Published November 14, 2008 | 
Duanna Johnson never had a chance. This nation prefers to weep over victims who are wealthy, nubile blonde girls or wide-eyed children. When you’re a poor, Black, middle-aged 6’5″ transwoman, your case is hopeless.
First the cops busted her, insulted her, beat her, and Maced her. One cop held her down in a chair, the other savagely rained punches on her, using handcuffs as brass knuckles. The police surveillance videotape was clear–and brutal. The cops were fired.
Five months later, she was shot execution-style in the head. Some witnesses saw three men running away.
Have you seen this on the national news?
Violence against women who are poor, Black, middle-aged, or transgendered is not news. But surely her community would speak for her. However, most of the LGBT news sources have ignored the story. There is no national outrage over the death of Duanna Johnson. Is it her poverty? her color? her age? Or do we truly not see transgendered people as part of our community and worthy of our protection?
Julie Bindel, feminist and lesbian, doesn’t. She wrote:
I for one do not wish to be lumped in with an ever-increasing list of folk defined by “odd” sexual habits or characteristics. Shall we just start with A and work our way through the alphabet? Shall we just start with A and work our way through the alphabet? A, androgynous, b, bisexual, c, cat-fancying d, devil worshipping. Where will it ever end?
Yes, she really compared us to Satanists and animal fuckers. And she’s not even a Republican.
rozk alerted me to the existence of Julie Bindel, as well as to some nasty anti-trans problems at the Pride march in London.
As so clearly pointed out, Bindel and her ilk fuel the flames of trans-hatred and then cloak themselves in righteousness.
I’ve been thinking of Duanna Johnson for days now; thanks for mentioning her right out where everyone can see it.
Well, I’m not entirely surprised. Many GLBT leaders want to separate themselves from the polyamory community, too. They’re playing the “just like you but for one thing” card in the hopes of acceptance. I can hardly blame ‘em, as OLQ more or less went that route for our marriage in public.
Kept us from getting shit from locals, too.
I’m sad about it, but from a strategic POV, they’re playing it smart. The justice of it is something else entirely, of course.
Thanks — I wanted to link to Roz as well as to, but I got distracted.
My 18-year-old daughter just yesterday pointed out to me a show on TV about a “transgender family.” I never quite figured out what show it was, but apparently it involved a couple of whom at least one was transgender, and maybe both, who had adopted a child or children. The family had been harassed, and my daughter was perplexed: “Why would anyone care if they are transgender? It isn’t their business.”
I have some hope for that generation.
Hey, congratulations. We’re at a point in civilization where lesbians can wallow in their privilege just like white Christo-fascists! Go us.
I could lap the alphabet at least once with the people with whom I’m willing to share my rights.
I had to do it:
Ms. Bindel,
I read with mounting disgust and revulsion your ill-informed tirade against transgendered individuals. Did you seriously compare TG people to bestialists and Satanists? Yes, you did.
You have committed the very acts of bigotry and hatred – drawing nonexistent comparisons between something you simply don’t like and something evil – that you rail against when it’s directed at you. In other words, you’re a flaming hypocrite.
I don’t expect you to reply to this email; if the comments on the Guardian site are any indication, you’re being buried under a mountain of scathing replies. Nor do I expect you to apologize for your idiocy. I do expect to see a whinge from you in future about how people refuse to tolerate your intolerance.
Shame on you, Ms. Bindel. You have become what you despise.
Sincerely,
Coinneach Fitzpatrick
Arizona, USA
Just goes to show you, just because you’re a member of a minority doesn’t mean you can’t be a nasty, small-minded bigot.
Asshole.
Androgynous bisexual cat-fancying devil-worshipping almost sounds like a really good weekend at the cat show, doesn’t it? Except for the Satanism.
I mean, she thinks “androgynous” and “bisexual” are insults? And that it’s okay to appropriate “cat-fancying” as a synonym for “beastiality”?
I’m pleased that here in town we voted down the mayorial candidate who suggested, during a candidates’ forum, that “allowing” trans people to use appropriate-sex bathrooms had contributed to the Thurston High School shooting (as far as I know, Kip Kinkel isn’t now, and never has been, trans). No, nobody here got the connection, either, but I am glad to say that his remarks were covered in the local weekly paper (by a lesbian columnist who writes about queer issues).
So, essentially what it comes down to is, Julie Bindel doesn’t want to be lumped in with…human beings.
Well, that’s a shame but I don’t think there’s much she can do about it. The cats certainly won’t take her. She may have to look to non-mammals for acceptance.
ah, I think being such a small degree of separation from has lead to believe that there couldn’t possibly be someone who hadn’t herd of Julie Bindel (whom we sometimes call Bintel). Check out Katie’s journal for more (I believe at least some of them are unlocked).
You may be interested in the Questioning Transphobia blog, which has been posting updates about Duanna Johnson.
IMO Bindel is no more pertinent to this discussion than Ann Coulter is to women’s rights. Both are asshats who are trying to block substantive change and justice; that they happen to be demographically aligned in some ways is a distraction.
The murder and previous civil rights violation of this poor woman is what needs to be trumpeted.
Yeah, I know: straight white guy telling people what the issue is. But fuck it all if internecine fighting isn’t a distraction.
Murders of homeless people rarely make the news, trans or not. Unfortunately.
I’m glad to have gotten this news, even though it was painful to read.
Ugh… I wondered why we weren’t hearing more about it. I had heard about it and it was on the news here. That is terrible to turn their backs on those who are transgendered. They are people too. I’ve cared for many during surgery and their stories touched my heart deeply, sometimes.
Contrary to the beliefs of 150 years ago, suffering does not ennoble.
Zoe Brain, a spontaneous male to female trans (and that’s a story in and of itself) has written about this. She’s written a lot about such incidents. She is not at all happy with Ms Julie “Sex Related Hormones Have No Effect on Me” Bindel.
Julie Blindel shouldn’t worry if she can identify with Duanna Johnson. I am a woman but not trans (nor lesbian, nor bi, nor even particularly cat-loving), all that doesn’t matter. As a human being we should be outraged by this.
Yes, as party politics in a way the gay/lesbian community plays a “smart” card by stressing their normality. Research in the Netherlands has shown that lesbian couples with kids are the most accepted in their neighborhoods. Monogamous families are less threatening than people who seemingly want to threaten the laws of nature (switching physical sex) or society (non stable relationships or polyamorous life style). So I can understand not explicitly incorporating other causes in your cause of flying under the radar, but going from that to hatefullness and insulting. Not good, not good at all.
Creating Degrees of Okay (like, I’m bi but white and cisgendered, yay?) in society, in any way — as the police did and as Bindel does, and YES I DID just mention both kinds of injustice in the same typed breath — is Not Okay.
Dont. Feed. The Troll.
That may be an insult to slime molds.
Thanks!
Even the mainstream media are usually interested in murders of people who were victims of police brutality that resulted in two officers being fired and who are suing the police department.
Those of us on the GLBTQ spectrum are or should be particularly interested in the case of someone whose battering by police was clearly gender-related and whose execution-style murder may have been related to those police firings.
Mr. Policeman is not necessarily my friend.
Duanna Johnson is in the Times today. I join you in revulsion over Julie Blindel’s words and attitudes.
Sounds as if Ms. Bindel need to get a hold of her own privlage and get over herself. One of our community was not only brutalized, but later killed. Damn right there should be some rage and action from the LGBT community, the black community, from ANYONE who has known what it’s like to be attacked for being different than those in power should rise up and shout thier disapproval, demand justive be served. I doubt that is going to happen, but I can tell you this Cherokee lesbian is damn pissed and not afriad to say something about it.