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.

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.

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.

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?

Seriously…? Could we not bring anti-Islamic bigotry into this thread as well? Ugh…

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.

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!?)

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.