Two Convicted In Transgender Killing
 

From CNN

All I have to say is, it's about time!

I am left wing.
I don't worship the death penalty. Not because I respect all human life without question.
In any capitalist society for example the idea that there is one fair justice for all, that the quality of your laywer, your class and the colour of your skin, the make up of the jury and the personality of the Judge make no difference to the outcome is just a sick joke.
However don't think I love all killers. Those that killed if they fried their sadistic low asses I would be happy. Good riddance to bad rubbish.
Say I met the person I believe was a lovely woman and I later learnt even after sex they used to be a man. Would I hate them? No. Would I feel upset they didn't tell me? Yes. Would I shout and scream abuse at them? No.
Would I want the world to hate and ridicule them? Never. Enough.
Whenever an innocent person is killed the world is a far worse place.

I'm glad that people are brought to justice for crimes against fellow humans.

I'm glad that it was not labeled a hate crime but at the same time I'm conflicted because from the way the article reads and puts it out there as it sounds like there was some sort of hate/bias involved.

It sickens me that there is still no acceptance for many minorities. Sure it may feel different to realize you had intercourse with a man, but killing is never the answer to anything.

There was some sort of hate involved. People don't strangle, beat, and bury people for no reason. It's called a motive. The motive in this case is that these men felt threatened by the fact that this woman was natally (and i'm assuming from the article physiologically) male. We discriminate about motives all the time. it's often the difference between manslaughter and murder (or various degrees of each), for example. The mens rea, the mind set that produces criminal behavior is important in how we classify it. A murder for profit is considered a more serious crime than a crime of anger (regardless of premeditation). An assault that intends to keep people from voting is more likely to draw a stiff sentance than one that happens in the context of an argument over a game of darts. A sexual assault against a minor is more serious than one against an adult.

I'm sick to death of all this talk as if hate crimes laws were the only time we cared about motive or the idenity of the victim. Our justice system would be dumb as a brick if the only thing we cared about was the actions.

Hate crime laws are moronic by nature, a murder is a murder.

I'm just glad she got some justice.

Yet the way the laws sometimes work someone may get 15 years for killing a single mother working to support two kids in a convenience store while another may get life for killing his dealer over some bad shit. There often doesn't seem to be any consistency.

Less liberal judges, problem solved :thumbsup:

Ok well first of all i don't know the case so i can only assume that the judgement is just, as most of you seem to be assuming. That said i agree it isnt a hate crime the motive was very clearly (from what i read) that they didnt expect her to be packing heat if you know what i mean. And while i think death is a bad idea it isnt cause i dont like the finality of it, it is because life without parole is so much mroe punishing.

That said I am gonna voice an unpopular opinion here and one that i hope noone mistakes for biased (i have known more than one transgendered person in my life and hold them in what is the best light of understanding I can muster, it is difficult for me to understand but I do my best)

Possible threadjack and offensive banter ensues now (see apology at the end first if requsite)

To have gone as far as she did without telling them should be a crime in and of itself. I Understand that it is difficult to explain to someone. I Understand that its hard to find a way that dosent make everythign look like a lie. I Understand that the fact that there were two men involved means this all prolly happened really fast for her. What I dont understand is how someone who obviously knew alot about social predjudice and obviously knew alot about homophobia (remember it was men she was walkign into the house of and she was born a male) why didnt it occur to her that this was unfair to them.

Now dont get me wrong I am not condoneing murder or even abuse but I can tell you if I relize that that which I have been lusting over (or for all i knew thought I loved) is a biological male. I would panic, I would say alot of hurtful things, I would be very distressed

That dosent make murder right but it dosent make her actions pristine either.

/threadjack and offensive banter

Now that said if i offeneded anyone I am greatly sorry I never ment to offend anyone. In anticipation i will be prepared for my flogging this Saturday in the town square if I am found to be an insufferable lout.

I don't think anyone who hasn't gone through, can truly understand what it means to honestly feel trapped in the wrong body. I can only guess that it completely wrecks ones sense of what is honest (especially regarding his/her sex), such a person would have to lie so much.

It makes it an unfortunate situation for the men, but one they could have mitigated by thoroughly checking out what she was "packing" before fucking her. Who is to say they didn't know what they were getting, and simply had later regrets? In this case, we'll never know, because she's dead.

In any case, legislating this unfortunate situation to punish the transgender would be inappropriate, IMO.

A lot of men have issues with women who are more sexually experienced than they are. When they find out, they may panic or say hurtful things, even resort to violence. Should the law require people to identify themselves by how many previous sexual partners they have? These blokes clearly were okay with not knowing damn near anything before having a woman suck them off. Why would we change the law to require that she's in the wrong for not volenteering what they didn't want to know? Why is it her responsbility to disclose, and not theirs to find out by knowing their sexual partners better?

I'm not much of a fan of casual sex (at least personally), but i don't think that it, in any form, needs criminalization.

i think that people need to be held accountable for when their reactions to life include violence.

Nonsense. Criminilizing consensual sex between people who are of age was a bad idea in the past, and it's a bad idea now. Her having male genetalia in no way harmed the . . . I can't call them people, as they don't deserve that much respect . . . scum she performed oral sex on. Short of knowingly passing on a communicable disease to a partner, no aspect of consensual sex should be regulated by the government or criminilized.

Perhaps this might help:

Here's what they did to her:

Quote:

They all agreed that if someone did this to a killer, that person would "get smoked." Jaron was always talking like that, trying to sound like a mobster instead of an econ major. But later, recounting the conversation in a letter to his girlfriend, Jaron reported that the guys knew what they were going to do if Lida turned out to be a guy. "We went off on a Tony Soprano-type plan to kill the bitch and get rid of the body," Jaron wrote. [article edited for length. Suspecting that Gwen might be physically male, they invite her into their house] All of a sudden, Jose pushed back his chair, stood up behind her and felt the front of her neck. "What the hell are you doing?" Lida asked. "We want to know why you want everybody to fuck you in the ass," Jose said, already starting to seethe. She looked up at him, startled. "Jose, how can you ask me that?" According to Jaron, who would recall the night in vivid detail, the other guys jumped in. "Just answer the question," they advised Lida. "You're cool to have around, and we just want to know." They had never seen Lida at a loss for words. She stared into space for several long moments before she finally protested, "No, no, no, no, no -- I'm not." By then, Mike had slid his hand between her legs, saying, "Just let me feel it and everything will be chill." But Lida clamped both her hands down on her lap. "No," she said. "I'm not going to let you molest me." Mike pulled back. "Look," he suggested. "Let's go in the bathroom and you can show me." OK, Lida said. But she made a break for the front door, saying she needed a cigarette first. Jaron blocked her way. "You've got to do this first," he instructed her. Mike took Lida into the little guest bathroom near the front door. After the lock clicked, the rest of the guys sat around the table, talking about how this might be a dude after all. A real girl would have answered the question quick and easy, right? Why had Lida hesitated so long? "I swear, if it's a man, I'll kill him," Jose hissed. "If it's a dude, she's not leaving -- he's not leaving." Finally Mike emerged. "Same old shit," he reported. "She won't let me feel." The guys decided that Nicole might have more luck, being a woman, so she and Mike went back in the bathroom. Jose stalked outside to take a piss. A minute later, Mike came out again. "I didn't feel balls," he said, "but I felt two pairs of underwear. That's a man. That's got to be a man. I don't know what I'm going to do." "Just be calm and think clear," Jaron told him. "Whatever you do, don't make a mess." Mike got behind him and put a chokehold on Jaron's skinny neck. "What about this?" he asked. "Can you breathe?" Jaron could only shake his head no. Suddenly, they heard a scream. Nicole came busting out of the bathroom, yelling, "This is a fucking man!" Lida bolted toward the front door, but Mike caught her, pinned her to the carpet, yanked up her skirt, peeled back her underwear. "Fucking balls," he spat. "Right there -- fucking balls." He let Lida stand up and got behind her, putting a chokehold on her. Jose stunned his friends by starting to cry. "I can't be gay," he repeated over and over again. "I can't be fucking gay." Nicole tried to console him. "Any girl you meet after this, it won't make a difference," she told him, putting her hands on his shoulders. "You still look like the football player I knew you as." Mike had Lida down on the carpet again, his legs locked around hers, his meaty forearm clamping down on her Adam's apple. Jay pulled him off and Lida struggled to her knees. "Please don't," she gasped. "I have a family." Jose ran to the kitchen and grabbed a can of food. When he came back into the living room, he reared back and pounded Lida over the head with it. She crumpled against the wall, blood welling up on the crown of her head. Jose ran out again, came back this time with a frying pan. Mike propped Lida up while Jose swung and connected, square on her forehead. Nicole decided to leave. Jay and Jaron got into Mike's truck. "They're going to kill that bitch," Jay said. The two friends drove to the house where Jay lived with his parents. Tiptoeing into the pitch-black storage shed, they used their lighters to locate three shovels and a pick. Ten minutes later, they were back at the party house. Lida was sitting on the couch by then, hands in her lap, blood streaking down her face. Jose was bitching about the blood, how it was getting everywhere, how he was going to have to clean it up. "Get off the couch," he ordered Lida. She did as she was told, standing up against the wall while Jose furiously scrubbed blood off the cushions. Mike came in from the garage and asked Jaron for his ten-inch hunting knife. A minute later he was back with an armful of white rope. "Enough is enough," Jaron thought. It seemed like this had been going on for a couple of hours, and sooner or later Lida would start yelling and wake the neighbors. "Knock the bitch out," he said. Mike dropped the rope and punched Lida in the face, once, twice. She fell limp, slid down the wall, landed ass-first with a muffled thud. Perfect position for Mike to knee her a couple of more times, right in the face. The second time, Jaron heard Lida's head snap back into the wall, leaving a puckered dent in the plaster. Mike picked up the rope and wrapped it around her wrists four or five times. He did the same thing with her ankles. Seeing that her blood was getting everywhere, Jay fetched a comforter. They wrapped Lida in it. She wasn't putting up a fight anymore. Her legs jutted out the bottom of the blanket, below her smooth brown calves, but the rest of her was bundled up well enough for Mike, Jay and Jaron to hoist her up and cart her out to the garage. Jose kept scrubbing the couch and crying. In the garage, where they first tasted Lida's lips just a couple of months before, broken crap was strewn everywhere. There was a washer and dryer, an old refrigerator and a beat-up car buried under a pile of junk. The guys dumped Lida on a piece of carpet near the back door. Mike grabbed a loose end of the rope with his bloody hands, pulled it around her neck and twisted, hard. [Jaron later confessed to the police and led them to Gwen's body] On the way, he retraced for the cops what happened after they killed Lida. How the four of them piled into Mike's truck, the body flung in back along with the shovels and pick. How they headed for Silver Fork because they had gone there as kids, and because Jay heard there was only one sheriff patrolling the whole vast wilderness up there. How they drove the four hours in near-total silence, making sure not to exceed the speed limit, until they finally climbed into the mountains and hung a right -- right here -- at Silver Fork Road. How they bumped farther and farther into the woods, until they were almost lost amid the cedar trees. How they fell into perfect sync as they dug a makeshift grave, everything quiet except for the wind and the whoosh of the nearby river. How you could hear Lida's body thud on the ground when they dragged it out of the back of the truck and flung it in the grave. How Jose broke the silence, saying, "I could kick her a couple more times, shit makes me so mad." How they threw rocks on top of the body and heaved a hollow tree trunk over the grave to make it look more natural. How, realizing that they were hungry, they hit the drive-through at the first McDonald's they spotted, just down the mountain in Placerville.

No, her actions weren't "pristine". Few victims of violent crime are. That's entirely irrelevant. Read the above, what these cockroaches did to her.

What exactly had she done to them to deserve this?

She seduced them and had consensual sex with them. That doesn't justify their so much as laying one finger on her.

Gilda

Link to the article in Rolling Stone from which the above information is taken.

P.S. I was watching a rerun of The West Wing yesterday which dealt with the murder of a young man for being gay, hate crimes, and the death penalty. President Bartlet asks his aide, Charlie, whose mother was a police officer killed in the line of duty, if he would want to see his mother's killer executed.

I place myself in his shoes by imagining how I'd feel if this were my sister who had been killed, if I would want to see her killers executed, and my answer is the same as Charlie's:

No. I'd want to do it myself.

"Boy's Don't Cry" is the movie. Only they killed because she acted as a male.
Not because she had sex with anyone.

In both cases, these "people" were friends for months.
Both victims were 17, I believe. It is terrible.

exactly why I'm not so sure of it NOT being a hate crime as this out of ALL the others discussed in the past ring clear as day as a hate/bias crime.

The only time we care about them being hate or bias crimes is in these types of situations, yet if say it was one white guy who hated another white guy it's still not a hate/bias crime.

It's not the judicial system that is dumb as bricks it's the people that blindly accept the media stating something as a bias crime, ala Tawana Brawley and her shenanigans against Steven Pagones basically ruining his life and career based on a hate crime lie.

Well, they did rape him earlier.

Otherwise, it does bear a resemblance to the Brandon Teena case, with some significant differences. Brandon was raped by his friends because he was still physically female. He was treated badly by the police, who called him "it" and ridiculed him, didn't investigate except to tell the rapists about the charges and accept what they said at face value, and then didn't provide Brandon with any protection. His attackers tracked him down and killed him to shut him up, to protect themselves from the rape charge.

In other words, they raped him because he was transgender, and murdered him (and two other people) to try to cover up the rape.

In both cases, the victim did a lot of foolish things, but in neither case does this mitigate the crime.

Gilda

There are two kinds of factors that affect the severity of the crime in homocides, mitigating factors, and aggravating factors.

Hate crimes legislation is, to me, similar to drunk driving laws. Before drunk driving was added as a crime in itself, and as an aggravating factor in vehicular crimes, drunkenness was often invoked as a mitigating factor when a drunk driver got into an accident.

Being drunk is, for the most part, perfectly legal, but that becomes an important factor in determining degree of culpablilty when a vehicular crime occurs, even though it, in iteself, is not a crime.

I see hate crimes legislation in a similar vein. Hating gays isn't illegal, nor do I think it should be, and hate crimes legislation won't make it so. What it will do is take that into account as an aggravating factor when it leads to a crime.

Nobody is punishing anyone for what they're thinking here, the suggestion is that certain motivations for a crime should lead to a more severe penalty for that crime. So long as the bigots don't hurt others, they're perfectly safe.

Abuse of the system is of course abominable, precisely because it makes it more difficult for legitimate cases to get the hearing they deserve. False accusations of racism or homophobia or sexism are abhorant. This does not mean we shouldn't take the accurate accusations seriously, just that we must be careful to discriminate between the two.

Gilda

I can buy that, given different penalties for profit killings and whatnot. But my question is this: why for hate crimes? What's the purpose of a more severe penalty when the motivation is hate?

I think the important thing is that the crime is committed. I find it unjust that I get my ass kicked by a redneck and it's an asskicking. It's hate crime if I'm gay. Racism if I'm black.

What's the difference?

Uh. Yes? People do not usually try to exterminate or intimidate in to non-existance their own racial or ethnic group. That intimidation, the removal of the right to exist by non-legal means is an additional crime. It's called a compound offence. Say for instance, if Joe accidentally shot someone while doing something legal, Joe might get manslaughter. But if Joe is commiting a felony, Joe gets Felony Murder. And that's capitol.

Gilda's logic on aggrivating factors parallels this idea as well.

Utterly irrelevant. If laws could be disproved by one wrongful accusation, we wouldn't have a single statute on the books.

Yeah, I've noticed such a thing too. In the last 40 years people became so aware of racism and sexism that they became tolerating black people, women, gays etc more than others. That's not right too- people must be equal!

I'm all for more serious penalties when it can be shown that intimidation of a social group was a motivation of the crime.

But when it's merely hate of an individual member of a social group? No. I don't see a legitimate purpose in increasing the penalty.

The bottom line is that someone was murdered. Unless self defense is implied -it really doesn't matter how, who, or what. I'm suprised this is news at all really -except that it brings some unpleasant sexual details into our public discussion.

This is the essence of why I posted this article in the first place. Whether Gwen Araujo's killing was a hate crime or not, she was still murdered in cold blood by two men who were fully aware of what they were doing. I'm glad to see that justice has been served, and she can now rest in peace.

Okay, I think that I am going to have to be the asshole in the room full of saints here...

The title of the thread had the word "Transgender" in it;
The news article was very specific about the sexual nature (and the abnormal sexual nature) of this crime;

In my opinion, the OP and the others who talk about "Hey, I'm upset about the taking of a human life, it doesn't matter that the vicitim was a transgendered female..." are lying to me.

People get murdered all the time. Hell, I bet a dozen people have been hacked up since I started my reply. (In defence of my pretend statistics, I am a very slow typist)

NO, you DON'T CARE about this person being murdered. The fact that they were transgendered has somehow made this case special, fantastic, and newsworthy.

That is the bottom line.

I would now like to solicit comments that object to my reasoning.

As the original poster, I take offense to that. I posted this specific article because I've been following the case since day one, and I was happy that justice has been served. If I could post an article about every murder that has resulted in a conviction, I would. However, it's not possible.

I'm a Psych major; I enjoy looking into the motivations of any crime, and analyzing any details that I can find. I'm also from the same place where Karla Homolka now resides, which has resparked my intrigue in Forensic Criminology. I don't know the thought process of any of the other posters here, so I can't say why they commented in the first place.

If (G-d forbid) I was murdered, I'm sure the headline that would grab more attention would be "Jew murdered", as opposed to "Woman murdered". Headlines are meant to catch your eye. Don't assume that the only reason people are interested in this case is because the victim is "special"; she's still a victim.

I appologize if offence was taken, but you reinforced my position by stating:No, she is not "STILL A VICTIM", and this is my point,
She has now become a "TRANSGENDERED VICTIM".
This unique spin on the article, the headline, the title of the thread, all focused on this point. You have now intellectually painted yourself into a corner. You no longer have the luxury of saying that the main point is that a human being lost their life. They are now apart from the millions of people who are victims of crime, and even different than other murder victims.

Yes, I will restate that the only reason that people are interested in this case is because she is special. To me, it is blatantly clear.
Please do not take offence.

See, this is the reason why I was surprised the article made it into the popular press at all. Murders and crimes committed against transgendered and transsexuals go largely unreported in the mass media. However, you do bring up an excellent point: they sensationalized it. There is no middle ground where reporting regarding crimes against these people are reported like other murders: they're either not talked about at all or tabloidized. Both options sadden me immensely.

I actually do care. Maybe my reasons for caring aren't all that altruistic, but I do care. I just figure that she was probably pretty cute, therefore it's a shame. Yeah, I'm a jerk; oh well.

News articles that discuss murders routinely describe the motivation for the crime. They did so in this case.

You're certainly right about that. I don't get the point, though. Violent crime is bad, regardless of the motivation, I agree. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't take special notice of violent crimes that strike a personal note with us for whatever reason.

First, the second part there is true, but I fail to see how you can derive the first from that.

Apply a little logic here. Why would someone post to this thread expressing their disgust at what happened to this woman or their satisfaction at her killers being brought to justice if they didn't care about those aspects of the case?

Did I take notice of this case because the victim was transsexual? Sure. It strikes a very personal chord with me. What's wrong with that? Nobody takes careful notice of every murder, every violent crime. When Shaquille O'neal caught the guys who assaulted the gay couple a couple of days ago, I took notice both because it was Shaq, and because it was a gay bashing. Our time is limited, and we have to choose exactly how to spend it. Our personal interests guide where we spend our disposable time.

The point of entry for many people in this case was probably that the victim was a transsexual, and that's probably the reason it's gotten the degree of coverage that it has. And I say, so what? Transgender women have the highest rate of murder of any demographic group. They're three times as likely to be violently murdered as young black males. Shining a light on a crime that usually escapes notice may help in some way.

You say that people care only about the transgender part, not about the murder. That's fallacious reasoning. The two are not mutually exclusive. It's possible to care about both.

Gilda

This is such a sad story.

If only those guys could have had the guts to take the 'insult' like a man. It's not like she ever asked to do their asses. If they'd not asked they'd have never known the difference. It's not like it mattered in the big picture. If they truely liked her as a friend it wouldn't have mattered.

There are friends and then there are true friends. We each need to choose our friends for who they are and not what they 'give' or what we can 'give' them. If she had done this then I believe she'd be here today. She wanted friends, she got people who only wanted to use her and then toss her out.

Cazares should have been found guilty. His story was very shady. He tried to stop them, but he was too drunk. Then, he went out to smoke a cigarette while they killed her. When they were done, he went to get the equipment to bury her. Yeah, right.
Nabors was probably guilty of murder too, but I guess they needed him as a witness.

My reply was focused towards the people who attempted to say, "I am so enlightened and politically correct that I grieve for this human being. Her being transgendered makes no difference to me."

I continue to call that statement bullshit.

I can only imagine someone who grieves for every murder victim in the country, or the continent. They must be fun at parties. :rolleyes:

Am I clarifying my viewpoint, or further confusing things? I have a habit of doing more of the latter than the former.

I think most mens first reaction would be at least to beat the shit out of him. The combination of violation of trust, embarrassment, and revulsion would bring a lot of men to at least some violence. I can't say what my reaction would be if this happened to me, but unless his reaction was basically 'please don't hurt me', odds are I'd hurt him. I don't think this makes me a bad person, I think another man trying to give me head while pretending to be a woman qualifies as 'things someone should get their ass kicked for.'

You can go through all of the issues the transgendered have, and why they would do it, but that doesn't change that its still purposefully deceptive.

Now this does not excuse murder, and they got what they deserved, but there are things in life you can do that make you more likely to be a victim, and in this case the victim was playing a dangerous game.

As you note, that's a matter of opinion. However, what i think is clear is that violence on this magnitude *does* make a person uncivilized. Our culture is bound by the idea that such disputes are not legally mediated by violence.

Does the phrase "rule of law" ring any bells?

As a homosexual I don't think you understand what most straight men feel about sexual contact with another man. There is a level of revulsion that is visceral. If someone tricked me into such an act my reaction would be visceral as well. Add on top of that being lied to and yes I can excuse a little violence.


Reread what I said when I stated they 'got what they deserved'. That means they, got what they deserved, aka they were convicted.

I agree that the trickery was putting her in a dangerous position that she COULD have avoided. If she had only been a friend and not a sex toy she would not have gotten herself into that situation.

I do not condone the violence those men committed. I don't care how much their ego was hurt or how bad it felt to have been tricked. They needed to walk away, never speak to her again, and never speak of IT again. There was NO excuse for the violence in any way. I would not have been surprised if they had punched her or slapped her once but what they did was with an intent to kill or they would not have gone to get objects with which to beat her with. Inexcuseable.

I was appreciating your point (but not agreeing) up until the last part that I bolded. There's no excuse for "a little violence".

Ummmm, I hope you are talking about in the personal sense, and not in a general one!

Ah, my Rouge Citrus friend, you have inspired another thread!!

/ben runs off to delve into this topic further, in its own thread.

Sorry but I can make a fist for a reason. I am not a pacifist. If you wrong me enough I will hurt you for it, note I did not say maim or kill, but I will teach you a lesson using pain, something that we have evolved to have for the last several billion years. I have been in a total of two fights my entire life because my judgement is such that I can avoid such situations before they become an issue, and in this case there is little chance that I would ever find myself in such a situation which I didn't know a woman was a man. Regardless there are some things in which I think the BEST punishment is a physical one, and even adults need a spanking now and then.

This is precisely what i mean by uncivilized. The fundamental idea of civilization is the relinquishment of private violence. As Weber puts it "a legitimated monopoly of violence" is requirement of the existance of a state. You may prefer a world in which private violence is legitimate. What i suggest is that this assumption is incompatible with a belief in the rule of law. This isn't a "i can prove you wrong" question, but an exploration of values. What i'm doing here is drawing your statements to their logical conclusion.

edit. just saw your other post. the only thing i will say about visceral reactions is that i believe them to be a lot more optional than the term implies. if your imagination and values include intense dislike, fear, disgust, etc... of a given concept, then link a hypothetical encounter with a premediation of violence (as you have already done) this play of mind, this practice of thought becomes the lens by which you will in fact react.

in short? we do what we think. if you think you will react with violence? my guess is you very well might.

I do not agree that civilization requires a relinquishment of private violence. Private violence has been a cornerstone of civilized society until only recently. Dueling of sorts has been a part of our civilized history for ages. Such duels were at times legal, or at times illegal but they were thought of as legitimate means of resolving a dispute between equals.

Violence is justified only in defense, never in response to offense or wounded pride. Never for revenge.

We cannot always choose how we react to something emotionally, but it is, at least partially, within our power to anticipate a given situation and thus plan our reactions and how we will handle them.

The question of Gwen's physical sex had been raised weeks in advance, and what was to be done if their suspicions were confirmed had been discussed.

She had not harmed them in any way. She was no threat to them in any way on the night they killed her, or for that matter, at any time during the relationship. They could have easily solved the problem of not wanting to have sex with her or associate with her any longer simply by not associating with her any longer.

As for visceral reactions, sure, that happens to us. We may not be able to choose our emotional reaction, but we certainly do get to choose our actions.

Gwen was foolish in her choice of associates, but her actions in no way justified their so much as laying one finger on her in violence.

Gilda

I respectfully disagree.

I remember this case when it originally happened. It sort of hits home in a literal sense when something like this happens in the next town over from yours. It's a bit of a different thing to say that the killers should go free when you live on the other side of the country, but I certainly don't want these killers walking around in my neighborhood.

While I'm not 100% behind the death penalty, I sure would feel better knowing these sick bastards are behind bars for the rest of their lives.

Of course she harmed them. Probably pretty badly, considering the account of how they reacted.

I agree with you, though, that no violence was justified.

Certainly there is a history of lex talionis, but i would suggest that this process is not compatible with the modern state as we know it.

take this case for instance. democracy holds that the citzen is the basic unit of society, and despite difference or conflict between groups or individuals (in this situation, a homophobic expression of anger), all citizens are required to affirm the idea of the nation over and against any of those private claims. The alternative is the war of all against all. If we affirm this expression of violence, or any like it...we deny our beleif in the rule of law.

Many abusers will hit their spouses because dinner is not ready on time, chores are not to specifications, or other small, often imagined reasons.

Did the abused spouses harm their abusers? Reactions of violence do not create a presumption of harm.

I'm not talking about just the violence, the account read like they were fairly freaked out. You don't think they were harmed by the deception? I'm sure there are plenty of people who can shrug it off like nothing, but it definitely doesn't appear that these people were those kind of people.

edit: And jftr, I don't blame them for being freaked out. Just for everything else resulting.

But as I said, didn't justify a single punch.

it comes down to how one defines harm. upset, freaked out, i can understand and sympathize with all of that. finding out things about the people you're intimate with can be a very intense thing, and we don't always like what we discover.

but i contested the word harm because it implies some level of justification...as if the violence these perps had chosen was a lower level, say just beating her up, that it would have been okay.

i get it that that's not your point...but that's why i didn't like that train of thought.

Their reaction is irrelevant to the issue of whether she had harmed them. She certainly wasn't any kind of threat to them on the night she was murdered.

What did she do? She hung out with them for a period of several months. She shrared their marijuana with them, exchanging "power hits". She actedly provacatively, turning them on, followed by having consensual sex, which they seem to have enjoyed.

Was it her actions that led to the revelation that so offended them that they killed her? No. The revelation of her physical sex was a direct result of their holding her prisoner after she tried to leave, and extracting the information from her by use of force. Any harm that resulted they brought on themselves.

They could have resolved the situation quickly and easily by simply allowing her to leave and not associating with her any longer.

All of that, of course, assumes that their being offended, or having their obviously delicate egos bruised constitutes harm. I don't think it does, at least not in a way that justifies even the smallest amount of violence.

With which part?

Is it being offended or having a wounded pride that justifies violence in revenge? Could you explain this further?

I'm genuinely curious, because I really can't concieve of words or actions that, while causing me no harm in and of itself, would be so offensive, or would cause me a wounded pride to such a degree that it would justify my exacting violent revenge.

Now to be clear, this isn't to say that I would never be violent as a result of offense or wounded pride. It's entirely possible that I might under certain circumstances do exactly that. I can't think of any right now, but I can conceed that there might be some. However, my being so emotionally sensitive to a particular stimulis as to respond violently would not justify that violence.

Nor would it in this case.

Gilda

Only if you ignore that she deceived them. She was first in line to prevent the harm. And although my reaction to how they discovered the fact is revulsion, they did deserve to know and might've found out eventually through more acceptable means.

I feel for how agonizing her last moments must have been (before and after the violence), but I disagree that she didn't do anything harmful.

It is infinitely compatible with the modern state as we are all 'equal'. You speak of democracy as if it were a surrender of all private rights and I see it as not so. Admittedly, the state would have the power to over ride private claims but only if the people so chose. If they were to choose another path, lets say dueling to resolve disputes of honor, then that too would be acceptable. What has changed is modern sensibilities, and while the concept of a duel was just and honorable just four generations ago, it is no longer deemed so, that does not mean it can not return should our sensibilities change. The alternative is not anarchy as you basically stated but simply a different set of laws and custom which allows for private violence without any weakening of the state.

No need to ignore that. Her having male genitals did nobody any harm. The only harm that came from this situation came as a result of her muderers discovering a secret she wished to keep, through forcible compulsion, against her will.

I believe it's a good idea to know a partner's sexual history before being physically intimate for a variety of reasons, and that, for their own protection, transsexual women are much better off if they aren't intimate with men who do not know their history.

However, this was casual sex, and neither partner seemed to be overly concerned with knowing the other person's history.

I think the same standards should apply as to a natal woman. Under what circumstances should a woman reveal to her partner the intimate details of her past, especially those that are emotionally sensitive? That's the standard I think should apply, and there doesn't seem to have been that degree of emotional intimacy here.

Can you explain this? I really cannot understand how what she did hurt anyone. If she had concealed that she had an STD, that would be different, but the nature of her genitals? If you're kissing or trading power hits or even having oral or anal sex, why should that matter?

I was discussing the same basic issue with a friend a couple of weeks ago, and asked him if he found out that his girlfriend was transsexual, how would he react? His reply was that it wouldn't matter, and he wouldn't end the relationship. He would, however, if she weren't Jewish.

The point being that there are all kinds of things that a person might find out about a partner that hold the potential to offend one's partner or interfere with the relationship, even to the point that, had this been known at the outset no relationship would not have occurred. Such as personal history, sexual history, issues of race or religion or political beliefs, class, national origin, etc.. None of these things are harmful to our partners except in their minds, and none of them justify the slightest degree of violence at their revleation.

Gilda

Not to put too fine a point on it, but it's obvious the guys weren't the smartest men in the world. If you meet a girl who will let you and your buddy have sex with her, right off the bat, but demands you give her nothing but anal, that should be setting off all kinds of red flags.

I can sort of understand the people who are calling what the girl did 'shocking' and all, and while I can't honestly say I wouldn't maybe give "him" a slap or something, that would be the initial shock- but you can't beat a person to death and say it was because you were blindsided by a lie. Being lied to does not justify murder. That's really the bottom line here.

I agree with the removal of the hate crime charges only because it was an immediate reaction to the situation which had more to do with their shock over being deceived, and not about the girl. Had they slapped her, left, and gone back at some future point to kill her, then I would absolutely say it was a hate crime.

I don't think anyone is arguing that they were justified in killing him. I think calling it a hate crime if they came back may be a little iffy.

If you stole from me and I beat you up, came back later and then shot you, would it be a hate crime? No.

In his case, I could only see it a hate crime if the two guys in question had no interaction with him at all, found out a transexual lived in the house and went and killed him.

Reguardless hate crime laws are stupid. If you kill me because I'm white, or because you wanted my shoes, I'm still dead and I see no reason for you to be punished less because you liked my shoes. Hate crime laws are ways to buy votes from political groups by supporting unequal penalties under the law for the same crime.

Gilda et al, I have a question about the bolded. You seem to be taking a position that "the nature of someone's genitals" is of no consequence...that it's almost a superfluous part of someone's identity. I do not understand this position, in the light of your own gender-orientation, and what I would presume to be a recognition that the sexual gender orientation of an individual is something which is special, and which comprises a very important part of their core identity.

This seems to me that the initial shock, and the question of whether or not finding out that you had sexual intercourse with someone of a gender you are not sexually attracted to, under the premise of deception, can be very psychologically damaging. Furthermore, this damage (which I would be comfortable calling harm) is reasonable, and predictable, as far as I can understand. What if you (or I, for that matter) found out that your SO was actually a biological sister you never knew you had. She was aware of your relationship, and sought you out for some reason or another. Her motivations are irrelevant, I think, to your initial response. Which might be akin to "I am disgusted by incest."

I don't think this girl's action justify the murder, or the serious degree of abuse, by a long shot. I don't think it would be my style to give her a serious ass whipping, but I might. I know I would be super pissed off in the most serious fashion to the nth degree. If I slapped the taste out of her mouth, I really don't think that's the worst thing in the world.

None of this negates the fact that these guys took it way too far, and they deserve very serious justice. I fail to understand how you can essentially state that her deception in the area of sexuality and gender-orientation is essentially an inconsequential point.

I usually try to get to know the people i may be sexually intimate with. I often talk with them, trade stories, and ask them about their lives. It's often called dating.

When you seek out random sexual encounters...it's just that. Random.

I'm not saying it's a great practice to withhold that kind of information. but i think it's equally bad not to find out.

When your gender identity matches your physical sex, your genitals are often a fundamental part of your sexual identity. When your physical sex is at odds with your gender identity, as with a MTF transsexual, the genitals are, to use your word, superfluous to their sexual identity.

They were interacting with Gwen through talking to her, flirting with her, kissing, and eventually oral and anal sex. In all those activities, they related to each other in a male-female fashion and none of those activities, though often sexual, involve her genitals. Because they believed at the time the interaction took place that Gwen was female, this makes them heterosexual. They were attracted to her because they saw her as a pretty, sexy young woman, and that's likely what she got out of the relationship, a confirmation that she was an attractive young woman.

These were all heterosexual interactions, because in all cases both parties saw them as such. The later revelation of the nature of Gwen's genitals does not change this.

Were they justified in being upset? Sure, I'll go along with that. I'd also say they would have been entirely justified at evicting her from their home and cutting off any ties with her.

Perhaps it would be better to amend my previous statement from, "she caused them no harm" (which I still believe) to "Gwen had caused them no physical harm and was no threat to them physically, so they were in no way justified in any degree of violence towards her." There was no defense here, nothing to mitigate physical violence.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by sexual gender orientation or how my orientation is relevant. My physical sex and gender identity are female, and my orientation is homosexual, three separate, but related aspects of my sexuality. I recognize that for most of us, gender identity and orientation are important aspects of our sexuality. Heck, I believe that for many, it's a fundamental part of our core identity; it certainly is with me.

And it is also with a MTF transsexual, whose core gender identity is female. Gwen's orientation was pretty clearly to males, which, given that she saw herself as female, would make her heterosexual. If she is anything like the MTF transsexuals I know, she likely found her male genitals as abhorrent as her attackers did.

Her murderers saw themselves as heterosexual males, and this was apparently very important to them. That's reasonable and fair.

What I can't understand is how her genitals are fundamental to their sexual orientation, esepeciall given that her genitals were never a part of any of those interactions.

Is it reasonable and predictable that they were upset at this? Sure. Is violence a reasonable response to their anger? Hell no. That you are angry does not in any way justify or mitigate violent acts against a person who is not a physical threat to you.

Gilda

I mostly agree with Gilda.However, the visceral reaction can go as far as violence. It doesn't make it right, but it does make it in some circumstances more understandable. Would I behave in a violent fashion towards my girlfriend if I found out she was transgender? Possibly. Probaby not. A girl on the street? Hard to say. I'd like to think not, but that becomes a situation of high stress and that's when reactions become less predictable. The stress in this case is emotional. I do know that if I were to find out that my girlfriend was transgender I'd have to spend a long time thinking about it and figuring out what my position would be. Whether or not I'd break up the relationship, I'll never know.

So that's that. Like I said, emotional stress creates unpredictable response. That's one thing. It has nothing to do with this case. These boys spent a long time debating and planning whether or not she was transgender and what they'd do. The murder was premeditated from the sounds of it and it was in no way a reactionary response, which a response under duress is. They didn't find out and panic; they considered carefully, decided what they'd do if their suspicions were confirmed and then set up a situation where they could confirm or refute their suspicions.

Gilda, your main problem in understanding this is that you lack a point of reference. It's difficult for you to understand how her biological gender could factor into the issue because for you it's not an issue. You aren't on the male side and being put in that position. I do believe that a transgender girl should inform any potential partner prior to any consentual sex act, not only for her safety, but as a moral issue. Many (even most) men would not be comfortable to have sex with a girl knowing that she was born a guy and they deserve to know in advance that this is the case, due to further psychological and emotional trauma that could be caused by being deceived. Note that one of the boys broke down crying upon discovery, an emotional reactionary response that is indicative of a high stress situation. This was due to the confirmation and sexual identity issues raised by having sex with a biological male, even if it was unintentional. That was the sort of response I mentioned above. Her subsequent assault and murder was not, as it had been planned beforehand. Hell, two of the boys went home for shovels and picks prior to the murder. This wasn't in the moment or a crime of passion. They all knew what was going to happen.

Sorry if this is slightly incoherent. I've tried to state my opinion as clearly as I can but it's a complex issue and I'm not sure I'm expressing it properly.

I think the premeditation makes the crime especially heinous.

Secondly, how is violence justified for "perceived offense"? If that were the case, then, it would be entirely justified to use violence against George Bush because of some "perceived offense" (for example).

QUOTE:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Gilda
Violence is justified only in defense, never in response to offense or wounded pride. Never for revenge.


I respectfully disagree.

This would mean that the massacre in Colombine was justified because the perpetrators (or victims depending on your perspective) were bullied and sought "revenge", to "teach them a lesson", to "right a wrong".

Just to clarify, Gilda's sister is transgendered, which would lead me to believe that she does indeed have a point of reference, since she's exposed to delicate issues like these as her sister's guardian.

It's sex. It should be something wonderful and fun. When you mix it with things like morality and religion, you get a powder keg, just waiting to explode. Sure, it wasn't cool for those guys to find out they actually boinked someone who used to be a man and they had the right to be pissed of. Just shut up about it and write it off as a bad (or good) experience and get on with your life. Why kill? Humans are a loathsome bunch.

as i suggested earlier, i think we need to take ownership of these reactions, and acknowledge our participation in shaping them. Living in a homophobic culture makes it harder to assert a heterosexual idenity. Practicing the thoughts of anger, imagining a reaction of shock, horror, rage...all of these things work to help produce our frame of mind. there is nothing about seeing a penis that biologically causes rage in heterosexual males. what does that say about our culture? it might suggest that our society has come to believe that hetero orientations are quite fragile, to the point where they need to be defended with violence. i don't know if that's how people *want* to think about hetero orientations.

Again. Is it a moral demand upon men that they inquire as to the natal gender of their potential sexual partners?

In our swinger circles I know several straight men who have been confronted with the issue of meeting a transexual and engaging in sexual acts with them. None have chosen to do so because they are not comfortable with it 'at that point yet'. Most would not completely rule it out because it is not a reflection on them of their sexuality. The transexual would be playing the part of a woman, often dressing the part, and the encounter in the straight man's mind would be that of male-female intercourse.

I have met and spoken with a transexual man/woman. He dressed like a woman, acted like a woman and looked like one in many ways. He was a bit taller than the average woman and he was married. His wife was aware of his sexual orientation, which he came to terms with post-marriage and did not choose to leave him. I'm not sure if he is the true definition but his personality was quite a bit female. He wanted to meet men and wasn't interested in acting the man when with other men. I find this hard to describe. He put it into words better.

I guess what I'm saying is that the victim in this case was not trying to turn the men into homosexuals. She interacted with them as a female and they recieved it as such. Their egos were all that was 'harmed' and the 'wound' was something that WILL heal. She was not a continued threat to the men and their act was not indefence. IF I dated a man who had a physically violent viseral action when he discovered he'd been decieved by anyone I would not stay with him. That kind of man is the abuser.

I think there are multiple items involved in this discussion.

1. Is it natural that someone would have a strong reaction to finding out that the person that they had slept with was of different gender than they had been led to believe.

2. Pacifism.

I'm focussing on 1 for right now. If this separation is not accurate, then please let me know.

Then why get rid of them?

For now, I'm going to skip the issue of whether the nature of the sexual interactions was heterosexual or homosexual or something in between, by virtue of the fact that all parties believed them to be for a moment, because I do not understand what I consider to be a more fundamental aspect, which I will try to get to below.

Only in that you do have one. Other than that, the details are irrelevant. However, I fail to understand how on one hand, you can say that it is irrelevant if this person had male genitals, and on the other hand draw a distinction between sexual attraction to men and women. It seems to me that apparently gender is something that matters to you - and not just you, but me and I'm guessing a pretty fair amount of people.

Thus, I am left to the conclusion that you would hold the position, in this situation, that gender is primarily a question of social roles and psychological make up. I have to then ask you if you would be interested in dating effeminate males, or if your SO's more dominant qualities have any gender-bending qualities. I am not trying to be overly personal, and I hope I don't seem rude. I genuinely find this to be a very interesting discussion - I just happen to know some things about your situation from other posts. I seem to perceive a conflict or inconsistency in your position, and I would think it might be attributable to the understandably strong emotions you must have in this case - but I am fully open to the idea that I don't fully understand your position.

I think we can basically agree here. I'm only saying that I would be able to understand a slap or a shove in the heat of the moment. As Martian stated, that's clearly not the case here, and these guys were morally bankrupt in their actions. I do not condone these actions in any way. I am more interested in the discussion concerning whether or not a much more muted reaction akin to the one in this case, is natural and understandable. If you are an absolute pacifist, then I don't expect that any form of violence will ever be condoned, but I think that is a separate topic.

I think this is related to the question above concerning where does gender reside. I know this may seem callous, but just because she wanted to be female, it doesn't make it so. I think that's just a fact - you can't ignore biology. However, that doesn't mean that she was a bad person, or disgusting, or any of that sort of thing because of what she was. A MTF transexual.

I don't necessarily think that they were. Which is exactly why I would expect them to have a fairly strong reaction to it. They had unknowingly (and that can be debated...seems like they had been wondering about her gender for a while...but regardless, for the discussion we've been having I'll let that pass) participated in behavior that violated a part of their core sexual identity. It'd be something like if somone crept in bed with you one night, and you thought it was your (general you, not "you") SO, and you were intimate with them, you would most likely naturally feel violated. Now throw on top of that if they were of the opposite gender than your SO. I think you would feel doubly violated (or many people would) because now you've de facto had sex with someone outside your gender preference, regardless of who you thought they were at the time. Doesn't change your orientation; neither does it change what you actually did.


Well, I don't think that whether or not there was actual dating or just casual sexual interaction is really the point...I think that's a whole different discussion. Sure, none of what happened sounds like the best idea...and everyone in this thing was asking to be in a clusterfuck situation, start to finish. But it's not completely random if you're only targeting half the population based on gender. As I said, there's no way to condone what these bastards did, and I'm not trying to defend them in any way. I'm simply curious about the position that seems to be emerging that the biological facts of this person's gender has no relation to actual gender, or how sexual interactions with her would be perceived.

I don't think anyone is saying that someone doesn't have the right to feel upset at things that are hard for them to process, or are dissapointing, or unsettling. My point has been that we constantly assume that "freaking out" for lack of a better word is the correct response to this situation. For someone who finds themselves at that point, and who doesn't know what to do, they might take those cultural images to help shape their reaction. If they think they have to defend their heterosexuality by flipping out.... what do you think they might do?


It's entirely the point. This is the kind of information one deserves to explore in the context of a trusting relationship. If you go by appearances only, then that's the only information that determines who you end up with. Appearances do not always accurately reflect natal gender.

I don't mean this as a bogeyman...sleep around, and someday this will happen to you. I'm just trying to get at what a big honking deal we do and don't make about sex. Sex is casual, and you can have it with anyone who looks hot. Sex is serious, and if you are intimate with someone who has a dick, you're gay forever. That social disconnection on how we imagine sex is the problem here. We want sex to be casual in many ways...but we can't seem to let go of some of these problems. What starts out as some sex suddenly gets cast as a life altering and idenity shattering trauma. No wonder people choose not to reveal gender transitions. Society still collectively flips shit.

Hate crime legislation makes sense in the context that legal consequences should have a deterrence effect. It is arguable whether such beliefs are founded in reality. I doubt the death penalty saves too many people from being murdered.

ophelia, I'm well aware. And I'll amend that to say that she does have a point of reference, but not the correct one to understand how such a thing would be important to these boys.

Allow me to reiterate that I'm not condoning the reaction here. What I'm ultimately getting at is that I know why they reacted as they did, at least initially. This makes it all the more reprehensible to me, because I understand the situation and their emotional response to it and I still don't think it justifies anything.

I have never and will never intentionally kill another human being unless it is in defense of myself or my loved ones and I have no other recourse, which in itself is a very improbable scenario. I know that I can get violent, but that's not due to distress and I wouldn't see myself reacting violently in this situation. Can I say with absolute certainty that I wouldn't slap someone if I found out that I'd been deceived in the manner these boys were? No, I can't. Can I say with certainty that I wouldn't beat her with a frying pan? Yes. They went far past the level of a reasonable reaction on this and deserve what they get.

This is sort of like 'I never told you because you never asked.' If I see a girl I find attractive, the first thought in my head isn't whether or not she was born with a penis. The transgendered girl is a special case and one most men aren't going to think about under normal circumstances. While it's important and certainly a wise idea to inquire as to someone's sexual history before becoming intimate with them, I don't think it's a moral obligation under most conditions. A transgendered girl who does not reveal the nature of her sexual history, however, is engaging in an implicit deception which I believe is morally wrong. Once more, I don't think it justifies this sort of response, but that doesn't mean she was in the right by any means.

We (collectively) have a habit of reducing things to black and white when the reality is that there are all manner of shades of grey. 'What those boys did was wrong, which means that what she did was okay.' I truly hope I don't need to point out the flaw in this logic to anyone.

As a swinger myself I'd have to say I don't agree with your interpretation of the males reactions. They are not 'at that point yet' because they are not sure of their own bisexual feelings. A man in a dress with hormone induced breasts may sometimes look female but the dangely between the legs says otherwise. Perhaps their genitals are unimportant to them in terms of their sexuality, but to the rest of the world they define sexuality. If it were truly not a reflection on the other mens sexuality then they would not be so hesitant to proceed. I think you know the touchy subject of male bisexuality in swinging, and its taboo nature. I would place them at 'bisexual curious' and perhaps doing it with a transgender would be less 'gay' to start with.

I agree, he was trying to make them think he was a woman.

True, and no one in this thread has justified his murder.

I have to disagree with you here as well. You don't quite understand what at least I meant by a visceral reaction. It wasn't visceral at being decieved, being lied too was secondary, it was to being tricked into a homosexual act. Just because he was 'acting' as a woman, does not make him a woman. To many of us who are 100% straight, no bi feelings at all, male homosexuality is revolting. I would feel no less revolted committing a homosexual act than I would doing 'scat' play, necrophillia, or pedophilia. Its something my brain is hardwired to reject. Now many homosexuals will refer to this as homophobia (they tend to refer to ANY rejection of homosexuality as homophobia) but that is not what it is at all. I have no fear of homosexuals, I have no fear of becoming one, I am not repressing my 'gay' side, or whatever else this can get labeled as, its just something I have no desire to do at a fundamental level. Now if someone were to trick me into a homosexual act, you have not just lied to me, you have tricked me into doing something which is against my very nature. This is where the visceral reaction comes from. It is not unlike the adrenaline rush you get when you are attacked, it is fight or flight. What 'he' did at this point is what would determine the outcome. Murder was obviously far to extreme a reaction, and they deserve to be punished for it.

The problem with that is the murder was premeditated. Otherwise, I can understand a 'gut' reaction but this was premeditated. They discussed in advance what they were going to do as they already had suspicions. This changes everything.

I have 'hit' people on accident because they 'snuck' up on me triggering my 'natural response' so I definitely understand the 'nature' argument.

martin, I'm not entirely sure I understand the above, so allow me to ask a question. Are you essentially saying that we as a society can train ourselves to be less prone to destructive violent reactions through introspective reflection? I would agree. I'm not entirely sure that's the most germane point to the topic of this thread, but maybe it is. I think that this quickly becomes a point of departure for meditative practices and intense self-psychoanalysis. If you wish to argue that we pursue this is a culture, fine with me. Solves a lot more problems than the single situation here.

I'm not sure that "defending one's heterosexuality" is the only issue at stake, but also the processing of the divergence of reality from your previously held perception of reality. I'm not sure I can completely invalidate a physical response to this, in a blanket sense. I do think that the levels here were drastically innapropriate, but we are repeating ourselves at this point I think.



Ok, how about the flip side of the coin? First, I would like to note that this wasn't a one night stand. This occurred over a period of time. All parties should have been getting to know one another more seriously. It sounds to me like these guys were basically, as analog pointed out, perhaps not too bright. How about ignorant rednecks? I would think after a while, this girl would have realized that. In my opinion, everyone involved made bad decisions leading to a bad situation; however, what these guys did to handle that situation was completely and totally inappropriate.

You also mention "not mentioning gender transitions;" I don't know how much of a difference it would make / have made, but it might be important to note that this girl was still rolling quarters in her drawers. It's not like "yeah, I used to have male genitalia, but that's all in the past." It's more like "yeah, I have a dick." It's just dangerous. I strongly disagree with what happened, and I'm not blaming the victim. What these guys did was absolutely wrong. I'm simply saying that in the general sense, I can understand someone having a strong adverse reaction to finding out that they just had anal sex with a man, considering that they are a heterosexual. I'm further saying that, even if I don't like it, I can understand how that might translate into a physical reaction, in the immediate sense.

Last thing, this seems to me to be a situation where you want to encourage tolerance, but only in the sense that you want to be tolerated. If you want to further tolerance, then you have to tolerate people who are not going to have happy warm feelings, and indeed may "flip out", about having sex with someone not of their gender orientation. I don't tolerate murder, but I can tolerate the human emotion of disgust and confusion that naturally will occur upon finding out you have violated a fairly strong innate principle of your identity. I'm not sure we can condition ourselves out of these emotions, without essentially conditioning ourselves out of gender preference - at least within the confines of this situation.

Either way, I've got to bust out for the day. I've enjoyed the discussion - things to think about. Have a nice weekend.

Understood. I don't think that saying that you would be upset by this makes you a bad person. I don't think it automatically makes you a homophobe. I'm not trying to imply any of that... Just making sure here...i think this has been a really productive thread so far, and i say keep it that way. :)

First, i think it is a moral obligation to discuss sexual history before an encounter, at least as far as transmission of STDs is concerned. AIDS is still a death sentence, even with better treatment options, and infection rates are on the rise again.

Second, the highlighted comment. Some natal (and self identified) women have an enlongated clitoris. Some men might be upset by this...after all it does resemble a small penis. Do they have a moral obligation to disclose this, even though it has no bearing on their perception of the sexual activity they engage in? What you're saying is that numerically smaller populations bear the responsbility for communication about issues in human sexuality. Do men with small dicks have a obligation to speak up? Women with inverted nipples? I'm not trying to be crass. But why exactly is this not a two way street?

I'm not handing her a gold star. Her judgement was not the greatest, specifically in her choice of companions...but the fact that some people think that it's okay to flip out when they encounter a transgender person does not oblige them to walk around with a big sign around their neck that says "i at one time had a dick/vagina."

I don't think introspection could entirely determine our actions...but i think our imaginative practice makes a large difference in how we react. Self-fufilling prophecy is a widely observed phenomenon elsewhere...i think it's very apt here. Try day dreaming for a week about how horrid gas stations are, how gross they are, how scared you feel about them, how angry you become when inside of one, etc. Then walk into a gas station. It's a pretty specious example, but i think you might get what i'm saying. Now think about having all those same associations about something you've never experienced before. Regardless of if you would have liked that whatever something is in other circumstances....you're quite likely to go with those pre-recieved associations. I don't expect that 100% of the population would enjoy or seek out relationships with transgendered persons. But i do question the social practice of nearly universally imagining them as the monsters of the sexual world, the horror story to trump all others. Is there any justified reason for that? Does it not create an enviroment in which people will process any encounter in a sharply negative cultural lens?

I don't think i really disagree with that...I have no reason to characterize the perpetrators as rednecks, but i would say that errors in judgement occured with all parties. For instance, Gwen who was 17 told the perps (who were all older than her) that she was 19, and that's not cool. But her age might also explain her choice not to reveal this information, and some of the risk taking behavior she engaged in. all said, not quite stellar, but i still don't think that it creates and implication of moral duty for other transgendered persons.

If it were me, i don't think i would have cause to have sexual relations with someone without conveying that kind of information. But as long as we're assuming the morality of casual sex, i don't know how gender transition moves on to the short list of "things you absolutely must talk about before getting it on."

As i think i've implied before, this isn't personal. And i do get it that some people would feel very hurt or upset by this kind of a situation. I don't think that reaction makes a person evil...and so long as they deal with their feelings in appropriate ways, i won't stand in judgement. My question is how much of that reaction is socially constructed? How much do our cultural practices contribute to those people processing what has happened to them as a violation or hurt? Our society on the whole choses to validate the idea that a sexual experience with a person of the same natal gender makes a person gay. Is that reflective of reality? Is that helpful? Does that cause hurt?

Ok, so I lied :) I had to stick around work longer than anticipated, so I chose to respond to this quickly. I did a little cut and paste, and a little bolding.

1. going in reverse order, I think you're 100% correct. Our responses to a certain situation are hugely determined by social surroundings, and moreso the less introspective / reflective you tend to naturally be, or have learned to be. Which leads me to...

2. Realizing this, and realizing the social climate that we live in, I think the approach taken in this type of case to get people to start accepting transexuals is maybe not the best...so I think it's a better option to say something about it up front, or to leave a note that says it or what not.

This situation is kind of a worst case scenario, as far as I can tell. I think if we keep this up, we'll end up agreeing on something, and that's a beautiful thing :)

Oh, and I feel pretty comfortable calling these guys rednecks, based on the depiction given in the story quoted by Gilda. I grew up around 'em. I can see people I went to high school doing this. I can see them getting a fair amount of support from the local communities. I can see no one wanting to talk about it. I guess I'm keying off "party shack out in the woods," lots of casual sex with people whose gender you're not really sure of, planning a murder out in advance and then doing it so sloppily, the involvement of ropes (in general), and the fact that they stopped to shove some artery-clogging McD's down their gullets after the fact. It's like a modern day Deliverance movie in my mind.

Since redneck always implies 'white' I should point out that one of the convicted is black. You could argue its a 'redneck mindset' but even the term 'red neck' would only apply to people who could get a red neck.

Plus this happened in Newark NJ, not exactly redneck capital of the US. :p

Shit, come down South and I'll show you plenty of redneck people who aren't white. Both those that are truly non-white, and those we threw away. And yeah, redneck mindset is more what I was going for, and I don't know if he's the black one or not, but one of them is also named Jose. Not a big cracker name.

Because, to use your word again, for a woman, male genitals are superfluous. As in, "serving no useful purpose, having no reason for being" [dictionary.com]. Something that is superfluous is something that can be easily disposed of without harm.

I can say this because genitals determine one's physical sex, but do not always indicate whether a person's gender itentity is male or female. They didn't in Gwen's case; they were, to use your word (which I love, by the way, as it describes the situation perfectly) superfluous.

Also, the interactions were primarily social, and Gwen was socially female. The sexual interactions didn't involve her genitals, so for those interactions, her genitals were irrelevant.

Agreed.

Correct.

I'm not interested in dating men, no, nor overtly masculine women. I'm primarily attracted to feminine women. I'd have no problem dating a woman like Gwen.

Grace is by far the more dominant partner in our relationship, is quite a bit more assertive than I am in other contexts, and works in a predominantly male profession, but she's also overtly feminine in dress and presentation. So, no, I don't see any gender-bending qualities in her, though I do see some ways in which she is more masculine than I am in a way that is complimentary to my personality.

I don't think I have been inconsistent.

Perhaps the seeming inconsistency that you percieve comes from my not being entirely clear.

You seem to be using gender and sex as if they were interchangable. I don't think they are, and don't use them that way.

Physical sex, gender identity, gender expression, and orientation are separate qualities. There are other things that are a part of our sexuality, and gender expression can sometimes be split into dress and presentation. None of these are strictly binary, though physical sex comes closest.

It is often assumed that there is one way in which these are related or supposed to be related, which is physical sex, gender identity, and gender expression are or should be the same, while orientation should be to the opposite of one's physical sex.

This isn't how it works in reality.

My physical sex and gender identity are female, gender expression feminine both in dress and presentation, and my orientation is to other feminine females, though I prefer my partner to be dominant. I differ from the expected correlation only in my orientation.

Gwen's physical sex was male, but her gender identity female, gender expression feminine, and orientation was to males, apparently to masculine males. Sexually, she was, as is typical with younger MTF transsexuals, a bottom. From all reports, she wasn't just feminine, she was hyper-feminine, another quality somewhat common to younger MTF transsexuals.

In other words, in every way except for her genitals and breasts, Gwen fit the expected profile of a normal female. Because she was underage, medical and surgical treatments would have been generally unavailable to her.

Genitals are an indicator of a person's sexuality, not the only indicator.

So would I. Understanding why a person commits a violent act does not, however, excuse the violence.

Understandable, maybe. Natural, no. Male homosexuality was considered as "natural" in Greek and Roman society as it is considered "unnatural" by many in our culture. Hatred for and violence against, or tolerance of those who are different from us is a learned response.

I'm not an absolute pacifist. I believe that violence is justified in defense of one's physical being, but not in response to having been offended or insulted, or in this case, in response to having one's sexuality questioned, particularly when the only one questioning their sexuality was the killers themselves.

Only if you assume that one's gender identity is determined by one's physical sex. It isn't. I know that's hard to grasp, because the correlation between being male and having a penis is so high, because our culture uses that as its primary method of identifying a person's sex, because it just seems right intuitively to say "I'm male because I have a penis and testicles".

It's sorta the same question as what is it that makes you you. Is it your body, or your brain, or your spirit, or some combination of those things? I tend to come down on the it's a combination side of the argument.

Gwen's physical sex was male, but her gender identity and mode of expression were female.

Agreed, though there's a shorter way of saying MTF transsexual: girl.

But they stopped and thought about it before the acted. It wasn't a sponteous reaction, they stopped, and discussed, and made plans to find out, then discussed it some more after they confirmed their suspicions. They put a lot of thought into it, and missed what seems to me to be some pretty blatantly obvious stuff.

When they had sex with her, kissed her, they believed she was a woman. This confirms their heterosexual status.

This was a person who was attracted to overtly masculine, straight guys, as evidenced by who she chose to hang out with and have sex with. That fact that she was attracted to them, that she wanted and chose to be with them was confirmation of their being straight and masculine.

I get that they didn't read it that way, that their interpretation was something along the lines of penis=male, sex with another male makes you gay, I don't want to be gay. I understand that in much the way I understand racism, in that I understand that that kind of thinking exists, but I'll never be able to connect to it emotionally, and what's more, it doesn't even make sense that one's sexuality is in some way determined by another person's body parts.

In any case, at no point was any violence justified. She was no physical threat to them, and harming her didn't change anything about what had happened. If having sex with her made them gay, then they'd still be gay after she was dead, or after they slapped her or beat her up. Nothing they did at this point would have changed any part of that equation that led them to question their sexuality.

Strike that. Telling her that they weren't interested in her any more would actually have solved the problem, because then they'd have been rejecting her for having male parts, thus confirming that they were straight.

Bad analogy. Gwen wasn't a stranger to her killers at the time they had sex with her; the sex was consensual for all parties involved.

In any case, that they felt violated does not justify group violence against a helpless victim.

Gilda

Thank you.

I've been saying for years that our sexuality is hardwired into the brain.

It's nice to have a conservative agree with me for once.

I would, however, grant Gwen Araujo the same courtesy of assuming that her gender was hardwired into her brain, and not determined by her genitals.

As for the rest of your post, we are so far apart on such a fundamental level that disputing it point by point would serve no useful purpose.

Gilda

Actually, it happened in Newark, CA, a small rural town about 25 miles from San Francisco, and we have a good share of people with a "redneck mindset" here in CA.

Gilda

I'm confused. Was the victim a minor?

Yes, she was 17.

Gilda

Over the course of this thread I have really grown to respect you, Gilda.

Yes. Gwen was 17 when she was killed. Her assailants were Michael Magidson, 25, Jaron Nabors, 22, José Merél, 25 and Jason Cazares, 25. She had represented herself as being 19.

In the case of STD's of any sort there certainly is a moral obligation. I'm assuming for the sake of simplicity two healthy people.

It's not a two way street because regardless of what her perceived gender was, she was biologically a male. She still had a Y chromosome. We do not yet have the technology to turn a man into a woman. We can fake it really well, but we can't make the complete change and that's where the difference lies. Consider that there are differences between a biological woman and a transgender woman after SRS. Consider that these differences can be very life affecting for a long-term partner. Consider too that as I said there are men out there who would not feel comfortable being intimate with a transgendered female regardless of of whether she's had the surgery or not. I don't want to hear about a girl's yeast infection she had three months ago, because it's not relevant. An elongated clitoris or inverted nipples; well, if they're extreme cases, they should inform their partner beforehand just to prevent complications. And if a girl used to be a man, she should tell any potentical partners that as well. There's a big difference between telling someone you're about to have sex with and (as you put it) wearing a sign around your neck. And tyhe big difference, if you're interested, is tat there's a lot more at stake if you're transgendered. As a point of interest, I once encountered a girl with inverted nipples. I thought it was odd, but no lasting damage was done. Unintentionally being intimate with a transgendered girl, n the other hand, can cause severe emotional trauma by causing the right sort of man to question his own gender identity because of it. I'd say it's likely that a good deal of transgendered individuals went through that, which is why I think it's only moral for them to avoid possibly inflicting that on someone else.

I don't so much think that our society validates that idea so much as it is ill equipped for dealing with people who's physical sex and gender identity aren't the same.

Gilda,

First I'd like to say that I've really enjoyed this discussion. I know you have some unique insight and a different viewpoint on many of these issues than I do. Thanks for sharing your point(s) of view on these things.


I think this is a point of divergence for us that I find interesting. I think that someone whose gender identity and physical sex, to adopt your terms, are the same is exactly that: male of female, depending. I think that others, while being perfectly fine, unique individuals are not the same gender, or at least not in the same way, as the first category. I guess I believe that you can't call two objecs the exact same, if they have some striking differences - without expanding the definition of said thing. Thus, it could be that we are arguing over a question of semantics, wherein I am not particularly interested in donating equivalence to related set of items, and you are?


Neither do I, now that I more fully understand what I perceive to be your position. I just disagree with it, but I suppose such are the vagaries of life :)

So you would say that a person who was fully, 100% of the physical sex typically considered male, would be a female in your mind if he/she wanted to be designated as such? I am anticipated so - but to me this destroys the meaning of the words male and female. I don't say this to condemn the people who are somwhere in between the "traditional" definitions, only to say that I don't see any reason to expand these words so that they become, in my mind, less descriptive - but rather I would think it more accurate to add new words to more exactly describe reality. I'm not going to answer the next several points that followed, because I think that they essentially are mutations of this one.


Disagree here as well. I think that these events, at the time were perceived to be heterosexual, but in actually involved some level of homosexual activity. Which does not make the act itself heterosexual, but only the appearance heterosexual. Which I think begs the metaphysical question of whether or not perceptions of the truth and the truth are the exact same. I claim they are not in this case, because the participants are not limited by vocabulary to more adequate describe their situations; you might claim that, at least in this case, that truth and perception are identical?

From what I know, it wasn't really as rampant as we are sometimes led to believe, but was fairly common among the educated elite. Neato factoid: Did you know that the common way of intercourse among men was have one guy bend over at the calf, and the other to essentially calf fuck him? Actual anal sex was considered extremely taboo. (I had a roommate who studied Greek classics in graduate school)

I agree that their involvement did not make them homosexual, and thus I think this is a big problem of any reaction they would have had, because they would feel, with some justification I think, that they had just participated in a sexual act that involved some level of homosexuality.


I think you are taking an opinion, which may or may not be strongly held in certain circles, and presenting it as fact. edit Or more accurately - I think you are confusing "gender identity" and just straight up gender. I don't think they are the same. As a smartass example, I might psychologically think I'm Mickely Mouse, but that doesn't make it so - no matter how much I really believe it.

I agree, but we disagree on what happens to the nomenclature within the mixture cases.

See above for my viewpoint on this.

You really have no need to keep reiterating that any deep seated emotional reaction these guys (or a theoretical guy / group of guys) might have to this situation does not defend the extent of their reactions. I don't see that as a part of the argument. Thus, I will also quit stating that I don't mean to condone their actions - I think we can all agree there. This discussion, as I envision it, is something that is almost becoming a "Coming Together" Thread in the sense that I think that Forum was created.

Or that I participated in homosexual sex, even if I don't think it makes me gay, although it might understandably make me question my sexual orientation. Maybe questioning one's orientation is a good thing, but I don't think that's the point here. Another interesting point concerning connections to racism, and what if I found out my girlfriend actually had some x in her blood. Well, for me it wouldn't be a problem because I don't have a problem with interracial sexual contact. I don't equate the two - racial "orientaton" and sexual "orientation." Although I suppose that I could understand someone being upset if they explicitly or implicitly made it known, or there was a reasonable expectation that it was important to them, that they only wanted to have sex with members of certain race, and another person intentionally withheld that information from them for their own self gratification. I think that if Gwen had felt that there was no problem with how her condition would be perceived, she would have told them at some point during the months, or the little baron would flown his biplane out of the hanger at some point. The fact is she held it away from them, precisely because I think she knew that the reasonably would feel that she wasn't a woman.

I think we handled this above.

I only threw the Trojan horse plan in to explain how it might happen, like Uther Pendragon slipping into Tintagel at night. The important part if you perceive a violation if you found out after the fact that a person you slept with, while under the impression they were female, turned out to in fact be male. I'm guessing you would say yes, but in this case it wouldn't be a (theoretical) problem because you would feel the person was a female, despite the presence of male genetalia?

Agreed and agreed. Have a nice weekend. I'm a hitting the hay. Once again, thanks to both you and martin and ye olde martian and even ustwo (even though I usually disagree with him quite hardily :) ) - thanks for the discussion. I find this quite interesting.

I think I get it. I think what Gilda and MartinGuerre are trying to tell us is that:

1. Sex - that is a person's sex is determined biologically; male or female (xy or xx). Typically evidenced by the xx, xy chromosomes and human sex organs (genitalia) as well as other physical traits.

2. Gender - is a social construction - That is, non-physical attributes are ascribed, especially in areas of behavior, social interaction, what not. Also, I suppose, there would be some sort of range of archetypically defined masculinity and femininity in which people are expected to fall within the sexual order.

We are a relatively young species so it wouldn't surprise me that we are still "evolving" or expanding our variations. As such, with any change, it is often a "painful" process, like growing pains. Our social or society, at times encounters difficulty in understanding things such as gender, race etc - that is, socially constructed race which contributes to conflict.

Human sexuality is a fascinating thing which need more study and understanding - it's too bad we are so afraid of it.

But, gender may also have genetic guidance, or "hard-wired". I think in this way, sexual preference may be inaccurate and instead, sexual orientation would make more sense as presumably, an individual did not make a conscious choice, but rather, felt "naturally inclined to orient towards one gender over another etc..

I don't know, I tries but I think I'm confused again. Maybe I will think more clearly after a beer or five....

i know i'm budging in on gilda's response...but i just wanted to add.

The question here is authority. What authority do you recognize to mediate disputes of gender, sex, and idenity? Who decides who Mickey Mouse really is? The patent holder? I could draw something (no i couldn't, but let's pretend i have talent), and a child would recognize it as mickey mouse. Is is someone in a costume? Is it a picture? Is it a video? Is it an idea? Did the true mickey mouse die with Walt Disney?

edit: Go imagine that "this is not a pipe" Or google it. The server had an accident.

Is this a pipe? Is Gwen a woman?

i am strongly committed to the idea that we as human beings have the awesome freedom to determine our own idenities in conversation with the communities that love us. Her friends, her family, including more conservative elders, accepted her as Gwen. They saw that she smiled, loved her life, and was who she wanted to be.

If you had female genitalia, say an extra vagina, and you in no way idenitified as female...would you use that in sexual encoutners? It's a bad way of putting it, but what i'm getting at is that if this physical remnant of being born male, Gwen would have no reason to use it. By all accounts she idenitified and behaved in very feminine ways. Why would she want to use genitalia that didn't represent her idenity? I'm sure that she was in some way aware that these men would not be happy to find out...but i'm just trying to break the assumption that sex for someone who has a penis has to involve it. If you mentally and emotionally do not identify with it, you won't use it.

Definitions change and evolve to fit new information, new ways of thinking.

I would do any person who wanted to be considered female the courtesy of referring to her in that way, regardless of whether I believed she was actually female. If she were living completely as a female, with a female identity 24/7, then yes, I'd consider her to be female despite her physical sex.

I know a young woman who fits this description pretty closely. She's a MTF transsexual, who unfortunately has type 2 diabetes. This means that female hormones and androgen blockers are potentially deadly, and no surgeon will perform any of the common surgical procedures. Other than laser hair removal of her beard, body, and leg hair, which was fortunatly quite effective, she cannot get any medical or surgical treatment. She works in a predominantly male job, and typically dresses in women's slacks, polo shirt, and sneakers at work. That's pretty much the extent to which she can alter her body to be more female; hair removal and clothes, and even her clothing tends to be somewhat androgynous. Her life partner is another woman.

Nonetheless, she thinks of herself as female, has adopted a female name and persona, and gotten as much of her identity legally changed to female as she can, without genital surgery.

I have no problem whatsoever thinking of her as a woman.

I disagree. I think it enhances the precision with which they can be used, to make a distinction between sex (physical) and gender (identity).

Oh contraire, by making a fine distinction between sex and gender, we can use these words with far more precision and be much more descriptive with them.

I disagree. You had straight males and a straight female, and therefore all of the contact was heterosexual.

I claim that gender identity and orientation are internal psychological constructs, most likely hardwired into the brain, and not determined by outside factors. If I'm attracted sexually to people I believe to be female, that makes me homosexual, regardless of what genitals they have.

Rampant, no, but readily accepted among the upper classes, even moreso than heterosexual sex. My point, though, was that the degree to which homosexuality is accepted by individuals in a society is often determined as much by cultural factors as by inborn factors. The reaction of Gwen's killer's wasn't natural, it was learned. I think if homosexual contact between males weren't so demonized in our culture, we'd have a lot more male bisexuality, and a lot fewer gay males and transsexual women murdered or assaulted because it caused some man to question his sexuality.

I've explained my position on this quite thoroughly, so I'll just let it stand.


I'm presenting my interpretation of the evidence, both psychological and physical, an interpretation that is shared by a majority of the therapeutic community that deals with transsexuals, and which matches my personal experience at having grown up with a transsexual woman. The science backs me up. In 1995, a group of Swedish scientists studied the brains of a group of normal men, normal women, and transsexual women, and found that a particular structure related to sexuality, the BSTc, was the same size in transsexual women as it was in natal women, while normal men had a BSTc that was about 50% larger than in both natal and transsexual women, regardless of orientation, and regardless of whether the transwomen had undergone hormone therapy or had genital surgery.

The presumed cause is that the hormone flood that occurs at about the 12th-13th week of gestation is somehow faulty, resulting in the formation of female brain structures in a male body. Obviously it would be unethical to test this thoery on humans, so a study on rats was conducted, in which male rat fetuses were infused with female hormones. If the theory of brain sex was true, we would expect that these physically male rats would behave like typical female rats. And that is precisely what happened. I unfortunately cannot find an online citation for this study.

I'm not confusing anything. I've clearly defined my terms. Sex, or physical sex, refers to biological sex. Gender, though frequently used interchangably with sex, I am defining here as internal psychological states and their modes of expression, specifically gender identity [one's internal sense of being male or female] and gender expression [how one's gender identity is expressed externally].

It isn't possible for a human being to be Mickey Mouse, while it possible for a human to be female. Male and female are different ends of the gender spectrum. Mouse is off of it altogether.

Except for the "reasonably", I agree, that was probably her motivation for concealing it.

The nature of my anatomy would preclude me from being able to perform a sex act on another person without interacting with that person's genitals, and in any case I much prefer to be the bottom in a sexual relationship, so a precise parallel would be impossible here. On the other hand, if a transsexual woman were to have performed oral sex on me and done it well, I can honestly say I wouldn't give a damn if she had a penis, so long as she didn't try to stick in in me anywhere.

Gilda

Feel free. I'm enjoying the philosphical discussion that's going on here.

No, that is a painting of a pipe.

Actually, it's a photograph of a painting of a pipe.

To be more precise, it's a computer image of a photograph of a painting of a pipe.

Even more precisely, it's a link to a computer image of a scan of a photograph of a painting of a pipe.*

Gilda

*[size=1]With all due credit to Scott McCloud.

Ack, the news story I read claimed it was NJ. I was confused because it also mentioned it being a small town.....

Thanks for the clarification, remind me not to trust one source :)

Just a point of evolutionary procedure.

We are a 'young' species but we are an ancient life form. Our sexuality has been male/female since before the dinosaurs. We are not changing a pattern over 100's of millions of years old in a matter of a few hundred thousand years.

Many of us conservatives believe sexuality is hard wired into the brain. Even the epitome of evil, Rush Limbaugh, has stated so many times. Not all of we conservatives are bible thumpers. I am an atheist, swinger who holds a tree hugging degree plus a few more. We too are a diverse bunch :D

I have no doubt that to Gwen, his brain said 'she' when his body said 'he'. It’s a shame that such a congenital defect, and yes I think of it as a defect from a biological stand point, caused him such pain in his life and eventually cost him his life.

Regardless the issue isn't how one perceives themselves, but what one IS that most often matters. He was a HE not a she, he wanted to be a she, but he was SOL. Despite that he tricked a couple of mouth breathers into having sex with HIM. He was very stupid, and it cost him his life. This is not a justification of his murder, but he put himself in a very stupid situation to be in.

Is it common for transsexual to try to deceive straight men into having sex with them?

Hmmmm I just had an interesting thought (to me) and I don’t' want to start another post since it will be very spammy.

If a man is about the same size as another man, wears the same cologne, and sneaks into this other mans bedroom and has sex with his 'willing' wife in the dark, was it a rape? She went along with the sex under the pretext the sex was with someone else, her husband. To me this is as much a rape as holding her at gunpoint. It was a violation of her body by someone who was not what they pretended to be.

Now lets take Gwen pretending to be a female when he was in fact male. The mouth breathers went along willing under the pretext that Gwen was indeed a female and had sex with him as if he was a female. As such did he rape them? Like the first example the sex was not forced, but Gwen was not what he pretended to be. He tricked them into having sex.

The Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary defines rape as

1. sexual intercourse with a woman by a man without her consent and chiefly by force or deception

Despite the fact that men can't rape other men apparently (based off several definitions) I have to wonder if the defense attorneys of the men went in this direction. I can shoot some holes in this myself, and will do so later if others don't, but it does take a interesting spin doesn't it?

I would have to disagree. In my opinion all people are naturally bisexual, to exclusively feel attraction to one gender is a socially engineered characteristic, it is ultimately a deviation from true and essentia human nature.

Interesting position,SF. I feel that the expression of sexual orientation adjusts itself to social climate, which I don't mean to invalidate the very real emotions involved by all parties. Aside from that, I view it as one of the many things which can viewed as occurring along a spectrum, or a Boltman distribution curve. You've got some extremes, and then you've got a majority of people who fit somewhere in between. If you mean bisexual, with some exhibiting a vanishing amount of either extreme, then I don' think that there is any way to argue with your statment. I believe, that to argue for it's truth in the absolute sense will prove to be a very daunting task, as you will have to essentially prove the invalidation of a the sexual orientations and emotions of a fairly large number of people. I do think it's an interesting concept, however.

Her. The correct pronoun is her. I assume you just forgot.

And if someone has such a problem from birth, and successful treatment is available...why is there such an issue that this woman was already in transition?


It's an inflammatory statment to be sure. But it's not borne out by any of the fact in the case. These men consented to all of the sexual encounters that occured between them.

No the correct pronoun is in fact he. Boys have penises, girls have vaginas, very early lesson in life. HE may have felt he should have been a she, but he was in fact a he. Using 'she' may help make 'him' more sympathetic, but I'm sorry he was a boy. Gender is specific and based on anatomical criteria, regardless of what you want to identify yourself as.

So if you concent, under deception, it is in fact not rape? So to you the wife in my first example was not in fact raped?

I think you know you're being offensive. I certainly hope you are not doing so for the sake of being so.

That's the really interesting statement that you make. Gender or sex has nothing to do with if we find something to be a tragedy, or have sympathy for a victim of violent crime. It's odd that you would suggest that a female victim of crime would be more sympathetic than a male one. In addition, you do have medical training, iirc, and should know that gender expression at birth is not nearly so clear cut. Many children have incompletely or malformed genitalia, or ones that do not reflect their karyotype. Around 1 in 2000 live births presents with ambigious or mixed sexual anatomy. Nor is it a binary after birth.

Beyond that, use of the proper pronoun is simply a matter of respect. As stated before, her entire family recognized her as Gwen. I have no reason to believe that anyone has a right to revoke such a recognition. And short of that, i think the common and decent thing to do is to address others as they ask to be.

As for the rest. The law, and i think fairly so, states that fraud as to the essential nature of the act can qualify an encounter as sexual assualt. In fact, there's a special subsection to cover the wrong spouse deception you're talking about. CA 261.a.5, fwiw.

But i don't believe that a material deception took place. The essential nature of the act did not involve Gwen's male genitalia. She represented herself as a woman, and by all available accounts, believed herself to be telling the truth in doing so. She offered, and they accepted consensual sex. Beyond this, i don't think i have anything left to say to you.

Thank you for this concession. Based on this criterion, post-op transsexuals should be considered female. I agree.

Gilda

I actually managed to read the whole damn thing since my last post, before martinguerre and Gilda got involved and the whole thing blew up (in a good way, it's been a great discussion), and I just had two issues I wanted to see about:

If everyone was consenting, then I'd readily accept this definition for sex acts they mutually entered into. However, since the nature of this case is specifically the problem of the two men reacting to what they perceived as a homosexual experience, I don't think it would be fair to call this a strictly heterosexual experience. Clearly, under consent from deception, these events took place under false pretenses- if you are having sex with two straight males, I would think that, if nothing else, it would simply be rude to "leave out" the part that your sex is male, even though your gender is female. If I put my penis through a hole in a wall and got a blowjob, being told a woman was on the other side, it does not make it a heterosexual experience just because I was tricked into thinking so. When all is said and done, regardless of the other person's gender, the sex is male, and that makes it a homosexual experience. That is what they reacted to. If everyone knew what was going on, and the gender and sex differences were mutually known and accepted, then I'd very easily accept this as heterosexual.

Seeing as the sex was not consentual (the sex happened as a result of deception), I would simply call it "non-consentual sex", and ignore any notions of gender/sex implications of "hetero-" or "homosexual sex" on the events, since there's simply no reason to assign those labels.

The lines of thinking that go, "if you have a penis, you're male, no matter what you say you are" and "if you have a vagina, you're female, no matter what you say you are" only work if you live on a planet inhabited only by straight people, whose sex and gender are always the same thing.

Since we live on a planet with both straight and gay/bi people, whose sex and genders don't always match, this line of thinking is incorrect.

You are not your arm, or your foot, any more than you are your penis or your vagina. We don't walk around projecting, "I am a penis" or "I am a vagina" (though I have seen some guys whose behavior has caused me to refer to them as a walking penis, but that's different). We convey ourselves in terms of our gender, our sexual identity.

The bottom line is, people can be attracted to sexes or genders, in any combination. If I like the female gender specifically, I may be perfectly fine with a female whose sex is male, if sex doesn't matter to me, just the gender. Most "straight men", for example, are attracted to the female sex and gender. You can like one and ignore the other, you can like one and be specific about the other. You could be a woman who doesn't care what gender the person is, as long as the sex is male- and I know one such woman, personally.

Gay people still refer to themselves as female/male based on their parts for the most part. I've never had a gay friend refer to his partner as 'she'.

As such I'm not going to be calling someone who feels they SHOULD be female a she, when they are quite clearly a he. I'll live with my insensitivity. It was this pretending to be female that got him killed in the first place. Perhaps more people should have stressed that he was in fact a he until he was old enough to understand people better and avoid those that would do him harm.