WATCH: The horrific explosion of violence against trans women of color

WATCH: The horrific explosion of violence against trans women of color

Catching up to reality, the ABC News program Nightline has investigated the epidemic of American violence unleashed on transgendered people since Trump’s election, especially trans women of color, and the result is nothing less than devastating.

Hosted by reporter Juju Chang, the segment focuses on a group of trans women living in Dallas, doing a deep dive on the story of  22-year-old Muhlaysia Booker. In April, a crowd of bystanders stood and watched as a man attacked and beat Booker following a minor traffic accident. Passers-by filmed the incident, videos of which went viral.

However, onlookers only intervened after the beating had rendered Booker unconscious.

Following the attack, Booker made an eloquent public plea for an end to violence and acceptance of trans people. A few weeks later, she was murdered.

Related: WATCH: Matthew Dempsey talks with Rain, a trans woman struggling to feel safe in the dating world

Booker is one of at least 18 trans women of color murdered this year, although the Human Rights Campaign say at least three-quarters of crimes against trans people go unreported.

The ABC report also details an attack against Denver resident Amber Hernandez, a Latina trans person who had her jaw shattered during a beating by a group of men. The attackers have so far eluded arrest.

Pose star Dominique Jackson is quoted about the culture of violence, offering anecdotes from her own experience as an African-American who is trans.

The segment should provide a rallying cry for anyone who cares about human rights, and an ominous warning about the dangers of Trump-era bigotry.

Have a look at the Nightline segments below, courtesy of ABC News:

www.queerty.com/watch-horrific-explosion-violence-trans-women-color-20191004?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29

ABC Nightline airs special edition with POSE’s Dominique Jackson focused on the epidemic of violence facing trans women of color

ABC Nightline airs special edition with POSE’s Dominique Jackson focused on the epidemic of violence facing trans women of color

Credit: ABC/Nightline

Yesterday, ABC’s Nightline aired a powerful special edition called “Am I Next? Trans and Targeted,” featuring in-depth reporting by co-anchor Juju Chang on the transgender community in the United States. The segment spotlights the dangerous trends of violence and discrimination that disproportionately affects trans women of color, as well as how media covers and portrays the trans community.

Trans actress and advocate Dominique Jackson, who stars in FX’s POSE, joined Juju Chang in studio as a guest, making her the first Black trans woman to present part of Nightline.

At a time when violence against trans women is often underreported, Nightline and Chang went beyond discussions of hate crimes, to give a voice to the friends, family, and other community members impacted by anti-transgender violence.

The special starts with the case of Muhlaysia Booker, as told by her close friends. Muhlaysia spoke up after being attacked in Dallas earlier this year by individuals who hurled transphobic slurs. Muhlaysia was tragically murdered only a couple weeks after her public statement.

“Muhlaysia was somebody’s sister,” Jazmine Deamon told Nightline. “Muhlaysia was somebody’s daughter… Somebody’s loved one. Muhlaysia Booker was human. She wanted to live like everybody else.”

Muhlaysia is one of at least 19 known transgender people to be killed by hate violence in 2019, with 18 of the murders being trans women of color.

The Nightline segment also features Monica Roberts, a gifted writer and advocate in Texas. Through her site Transgriot, Monica works to ensure trans victims of violence are reported on fairly and accurately.

Chang also interviewed local members of the trans community in Washington, D.C., including Ruby Corado, who helps countless local LGBTQ people and runs Casa Ruby, an organization that shelters and serves the community.

October 4, 2019

www.glaad.org/blog/abc-nightline-airs-special-edition-pose%E2%80%99s-dominique-jackson-focused-epidemic-violence-facing

Congratulations to Todd and Meredith from Arkansas!

Congratulations to Todd and Meredith from Arkansas!

We all may have our ups and downs, but if you don’t stop believing, great things may happen! Meredith and Todd are a great example of that. He writes: “As crazy as it sounds I had been on and of Zoosk for last couple of years since becoming a widower in 2017. I was ready

The post Congratulations to Todd and Meredith from Arkansas! appeared first on Zoosk.

about.zoosk.com/en/blog/success-stories/congratulations-todd-meredith-arkansas/

Conform or reform? This seminal gay rights magazine sparked the debate in 1954

Conform or reform? This seminal gay rights magazine sparked the debate in 1954

One Magazine Vol 2 Issue 3

Courtesy of USC Digital Library Archive

In honor of LGBTQ History Month, we’re taking a deep dive look-back at the first gay publication in America—ONE magazine. Launched in Los Angeles in 1953, ONE was published by One, Inc., which grew from The Mattachine Society, the seminal gay-rights group founded by Harry Hay. Its editorial founders were Martin Block, Don Slater, and Dale Jennings, who also served as editor-in-chief. Produced on a shoestring and sold for 25 cents, ONE began to change the course of history with an unapologetic exploration of homosexuality and the largely unexamined societal taboo against it. 

This is the second in our series of ONE magazine cover stories.

Volume 2, Issue 3: The Importance of Being Different

This cover story—which provocatively begins “Homosexuals have some problems heterosexuals don’t have. Agreed?”—was written by the prolific Jim Kepner under one of his many pseudonyms, Lyn Pedersen. A brave activist with a difficult past (Kepner’s biological parents abandoned him under a bush in Texas, and he was later adopted into a religious family), Kepner had authored more than 2,000 articles, poems, stories, and essays for the gay press by the time he died in the 1990s.

This one pinpoints an issue the gay-rights community would continue to debate to this day: Should the goal be simple inclusion in the broader society, or was being gay the perfect opportunity to critique norms, blow open boundaries, and reshape society itself? Kepner leans toward the latter:

What can a Society accomplish if half of it feels its object is to convince the world we’re just like everyone else and the other half feels homosexuals are variants in the full sense of the term and have every right to be?

Homosexuals are natural rebels. … They find themselves compelled by wild and mysterious desires to cross the line which all the authorities have set between what they call Right and what they call Wrong.

Kepner goes on to identify two extreme reactions to this conundrum: becoming either reactively anti-social and anti-authoritarian or overly concerned with propriety to the point of cowardice, trying to fit in while “puritanically attacking the ‘swishes and fairies’” among the crowd. He wisely settles on this solution:

Will we leave room for disagreement, but with the basic group energies attacking the present laws and customs as unjust, developing ourselves as free individuals and joining a broad defense of liberty against the dead hand of conformity?

I am interested in defending my right to be as different as I damn please. And somewhere, I’ve picked up the notion that I can’t protect my own rights in that quarter without fighting for everyone else’s.

Well said, Mr. Kepner, well said.

Magazine cover courtesy of ONE Archives

ONE Archives Foundation provides access to original source material at the ONE National Gay & Lesbian Archives at the University of Southern California Libraries—the largest such collection in the world

www.queerty.com/conform-reform-seminal-gay-rights-magazine-sparked-debate-1954-20191004?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+queerty2+%28Queerty%29