From this week’s coming news post on human rights: incompetence over transphobic aspects of a murder [Note: Content Warning - links to reports on bigotry/hate, violence. Reader discretion is advised]

Note: CONTENT WARNING - some of this content is about upsetting, disturbing or triggering events & attitudes. Seek competent help - including professional - if you need it. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that linked articles may contains names and/or images of deceased people. READER CAUTION IS RECOMMENDED! For anyone distressed by anything in this post, or for any other reason considering seeking support, resources are available in Australia here, here, and here. In other nations, you will have to do an Internet search using terms such as “mental health support - <your nation>” (which, for instance, may lead to this, this, and this, in the USA, or this, this, and this, in France [biased towards English-language - my apologies]), or perhaps try https://www.befrienders.org/. 

Note: in my “from the news” posts, quotes are shown italicised and blue, my comments are in a different shade of blue, and “good” items are shown in green. I have loosely grouped the posts where such seemed reasonable, but that is subjective (i.e., my opinion - others are free to disagree), and challenging, as some posts belong in multiple “groups”.

From this week’s coming news post on human rights:  

This is appalling. The police were incompetent and should be sacked, in my opinion - as should the “journalist”:

and   UK police - and the reporting journalist - have shown, in my opinion, incompetence about transphobia by failing to recognise the significance of (a) transphobic slurs (and one murderer POSSIBLY not being transphobic does not mean the others are not), and (b) the inclusion of the transwoman with four cismales (suggesting strongly - in combination with the slurs - that they considered the transwoman to be male, which IS transphobia) in the list of potential victims, and (c) referring to pronouns as “chosen”. The downgrading by police of transphobia from primary motivation to something else, and wording by police that suggested they did not consider it a motivation at all, led to inaccurate reports saying transphobia was NOT a motivation, when it clearly WAS part of the motivation. The police and the journalist have, in my opinion, buried themselves morally - even if, as may be the case, the police member did not want transphobia to be ... real. A nice wish, but that does not sit with the duty to the community and safety of ALL members of the community to actually BE safe - and this will damage public trust in the police (and media) for quite some time to come. Incidentally, if the victim being trans was not an issue, why are the media reporting that aspect? There is an element of hypocrisy/sensationalism, I consider. I hope the judge does better with sentencing - transphobia does make this a hate crime, and the UK is showing of a transgenocide which a conviction on the basis of transphobia (even a little) would have helped contain:   “Why B______ G___ police quickly ruled out transphobia as motive”   https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/20/why-b______-g___-police-quickly-ruled-out-transphobia-as-motive  “Evans accepts that Boy Y wrote some “horrific, dehumanising and transphobic” messages”   There were also victim blaming statements about B______ “choosing a lifestyle that made her vulnerable” (incidentally, not going out is something trans people often do in response to transphobia) ... unfortunately, that is likely to cause concerns along the lines of the rape victims dressing provocatively rubbish  

 

PS - See also this excellent, deeper analysis:   “The transphobia surrounding Brianna Ghey’s death”   https://medium.com/@notCursedE/the-transphobia-surrounding-brianna-gheys-death-77fc0d4aa597  

 

Assumptions / basis 

In writing this, I have assumed / started from the following: 

• this blog states quite clearly that it is about political and human rights matters, including lived experience of problems, and thus I will assume readers are reasonable people who have noted the content warning in the post header; Possible flaws 

Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan  Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”; 

• I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
  

 

If they are of any use of interest, the activism information links from my former news posts are available in this post. 

 

If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below.

Remember: we need to be more human being rather than human doing, and all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering”.