Other than, you know, to reinforce the myths that transgender people are all somehow innately immoral, repugnant and mentally ill?
Because reading these articles on the guilty plea — and just about every one written on the subject thus far includes the fact that she is transgender in the headline — gives me no indication of a valid motive for the inclusion of this information, such as the name she held before legally changing it, whatsoever.
I can’t believe that this even bears stating, but here we go. The crime that this woman committed is horrific. It may even, in the eyes of many people, make her a bad person. But absolutely none of that has a damn thing to do with her gender identity and medical history. None of it. Period.
*sigh* It’s like the fact of her gender identity is the MOST SALIENT POINT they could possibly make. It’s not just the news outlets, either, people really do view her like that. I had a (very conservative, Southern Christian) friend yesterday who was all, “Ooh, have you heard about the man…woman…well I guess she’s a woman now, right? – who killed her husband?” She had this expectant air, like “Well, duh, you’re the Rainbow People [shit thee not, that's what she calls LGBT people] expert, so of course you’d be interested in this case!” I replied, “Yeah, I heard about it. Tragic, really. What’s the fact that she’s transgender got to do with it, though?” She seemed kind of startled when she realized she couldn’t actually explain why it was relevant.
I’m still claiming a victory point, though, because it used to be she’d still have referred to the woman as “he” or “he-she” until I started getting on her case every time she did that. It’s a step in the right direction, at least.
Now, if only the media would get with it and report the facts of the case, without the breathless emphasis on OMG TRANSGENDER!!1eleventy!
This title is straight-up bigotry, pure and simple. And all it does is make her a target for unspeakable violence, as can be seen by the gratuitous hate speech in folks’ comments.
With the prevailing 1 in 30,000 mythology, this sort of thing can really make it look like trans folks are universally evil. *eyeroll* It’s such a baldfaced attempt at sensationalism, too… I can hear them shouting “Maury” already.
Sadly, they’re just trying to play up her gender to sell papers. Bigotry and ignorance are the gas that drives the sales engine, unfortunately.
Sadly, some earlier wire releases did not include information about her being trans:
http://www.wiredprnews.com/2009/02/14/guilty-plea-in-over-exercising-case_200902142401.html
However, guess which ones are spreading at a major rapid clip throughout various small media outlets? The more sensational ones. “Woman kills husband” is hardly news; “woman exercises husband to death” is an interesting police blotter report; “transgender ‘woman’ exercises husband to death” is national gossip and fodder for the “Oddly Enough” news category all over the place. Whee.
And you wonder why more trans people don’t talk openly about being trans? It’s because most news stories that somehow involve a trans person will blare that like it’s more relevant than anything else.
I had a (very conservative, Southern Christian) friend yesterday who was all, “Ooh, have you heard about the man…woman…well I guess she’s a woman now, right? – who killed her husband?”
This is mostly off topic (at least, it isn’t related to the particular person the post is about or reactions to what she did), but this kind of reaction is really, really common when talking about trans men/women and it kind of makes me crazy. There’s a trans girl at the high school where I do a lot of subbing and it seems like I’m constantly explaining to other students why its inappropriate to call her a “he-she.” Because frankly, aside from the fact that she looks like a girl and lives as a girl and that it isn’t really their business anyway, it’s really just rude to go around saying things like about other people.
There’s obviously nothing noble about tabloid appeal, but I don’t think you can reason it out of existence. This story is more interesting because it involves a trans woman and a man who married her. Like a woman who’s had 14 children, that’s not something you read about every day, so it adds a bit of interest.
To who, southpaw? It’s not more interesting to me. His death is no less tragic because the woman in question is trans.
So really, what makes it interesting? Other than the fact that so many people like to gawk at trans folks and find their very existence to be “interesting” in a way that is certainly not a compliment?
As I said, there’s nothing noble about it. There are so many stories of domestic tragedy. A woman in Houston gave birth yesterday after being shot by her husband, who then killed himself. It would have been no less of a crime had she not given birth in such close proximity to the shooting. But the fact of her pregnancy is nevertheless part of the story, and it’s the part that probably made it notable enough to put in the paper . . . ignoble and dispiriting as that is.
You cant blame the news for this, for putting the fact that the person had a sex change operation in the headline. They did nothing wrong, they were simply stating a fact. It would have been the same thing if they said she was Asian, or Puerto Rican, or a person who liked to play Scrabble.
It is, however, the peoples fault for assuming they meant something negative by it.
These headlines were simply stating a fact, and an irrelevant one at that. But its the people, the readers, who add that negative connotation.
southpaw: That this woman is trans is not part of the story. It has nothing, in fact, to *do* with the story. At all.
Society (with few exceptions) has two views on trangenderism. The first is pornographic (more common than thought) or simple refusal to believe that it is valid as a normal part of individuals in our society. Our society believes that to be transgendered in any way is deviant and will result in deviant (sexual or violent) behaviour.
Perfect calling out, cara.
“You cant blame the news for this, for putting the fact that the person had a sex change operation in the headline. They did nothing wrong, they were simply stating a fact.”
Wrong. The “fact” is irrelevant to the story. They were “simply” sensationalizing the story in order to boost profits.
“It is, however, the peoples fault for assuming they meant something negative by it.”
Perfect. So, what you’re saying is: “You noticed the transphobia. That means *you’re* the transphobe!” FAIL.
Exactly, Cara & Holly (et al.).
I would *love* to see the newspapers start identifying scrabble players’ crimes as such. Truly, there is a scourge among us that should be brought to light.
You cant blame the news for this, for putting the fact that the person had a sex change operation in the headline. They did nothing wrong, they were simply stating a fact. It would have been the same thing if they said she was Asian, or Puerto Rican, or a person who liked to play Scrabble.
POKER-PLAYING IRISH-GERMAN REDHEAD WHO LIKES BLUEBERRY-BRAN MUFFINS AND LONG WALKS IN THE RAIN AND DOES A MEAN BETTE DAVIS IMPRESSION MURDERS HUSBAND
…No.
A good newspaper editor would immediately recognize BOGGLE ENTHUSIAST WIFE MURDERS HUSBAND as an odd headline and ASIAN WIFE MURDERS HUSBAND as an odd and racist headline. They’d probably see the inclusion of ASIAN as an unsavory, irresponsible option, given all that it implies about the tendency of ASIAN people to MURDER their spouses. It’s not an interesting factoid in a murder story unless you believe that ASIAN and MURDER are somehow connected. That would be a racist premise.
This woman’s trans status had nothing to do with the crime she reportedly committed, not any more than her ethnicity or her interest in words that contain q and z. And given the massive amount of stigma attached to transsexuality, it is irresponsible for the media to publicize her trans status in connection with the crime.
I think they are not only playing on sensationalism but on a widespread tendency to stereotype transwomen as petty criminals and con artists, and a tendency to read transsexuality as outlaw. In effect, they’re telling people to convict her based on her gender history.
“They did nothing wrong, they were simply stating a fact. ”
Unless a piece is basically gonzo journalism, non-relevant descriptors tend to get left out of space-conscious articles. The fact that Newton-John Mason is white? Not there. The length of the Masons’ marriage? Not there. Prior ill-health on Mason’s part? Not there.
It struck me when I heard about it on CNN that they were mentioning the trans-status the way you typically hear reporters mention prior bad acts or participation in sex work.
[...] does, for instance, a transwoman murdering her husband have anything to do with the fact that she is trans. Let people’s actions speak for themselves without dragging immaterial facts about their [...]
The “US Muslim TV boss beheaded wife” case is distinctly different for a number of reasons.
1) Islam is an ideological affiliation and possibly quite relevant vis-à-vis motive. Moreover Islam is connected to beheading and violence against women in general. I am not saying that association is not prejudicially applied at times, but the basis of that association is clear incidents (terrorist beheading victims on camera) and points of Islamic doctrine (interpretations of certain passages in the Qur’an).
Gender identity disorder is in contrast an in-born psychological state that would only be a motive to commit a crime under additional circumstances (e.g. blackmail).
2) The alleged murder was a relatively prominent member of the American Muslim community. The woman in this murder case is just some random transsexual.
3) Muslims have significant power as a group, including an inexplicable defensiveness about Islam by some fellow leftist. Transsexuals are so marginalized that their very inclusion in the LGBT rainbow is controversial to some gays and lesbians.
What does her being transgender have to do with it? Well, the fact that she’s not a man and therefore the “other” of course. Plus the added bonus of getting to associate murder with transgendered people.
It’s like an article I read about a female pilot involved in a plane crash. Of course being female had nothing to do with her crashing the plane. The writer simply pointed it out to readers because people like me had no clue that women flew planes (you mean they’ve been doing it since WWII!?)
I really feel that it’s just an extended identifier. A very large number of people feel that a transgender female isn’t truly a female and that just saying “woman” wouldn’t be the correct description.
Yeah Fitz, you’re entirely right about that.
But it doesn’t make this an “extended identifier” because saying that a transgender woman isn’t “really” a woman is fucking prejudice. It’s bigotry. It’s invalidating another person’s existence. It’s cisgender privilege. And it’s bullshit.
“Moreover Islam is connected to beheading and violence against women in general.”
Seriously…? Could we not bring anti-Islamic bigotry into this thread as well? Ugh…
Victoria, men beheading, buring, dismembering, and otherwise torturing women has absolutely nothing to do with Islam. With all the reports of battering-related murders in the US media, you’ve got to know better than that.
As for Fitz’s comment at #21, please keep in mind that a very large number of people feel strongly that Black folks are apes, while another very large number of people believe in a Jewish conspiracy to control the world, and…wait, hold on…there’s yet another very large number of people who believe that cisgendered gay men ain’t really men. When have bigots NOT “felt very strongly” about something?
Victoria, comments about what “Islam does” are not going to get put through for two reasons:
1. “Islam” doesn’t “do” anything. People can do things in the name of Islam; those things are not necessarily a reflection on the religion itself, only a certain way of practicing it (and yes, the same holds true for other religions).
2. This post is about transphobia. And I’d appreciate if we can all get back on track in that regard.
To be fair, when I heard this story, it was simply described as a woman who had exercised her elderly husband to death. I don’t know if I just heard about it before they had more details or what.
I think they add the detail about her transgender status because they think it makes the story more interesting – the dynamics of a couple who were May/December, knew each other before her sex change, got married after, and then had one maliciously murdering the other in unusual fashion. The story drew me in without knowing about her sex change due to the cold-blooded manner in which she killed him, so I agree that did not require so much highlighting.
[...] Things I’m Putting In My Head Today II A Woman’s Quest to Erase a Past that Won’t Die I’m not sure why this is in the “sexual health” section, I cringed every time Bonner called her “a transgender”, and there are several sections that read like “Why doesn’t this crazy lady just stop doing this, pay her fine, and get over it?!” but it was pretty stunning to see a mainstream article in which the transgender person is afforded the respect of the pronoun and sex that actually belongs to her. It also shows a part of a trans woman’s life that for once isn’t in the news solely because it’s tragic, like Angie Zapate’s, or presumed to be freakish. [...]