Thursday, August 23, 2012

Hampton Case in Ohio Update

I posted last week about the Hampton trans murder case in Ohio and my pissivity over the almost immediate deployment of the Black trans unwoman meme' in the initial reports by several Cincinnati media outlets.  

The local media in addition to immediately misgendering her, assumed Hampton was engaged in sex work, which pissed me off still further

Well, interestingly enough, there's a story that came out yesterday in GLBTNewsCincinnati.com by Worley Rodehaver about this latest trans murder based on an interview with a person purported to be a relative of Hampton's named Terri.

According to the article, Hampton had just had a fistfight with a transphobe who called her names, and the cismale she vanquished was being teased by other males for being beat up by a 'fag'.

Terri says another female relative was with Hampton and went inside a carryout.   Sometime during that period she was in the carryout Hampton was shot, and as we are aware of later died after being taken to the hospital

Terri is also quoted in the article as saying about Hampton “He always had to fight (literally) because of who he was. He lived in a bad area of town around young males who are in gangs and sell drugs.” 

“What I am concerned about is the State of Ohio does not have any Hate Crime Laws regarding sexual orientation or gender identity.”  Terri concluded, “I hope the Cincinnati Police Department will find this person/s and bring them to justice. 


Terri, that's the same thing we transpeople are hoping and praying for as well, that your relative get justice. 

Another thing we African-American transwomen are hoping for is the media actually pays attention to and starts consistently using the AP Stylebook guidelines on respectfully reporting on trans people.   

We transwomen of color are extremely sick and tired of the first words coming out of your media mouths when we are unfortunately killed and you report the stories is making the assumption filled and racist leap that we are engaged in sex work

You know the old saying about when you assume.

But it's more like you're making azzes out of yourselves, not the transperson you disrespected. . 

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