Suspect Arrested In Stabbing of Transgirl On D.C. Train

[Carolyn Marie]

http://helenair.com/news/national/man-charged-with-stabbing-transgender-girl/article_915bd3b9-995c-5dc3-8248-887080eaca61.html

Carolyn Marie

[VickySGV]

At least they got the guy, and I hope they have evidence to convict him.

[Carolyn Marie]

D.C. seems to be a particularly problematic area for transfolk. Many of the prior victims had been engaging in risky behavior, but this girl was just minding her business on a train. Very scary.

Carolyn Marie

[Charlize]

I feel for our brothers and sisters who live in the inner city. I always feel a bit vulnerable when i travel on mass transit. As a farm girl i am not used to being in crowds. It shouldn't be a problem and maybe in time it will be safer but nuts always exist. I feel much safer in my little town.

Hugs,

Charlize

[StephanieVikingGirl]

Wow, that is disturbing. Until a few years ago, I lived and worked in the Washington D.C. area. I used the green line a lot, and I know the Fort Totten station well. I still have some friends amongst the Radical Faeries in Washington D.C. including a transwoman. I hope she stays safe. Yeah, I have to say Washington D.C. is not a real trans friendly kind of place. That is one of the reasons I left.

Stephanie

[Guest LizMarie]

Right now there are many places in the US that are not safe, largely because of the rise in visible transphobia which is further encouraged by transphobic bigots who have a public platform such as those on Fox News. Some people try to blame trans activists for this which is nonsensical. An oppressed group that is consistently seen being denied basic civil rights openly complains and then violence directed against them was their fault? That's absurd. Was the violence directed against blacks in the 1950s and early 1960s for daring to speak up and organize their fault? Or was it the fault of the white bigots? The truth is obvious there and obvious here. Anyone blaming trans activists for this is literally an "Uncle Tom" type person.

Brynn Tannehill today asked if the trans issue is going to be the radical right's "Maginot line". Since the 1950s, the radical right has lost on issues of desegregation, racial integration, interracial marriage, public acceptance of gays and lesbians, and they are now losing badly on marriage equality. They have pulled out the heavy guns and all of the same stereotypes that you can find by researching the positions of radical right wing white extremists from the 1950s are being used again, this time against trans people and almost exclusively against transwomen, not transmen.

Black women assaulting white women in public bathrooms? Check. Black women not being "real" women compared to white women? Check. Black women trying to "trick" white men into romantic relationships? Yep, same language. Consistent use of language intended to dehumanize and demean the target population to which they object? The radical right has been there and done that one too.

There is really nothing new going on with radical right wing hate speech. It's the same against Muslims. A woman was arrested in New York for shoving a Muslim individual off the station platform and into the path of an oncoming subway train. When interrogated by police, she stated the person looked Muslim and she heard "on the radio" that they were "all dangerous". So we as trans people are not the sole recipients of radical right wing hate speech and actions but we are rapidly becoming a major "cause" to them, because they can raise campaign donations by screaming outright lies about us.

People like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Michael Savage, and others don't want to accept responsibility for the acts that people do after listening to their hate speech but they are just as involved in this systematic campaign against minority groups as the people who actually perform the acts. And until public pressure forces these voices of hatred to stop being so irresponsible, there will be susceptible individuals who upon hearing such hate speech will choose to act upon it.

All that any of us can do in response is try to be aware, be cautious, and try to avoid dangerous situations. This isn't always possible, but we must make that effort.

[Carolyn Marie]

Let's not jump to conclusions about who and what is at fault here. The perpetrator is the one at fault, and if he is found guilty, he'll serve the time for it. We don't know what news shows he watched, we don't know what his politics is, we don't even know what exactly his motivation was. That will come with the investigation.

There are public people, in the media and politics, who have said ugly things about members of this community. Whether they can or should be held accountable for every crime, every act of discrimination, every negative incident involving a trans person is a debate for another time. Even people you might expect to be extreme have said things that make me, at least, wonder if they are capable of having a change of heart. Rush Limbaugh, for example, has said some supportive things of late.

The political right has its extremists, certainly. So does the political left. I'm not willing to categorize everyone on the right, or everyone who fights against trans rights bills, as a bigot. That's a pejorative leap I'm not willing to make. People should be held accountable for what they do, not who they are. I wouldn't want someone to do that to me. I won't do it to others.

Carolyn Marie

[Guest LizMarie]

That's fine, Carolyn, but in my personal experience, the vast majority of haters are on the right side of the political spectrum. The entire campaign against the Houston Equal Rights Amendment is being run and driven by right wingers. Not a leftist publicly visible among them. That doesn't mean all people with conservative views. It means those who publicly hold an agenda against LGBT persons and that group is very large, loud, and vocal, and right wing. Sure, there are anti-trans leftists. Some gay men and the Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists (TERFs) fit that category. But they have neither the reach nor the huge public base that the right wing has in this country.

One of my brothers is a strong conservative who has publicly lamented the takeover of the GOP by the radical right. Down here in Texas an old-style "live and let live" conservative tried to run for public office this last primary season as a Republican. He was trounced by his opponent who campaigned against him by claiming he was "soft" on LGBT people.

The fiscal/business conservatives who for so long were the leaders on the right have lost that spotlight to "social conservatives" like Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, and others. Almost every political lobbying group opposing equal rights laws for trans folk have been right wing, from the Pacific Justice Institute to the American Family Association to Focus on the Family. The people who refuse to let ENDA come to a vote are right wing. The long diatribes against trans folk on the radio? Those come from right wingers too.

I suppose you and I will just have to disagree about this. Not every conservative is a trans hating person but the vast majority of those who do oppose us are right wingers of various stripes.