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Post by Lily on Feb 13, 2023 2:20:50 GMT
On Saturday Brianna Ghey, a 16-year old trans girl was murdered in the north of England, in what police are calling a targeted attack. However if you read most news sites or the police's official tweets you wouldn't know she was trans, because they don't mention it. If the suspect was trans we'd never hear the end of it.
My thoughts are with Brianna's family and friends, and all who loved her. She deserved to live a long and happy life.
Lily
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Post by Jessica on Feb 13, 2023 14:12:51 GMT
This is very sad, and unfortunately, a symptom of the whirlwind of hate some folks are perpetuating. It will only continue as long as this atmosphere is encouraged.
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Post by Lily on Feb 13, 2023 21:52:09 GMT
It's going to get worse and worse because most people are just standing by letting it happen.
Police are saying that there is no evidence that it's a hate crime. While that's probably true as they don't know who did it, so motives are unknown, that doesn't mean it wasn't. I think we are reasonable to assume that it was.
As you'd no doubt guess there plenty of despicable transphobes using it as an opportunity to deadname and use the wrong pronouns. I hope when death comes for them, as it does for all of us, that it is long, slow and agonising.
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Post by Jessica on Feb 14, 2023 13:15:20 GMT
The thing I don't understand is.....why do they even care? Why does this bother them so much? They are going out of their way to be assholes. Why?
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Post by Lily on Feb 15, 2023 3:31:43 GMT
Because they get some gratification of getting a reaction from people. That and they have been given the go-ahead by transphobic media and politicians.
I don't know if you're following the story at all. They have arrested two suspects. The police have also said they haven't ruled out the possiblity that it is a hate crime. It seems highly likely as there have been reports that she received bullying at school over a sustained period of time.
There have been numerous vigils in honour of Brianna. There is one here in my hometown on Saturday evening which I'll be attending. It os the least I can do. I hope that it brings some catharsis to those of us attending as well as commemerate her.
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Post by Jessica on Feb 15, 2023 13:02:59 GMT
Thank you for the update, I haven't really been following it. It isn't a huge story here in the US. I did a quick google the first time you mentioned it.
I can't imagine it wasn't a hate crime. Come on police. Do your job.
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Post by Lily on Feb 15, 2023 19:51:19 GMT
A boy and a girl both aged 15 have been charged with the murder. They cannot be named currently because of their age.
I hope that any rumours and misinformation about the case doesn't hinder it being a fair trial. Brianna's family and friends do not need this tragic event to be made any worse with long and protracted court proceedings.
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Post by Jessica on Feb 16, 2023 12:52:20 GMT
The fact that the assailants are so young is heartbreaking in itself too. What a tragedy.
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Post by Maria on Feb 16, 2023 15:58:07 GMT
I think that one of the worst parts for me is how some of the newspapers, in early drafts, simply reported that a young girl had been killed. However when they learned that she was trans, completely edited the articles to use the wrong pronouns, to misgender her, and basically to be complete ****s about it. In one case (and I'm not even that surprised given that they have a reputation for being completely without morals and for being in all likelihood one of the biggest proponents of this culture of hate) going so far as to track down her optician in order to find out her deadname from their records. And the fact that the police stated "there is no evidence of this being a hate crime" in those reports even before the reports were including that she was trans means that now when this does go to trial, that is the first introduction to the case that a lot of people will have had, so it will be stuck in their heads and very possibly bias proceedings towards NOT getting a verdict of hate crime.
As far as I can see, the nearest vigil to me is an hour away, which is tonight. There was one closer yesterday, and there may be nearer ones over the weekend, but tonight is the only night where I would be able to go. I am still deciding what to do. On the one hand I would like to go, on the other it is a long journey, through the rush hour, on a night where I really could do with a gentle evening of rest :/ I have an hour or so before it is the cut off point where I HAVE to decide one way or the other.
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Post by Jessica on Feb 17, 2023 14:33:39 GMT
You're so right Maria. It is absolutely infuriating. Sounds almost like the media is even worse over there than it is here which is incredible. Only the hard crazy facist right wing places are that terrible over here. Even Fox News typically uses the correct pronouns at least.
Kinda morbidly funny that they all just reported on a young girl because thats what they saw. Then they found out she was trans and that changed everything like "oh yeah I knew the whole time".
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Post by Lily on Feb 19, 2023 11:11:37 GMT
I went to the vigil on Saturday evening. It was very well attended. As you'd expect there were a lot of the local trans community there. However there were other LGBT+ folk there too, and LGBT+ allies as well.
There were lots of speakers there, from various trans and LGBT+ organisations. One of those was one of the facilitators from RTrans, who gave a very well thought out and impassioned speech. After those representatives, other attendees were invited to volunteer to speak. Quite a few did so. One of note I remember was a 15 year-old trans/NB person who spoke about how much it had affected her with being such a similar age to both Brianna and her suspected murderers.
A lot of focus went on the tragic loss of life at one so young. There was a lot of talk about the currently hostile environment we have in this country. There was though a lot of focus on the trans experience as an individual person. The feeling was one of solidarity, that we won't be defeated. There were also strong calls for cis allies to speak up and do more.
It wasn't all speeches. There was some poetry and one woman sang a song there unaccompanied. It was a cover of Scarecrow by Melissa Etheridge. Towards the end a local church minister led thoughts and prayers before a minute's silence.
I was there with other members of RTrans that I had spotted. It was good that most of us were together having a shared experience, offering support to one another. One of our members got really quite upset during the vigil, the woman that took care of me back in December. There was also a very young trans man close by, who had got very distraught. A few members of our group gave him some consolation. He joined our group for the rest of the night. I will write about the rest of the night separately, as I want to keep this about the vigil.
All in all I felt that the vigil had done a good job at commemorating Brianna's memory and bringing our community together following the tragedy that has deeply affected us all.
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Post by Jessica on Feb 19, 2023 14:35:44 GMT
I've honestly never been to anything like that. Sounds sad but uplifting at the same time. Which I guess is the goal right?
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Post by Maria on Feb 19, 2023 16:39:03 GMT
I'm really glad that the event was such a positive one. Obviously not in terms of what caused it to happen, but with the large show of support and the sense of community that it sounds like there was there.
I did go along to the vigil near(ish) me on Thursday evening. Unfortunately my experience was less positive and more frustrating. Not through anyone's fault I hasten to add. The traffic was a lot worse than I had expected, and then when I got there, infuriatingly Google Maps told me to do a 15 minute walk up the street, up some steps and then back along the top. It turned out that there was a cut-through that would have gotten me there in 2 minutes. So I arrived at a few minutes after 7pm, for an event which started at 6pm. As I walked through the gates the organisers started taking up the LED lights and I heard people saying goodbye to each other. At that point there were only about a dozen people, so I imagine that actually those that I saw were only the stragglers. After a few minutes most people had gone. An organiser came up to me and asked if I was alright - I apologised for being late and she said not to worry, that it was lovely that I'd come at all and that they'd be leaving the candles and signs up against the railings, hoping that people would be respectful. I stayed for about 20 minutes, watching the candles flicker, and getting lost in thought. There was one other couple there, but one of them seemed in quite a bad place so it didn't feel appropriate to go say "hello" or anything. Then eventually even they left and I was alone. I stayed a moment longer, propping one of the signs back up that had just blown over in the breeze, then headed back to my car. So all in all it was 2.5 hours of driving for a bit of a failed trip. I'm still glad that I went, I just wish that it had gone more to plan.
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Post by Lily on Feb 20, 2023 12:40:29 GMT
So sorry to read that the delays caused you to arrive after the vigil had ended. I was fortunate in the fact that I could just walk to the one here.
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Post by Jessica on Feb 20, 2023 14:12:02 GMT
The fact that you made such an effort, in itself, is a meaningful gesture even if it didn't go the way you planned.
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