Getting Political – Angie Zapata
One of the stranger things I’ve caught myself doing here is keeping my politics hidden – I’m not even quite sure why, though I suspect its one of the compromises I’ve accepted for invisibility. I’ve watched the flak that political blogs attract, especially the politics of the personal and I’ve not wanted any part of it.
Recently this has started to feel pretty unnatural; an odd sort of self imposed censorship that really wins me nothing while burying me in a self inflicted silence. Given that most of my readers know me personally and are well aware that I’m a great big Queermo, my exhibiting some queer politics from time to time shouldn’t be a surprise.
Today I’m going to talk about Angie Zapata. I’m going to tell you about a young woman bludgeoned to death with a fire extinguisher by someone who saw her as a thing, who said ‘I think I killed it’ when the police caught up with him.
Angie was killed by a guy she was dating, a guy who is now trying to use the ‘Trans Panic’ defence to justify/mitigate his brutally beating her to death – though he doesn’t seem to have been too panicked to ransack her apartment, steal anything of worth he found, drive off in her car and run up a huge bill on her credit cards – does this sound like the aftermath of a crime of passion to you?
Allen Ray Andrade is yet another one of the charming parade of people who believe, with some justification, that they can take the life of a transperson and get away with it. After all, who wouldn’t believe that a red blooded heterosexual man would react violently upon discovering the trans status of the person he was with, that he had been deceived.
After all, that’s what a Trans person is, right? A Disguise, a Deception, a falsehood. This is what I see in the press whenever this happens, this is what I see other people posting – that ‘she’ asked for it, that ‘she’ deserved it, ‘she’ lied – somehow implying that this offsets murder – often very brutal murder. After all, these guys were deceived, it’s not like any of them knowingly sleep with Transwomen then come back to kill them later, not like any of them live with Transwomen for months and have a history of dating Transwomen yet still try to claim they were deceived, that they panicked.
Right?
The myth, the meme of the deceptive Transperson is a media myth created by those with no understanding or experience of Trans realities. A sordid little devaluing, dehumanising trope used to justify abuse and mistreatment, the refusing of essential medical care, harassment and hate and even murder.
Even more fun and games occurs when you throw in a heaping shitpile of racism. Angie was Latina in one of the most anti immigrant states in the US. It would be easy enough for me to ignore how this might impact on what happened, sat here in my middle class white European suburb, were it not for people like – and the people commenting on news stories who make it impossible to miss their attitudes by casting doubt on her citizenship, casting doubt on her legal status ... don’t tell me, is that supposed to make her murder easier to swallow too?
The internet is full of people who’ve been writing about this stuff far longer than me, I'm going to link to some of them here.
Lisa's roundup of Angie Zapata posts and some comment about Trans Panic
Brownfemipower correctly places the racial perspective
[...] of Butterflies: Getting Political - Angie Zapata Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Ya Think?Quran in the crapper - A Hate Crime?Obama [...]
So, karb, thanks for destroying my faith in humanity even more and making me yet more comfortable with the fact I'd rather have nothing to do with most people.
So after reading this, I started reading through the links and coming across cases I'd never heard of before and it was just very depressing how awful people can be. I can see why you were sort of not in a good mood about it.
And then later today I stumbled across this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7543430.stm
The latter half of the article is particularly telling, especially that last paragraph. I mean wtf.
Sweet lord people are awful.
I had no idea such a thing as 'trans panic' existed. What a load of crap.
Poor women who have died and poor women who now have to deal with the aftermath in a stupid society.
And any men that might be involved on the receiving end, I assume they're out there too.
This sucks.
i hadn't heard of the "trans panic" or "gay panic" defenses, but i did hear about the twinkie defense re: harvey milk's assasination. it's disgusting that's ever flown in the courtroom. i feel silly sometimes when i talk about the harassment i've gotten for being queer, like i'm complaining about pittances or something - and it's true that i've never experienced violence like this - but it's stories like this one that remind me to speak as loudly as i can, because there is real institutional power behind even the littlest violences, and silence only assists it. thank you for talking about this. and please! more entries like this one. talking about politics and queerdom is one of the things i miss most about hanging out with you! <3
although the suddenly flying hats are quite fun.
"but it’s stories like this one that remind me to speak as loudly as i can, because there is real institutional power behind even the littlest violences, and silence only assists it."
This is strong truth!
Based on the response, and the fact that, in its own small way, it feels pretty empowering to be getting this stuff up and out, I'm going to keep posting queer and feminist stuff when things come across my radar
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... alongside the suddenly flying hats, video games and similar
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also! i read this article while i was supposed to be working today, written by an awesome lady i met through the berkeley slam. it's sort of on topic with this post and sort of on topic with a conversation we had while i was visiting. re thinking sexism: how trans women challenge feminism. julia talks a lot about good old fashioned sexism and how the oppression and violence against transwomen isn't "transphobia" but just plain old, feminine-devaluing misogyny.
Julia Serano is switched on as all fucking get out
. and omg, you two meet everybody ... I need to come visit you sometime 
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It's a great article, though the comments section is pretty griefy in places (which is irritatingly normal for this sort of thing). There are quite a lot of responses showing up through the net too - I love it when this stuff sparks discussion.