Posted on 05/27/2004 1:58:55 PM PDT by adam_az
FREMONT, Calif. - The name on the birth certificate was Edward Araujo Jr., but the teenager preferred the first name Gwen. At age 17, before getting a chance to make the name change official, Araujo was beaten and strangled after the people she thought were her friends found out she was biologically male.
This week, Araujo's family asked a court for a posthumous name change to Gwen Amber Rose Araujo.
"She's Gwen to me, and I'm her mother," Sylvia Guerrero said outside the courthouse. "This is who she was. She's transgender and she's Gwen."
Superior Court Commissioner Thomas Surh called the request "a novel situation" and said he would let Guerrero know his decision in about a month.
Araujo's family said she had used the name Gwen for years, convinced from an early age that her sexual and biological identities conflicted.
In October 2002, police found her body in a shallow grave 150 miles east of her home in the San Francisco suburb of Newark.
The man who took police to the site, 21-year-old Jaron Nabors, later said Araujo was viciously beaten and strangled following the revelation of her gender.
Nabors pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Three other men, including two who were sexually active with Araujo, are on trial in a case expected to go to a jury next week.
Officially recognizing Araujo as Gwen has symbolic importance, said Christopher Daley of the San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center, which helped the family request the name change.
"The courts serve as a voice for the people of California," Daley said. "By filing this petition, we gave the people an opportunity to explicitly recognize Gwen as Gwen."
Araujo picked the name Gwen after the singer Gwen Stefani, Guerrero said. Guerrero added Amber Rose because those were names she picked in pregnancy, believing she was carrying a girl.
"I lost Eddie a long time ago, and I had to say goodbye to Eddie," Guerrero said. "Unfortunately, to Gwen, too."
this sentence is really un-grammatical:
"she was savagely beaten and strangled at a house party after a girl followed her to the bathroom, reached under her skirt and discovered her male genitalia."
if SHE has male genitalia its a HE! anyway the guys who killed this confused BOY should get the electric chair and beheaded (at the same time).
Before you have sex with a girl you should always ask "do you have a penis??"
Is it too obvious to ask how the two that had prior sexual relations with Gwen did not notice that she had a penis?
How about if he wanted to be a Ford? Would the California DMV be willing to issue him a VIN, post mortum? License plates? Why do freaks insist on trying to force normal people to get involved with their diseased halucinations?
Vigilantism is a crime and I am never for it (on the streets or in jails).
This was not "consensual sex". They were violated. Baiting "rough trade" often ends with dangerous results.
Oral sex is not sex?
Calling them "plastic surgery recipiants" would keep them from barging into the restroom of members of the opposite sex, however.
Don't be confused ... sinkEmperor didn't care if the mouth was on a male or a female according to White House rumors.
Slick Willie says no!
It's probably the only thing he said that I agree with. Then again, I had a Jesuit education, too ...
"is this a penis??"
"depends on what your definition of IS is"
Together or separately?
May God sort it out though.
Vigilantism is a crime and I am never for it (on the streets or in jails).
This was not "consensual sex". They were violated. Baiting "rough trade" often ends with dangerous results.
Ok, that's just stupid. These people didn't get intimate enough with him to realize his actual sex, so he must have just done certain favors for them. Since they were so casual to not realize she was a he, I'd say they were out actively searching for a willing girl to give them five minutes of attention. The problem is that it wasn't really a girl--in that way it was a violation. But it certainly is in an entirely different league from rape and child molestation and they weren't hapless victims.
Yes, what he did in deceiving them was wrong, but what they did in treating sex so casually was also wrong, and the long, drawn-out murder was most definitely wrong. They should be executed.
Oral sex is not sex?According to LegalDefintions.com, "sodomy is the oral or anal sex between two people."
Then why didn't you name "her" Gwen originally?
And drunken sex is "consensual sex"? I'll be sure to ping you to the next date rape thread.
False pretense is. So is murder.
The question is this justifiable homicide. Likely not. I don't support ANY vigilantism (even for child molestation or rape). Want those crimes to warrant the death penalty? Appeal to the legislature.
Don't make excuses for the sick sex games this man played.
There was nothing in either of the stories about the poor men being drunk at the time and thus unable to fend him off as he unzipped their pants. There's every indication that they welcomed his advances and had no problem with their "prior sexual relations" until they found out he was really male.
At first, the news that she had male anatomy brought laughter and derision, but the mood soon soured. For the next two hours, it's alleged that the men beat Gwen so savagely that police described her eventual death as "overkill."
Police said one young man hit her in the head with a soup can, then a skillet. She sank to the floor and was kicked so hard in the head she dented the wall when she hit it. The men allegedly wrapped her in a blanket to prevent blood from staining the couch and floor. Prosecutors said she was dragged to the garage, where they strangled her, then tossed her in the back of a pickup. Another man hit her in the head with a shovel to ensure that she was dead.
I suppose you'd say they shouldn't be found guilty for the brutal two hour murder since you think they were drunk at the time? I guess they were thinking straight enough to protect the furniture from those inconvenient blood stains.
Or maybe it was...
Oh, so now you agree that it was consensual hooking up and they weren't comatose on the sofa?
I'm not making excuses. I said it was wrong and stupid to lie. But that doesn't make this rape, it just makes it sex that was later regretted. If they hadn't been so casual about hooking up the chances of anything like this happening would be zero.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.