Attacker Sentenced To 5 Years In McDonald's Trans Assault

April 18th, a 19 year old woman attacked a transwoman in the restroom of a Baltimore area McDonald's in an incident that was captured on a cell camera by an employee and was posted online.  The attacker was sentenced today to 5 years in prison in the beating of Chrissy Lee Polis:

The video shows Teonna Monae Brown and a 14-year-old female, whom authorities have not identified, repeatedly punching and kicking Chrissy Lee Polis, 22, in the head and body while dragging her by her hair across the floor of the restaurant. 

Mark Scurti, Polis’s attorney, said Polis planned to attend the sentencing hearing on Tuesday but was unable to do so after experiencing recurring symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder, for which she was diagnosed following the beating. 

Scurti said Polis checked herself into a crisis counseling facility last Friday, which has provided assistance to Polis since the incident occurred in April. 

“I continue to suffer seizures, bouts of crying, mental anguish and anxiety,” Polis said in a victim impact statement submitted to the judge prior to Tuesday’s sentencing. “I fear being alone. I have flashbacks about the attacks. I have twice now been admitted to a crisis center, and I am having extreme mental difficulty.”

While I am glad justice has been served, it breaks my heart to hear of the continued mental anxiety suffered on the part of Polis as a result of the attack.  OAQ wishes her well and hopes she has a speedy recovery.

What In Trans Hell Is Going On In Washington DC?

Since July, a rash of armed attacks has broken out in our nation's capital, with the third shooting of a transgender person taking place this morning at 2AM, resulting in serious injuries and a hospitalization for the victim.  From the Washington Post:

Police are investigating the shooting of a transgender person early Monday morning in Southeast D.C. 

The shooting took place just before 2 a.m. in the 2300 block of Savannah Street SE, police said. The attack appears to be non-fatal; the victim was conscious when transported to the hospital.

This appears to be the only information released thus far about the victim, with neither the name of the individual nor his or her gender stated in any articles I've seen.

This could perhaps signify a disturbing trend in DC for violence against trans residents of the District, with two shootings, one fatal and one not, popping up just 11 days and 1 block apart from each other in July:

On July 20, 23-year-old Myles Mclean was shot about 4:30 a.m. in the 6110 block of Dix Street. Police said two men approached Mclean and one asked a question. Then, before waiting for an answer, one of the men pulled out a semiautomatic handgun and opened fire. Mclean, who was also known by friends as Lashay, was killed. 

On July 31, at about 2:45 a.m., a man approached a transgender person in the same neighborhood, asked for change and pulled a semiautomatic handgun without waiting for a response.

Please note that Myles Mclean was Lashay's birth name, which clearly indicates the Post needs to revise their policy in reporting on trans issues.  Regardless, police and LGBT residents are wondering if these attacks are related, with another story of anti-trans violence surfacing in an August incident where an off-duty police officer assaulted and fired on transwomen:

In addition, an off-duty D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officer has been arrested for an Aug. 29 incident in which he got into an argument with a group that included two trans woman. He later stood on the hood of the group’s car and fired multiple times through the windshiled. One man in the car — said to be the brother of one of the trans women — was injured in the attack. 

The officer, 20-year veteran Kenneth Furr, is alleged to have been drunk at the time of the attack, and trans advocates who spoke to the victims said the argument started when Furr propositioned one of the trans women and then got angry when she turned him down.

While the officer's misconduct appears to be unrelated to the other attacks on trans people in DC, now is certainly a scary time to be trans in the District.  Be safe, friends, especially after dark.

Chaz Bono To Dance On ABC, Pisses Off Bigots

Some people could really just use a hobby.  Ballroom dancing maybe?

It's been announced that Chaz Bono, the transgender son of international pop diva Cher, will be joining the upcoming cast of Dancing With The Stars on the gay-friendly network ABC.  Naturally, he will be dancing as a man, and that has many "pro-family" (honestly, I call them anti-family.  They sure don't seem to like mine) advocates in an uproar, citing supposed "thousands" of e-mails being sent to ABC to protest the inclusion of a transman on the popular show.

I love a man who looks good in a suit.

Tony Perkins (AKA T-Punk) of the Family Research Council (an official SPLC certified hate group with connections to the KKK and other white supremacists) had this to say:

Forget "Dancing with the Stars." ABC is dancing with the transgenders. Hello, I'm Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. On the 13th season of Dancing with the Stars, the indoctrination is in full swing. This fall, ABC's picked its first transsexual to compete. Chaz Bono, the famous child of Sonny and Cher, may have been born a woman--but she'll be dancing as a man. And while the gay community approves, fans certainly don't. ABC's been blasted by thousands of viewers for turning a popular show into an hour-long political statement. The message boards are full of angry parents who think ABC's gone too far. One mom wrote, "I am not about to risk the potential for on screen dialogue about sex changes and gender confusion while my 7- and 9-year old are watching... We are NOT tolerant--[if tolerance means allowing] any influences to come unfiltered into our home..." I guess if "Dancing" wants to advertise for the radical Left, they'll find out how out of step they are!

Riiiiiiiiight, Tony.  Let's talk about why this won't work.  First, you're assuming that kids give a damn who is dancing on their television.  My assumption would be that if someone tells them they are a man, that child will accept that.  Can we please remember the video of the kid who found out that two men at his Thanksgiving celebration were married-- and didn't give two shits about it?


Did you notice the complete and utter lack of discussion of sex with this boy? It was explained in easy to understand terms that had nothing to do with sexual behavior, but instead let the boy know that hey, sometimes men like men instead of women.

 Does T-Punk really want to piss off CHER?!

And really, do they know who they're up against?  ABC, owned by Disney.  That's right.  One of the richest companies in the world is in charge of this show, and they're no stranger to threats of boycott over their LGBT-inclusive policies.  Were those boycotts effective?  No.  Did Disney care, in the slightest, over these groups anti-gay views?   The American Family Association, Focus on the Family, and Southern Baptists ended their 8 year boycott of Disney back in 2005, with no effect on the media giant. 

Lastly, I asked one of my straight readers, Tiffany Smith, how she felt about the possibility of her four year-old daughter being exposed to a transman on television, and she had this to say:

I have no problem at all that Chaz Bono is going to be on TV.  In fact, I'm interested to watch him and get to know him.  I think its a wonderful thing to expose your children to healthy images of people happily being themselves!  Then she too can grow up knowing that its more important to be true to yourself than do what everyone thinks is "beautiful" and "correct."

So good luck, T-Punk.  Not only do you have Chaz Bono and Disney-ABC as opponents on this issue, but the American people are set against the denigration of LGBT families and their representation on television.

To close, another reader of mine who proudly counts herself a Christian and grandmother, Kelli, had these uplifting words to say on Facebook:

I think that it is wrong to deny your children truth. The truth is that every human being has a body and a spirit. Every spirit deserves to be nurtured and loved. Even God has addressed this issue. People who want to read something else into life need to get over themselves.

Well said.  

Look At This Cute Ad!

I was a little touched with this Argentinian ad for transgender equality.




Equality has never been more adorable!

This Lady Was Told She Was An Abomination And Got A Lot Of Money For It

Meet Amber Yust.  This young trans woman, far from making history, was following the legal, routine procedure to change her driver's license to reflect her true gender when she received a disturbing letter from the employee processing her request.

Thomas Demartini, instead of doing his job and filing her paperwork, instead failed to perform his duties by taking her application, noting her address, and sending her a personal letter filled with warnings that she was an abomination and that she would burn in hell for her perversion:

Yust, a 23-year-old software engineer, went to the DMV's Fell Street office in October to record her new name and gender on her driver's license. She said Demartini expressed no objection while processing her application. 

But four days later, she said, she got a letter from Demartini that warned her of eternal damnation and referred her to the website of a fundamentalist church, the Most Holy Family Monastery. Yust said she received a DVD from the church the same day, predicting hellfire for anyone "possessed by demons" of homosexuality. 

Her lawsuit, filed in San Francisco Superior Court, accused the DMV of violating her privacy and civil rights by disclosing personal information.

So not only did he fail to do his job, he attacked her personally, then released her personal information to a church in order to send her their schlock.

The story has a "happy" ending, as she sued Demartini and the DMV and won $55,000 from both of them.  Unfortunately, the majority of the settlement appears to be on the shoulders of the State of California, with only $15,000 of that coming from Demartino.

This should be a word of warning to certain clerks who are refusing to do their job due to their religious beliefs.  If you feel you can't do a job, you shouldn't be in that job.  It's not your place, when you work for the government, to refuse to perform the basic operations of that government.  Really?  You're not a hero for your religion.  You're just guilty of dereliction of duty.  

This Is A Real Headline

Holy shitballs... while I would normally never use my blog to promote Rupert Murdoch's disgusting crazytrain paper, the New York Daily Post, check out the horrible headline they used to describe the tragic death of a transgender sex worker who burned to death in a fire:

Dear Rupert: You're a shitbag, and so are your employees.

CT Governor Signs Gender Identity Protections Into Law

Governor Dan Malloy signed HB-6599-- "An Act Concerning Discrimination"-- into law today, making Connecticut the 15th state to protect its residents from discrimination on the basis of their gender identity.

The bill defines gender identity as follows:

"A person's gender-related identity, appearance or behavior, whether or not that gender-related identity, appearance or behavior is different from that traditionally associated with the person's physiology or assigned sex at birth, which gender-related identity can be shown by providing evidence including, but not limited to, medical history, care or treatment of the gender-related identity, consistent and uniform assertion of the gender-related identity or any other evidence that the gender-related identity is sincerely held, part of a person's core identity or not being asserted for an improper purpose."

One of the key points on which lobbyists and advocates were able to pressure legislators is the disproportionately high rate of unemployment rate among trans Americans, which is twice the national rate (PDF). 

 What's great about this piece of legislation is that it goes beyond employment discrimination.  Any field regulated by the state's Commission on Human Rights must cease any and all discriminatory action against trans people living in the Constitution State.  This includes employment, housing, public accomodations, and credit.  

Congrats, transfolk of Connecticut.  Now if we could only get the other 35 states to fall into line...

OneAngryTBoy Celebrating Marriage Equality

I'd like to introduce my dear friend Kyril, a transman that I met at Netroots Nation and my newest contributor.  He's going to be commenting on trans issues on OAQ as OneAngryTboy, and I'm glad to have him.

The "party line" in the trans community whenever the LGB community wins something is that we were somehow thrown under the bus, ignored, failed by our allies. I'm sure the NY legislature's failure to pass GENDA has already been beaten to death by our self-appointed spokespeople.

But I won't actually be reading those spokespeople's blogs in the wake of this victory. Neither, I suspect, will a lot of other trans people. You see, a lot of us are lesbian, gay, or bisexual. And while the "party line" blogs might begrudgingly acknowledge this when it suits their purposes, they'll quickly forget it whenever the LGBT community actually wins something, because LGB trans people don't fit neatly into the "LGB vs. T" narrative.

I won't buy into that narrative. The truth is that not only is marriage equality a big fucking deal for my non-trans LGB brothers and sisters, it's also a huge fucking deal for LGB trans people. In fact, it just might be bigger for us.

Why, you ask? After all, thanks to the hodgepodge of marriage and gender-marker-change laws around the US, trans people can already arrange to be married in some state or other to someone of any gender and gender history at most phases of our transition, and since our marriages are usually legally "heterosexual," the federal government even recognizes them. I'm gay, and I've already been married. Legally, marriage equality is only a convenience at best - and under DOMA, we're better off finding a state that will "straight-marry" us anyway.

But just as marriage isn't just about legal rights for non-trans LGBs, it's also not just about legal rights for trans LGBs. Marriage is the government's recognition that our relationships have social value. And the State of New York now recognizes that a man can grow up to form a stable, healthy, loving relationship with another man, and that a woman can grow up to form a stable, healthy, loving relationship with another woman. In the eyes of new York, Massachussetts, and other marriage equality states, LGB people are normal men and women.

And for LGB trans people, that's important. For a long time, we weren't even allowed to transition unless we could pretend to be straight. We weren't taken seriously. People, including the medical establishment, believed that "real" men were attracted to women and "real" women were attracted to men. Homosexuality was seen as abnormal or dysfunctional long after it was delisted from the DSM. And medical professionals were loath to let people transition into what they saw as a dysfunctional, incomplete, gender-inappropriate lifestyle.

The availability of transition for LGB trans people has grown with the social normalization of homosexuality. And in New York today, gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals are legally fully "normal." Our relationships are valued just like everyone else's. And that means the world to me - not just as a gay man, but as a trans man. I'm celebrating with absolutely no reservations. Happy Pride and happy NY Equality day!

(obligatory postscript: if you're in NY, please push your congresspeople to support GENDA next session. And everyone call your federal congresspeople about ENDA. Non-discrimination is the next big piece of the equality puzzle.)

Crossposted at Daily Kos.