Can Murders Murder Hate? Two Lessons

Everyone in me is a bird

The murders of two teenagers, one male to female in the UK, the other a non-binary in Oklahoma, have produced a combination of hate speech, and a reaction against that hate.

The gruesome murder of Brianne Ghey can be read about in the link below, I don't wish to repeat it in any detail. What has struck me is how the reaction to the murder marked a considerable departure from the ridicule and abuse that Trans people have had to endure. It is as if, suddenly, people became aware of the profound anxieties that can shape a teenager's life, and how dangerous it can be to be true to one's self, and the damage that hate and violence cause, and the waste of life.
Life sentences for teenagers who murdered Brianna Ghey - BBC News

After the murder of the non-binary Nex Benedict in Oklahoma, a woman attending a forum held by a Chamber of Commerce, asked the question

""Why does the Legislature have such an obsession with the LGBTQ citizens of Oklahoma and what people do in their personal lives and how they raise their children?"

According to the Daily Press, Woods responded that while "my heart goes out" in regard to Nex's death, he represents a constituency.
"We are a Republican state – supermajority – in the House and Senate. I represent a constituency that doesn't want that filth in Oklahoma," Woods said, according to the newspaper account."".
Report: Oklahoma senator calls LGBTQ+ ‘filth’ when asked about gender issues (oklahoman.com)

I don't know if these desperately sad events will change people's minds. I hope they do, just as i hope they at least become more aware of the challenges that Trans teenagers face, in whatever country they live, and that these are personal, familial, social, and ultimately political too. For legislators have responsibilities, and in an open democracy, one would hope, believe that everyone is to be included in the policies that are assumed to make life better. And thus not to single people out because of who they are.

Murder, in the end, may itself help to murder the hate that caused it.

I would just add that the investigation of Nex Benedict’s death isn’t over. Her assault and how it was handled by the school is terrible, however there is still a pending toxicology report and further investigation to be completed. It may ultimately be ruled a murder, but we’ll have to wait and see.

There's precedent:
https://time.com/4399793/emmett-till...s-photography/

Quote:

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Originally Posted by fred41

I would just add that the investigation of Nex Benedict’s death isn’t over. Her assault and how it was handled by the school is terrible, however there is still a pending toxicology report and further investigation to be completed. It may ultimately be ruled a murder, but we’ll have to wait and see.

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Thank you for the correction, I should have been more precise in this case.

And so it goes on, though if they do award prizes for trivializing something so important, this might win it-

"Lara Trump – former president Donald Trump’s daughter-in-law and potential new Republican National Committee leader – rejected what she called a “fabricated notion that you can change your gender like you change your shoes.”"

Then
"CPAC dedicated a panel called “Genesis 1:27” – a reference to the Biblical passage that “God created man in his own image” – to discuss ending affirming care for trans youth."

With hundreds of anti-Trans bills pending in State legislatures. One wonders, indeed hopes this issue will be a voter loser for the GOP along with abortion and the confused messaging about IVF.

"A South Carolina man was found guilty of a federal hate crime in connection with the 2019 killing of Black transgender woman Dime Doe, in a landmark verdict prosecutors say is the first of its kind.“This case is historic; this defendant is the first to be found guilty by trial verdict for a hate crime motivated by gender identity under the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke, with the US Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said in a statement Saturday."
A South Carolina man was convicted of a federal hate crime in a Black transgender woman’s killing. The verdict is the first of its kind, prosecutors say (yahoo.com)

https://apnews.com/article/south-car...9392c3179c96d1

I don't know if anti-Trans laws are a response to hate or if they create it, but it does seem to me to be unnecessary on one level -for if the laws are reversed, does it impose extra costs on society? Does it overload the bureaucracy with paperwork to handle claims for a changed identity when the number of people doing so is so relatively small say, compared to those applying for a driver's licence?

Taking away rights is the deal, as has been mentioned many times before, creating rather than solving a problem for those people who don't want to change their identity like changing their clothes, but have to in order to 'fit in' as equal citizens in a country where that equality is enshrined in law. The second link explores this, elsewhere there is a report of a Vigil for Nex Benedict that was held outside the Stonewall in Greenwich Village.

The other link is about the science, though I am aware there are science people here who know this, for example, why men have nipples -one wonders what the IVF Brigade in Alabama would make of this-

"All embryos are technically female until around 12 weeks, when a gene on the Y chromosome kicks in and male development starts (hence why men have nipples)".
The Y chromosome is vanishing. What will happen to men? | Tech News | Metro News

All Americans are equal before the law, but some are more equal than others...
By defining sex, some states are denying transgender people of legal recognition (msn.com)

"The death of a nonbinary high school student who died the day after a fight inside an Oklahoma high school restroom has been ruled a suicide, the state medical examiner's office said Wednesday.A summary autopsy report shows 16-year-old Nex Benedict, who used they/them pronouns, had toxic levels of two drugs in their system and died of an overdose.2
Death of nonbinary teen Nex Benedict after fight ruled a suicide, Oklahoma medical examiner says (msn.com)

Context the verdict. Difficult to digest, desperately sad on every level.