Tracy's Little Corner

zorascreation:

A murder occurred in Oakland early Sunday morning. As of this posting, there is exactly one — count it — one, article about the incident in the media, at least as measured by Google News hits for Oakland murder.

37-year-old Brandy Martell was sitting behind the wheel of her car around 5:15 a.m. at when one or two men walked up and began a conversation. A witness told ABC7 the conversation was cordial, but then.. one of the men became angry and fired into the car right where Martell was sitting.

“When you don’t provide a space in society for people who you think are the other or different, especially transgender women, especially transgender women of color, when you don’t provide spaces for them to be in a safe environment or a safe space, whether it’s socializing or services, this is what happens,” Martell’s friend Tiffany Woods told ABC7.

As Horace Boothryd’s breaking diary yesterday noted, there was an email notice send out about the murder Sunday evening, with a damning claim about police inaction.

Brandi, a transwoman, was murdered last night, shot at 12th and Franklin in Downtown Oakland after an altercation with a man who became enraged and shot her when he realized she was trans. An amazing #oo comrade tried to keep her alive with training learned from the People’s Community Medics, but the cops walked away and the ambulance came too late.

If you are doubting whether this could possibly be true, I suggest you read Politicized ‘Hate Crimes’, the OPD and District Attorney O’Malley, and judge for yourself.

It is true that Oakland is a high-crime city, at least if you consider the data per capita. But Oakland is just not that populous, so that you might think that each of the some 110+ murders a year that occur within its boundaries would garner significant media attention. But as of five o’clock today Oakland’s flagship newspaper, the Oakland Tribune, had absolutely nothing about a rather shocking crime that took place just a block from Frank Ogawa Plaza / Oscar Grant Park.

Think about what the newscape would look like if a well-heeled, white, Oakland citizen living on “the right side of the tracks” (or, in Oakland parlance, “the hills”) had been the victim. Or consider that another murder that took place at almost the same location in November of 2011 while Occupy Oakland was camping in the Plaza rated world-wide headlines. I will leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine how many articles there were about broken windows in Oakland on November 2nd, 2011.  

So this is how yet another (and another, and another and another) transgender woman dies; a victim simultaneously of hatred and a conspiracy of silence.

SOURCE: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/04/30/1087705/-Transgender-woman-murdered-in-Oakland-Nobody-Cares-

puggbutt:

Update: 11 year old trans girl lost appeal

transawareness:

The above article is an update.  Her mother went to appeal to keep her out of the psychiatric ward and lost.  She will be institutionalized because of her expression of her gender.  She will be held until she conforms to male gender and then released to foster care, not her mother who was supporting her.

Please, if you haven’t signed the petition, sign it, reblog it, ask your friends to sign it. We’ve managed to get 40K signatures for a pageant model, we’ve only gotten 11K for a little girl about to have her life ruined.  Lets get on the ball and spread the word.

Sign It.

theselfmademen:

 Basic Respect For Transsexuals

• Please use language that corresponds to my gender identity, even if my body does not seem to match, and even when talking about my past.
• If you are still adjusting to my transition, it is normal to make mistakes with pronouns. Don’t draw attention to it. Just correct yourself and carry on.
• A transsexual woman is a male-to-female. A transsexual man is a female-to-male. It is never the other way around. Though sometimes it is referred to as male-to-male, or female-to-female because individuals may not have ever identified as the opposite gender and don’t see it as a transition from one to the other, rather an alignment of body and mind.
• Don’t assume my gender identity defines my sexual orientation. Who I am attracted to is totally separate from my gender. If I am a transsexual man who likes men, treat me no differently than any other gay man. 
• Don’t expect me to conform to stereotypes of my gender. I wear clothes I like and I have a variety of interests, just like everyone else. There is no need to point out which of my behaviors are “boy actions” and “girl actions”.
• Please don’t use my old name or ask what it was. Instead of saying “back when you were _____” or “when you were a girl” say “before you came out as a man” or “prior to your transition”. 
• Don’t use my name in the 3rd person as if I was someone else, i.e. “Are you dressing as Jack now?”
• If you use the word transsexual (or trans), it’s better to use it as an adjective to describe a person, not as a noun, i.e. trans people, trans man, trans woman. 
• Don’t assume that I have chosen to be a transsexual person. The only choice I have made is whether or not to accept my situation and fix it to live a healthier life as I see fit. 

iamingrid:

yamino:

If you are a transgender person in Sweden and want to legally change your gender, the government forces you to undergo surgery that will render you permanently infertile and forever unable to have children. That’s right: in 2012 Swedish law still mandates forced sterilization in order to do something as simple as changing your gender on a driver’s license.

Right now a reform of the law is being debated in Sweden. We need a massive show of support across Sweden and Europe against forced sterilization that will finally convince Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfledt to speak out and break the deadlock. 

Whether you are straight, gay, lesbian, bi, asexual, and/or trans, Swedish or European, will you take a moment to raise your voice and ask Prime Minister Reinfeldt to take a stand for human rights?

Take action now :  http://allout.org/stop_forced_sterilization

Yes, ugh, it’s one massive reason to be ashamed of my country. Please take a moment to sign if you can!