Hundreds Mourn Death of Transgender Youth -"We need more education"

dailycal

[Richard Kimball]

It makes me absolutely sick to my stomach to see Christians protesting at funerals --

From the article...

Despite plans by the UC Berkeley group Cal Queers for Social Justice to prevent known anti-gay preacher Rev. Fred Phelps from attending the funeral, neither Phelps nor any anti-gay protesters showed up.

Nobody showed up and protested. Don't, however, let that stop you from your rant. BTW, in my experience from emergency services, homosexual men were much more likely to be attacked by their "lovers" than by "homophobes."

[MEGoody]

I'm certainly glad Rev. Phelps and his church members did not protest this funeral. I am quite bold about saying that homosexuality, transgenderism and all such 'activities' are sin in the eyes of God. But protesting a funeral is a sin of another sort. Let the family grieve.

[ellery]

The article says they were planning to show up. At other high-profile funerals (e.g., Matthew Sheppard), people have gone and protested. I find this reprehensible.

And of course more gay men are attacked by their lovers than are attacked by homophobes -- statistically, all acts of violence are more likely to happen at the hands of someone the victim knows. I don't know what that has to do with my point -- which is, whatever one thinks of people's personal life choices, it's distinctly anti-Christian to protest at funerals. Don't, however, feel it necessary to actually address the point of my post.

[chance33_98]

The article says they were planning to show up. At other high-profile funerals (e.g., Matthew Sheppard), people have gone and protested. I find this reprehensible.

To borrow a page from the DU freaks, maybe Phelps is a disruptor bought and paid for by the gays. He has done nothing but aid (no pun intended) their cause. He may well be gay himself posing as a straight. It is all too convenient ...

[ellery]

Well, I'll definitely agree with you that this guy isn't doing anyone any good. I know many Christians who strongly but lovingly express their beliefs on homosexuality -- and it's not right that they be lumped in with this hatemonger. I'm so tired of leftists demonizing people who don't toe their party line...and this guy just gives them ammunition.

[Logend]

There is no transgender. To successfully change one's sex would mean that they could then have the sexual component (egg/womb, or sperm production) for reproduction. Transgender refers to a psychological state that does exist. At best "they" can surgically alter the outward appearance of their sexual anatomy and take hormonal treatments that may alter voice and some secondary sexual characteristics. Hormones do not alter the voice or "secondary" characteristics. Hormones (such as oestrogen) will effect the bodily distribution of hair and fat, soften skin and produce breasts. "Transgendered" often refers to those who opt for only half of the surgery (adding breasts but leaving the lower anatomy in tact). This is completely wrong. Breasts result from taking oestrogen (hormones) and surgery replaces male sex organs with female. From a physical point of view, the male would appear completely female. For the case of women undergoing such treatment, female organs are replaced with male. But no one can change their "sex" any more than they can change their race. A man can take on the physical appearance of a woman, or a woman a man. A man does so because from a psychological perspective he feels he actually is a woman, the women feels she is a man. The majority of those who just crossdress - that is those men who dress as women - are in fact heterosexual and not gay. Often they are married. Published reports (some scientifically based, some not) show that between 8% and 15% of men crossdress. Psychologists no longer regard crossdressing to be a disorder - crossdressing is more common among women than it is among men, but no one pays any attention - a clear double standard is employed!

[Bob]

I wonder if Araujo had been mistaken for a hot chic and was making out with "one of the guys"? Not saying that it would justify a lethal beating, but I could see why someone might get upset if they just found out that they were swapping spit with another man...

There was no mistakenly about it and it's been reported that it went well beyond 'swapping spit'. The guy was passing himself off as a girl and, from pictures, I'd say he was quite convincing. He was a transvestite, not transgendered.

[verity]

Cal Queers for Social Justice had planned to do whatever they could "to prevent Fred (Phelps) and his followers from attending and turning the funeral into a circus,"

In my humble opinion, these creatures' mere existence is a circus.

[SamAdams76]

Hi. I'm a short person trapped inside the body of a tall person. What can be done for my self-esteem? Are there any government programs out there that can help me? Mean-spirited people go around asking me "how the weather is up there." You people just don't understand just how cruel that is, especially since I go to bed fantasizing everynight about how it would feel if I were 5'6" instead of 6'3".

There has got to be some kind of operation that can be done to me so that I can be "brought down to size."

[WaltStringer]

Maybe "Gwen" would still be alive and have gone on to eventually have "her" sex change operation some years down the road if "she" had not engaged in casual anal sex with guys who didn't know "her" true status...

"She" played a dangerous game, and got caught. Dead at 17.

You can get the one transgendered person a month killed figure, but you have to count the ones who let themselves get picked up in a bar or sex workers passing themselves off as real women who get discovered by the guys they hae sex with.

Gwen Araujo

'Gay panic' defense in Araujo case

...Defense attorneys tried unsuccessfully at a preliminary hearing to get charges scaled back from murder to manslaughter in the killing of Araujo. Alameda County prosecutors have asked the jury to convict Fremont resident Michael Magidson and Newark resident Jose Merel, who according to testimony had sexual relations with Araujo, of first-degree murder with a hate-crime enhancement, which could earn them 25 years to life.

Co-defendant Jaron Nabors pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and will be sentenced to 11 years in prison in exchange for his testimony. He told the jury his friends became suspicious about Araujo's gender in September, noting that her voice was scratchy and that during sex she had never allowed them to touch her genitals. On the night of Oct. 4, 2002, they forced the issue and learned the biological reality that sent Merel into a sobbing mantra: "I can't be ... gay."

The brutal attack that followed inside the Newark home amounted to "manslaughter in the heat of passion," Magidson's attorney Michael Thorman told the jury. He contended that Magidson's discovery that he had unknowingly engaged in homosexual sex ignited revulsion and rage.

Prosecutors contend there was premeditation in the men's actions. "They decided," said Deputy District Attorney Chris Lamiero, "that the wages of Eddie Araujo's sin of deception were death."...

R.I.P. GWEN ARAUJO

On October 3, according to police reports, Gwen Araujo, an attractive 17-year-old with a radiant smile and a zest for life, went to a party in Newark, California, a suburban town in the San Francisco Bay Area. She drank a fair amount of beer. She flirted with 24-year-old Jose Merel, a boy she had something of a crush on. She had anal sex with him, and perhaps with Jose's friend, 22-year-old Michael Magidson, as well.

Maybe something about the sex suggested to Jose or to Michael that there was something different about Gwen. For some reason, Jose's brother's girlfriend, Nicole Brown, followed or took Gwen into the bathroom where she discovered that, biologically speaking, Gwen wasn't a girl at all...