2 Convicted of Murdering Transgender Teen

Fraise and Scott098 speak for me in this one. I can't believe what I'm reading in this thread from, up to this point, what I (had) considered intelligent, level-headed, rational thinking posters. Let me see if I have this right ? She deceived them, therefore lied to them, therefore she put herself in that position, therefore deserved what she got ... Is that the gist of it ??? Her youth notwithstanding as an excuse, no one -- NO ONE -- deserved her fate. Placing qualifiers in defense of the defendents in this case is to rationalize bigotry, homophobia, and fear, et all, in some warped way. I doubt anyone in here would condone what happened in the old south when the law looked the other way simply because the victims of a crime were black, and yet you allow these cretins off simply because they were deceived ? Unbelievable.



It should have been first degree murder all the way!

We live in a world where people get beaten for looking at someone wrong, scalped by punkers for verbally disrespecting women, shot/killed for wearing the wrong colors or baseball cap, raped for wearing too short a skirt... and you think suggesting that TS girls be cautious with their sexuality is bad advice?

Not one person here has said she got what she deserved. I think some rationality is in order here. This is 2005 not 2050.

I don't think anyone is condoning what these young men did, but I agree with those who are saying that she did put herself in the position. Why was there the need for her to disguise her identity? If she had told these boys that she was a t from the jump she may or may not have been invited to the party. KNowing boys and the way they think, it was probably assumed that she was simply promiscuous, and everybody there had something to jump on. Once it was revealed to these boys that she was indeed built just like them there was initially shock, and then group think kicked in where one person had a bbad idea, and the others in their state of shock went along with it. Of course this is all contigent on them not knowing that she was a t.
Growing up in SF I am pretty good at recognizing t's and have not been surprised yet.
However I have been in situations where I have picked up a tgirl, bar club, street however, where the girl and I were getting ready to fuck, and then she says "oh by the way", and this is after she already sucked me up. see now if I didn't want any part of this I probably would be pretty upset my damn self. I know better now than to commit a violent act on someone becsue of their deception, but when I was 17, 18, 19 I hadn't learned yet that I cannot just smack someone around becsue they did something tthat I felt was worng. and ith anger issues I used to have I may just have went too far.

Ok

When I was 16 I was beat up by not 1 but 3 white guys who called me nigger while they kicked me.

All I was doing was walking home from school. Did I put myself in a "situation"?


Yes the world is not perfect , yes she should not have done that. BUT you have to know when is the right time to criticize someone for their actions. She was not beat up or spit on, she was murdered.

This is where the trans world is I think a couple of steps behind what goes on in the gay world. If that was a guy who got murdered because he was gay there would be no doubt what these kids did and why they did it. But from the first page I keep reading "she shouldn't have done that". You have to stand behind your girls better then that.

No of coruse you didn't put yourself into a situation walking home from school but if you'd decided to walk into a Nazi Rally and disguise yourself as a white guy, only to reveal yourself as black later, then like Gwen you would have put yourself into a situation but of course, not deserved to be murdered for doing so.
What all you incited people are missing (or keep reinstating) is that nobody here is judging Gwen, they're judging the situation she put herself in, no matter how silly, how immature or how ignorant she was of the situation. Tgirls do this all the time and sitting back crying about people looking at the problem and making rational statements isn't going to stop another girl making the same mistake. If these guys had got off, it would be a different argument going on here. We're all on the same page, we all know these guys were guilty and they did get punished for murder. We all no that her murder was not right, that it was a barbarous and heinous thing to happen yet we all (should) know this wasn't any little girl or boy walking home from school. This was a young, sexually aware adult who made a concious decision not to tell these men who or what she was and ultimately, that was a contributing factor in her death - not an excuse for causing it.
Some of you guys need to
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seanchai

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Originally Posted by seanchai

No of coruse you didn't put yourself into a situation walking home from school but if you'd decided to walk into a Nazi Rally and disguise yourself as a white guy, only to reveal yourself as black later, then like Gwen you would have put yourself into a situation but of course, not deserved to be murdered for doing so.
What all you incited people are missing (or keep reinstating) is that nobody here is judging Gwen, they're judging the situation she put herself in, no matter how silly, how immature or how ignorant she was of the situation. Tgirls do this all the time and sitting back crying about people looking at the problem and making rational statements isn't going to stop another girl making the same mistake. If these guys had got off, it would be a different argument going on here. We're all on the same page, we all know these guys were guilty and they did get punished for murder. We all no that her murder was not right, that it was a barbarous and heinous thing to happen yet we all (should) know this wasn't any little girl or boy walking home from school. This was a young, sexually aware adult who made a concious decision not to tell these men who or what she was and ultimately, that was a contributing factor in her death - not an excuse for causing it.
Some of you guys need to
R
E
A
D

S
L
O
W
E
R

seanchai

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Sean,

Hello-o-o-o ? It's the attitude of, Well she should have known better, blah, blah, blah ... that gets to me. This young woman wasn't just berated, ridiculed, spat on, or beaten, she was murdered. Killed.
How are the two -- judging the situation/judging the victim -- mutually exclusive in this case ? It seems to me that the two are one in the same and some in here are indeed judging, therefore blaming, the victim for the unwarranted murderous acts of the three defendants. Do you believe this 17 year old ever believed her decision not to tell them would eventually result in her death ? I don't think she did. Sorry, but murder in this case is a little bit over-reacting, don't ya think ? Point the finger solely and squarely -- SQUARELY -- where it belongs -- at the three punks who took her life. Fault them, along with the fear, bigotry, issues, and ideas that pervade their sick little minds, and not the young TG who either naively or inadvertently got caught up by it. Anything less would be equivilent to condoning the hanging of blacks at one time simply because, well, that's the way things are down here in the south.

With respect, RG4me do you mean to say, that in no way at all was she responsible for putting herself into that situation?
While I'm sure she never expected the result to end in her death she must have known that she could have potentially caused some trouble?

I really think equating this to hanging blacks in the South, is way way off the mark and somewhat insulting to that situation and rather, we quash that side of the argument now instead of this subject turning into a racial or equating one evil for another evil argument.

Bottom line in my opinion, yes I do believe that unfortuantely, through either her ignorance, naivity or immaturity that she did put herself in potentially harms way. This does not excuse the murderers whatsoever. By stating that she should not have put herself into that situation does not take any of the guilt from the murderers.
seanchai

:( well the perfect end to a perfect day for me. My faith in humanity takes another blow

With respect, RG4me do you mean to say, that in no way at all was she responsible for putting herself into that situation?
While I'm sure she never expected the result to end in her death she must have known that she could have potentially caused some trouble?

"Trouble" is a relative term here. I'm sure that even in a fleeting moment of a 17 year old's thought processes, she expected something would come down once it was disclosed, but violence, ergo, death ? Death ? If she knew in advance that the potential for harm was there, then and only then, would she bear some responsibility, but no one in their right mind would ever think it would lead to their death.

I really think equating this to hanging blacks in the South, is way way off the mark and somewhat insulting to that situation and rather, we quash that side of the argument now instead of this subject turning into a racial or equating one evil for another evil argument.

It's not at all that different. The point I'm trying to make or equate by using what happened in the south at one time is the indifferent attitudes held by some at the time that bigotry was the way of the land, and that blacks should simply know their place. Emitt Till(sp?) in 1957 should have "known" better than to whistle at a white woman. He should have "known" he would later be dragged out of his cousin's house and later found tortured and beaten to death ... Emitt [Gwen] should have "known" his actions would lead all the way to death. It's the fear, intolerance, and bigotry that pervaded the minds of these killers, as well as the inexcusable climate of, Oh, well, that's the way things are, she should have known better ... crowd that really gets to me. Why address the myriad of issues at play here, when all we have to do is take the easy route and find fault, any fault, with the victim simply because that's the way things are ? It just seems that some in here are finding more fault with her judgement than with that of her killers, and that's what pisses me off.

Bottom line in my opinion, yes I do believe that unfortuantely, through either her ignorance, naivity or immaturity that she did put herself in potentially harms way. This does not excuse the murderers whatsoever. By stating that she should not have put herself into that situation does not take any of the guilt from the murderers.

It still shouldn't have resulted in one's harm, or worse, murder. Most of us have probably come out on the short end of the haggling when buying a new car, yet we don't go back and murder the salesman when we find out we were punked, do we ? What judge in this country would exonerate one on that ? I hate to disagree with you, Sean, because you are of sound mind and I probably agree with you 95 percent of the time in here, but in my opinion Gwen bears little if any of the fault in this case.

Great posts, the two sides of which seem to boil down to what so many other things in life boil down to: responsibility. One side insists that the victim bares no responsibility whatsoever, while the other side decries the actions of those who harmed her but also insists that she bares some responsibility for putting herself in that situation.

Years ago while a teenager at the Jersey Shore, a friend and I were walking through a town called Lakewood. Lakewood has some really bad sections in it that warrant careful consideration. Anyway, my friend and I were walking to the bus station when he suggested taking a shortcut by a particular group of apartments that would shave off about 20 minutes from our walk. I argued that he was out of his mind and that two white kids like us had no business going through there. He, being from an overly liberal background, responded that I was wrong for thinking that way and that if we minded our own business we would be fine. I knew he was wrong, but I also knew he would take the short-cut by himself just to show me that I was wrong; so, I went with him.

Long story short, we were chased down like dogs for our wallets by nine guys. My friend was repeatedly stabbed in the stomach with an umbrella while I had the living shit kicked out of me until I lost consciousness. It’s something of a miracle that we weren’t killed. The casual observer might seek to blame only the mindless thugs that attacked us. I, however, disagree. If my friend and I had not taken an obviously dangerous short-cut, we would never have put ourselves in a situation where the aforementioned thugs would have had the opportunity to harm us. While our attackers are unquestionably responsible for their actions – and paid for them – in the end, my friend and I bare a considerable degree of responsibility for what happened to us.

Like it or not, the young lady whose tragic murder is the focus of this thread does bare some responsibility for what happened to her in the same way that I do for what once happened to me. By making the tragic decision to knowingly mislead and deceive those men (animals), she helped to create the situation that led to her horrific demise. This isn’t about blaming the victim; it’s about having the intelligence to realize that people have to be responsible for their part in a given tragedy.

-Quinn