News.  Now, his father Pierre says he knows they were wrong. In excellent reporting, the NYDN graphically presents the outrageous outcome of the brutal attack that has led to two surgeries on Kardin’s eye already:

“My son is very upset. He says, ‘Daddy, am I ever going to be able to see again?’ ” Pierre Ulysse said Monday.

His son, Kardin Ulysse, 14, has undergone two surgeries on his right eye since the June 5 beatdown at Roy H. Mann Junior High School in Bergen Beach. It is unclear whether the bullies’ multiple punches or the broken shards of lens from his eyeglasses caused the damage to his cornea.

“The doctor says he needs a transplant,” Pierre Ulysse said. “For me to send him to school with two eyes and come back with one eye is really absurd.

“I want the world to know about this,” he added.

Kardin, an eighth-grader, was set upon by a pair of seventh-graders who were calling him a “f—–g f—-t,” a “p—-,” a “transvestite” and “gay,” according to a Department of Education occurrence report.

The NYDN further reports that authorities are considering charging the attackers with a hate crime, given the heinous nature of the assault. Hate crimes are a felony in New York.  At present, because the attackers are minors, they are charged with misdemeanors in Family Court.

Instinct Magazine reports that the Ulysse family has hired an attorney, and plans to sue the city for $16 million.  His parents say they want the whole world to know what happened at the school to their son, so that the “madness” of anti-gay bullying will stop.

The horror and irony of this fiendish attack is that Kardin Ulysse’s assailants used his supposed gayness as a pretext for their brutality because homosexuality was the worst epithet they could think of, and their suspicion served as the fictional justification for their assault. There is no evidence or admission that young Ulysse is in fact gay. Instead, he must be presumed to be otherwise. The mere suspicion of weakness or effeminacy is deadly in middle school culture in the United States, and this utterly unjustified attack is one more evidence that anti-gay bullying is a bias crime, and deserves to be treated as such by law enforcement and the courts.

June 19, 2012 Posted by | Anti-LGBT hate crime, Beatings and battery, Bullying in schools, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, Mistaken as LGBT, New York, Slurs and epithets, U.S. Department of Education | , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Gay Teen’s Heartbreaking Suicide Note: Bullying Led to El Paso Youth’s Untimely Death

Brandon Joseph Elizares, 16: artist, poet, Shakespeare lover, gay boy. Bullying led to his suicide June 2.

El Paso, Texas – Brandon Elizares came out to his mother when he was 14. “I’m still me. I’m Brandon. Nothing has changed, except I like boys,” his mother, Zachalyn Elizares remembers. Bullied relentlessly for being gay, he Andress High School sophomore barely made it to 16. News of his plaintive farewell note hit the media Thursday, compounding the impact of his June 2 death from an overdose of pills. “My name is Brandon Joseph Elizares,” he wrote, “and I couldn’t make it. I love you guys with all my heart.” His younger brother found Brandon’s body in his room, where the note was left along with a careful display of all his school awards and his art work, according to the KVIA-TV News 7, the local ABC affiliate.  His mother commented on the rest of the note’s content: “He wrote that he was sorry, that he felt like he had to hide under his skin from being who he was because it made him feel terrible.” 

His mother and his friends painted a grim picture of Brandon’s last days at Andress High. The precipitating hate message that seemed to tip Brandon over the edge was a text message on Friday from a boy who threatened to fight him for being gay.  The El Paso Times reports that Brandon had attended Andress for only about two months, having transferred from Chapin High School where the anti-gay bullying had become intense. The bullying followed him to his new school.  Taunts and threats plagued him, though Brandon tried to put a brave face on things for his mother.  “I know it’s hard being a teenager, and it’s especially hard being a gay teenager,” Zachalyn Elizares told reporters, “but I didn’t realize how hard it was. Knowing when to step in is always difficult.” When Brandon told her students threatened to shoot him and to set him on fire, she dove in to rouse school officials first at Chapin and then at Andress to the problem. Brandon reported the bullying to school authorities, and they did reprimand some of his tormentors in the school–but they didn’t notify the bullies’ parents, according to Ms. Elizares.  “I don’t know if they didn’t take it seriously unless it turned physical,” she said. “Parents should know what their kids are doing, especially if they’re being taught these things at home.”

His mother doesn’t want anyone to face prosecution for her son’s death by suicide.  She says he made a choice. But it is clear to her, to Brandon’s friends, and to El Paso community leaders that bullying led to Brandon’s suicide.  Instead of retribution, Ms. Elizares hopes the parents of bullies and their victims across the nation will learn from her awful loss. Parents, she says, must become more aware of what their children are doing in school, whether they are bullying others, or are the target of bullying. “You can’t fix anything if you don’t know what the problem is,” she said.

Brandon’s story is going viral around the nation.  Many are learning about him, his challenges, and the courage of his family. Though news outlets usually refrain from reporting on suicides, the special circumstances surrounding Brandon’s death have caused many media organizations to make an exception.  Homophobic bullying has to be exposed in order to effectively confront it.

Meanwhile, Zachalyn Elizares and her surviving son and daughter are doing the best they can.  Brandon was a premie, just three pounds when he was born, she remembers.  He was her first child, born when she was just 16 herself, a very young mother in Hawaii. She said to the El Paso Times, “I literally had to grow up with him.”  As a military family, the Elizares clan moved to El Paso. She intends to take her son’s body back to Hawaii for burial next week. A memorial service is planned on Friday, June 15 at Holy Spirit Episcopal Church, beginning at 7 p.m. El Paso’s PFLAG Chapter is sponsoring the service, and is collecting a fund to help with expenses. The hurt his mother feels breaks through from time-to-time, tears bleeding through the laughter and smiles she tries to show the world. “He worried about everyone else before himself,” she said. “He would say, ‘It’s OK, it doesn’t bother me.’ My son had a right to live how he wanted to live.”

June 15, 2012 Posted by | Bullycide, Bullying in schools, gay teens, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Latino and Latina Americans, LGBT teen suicide prevention, LGBTQ, LGBTQ suicide, military, PFLAG El Paso, suicide, Texas | , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Anti-Gay Sect Leader Pleads Guilty for Murdering 4-Year-Old Boy and Adult Woman

Jadon Higganbothan, 4, (l) shot for allegedly being gay, and Antoinette McKoy, 28, (r) murdered for being unable to bear children.

Durham, North Carolina – The leader of an anti-gay sect has pleaded guilty to murder for killing a 4-year-old boy because he thought the toddler was gay, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). Peter Lucas Moses, 27, the leader of a polygamous group known as the “Black Hebrews,” has agreed to testify against his mother, brother, and sister in order to avoid the death penalty for himself. He faces two life sentences for the murders of Jadon Higganbothan, 4, and Antoinette Yvonne McKoy, 28, if convicted of the crimes.

WRAL-TV reports that members of the Black Separatist cult addressed Moses as “Lord,” and lived together in a house in Southeast Durham. In October 2010, because he believed he saw Higganbothan touch one of his sons “inapproriately” (the boy had allegedly spanked Moses’ son on the bottom), he ordered the boy’s mother to take him into the garage, where Moses shot the child in the head.  The women in the group had arranged computer speakers in the garage to play the Lord’s Prayer in Hebrew loudly enough to drown out the sound of the gunshot.  Two months later, when Moses found out that his consort McKoy could not have children and had decided to escape the cult, he shot her to death in a bathroom of the house.  On June 8, 2011, investigators found the bodies of Higganbothan and McKoy buried in trash bags in the basement of another house belonging to the sect.  Moses’ fingerprints were found on the tape used to secure the trash bags, and his handgun was proven to have been used in both murders.

The father of the little boy, Jamiel Higganbothan, told WRAL-TV News that he was furious the District Attorney had offered Moses a plea deal to save his life. “Me and my family wanted the death penalty,” Higganbothan said after the deal was announced. Moses’ brother, P. Leonard Moses, his sister, Sheila Moses, and his mother, Sheilda Harris, have been charged with accessories to the murder of Antoinetta McKoy. Jadon’s mother, Vania Sisk, and two other women who lived with Peter Moses, Larhonda Renee Smith and Lavada Quinzetta Harris, have been charged with murder in McKoy’s killing, and as accessories to the murder of the little boy.

The Black Hebrews, according to the SPLC, have roots going back to Black Separatist  and Black Nationalist movements in the 19th century.  They hold that they, not the Jews, are the true descendants of the Israelites in the Hebrew Bible.  While most members of the modern movement in the United States are non-violent, a growing number of cells have become increasingly anti-Semitic, anti-gay, and prone to violence. They hold that modern Jews are imposters. These extremists also condemn whites for enslaving Blacks, and say that they are worthy of death or slavery because of it.

June 14, 2012 Posted by | anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Anti-Semitism, Black Hebrews, GLBTQ, gun violence, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, Mistaken as LGBT, North Carolina, religious hate speech, religious intolerance | , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Anti-Gay Sect Leader Pleads Guilty for Murdering 4-Year-Old Boy and Adult Woman

Gay El Paso Teenager Tormented To Death By School Bullies

Brandon Elizares, 16, committed suicide after two years of homophobic bullying.

El Paso, Texas – A 16-year-old gay boy took his life in response to two years of relentless bullying at school in El Paso.  Saturday, his mother left Brandon Elizares at home for a short while to run errands, only to find him dead upon their return, according to KFOX14 TV.  Elizares, who could not bear to live in the closet any longer, had come out to family and friends. The response from his own family was mixed. Most family members supported Brandon,  but some made it clear to him that they did not approved of his “lifestyle.”  At Andress High School, the 2,000 student senior high school he attended on the northeast side of El Paso, however, the response to his sexual orientation was brutal, unrelenting bullying.  His mother, Zachalyn Elizares, says that the torment her son received from schoolmates pushed him to suicide. “He got bullied simply for being gay,” Elizares said to KFOX. “He’s been threatened to be stabbed. He’s been threatened to be set on fire.”

Brandon’s mother said that officials at Andress High School had worked aggressively to stem the bullying, but in the case of her son, it was not enough. “They’ve reprimanded several kids and they did everything that they could,” she said. Brandon’s friends told Elizares that he had been insulted for being gay just before the weekend, and that at least one of his tormentors had threatened to fight him when they saw each other on the following Monday, according to the Dallas Voice. Elizares believes the threat of physical violence was what drove her son to take his own life. “My son had every right to live his live the way that he wanted to, without having to fear that people would call him names or threaten to beat him up,” she said.

Although officials of the El Paso Independent School District could not comment on this specific case, they affirmed to KFOX14 that they have a strong anti-bullying program in place and working in their schools, including Andress High. Brandon Elizares death from homophobic bullying underlines the problems schools face when a culture of intimidation has taken hold in a locale. Debra Carden, EPISD’s bullying committee leader, noted to KFOX14, “What a bully is looking for is to try and scare you into not reporting it, so that nothing is done.” She issued an appeal to students, parents, and friends to report any actual or suspected incidents of school bullying immediately.

June 11, 2012 Posted by | Anti-LGBT hate crime, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Bullycide, Bullying in schools, gay teens, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Latino and Latina Americans, LGBTQ, LGBTQ suicide, suicide, Texas | , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Anti-Gay Racism Hits New Low; Pastor Lynches President Obama In Effigy For Supporting Gay Equality

Racism and homophobic bigotry on display in a Florida church’s front yard.

Gainesville, Florida – President Barack Obama hangs in effigy from a gallows with a gay flag in his hand in the front yard of a Florida church in a blatant grab for publicity–but Pastor Terry Jones is flirting with incitement to violence against blacks and gay people. The Smoking Gun blog says that the Obama effigy is also holding a baby doll in its other hand.  A trailer emblazoned with the motto, “Obama is Killing America” sits facing the road in front of the Dove World Outreach Center.  In an interview with Huffington Post, Jones said that the flag was to protest the President’s support for LGBTQ people, and the doll symbolized Mr. Obama’s position “on abortion.” As USA Today reported, Jones came to international attention for his “Burn a Koran” campaign in 2010 and 2011 which inflamed anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S., imperiled the lives of American service members stationed around the world, and ignited Islamic protests against this nation throughout the world.  After Jones oversaw the burning of the Muslim holy book in 2011, three days of riots broke out in Afghanistan, with over 21 homicides including seven dead United Nations workers. Now, seeking the glory days of his past buffoonery, Jones is making a visual statement he says is protected by the First Amendment guaranteeing freedom of speech.

Disavowing the obvious threat implied in the gallows installation, Jones says he only wishes President Obama to “die politically” for what he is “doing to America.”  While some constitutional scholars may agree, taking a cue from the 2011 legal victory of Westboro Baptist Church protecting the Topeka, Kansas church’s protests at military service members’ funerals, Jones is hypocritically cloaking his violent symbology in freedom of speech language. Local Floridians are not buying his diversionary tactics, however. WCJB TV-20  interviewed Gainesville neighbor Mary Mamatsios who said of the controversial pastor,  “He’s just over the edge and he has nothing better to do. He’s a total screwball.”  This view is widely held throughout the Sunshine State.

The extreme violence portrayed by Jones’s church by including a gallows and a hangman’s noose disturbs the peace of African Americans and LGBTQ folk alike.  Symbols matter, and the incitement to violence conjured up in the collective consciousness of the black community by the threat of lynching and the noose threatens to cross the legal line.  The U.S. Secret Service is not only aware of the controversial installation in the Dove Center’s yard, but are actively investigating Jones and the church for threatening the life and wellbeing of the President, according to the Broward Palm Beach New Times.  As Dr. James Cone, pioneer Black theologian, shows in his award-winning book, The Cross and the Lynching Tree (Orbis Books, 2011), nooses and lynching haunt the Black community due to the extermination by lynching of black men throughout the South during the “Strange Fruit” period of the 20th century. Stephen G.Ray Jr. of the Christian Century Magazine says Cone’s book “is a theological meditation on a dimension of the lethal oppression experienced by African Americans that has been formative for both the faith and civic posture of the black community for a very long time.” 

But the LGBTQ community also has legitimate concerns about security and safety, too.  The suffering of blacks and gay people as marginalized communities runs on parallel tracks in this latest controversy.  Since the Matthew Shepard/James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law by the President in October 2009, murders of LGBTQ people have risen sharply, this year reaching the highest number of hate crime homicides every seen in the USA. Gays and blacks are targeted by people who believe queer executions are justified by the Bible and the authority of church leadership. Like the African American fear of what a noose represents, the hanging of an effigy holding a rainbow flag in its hand conveys what bigots like Jones surely have in mind for LGBTQ people.

A parable: When a dog owner neglects to secure the pet pen, allowing a snapping dog to run free in the neighborhood, who is to blame if the dog digs up the rose beds, urinates on someone’s shoes and socks, kills two pet cats, and mauls a little girl?  The dog? No!  It was in the dog’s nature and conditioning to bite and tear.  The person who unleashed a dog he knew was likely to bite on the other hand sets up the condition by which injury and death may occur–and the dog owner is legally responsible for the damage his pet causes to life, limb and property. When demagogues like Jones and his more practiced homophobe, Rev. Fred Phelps, breathe out their hatred of LGBTQ people, they are also potentially inciting “whosoever will” to violence against gays, lesbians, bisexual people, and transgender people. The incitement to commit a bias crime is a crime of violence in its own right, as Rev. Dr. Mel White has pointed out time and again–and it has to be stopped.

June 9, 2012 Posted by | African Americans, Anti-LGBT hate crime, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Florida, gay bashing, GLAAD, Hate Crimes, hate speech, Heterosexism and homophobia, Homosexuality and the Bible, U.S. Secret Service | , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Author of Gay Hate Crimes Book Wins International Silver Medal

Stephen V. Sprinkle receives the Silver Medal for excellence in Gay/Lesbian Non-Fiction at the 16th Annual IPPY Awards.

New York, New York – June 4th, Dr. Steve Sprinkle received the international Silver Medal for Gay/Lesbian Non-Fiction at the 16th Annual Independent Book Publishers Awards Gala in New York City. The Director of the Awards, Jim Barnes, praised Unfinished Lives for being a “brave book,” and “the only such book of its kind.” Barnes asked Dr. Sprinkle to say a few words about his motivation for writing it–the only author he asked to speak to the gathering all night. A photo album of the event are accessible on Facebook by clicking on this link. Dr. Sprinkle expressed his gratitude for increasing interest in the book: “Thanks to everyone for your continuing support of Unfinished Lives and the blog Of the Unfinished Lives Project, https://unfinishedlivesblog.com/.”

In a press release by the Independent Book Publishers Awards, sponsored the the Jenkins Group, the international reach of the IPPYs is evident: “Independent publishers are extremely diverse, in both style and geography. This year’s IPPY competition attracted 5,200 entries, and the 372 medalists represent 44 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia, seven Canadian provinces, and ten countries overseas. Launched in 1996 as the first unaffiliated awards program open exclusively to independent, university, and self-published titles, the IPPY Awards contest rewards winners in 74 national, 22 regional, and five e-book categories with gold, silver and bronze medallions and foil seals for their book covers.”  The Independent Publisher, a blog featuring the avant guard role independent presses play in launching distinctively different books annually, made this observation about the 16th Annual Awards for 2012: “This year’s entry totals are the biggest ever, with 4,813 print book entries, 390 e-book entries, and an average category size of 50.  The largest category was Memoir, with 213 entries; the smallest was Classical Studies, with just 8 entries. IPPY medals go to entrants from 44 U.S. states plus D.C., 7 Canadian provinces, and 10 countries overseas.”

“Independent publishers are growing in number, and the quality of their work is increasing,” says awards director Jim Barnes. “One element driving the high rate of excellence is participation from university presses. This year, 29 medalists came from university presses and 9 came from museums. Their elevated level of writing, editing, design and production raises the bar and inspires us all.” E-Books were recognized in five categories this year, as well.  Author and publisher enthusiasm for this publishing medium means that more categories of E-Book awards will be featured in next year’s IPPYs.

Sprinkle said that he owed the night to the ongoing memories of the 13,000 queer folk whose hate crimes murders have been documented since 1982, and especially to the memories of the fourteen women, men, and youth who lost their lives to unreasoning hatred just because of who they loved and how they presented their existential understanding of gender.  Unfinished Lives may be accessed on the Unfinished Lives Blog, on Amazon.com, and Wipf and Stock Publishers.

June 7, 2012 Posted by | Anti-LGBT hate crime, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, Hate Crime Statistics, Hate Crimes, hate crimes prevention, hate speech, Heterosexism and homophobia, Independent Book Awards (IPPYs) | , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Gay, Lesbian, Transgender Murders Skyrocket; Highest Hate Crime Murder Rate Ever Recorded

Burke Burnett, 26, of Paris, Texas narrowly missed being murdered in an October 2011 anti-gay hate crime (Dallas Voice photo). Two of the three persons who assaulted him have received long prison sentences with hate crimes enhancements.

New York, New York – LGBTQH hate crimes murders in 2011 reached the highest number in recorded United States history, according to the annual report of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP). The frightening statistics of gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgender persons, and HIV-affected persons brutally murdered in homophobic hate crimes was released to the press on May 31. Among the highlights of the disturbing 2011 report:

  • The number of murders of LGBTQH people ROSE a full 11 per cent
  • 30 murders recorded; the highest number since the NCAVP has kept records
  • Transgender women, people of color, and gender variant youth are experiencing the most severe assault of violence against them
  • 87 per cent of these murders befell LGBTQH people of color
  • This high murder rate is the third year in a row (2009, 2010, and now 2011) that shows hate crimes killings rising
  • Youth and Young Adults were 2.41 times more likely to have been physically attacked in bias-related crimes than the general LGBTQH population
  • Transgender women comprised 40 per cent of the murder totals, making the second year in a row that Transwomen faced violence in outsized proportions to their numbers in the LGBTQH community

Even though the report shows a 16 per cent decrease in bias-related acts of violence against the LGBTQH community, an encouraging trend, the decrease is overthrown by the alarming jump in hate crimes murders. Detroit, Michigan, for example, showed a major increase in violence against transgender people, prompting Nusrat Ventimiglia of Equality Michigan to note that much of their budget was being consumed in response to the hike in the murder rate in the queer community. Rebecca Waggoner of OutFront Minnesota said that the outrage of youth murders and suicides demands more money and staff on the part of anti-violence programs nationwide to address the epidemic of death among gender variant young people.

Since the Matthew Shepard/James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law by President Obama in October 2009, the incidence of homophobic, biphobic, and transphobic murder has increased year by year, indicating that vigorous prosecution of killers is demanded by the U.S. Justice Department, the FBI, and all branches of state and local law enforcement.  NCAVP’s New York City Anti-Violence Co-ordinator, Chai Jindasurat, said to the media: “NCAVP’s findings are a call to policymakers, advocates, and community members that the prevention of violence against LGBTQ and HIV-affected individuals needs to be a priority.” The report includes specific  policy changes that may reduce the increasing trend of these murders, including an increase in funding for LGBTQH anti-violence support and prevention, and a concentrated effort to bring an end of the homophobic, transphobic, and biphobic culture that fuels hate violence.

18 states do not currently include sexual orientation in their hate crimes statutes, and 22 states do not include gender identity or gender expression. This lack of state concern for LGBTQH victims of hate crime allows the suspects of anti-gay or anti-transgender acts to believe they can carry out their bias crimes against the queer community with impunity. Even when a state has a hate crimes law on the books, like Texas, the rarity of its use by local law enforcement and district attorneys emboldens homophobic killers to carry out their irrational violence without fearing prosecution.

 The media report condensing the massive 2011 NCAVP hate crimes report can be downloaded here.

June 4, 2012 Posted by | Anti-LGBT hate crime, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, bi-phobia, Bullycide, Equality Michigan, FBI, gay bashing, Gender Variant Youth, GLBTQ, Hate Crime Statistics, Hate Crimes, hate crimes prevention, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, LGBTQ suicide, Matthew Shepard Act, Michigan, Minnesota, National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP), New York, OutFront Minnesota, Social Justice Advocacy, Texas, transphobia, U.S. Justice Department | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Gay, Lesbian, Transgender Murders Skyrocket; Highest Hate Crime Murder Rate Ever Recorded

Remembering Sakia Gunn (1987-2003): A Special Comment on Her Birthday

Sakia LaTona Gunn, murdered by a male homophobe as she defended her friends from him. She was not yet 16 when she died.

Newark, New Jersey – On Saturday, Sakia LaTona Gunn would have been 25 years old–but instead, she was murdered by a homophobe on the make for young lesbians.  Sakia’s story never got the press attention other LGBTQ hate crimes murder victims did.  She was a young, black, poor girl from the wrong side of the Hudson River.  But among those who know her story, there is great power for change still waiting to be released until justice finally comes for Sakia–and for all queer youth caught in the national nightmare of violence against young people of color that just won’t seem to go away.

The narrative of her last night is chilling.  Sakia and her friends returned from a great day at the Chelsea Piers over in the Big Apple.  They laughed, joked, sneaked drinks, and held each other in a blissful freedom they did not know back home.  Late, late–or early, depending on how you keep time–Sakia and her friends stood waiting for a bus to pick them up at one of the busiest bus stops in Newark, when two older, much more powerful men drove by cat-calling at them, trolling for something young and vulnerable.  They recognized that the girls were Aggressives–gender non-conforming youth who lived the hip hop life as fully as they could.  And something snapped within Richard McCullough when his blandishments were rejected by Sakia.

When McCullough, much larger and stronger than any of the girls he attacked, moved against her friends, Sakia defended them with her life.  McCullough stabbed her in the chest with a switchblade knife, later lamely claiming that she had “run” onto the knife he somehow was wielding in self defense.  Neither the jury nor the judge bought his story, and he was convicted of manslaughter in a plea bargain and sentenced to 20 years (rather than face a murder charge and be subject to far more prison time).

Sakia’s funeral was huge.  Over 2,500 people attended the wake, though it was only slightly covered in the gay media, and virtually not at all in the mainstream press–a fact that has been controversial ever since her story broke.  Racism and sexism played their part in dampening the story, as did Sakia’s self identification as a lesbian Aggressive, effectively rendering her a minority within a minority.  A courageous filmmaker, Chas Bennet Brack, worked tirelessly to bring Sakia’s story to the big screen as a documentary.  “Dreams Deferred: The Sakia Gunn Film Project” became an award winner at film festivals around the country.  Sakia’s story became a subject of research, scholarship, and artistic interest, with plays, articles, and books dedicated to her memory.  Among them is the IPPY Award winning Unfinished Lives: Reviving the Memories of LGBTQ Hate Crimes Victims (Resource Publications, 2011), by Stephen V. Sprinkle, the founder and director of the Unfinished Lives Project.

Against the odds, Sakia Gunn intended on being a basketball star.  She found love and friendship in plenty during her woefully shortened life.  But her story persistently clamors for attention, crying out for justice for youth of color, queer people, and economically disadvantaged persons of all races and backgrounds.  Though she never wished it, she has become an ongoing inspiration–a brave young woman unafraid to be who she was in a hostile world, one who defended her friends.  What greater love can anyone have than that?

May 27, 2012 Posted by | anti-LGBT hate crime murder, gay teens, Gender Variant Youth, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, Heterosexism and homophobia, Lesbian women, LGBTQ, New Jersey, Racism, Remembrances, Sakia Gunn Film Project, Social Justice Advocacy, stabbings | , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Marine Murder Anti-Gay Hate Crime, Prosecutor Says

LCpl Philip Bushong, 23, mistakenly assumed to be gay, stabbed to death for hugging a friend.

Washington, D.C. – Yelling anti-gay slurs, a U.S. Marine stabbed another Marine to death after seeing him embrace his male friend outside a popular Barracks Row pub in the nation’s capital.  The Washington Post reports that Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Liebman confirmed that his office is proceeding with anti-gay hate crime charges against Michael Poth, 20, who stabbed Lance Corporal Philip M. Bushong, 23, on April 21. “This was a hate crime,” Liebman said. “The victim and his friend were embracing outside.”  The Post goes on to say that a DC Metro Police homicide detective reported that the crime took place because Poth believed the two men hugging were both gay.  In fact, while his friend is out and gay, Bushong was heterosexual.

The story confirms what hate crimes activists have seen time and again in fatalities like this: even the assumption that a person is gay or lesbian can be deadly.

Video surveillance of the area shows Bushong lifting his shirt after the attack with a startled look on his face, and then collapsing to the pavement.  His assailant had stabbed him once in the chest with a pocket knife. When Poth heard that Bushong had been transported to a hospital to deal with the stab wound, he was heard shouting, “Good!  I hope he dies!”  Prior to the attack, Poth was heard threatening the two men he saw socializing outside the pub, “I’m going to stab someone and cut their lungs out.” Poth, who had already received a “less-than-honorable discharge” from the Marines according to court testimony, had been under investigation by the Marine Corps since last November for altercations with other Marines, and for drug offenses.

Poth has been charged with second degree murder.  His attorney, who claims his client was defending himself from Bushong, unsuccessfully attempted to get the charge lowered to manslaughter. In the altercation, Bushong was heard calling Poth a “boot,” which in Marine slang suggests that Poth was a substandard soldier.

May 23, 2012 Posted by | Anglo Americans, anti-LGBT hate crime murder, gay men, GLBTQ, Hate Crimes, hate speech, Heterosexism and homophobia, LGBTQ, Mistaken as LGBT, Slurs and epithets, stabbings, U.S. Marines, Washington, D.C. | , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Marine Murder Anti-Gay Hate Crime, Prosecutor Says

Gay Martyr for Justice Harvey Milk Celebrated Throughout America

San Francisco, California – Harvey Milk Day, May 22, celebrates the life and legacy of love of Harvey Bernard Milk, born May 22, 1930, and gunned down in his San Francisco City Hall office on November 27, 1978.  He was the first openly gay person elected to a major political office in the United States when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.  His close associate,  gay activist Cleve Jones, says of his friend Harvey, “He fought for gay people, against war and for workers and the poor. He stood with women, immigrants, seniors and youth. He forged coalitions that built power for ordinary men and women and moved us all forward with his humor, compassion and great love for his people.” 

In today’s San Francisco Chronicle, Anne Kronenberg, another intimate friend of Harvey’s who managed his successful election campaign to the Board of Supervisors, reflects on Harvey’s legacy of human rights progress in the 33 years since he was assassinated.  She writes, “In 1977” (the year of Harvey’s election), “we were taking baby steps in our fight for equal rights. In 2012, we have come a long way as the dialogue on equality is a top-of-mind issue and specific actions are reaching that goal. Harvey Milk’s life and death changed the course of history,” Kronenberg went on to say. “Milk’s legacy, to give people hope for a better tomorrow, is very much alive in the hearts of anyone working to achieve change. Thank you, Harvey!”

In 2010, the State of California officially set aside May 22, the anniversary of Harvey’s birth, to be an annual celebration of his memory, the story of the struggle for LGBTQ rights, and of the continuing effort to make this a better world.  His work in education (successfully opposing the infamous Briggs Initiative, also known in California as Prop 6), and in youth empowerment is now being championed by the Harvey B. Milk Foundation, founded by Harvey’s nephew Stuart Milk and his friend Anne Kronenberg.  To learn more about Harvey’s life, times, assassination and witness for justice, see the Academy Award winning films The Times of Harvey Milk (1984) and Milk (2009). In book form, the definitive work is still Randy Shilts’s The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk (St. Martins Griffin, 2008).

The Unfinished Lives Project Team joins grateful Americans from every walk of life in the celebration of Harvey Milk, hate crimes murder victim, gay rights pioneer, and friend of all marginalized people.  Though he died, yet he lives in our hearts and minds, and in the living shrine of liberty made up of the lived experiences of increasing millions of out and proud LGBTQ people.  Happy Birthday, Harvey!

May 22, 2012 Posted by | anti-LGBT hate crime murder, bi-phobia, Bisexual persons, California, gay men, GLBTQ, gun violence, Harvey B. Milk Foundation, Harvey Milk Day, Hate Crimes, hate crimes prevention, Heterosexism and homophobia, Lesbian women, LGBTQ, Remembrances, Social Justice Advocacy, transgender persons, transphobia | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Gay Martyr for Justice Harvey Milk Celebrated Throughout America

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