Statement from Kate Kendell, Esq., Executive Director
National Center for Lesbian Rights

Copyright © 1999-2003 NCLR
 

June 2003

Newark, California, October 19, 2002: 16 year-old transgendered woman Gwen Araujo is brutally murdered by three young men at a party after the men discover she was born male. The men drag Gwen out to garage where she is beaten and strangled. Witnesses at the party either leave or ignore what is going on. No one calls the police.

Newark, New Jersey, May 11, 2003: 15 -year-old lesbian Sakia Gunn is stabbed to death by a 29-year-old man after rebuffing his advances at Newark's Penn Station while waiting for a bus after a party. Sakia was standing with a friend when two men approached and made sexual advances. The girls told the men they were gay, a fight ensued, and Sakia was fatally stabbed.

These crimes are separated by seven months and 3,000 miles but they share the deep-seated misogyny and homophobia of every hate crime directed at a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered person. These two women tell the same story from a different lens: transgressions of gender, whether based on who one loves or how one identifies, will be brutally repressed and savagely responded to. What these cases also have in common is that they were virtually ignored by the national mainstream media. Both victims were women of color from working -- class families. Both women deserve long and sustained attention to the circumstances of their deaths because only in a full and vigorous analysis of what happened to them and why can we begin to understand the enormity of gender rigidity and homophobia in our lives and culture. Only by continuing a dialogue can we hold the media powers responsible for failing to keep these tragedies alive. Only by nursing our outrage can we demand the changes that must happen to prevent a new story two or four or seven months from now.

The far right doesn't want these stories talked about because to bring attention to the problem of bias crimes based on sexual orientation or gender identity means coming up with solutions. Solutions like anti-homophobia curriculum in schools, solutions like training and workshops to dismantle and deconstruct gender stereotypes, solutions like effective collaborations among all communities marginalized by sexual orientation, race, gender or ethnicity. These are the kinds of solutions the far right radically opposes. Their response to the story of Gwen and Sakia will be, and has been, to treat these incidents as isolated, unimportant, or to ignore them altogether, because if there is no problem there is no need for a solution.

But we know that Gwen and Sakia are two of hundreds of stories and that to bring an end to new tragedies means transforming our culture, our educational institutions, our churches, and our government. In the names of Gwen Araujo and Sakia Gunn -- and so many others who have been victims in a war against difference -- we must begin that transformation.