Hate Crimes

I've never seen anything you've written as a manifesto for "special rights". It's always been more about a hope and desire for equality in a world that is quick to deny equality to those that don't fit the comfortable norm.

I wish more folks would write about what it feels like - when you know you are a female/male - but imprisoned in the wrong body. Lots of folks are willing to joke about this, but very few are able to share their personal experience. And that has a lot to do with society's prejudice. So I admire your honesty and bravery. You are helping to educate us. So I only have admiration and respect for you. You are brave in ways most of us cannot even begin to understand. So I appauld everything you are. Big time.

--QP

 

Great discussion - thanks chiefburningtoke - though I'm afraid you're getting a little angry.

I can't look into someones heart and perceive motive. That's what the legal system is for. Was a crime premeditated or not - were there special circumstances are not - A jury looks at all these issues.
I propose to let the prosecutor look over the evidence, draw reasonable conclusion and then give it to a jury to decide. That's what I would like to see. Recognize the probability and let a jury decide. Perhaps it's manslaughter, or second degree murder or first degree murder or first degree murder with special circumstance or Hate Crime.
But recognize that a hate crime falls within it's own category.

 

What bothers me about our justice system, besides the fact that you have people that put morons in office deciding other peoples fate, is that you have serial killers and multiple murderers getting the most severe penalties, when in fact they do not cause the most actual harm-the big boys playing their lovely financial games do, by many thousands of times over if you look at what actually happens to society as a whole. Did anybody responsible for the financial crisis have the motive to actually kill other people? No, but there actions will result in many deaths by suicide and poverty--induced robbery and lack of health insurance etc...you wont find evidence that anyone wanted to kill anyone (probably).

I know you open a can of very rapidly wriggling worms when you discount motive altogether, but I think as a whole, we would be better off as a society to look at actual rather than intended harm, so the big boys get to be on top of the criminal heap they've worked so hard to climb...

 

Exactly. All of the other crimes mentioned by other people here can potentially happen to everyone. Being targeted simply because you belong to a group of people that some ignorants see as ''freakish'' or ''sick'', cannot happen to everyone, only if you belong to those certain groups of people. Which is why I think the motive behind attacks on those groups of people need to be highlighted. Everyone is a potential victim of crime, but only certain people are potential victims for crimes which have a purely bigoted motive behind them. Why some seem to want this fact to be hidden, I have no idea.

I suspect that even a lot of people who are not overtly bigoted towards gay or trans/intersex people, do have some prejudice lurking under the surface. I have actually seen people seemingly acting like they have no problem with transpeople, but the more they say, the more you realise prejudices are there. I would say most of the general population are prejudiced in some way towards trans/intersex people, even if a lot of them wouldn't actually kill someone purely for being that way.

As for me being ''brave'', I don't really think I am at all. I don't think you can be brave for enduring something which you had no choice in, or have any control over. It's like calling a cancer patient ''brave'', nobody chooses to have cancer. You're only brave if you enter a dangerous situation of your own free will. If I could click my fingers and just be a normal woman, I would do it in a shot. I would not wish my life, and what I've had to endure on anyone. I wouldn't call myself ''brave'', I'm just trying to struggle through life as best I can with this horrible affliction that was placed on me at birth.

 

ok you want victimhood-lets go! (by the way, one of my sisters is gay; my mothers best friend is gay, and I haven't tried to kill either one of them yet; probably cause Im too short to reach their heads).

I am a male under 5'5" Here is what the world thinks of me (and its been going on a long time--many parents want me to cease to exist as a possibility for their offspring!Please read...

In July 2003, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) authorized pharmaceutical companies to promote human Growth Hormone (hGH) for use in children who are very short but not suffering from any specific illness or medical condition. Parents are now using hGH in record numbers, hoping that hormone treatment will give their kids happier childhoods and more prosperous adulthoods. No one should doubt these parental good intentions. But the normalization of height enhancement reflects a troubling disposition, familiar in our time, to redefine disadvantageous traits as “illnesses” and look to medical techniques for a “cure.” Of course, there are often real benefits to using medical technologies for self-improvement: straighter teeth, clearer complexions, firmer figures. But our technological enhancements to body and psyche may also undermine those human goods that are less obvious but more fundamental—especially parental love for the abnormal child and civic love for the abnormal neighbor. We can hardly expect the FDA as an institution to worry about such matters; its concern is the safety of products not the health of the culture. But when it approved height enhancement for healthy kids, the FDA made a mistake on our behalf. Exploring the nature of this error may help us deal more wisely with the biotechnical enhancements of the future, or at least see more clearly the full meaning of our “improvements.”
The Burdens of Shortness

One can understand the hGH seduction. Short Americans—especially males—often face difficulties ranging from fitting in at school to finding a job or spouse. Studies show that shortness in childhood is correlated with juvenilization, teasing, bullying, and social exclusion, while studies in adults have linked short stature to social isolation, reduced marriage rates, and problems in employment. In one study, several hundred university students rated the qualities of men of varying heights. Short men were regarded as less mature, less positive, less secure, less masculine, less successful, less capable, less confident, and less outgoing. Other studies confirm the link between stature and job opportunities. Given two résumés designed with equivalent qualifications, recruiters decided to hire the taller candidate fully three-quarters of the time. People holding high-ranking positions are about two inches taller on average than those in lower-ranking positions who have comparable education and aptitude test scores. When relevant factors are controlled for, average earnings rise about one percent for each additional inch of height.

Today, parents with short children and large pocketbooks can choose whether to accept the social and economic disadvantages their kids may encounter on account of their shortness. A chemical protein that influences linear growth in children, hGH is Miracle-Gro for kids, adding an average of 2 to 4 inches onto a child’s expected adult height. Almost any child who undergoes hormone treatment in sufficient quantity and for sufficient time will grow faster in the short-term and taller in the long-term, regardless of the cause of the child’s short stature or the level of his natural growth hormone secretion. Hormone patients inject hGH into the abdomen 12 to 14 times per week over a period of 3 to 7 years before the age of 20, at a cost of roughly $10,000 to $20,000 per year. According to clinical trials conducted by Eli Lilly, medical risks associated with hormone treatments are negligible, with side effects limited to joint pain and mild ear infections.

When hormone treatment was first used in the 1950s, the quantity of available human growth hormone was limited to what could be extracted from the pituitary glands of human cadavers. Given the narrowly fixed supply, treatment was restricted to children who could not produce growth hormone on their own. But in the mid-1980s, the genetic engineering of synthetic hGH—virtually identical to the growth hormone produced naturally—expanded the supply of hGH exponentially. At first, the use of hGH still focused on treating growth hormone deficiency alone. By the mid-1990s, however, the FDA had awarded patents to Genentech and Eli Lilly to market synthetic hGH to the few thousand non-growth hormone deficient (GHD) children in the U.S. whose short stature was associated with other medical problems, such as achondroplasia (dwarfism), Turner Syndrome, or Chronic Renal Insufficiency. Genentech and Eli Lilly also sought to expand the hGH market to include short but otherwise healthy children, who suffer from no stature-stunting diseases, disabilities, or deficiencies. These children simply have genes for shortness in their family trees.

The pharmaceutical companies argued that it was unfair to allow treatment for children who are deficient in growth hormone while forbidding treatment for equally short children who secrete growth hormone normally. Consider, in this regard, an example adapted from a 1990 article by David B. Allen and Norman C. Fost in the Journal of Pediatrics: Nate and Carl are two hypothetical 9-year-old boys. Both stand exactly 3 standard deviations below the mean height and growth rate for their age in America. Both are predicted to reach a final adult height of 5 feet. Nate’s short stature results from a brain tumor that has left him deficient in growth hormone secretion. Carl secretes growth hormone normally. His short stature results simply from genes he inherited from his short parents. On what grounds can we justify making Nate eligible for treatment but not Carl? Carl bears no more responsibility for his small size than Nate: in both cases, shortness was an equally unchosen result of the natural lottery. All else being equal, both will encounter the same grade school taunting and dating drawbacks as a result of their shortness. In each case, the desire for hormone treatment is an equally reasonable response to a social world that often prefers tall people to short people.



If you don't know in your heart by now that the average person is a fucking idiot than you never will--and this is how you overcome all of those prejudices---there is nothing wrong with you invisible soul--the average brain in collusion with other average brains, is the biggest disease the earth will ever seeIts not a gay /straight issue; morons are always prejudiced because they dont have the sensitivity to see and appreciate a wide variety of things--including gays--but just about everything else as well. They hate peace; they hate great art; they hate great science; they hate great leaders...the key to overcoming the world spiritually, is to not take its folly too seriously...

 

This is why we have nice fiction such as GATTACA about a future where children will be genetically engineered to the parents' specifications.

As for that breeding thing, short parents do not always beget short kids. Here is a pic of me, my grandson and his breeder units. I think he inherited more of my genetic traits than either of his parents. (We still don't know how, since I wasn't in the gene pool at all).

 

Ahhh - but being 5'5 will probably not result in you being beaten to the brink of death, hung on a fence post with practically nothing on - in Colorado - in the winter.
Certainly some have a greater burden in life than others. Being a short male in this society is indeed a disadvantage.
That is not the kind of "victim" we are talking about. Rather victims that are subject to heinous crimes because of who they are.
I've enjoyed this discussion. No one will be convinced one way or the other unless they have not thought this issue through in their own minds completely. I think the reward is in having to think again about the issue and be able to firm up your arguments in your own mind.
BTW - I am white, straight, married and male so these issues do not impact me directly - only in my soul which hates to see anyone targeted with such cruelty. I hope society will recognize hate crimes for what they are.
Now, in this thread I think we are :beatdeadhorse5:

 

Are you really trying to say that guys under 5'5 generally have to suffer the same level of discrimination and abuse as trans or intersex people? If you honestly believe that, then you are seriously deluded. The negative impact that being brought up as the wrong gender has had on me is immeasurable. And don't say I want ''victimhood'' when just in my previous post I said I'd give anything to just be a normal woman. Oh, and you wouldn't kill people cos they're gay, I suppose that must mean that nobody else would either?

Ddoright is correct. Are short males disadvantaged? In general, probably. But that disadvantage is miniscule compared to the huge disadvantage that being born in the wrong body is. For me, even the simplest of day to day tasks are very daunting prospects. And a normal life? Well it's fair to say I've never had that, and probably never will. A lot of people are disadvantaged in life, but as Ddoright said, not everyone is disadvantaged to the same degree. Some definitely do have it a lot worse than others.

But there is something wrong with me. I would hate having my condition even if there was no prejudice towards intersex people in the world. But there's no doubting that having to deal with that prejudice, and having to fight so hard just to be seen as who I am, makes it even harder to deal with than it already is. It is very painful for me knowing that most people would not treat me as a true female if they knew about my past, and that is the truth of it, most people wouldn't. Having the condition itself is painful enough, but trying to deal with it in the society we live in is almost unbearable at times.

I think the main issue with gays, and especially trans/intersex people, is that a very sizeable proportion of society is prejudiced towards them. Yes, you are right that some are prejudiced towards lots of different things. But I think it's very fair to say that the amount of people who are prejudiced towards things like great art and science, are a tiny fraction of the amount of people that hold prejudices against transpeople. And the level of contempt for those things is definitely far lower in general. I'd actually go as far to say as prejudice towards transpeople is the last socially acceptable prejudice in our world. There's still quite a bit of prejudice against gays too, although there are people who don't mind gays, but hate transpeople or find them ''funny''.

If you can't see the difference by now, then I'm sure I will never be able to convince you. The one area in which I do agree with you is that prejudice is overall, very prevelant. And yes, the average person is an idiot. But certain prejudices are a lot more prevelant, and more commonly held than others.

 

Thank you invisible soul - for laying your life out for other to see. You just might make a difference.

 

I saw my friend that I haven't seen in 2 years, now he's 6'7. I'm so jealous it must be so awesome bein that tall.

 

this issue is pretty well fried I have to admit...No, my issue is not the same as what Gay people have to face;anything sexual is gonna be hell in puritan america! But you have to admit knowing that some of your fellow americans want to genetically engineer you out of existence, probably has its own unique set of psychological issues! Onward and upward!(HaHa)

 

:iagree:I agree you do have a point. Who are we to decide how tall someone should be - or what color - or what sex.
Thanks for your thoughts man. I appreciate them.

 

I doubt anything I have to say will make the slightest difference to the way anyone thinks. But you're welcome anyway.

Talking about trying to ''engineer a type of person out of existence'', that has been what's happening to people like me for many years now. It's only very recently that awareness about the intersex condition has started to come out, as for decades people like me who were born with ambiguous genitalia had surgery forced on us at a very young age to make us appear as ''one sex''. Choosing a gender for a child is a very dangerous, and potentially cruel thing to do, as it turned out being in my case. When the prejudice in society can lead to invasive, and medically unnecessary surgery on babies, purely to placate society's narrow mindedness about gender, you know that it is a very deep rooted cancer in our society. My life has been ruined because of decisions made when I was far too young to know what was going on.

I don't think anything I say will change anyone's opinions, though I think it is very important that people do know the horrifying things that go on because of ignorance, and the seeming need so many have to want to placate it.

 

I had to skip many pages as I am answering to the original start of the thread. I have been a victim of a number of 'hate crimes' or 'crimes' in which I was in fear for my life and had no one to back me up.

The first was when I was 18 years old and an older man invited me in to drink beer he provided. We had a few....I brought up that I was gay....he knew martial arts, went berserk, I ran screaming from his house not able to get to my car and he chased me as I screamed like a woman and finally some man in boxer shorts came to his porch after he the perpetrator attacker struck me in the head with a cut off broom stick in a martial arts way. I was bleeding. I was the victim.

I drove then to the place of my friends work in my small town and she took me into the back room.....next thing you know the police arrive, not to help me but to interrogate me of if I made advances if I was gay if I was a pervert. They ran my licence plates, they questioned my friend as if she though I would be they 'type to come on to a straight man'....when all was over I was denied a report, I was never asked about the gash on my head by the police and if I needed to have treatment, They did not care. He my attacker did not go to jail or even receive any punishment by the police. I was the victim turned into the 'bad guy' I was just a kid, 20 years have passed and I still remember that night.

The second time was similar, I was kidnapped, demanded my money and sprayed with mace as I jumped from the 2 guys moving vehicle....I called upon the police who did nothing.....They accused me of being a male prostitute and said I had it coming. I was 21 years of age at that time

The 3rd was personal, I never reported the attempt on my life, I cant recall the details I have ptsd over it and years later the man who tried to take my life took his own.

I guess , no I know what it feels like to fear for your life and be discriminated against for being gay. Police officers even acted as if I were to die would be one less 'fag' I hate that word, but in detail it is how I was treated one less fag on the street, god I hope things have changed since then.

Unless you have been hated upon for being gay it is hard to understand how these crimes go unresolved. I don't care about the technicality's of all the political rights and wrongs, only the experiences cancelled all those things away.
Peace to all, pillhead 2

 

@pillhead2: Your experiences are horrible, but sadly, far from being isolated I'm sure. People go on about minorities wanting ''special treatment''. We've been getting ''special treatment'' for years, and of a very negative variety. I have heard a few cases where gay or trans people have been attacked, and although they are the victim, they are treated as if they have done something wrong just by being the way they are. It's also true that a lot of gay and trans people do not report abuse or attacks to the police, because they fear the police not treating the case with the seriousness it deserves, or even not wanting to help at all just because of who the victims are.

The problem is, sections of the police also harbour prejudices towards ''fags'' and ''trannys''. I hate both those words, but for sure very many people use those words, because they are very derogatory towards the people they are insulting. I remember reading about an incident were a transsexual woman (I hate using that word, but will in this instance) was actually beaten by police, and was reffered to as a ''tranny'' and a ''faggot'' during the attack.

I also agree with your last point, that only people who have experienced being hated on for being gay or trans, can truly say what it is like. I myself have been verbally abused and laughed at by complete strangers on a number of occasions because I ''look like a man''. And the fear that one day that abuse will turn physical, is something that's always at the back of my mind. The best way for me to avoid this is to keep my contact with people to a bare minimum. Which is something I have done all my life. Although I am intersex, intersex people who are brought up as the wrong gender regularly have to suffer in very similar ways that a lot of transpeople do. Unless you have walked inside the shoes of someone who is hated or ridiculed by most of the general population merely for just existing, you really can't comprehend how horrible a feeling that is.

 

hi invisible soul,
I thank you for understanding and support, as you are able being able to as being I don't understand what the term 'intersex' is but I feel for you and all you go through being 'different' in this society. I do know how mean and cruel ppl can be as I am disabled and very obese and the looks of 'your just taking up space' or existing with no purpose can be devistating. I believe every human life has value. Peace to you invisible soul.

 

What I am trying to tell you is what I told you-there are in fact a substantial group of parents that view healthy shortness as a physical defect, interpret that anyway you want to interpret it, but any form of eugenics is not going to make the people being eliminated feel too awfully brimming with confidence about the desirability of their pheno/genotype!

There are no equivalencies-you have no idea what I have gone through-period. I have no idea what you have gone through-period. That's a mortal fact that cannot be alleviated by sensitivity or intelligence. If you knew the facts of my life, and I knew the facts of yours, we would both be surprised at how far off the mark we both were...

I thought the original discussion was actually--mostly--about discrimination against lesbians and gays; it would definitely be much worse for transgendered, as I have worked with them in the hospital, and they had a pretty rough going. Its too new and too strange for them, and you have to admit much of the fear is based upon the image of a vengeful God who made woman woman and Man man and that's all there is to it. You ain't getting rid of religion anytime soon.

As far as my attitude toward understanding your condition, it wont happen, that is asking too much from anyone-all you can get, the best you can hope for is respect, and you do have my respect...

Truthfully speaking, you are not abnormal; some people just will be transgendered--I assume someday that will be seen to be the case, but until then, all I can do is treat you like everyone else, which i am doing, because I pretty much argue with every damn person-- regardless of orientation--on the internet!

I don't know how much sense this will make to you, but I'm trying to tell you I do think you are equal, by not telling you how much I sympathize, by not lying to you--we do not have the ability to cross over into others shoes, however mightily we might try, however much our better natures might faintly suggest. We go to the trial together; we are imprisoned alone...

I wish you the best of luck of course

 

Hi there! You're very welcome.

I am not gay, but we do share some things in common, as I too have suffered a lot merely because I don't fit in with the ''norm"'s of society. You don't know what intersex is? I can't say I'm surprised. For many years it's something which has been largely hidden away from society, due to the fact that many intersex people were operated on as babies to make them appear ''normal''. And to stop them from being stigmatized by society later in life. I also suspect a large part of this is also to try and keep up the illusion of the narrow gender binary that most people adhere to. And scientifically, that narrow gender binary is exactly that, an illusion.

An intersex person is someone who is anatomically, genetically, or chromosomally a mix of the two sexes. Although genetically, most intersex people are predominantly one sex, a chromosomal and/or a hormonal defect causes them to develop certain physical characteristics of the opposite sex. I myself am genetically 90%-95% female. But a hormonal defect which meant my body overproduced androgens, meant that my genitalia was masculinised at birth. Consequently, I was operated on, and brought up as ''male'' due to this. I always resented the ''male'' label that was placed on me, as from my earliest childhood memories, I've always identified myself as being female. Due to the fact my condition was not properly treated, I developed further secondary male characteristics, which I hate, and makes me feel very inadequate, and worthless as a woman. It is now recommended in some countries that all genetic females with this condition are brought up as female, but it's too late for me sadly. The actual condition I have, is also possible for males to get. But in males it is does not make them intersex, as their bodies are naturally supposed to administer far higher levels of androgens than females. Needless to say, being brought up as the wrong gender, and not having my intersex condition properly treated, has ruined my life.

As for everything else you've said, I can only say I agree with it wholeheartedly. And peace be to you too.

 

No Pillhead, you did not encounter "police officers." They were pigs.

And it sounds like you may be in one of those backwater rural towns where this is common, but even we in Miami Beach are seeing a resurgence of the classical pig mentality.

Just this week in the Miami Herald was a story about a gay man visiting SoBe and saw two thugs with guns beating a handcuffed man. He called 911 and was on the phone when the pigs saw him and threatened him. They threw down his phone but even that was caught on the 911 call. The ACLU is suing the PD but the guy is in LA and said "I've been frightened to death to come back to Miami because one of those guys threatened my life. He said he could take me downtown and make me disappear." THESE ARE THE FUCKING COPS ON MIAMI BEACH! How much worse must it be in rural backwater redneck feifdoms.

 

No, the original discussion was about hate crimes. Which do not only affect gay and lesbian people, but also trans people. In fact, it affects transpeople even more.

I actually think religion is the main cause of society's prejudice towards gay and trans people. The fact that people like me exist at all proves that the ''god made man man, and woman, woman and that's all there is to it'', is totally false. The existence of intersex people pretty much destroys that as a credible arguement, at least in purely scientific terms. But although that idea is false, many people will hold those false ideals for many generations to come.

The fact you even refer to me as ''transgendered'' when I'm actually not, shows just how much understanding you have of my condition. Although I can't really blame you as I think most people would be in total ignorance about that fact. And blissful ignorance for most I bet. ''Transgender'' is not even the same as ''transsexual''. And I'm not the latter either, (although I was medically classed as that for many years) although I'm sure many people mistake me for one. I am abnormal, or I at least see myself as abnormal. Though I would be lying if I said society's attitude towards people like me played no part in that whatsoever.

Until the day that all transpeople are treated as equal to the others of the gender they identify as, then they are not being given equality. It is very true, that some transpeople do not want to be accepted as transsexuals, but as true members of the gender they internally identify as. Indeed, even before I knew about my intersex status, I never identified as a ''transsexual'', only female. So only female terms and pronouns for me were ever acceptable in my eyes. Merely being seen as a ''transsexual'' meant I was looked at as different to other females. Which never sat comfortably with me.

I don't want sympathy, only equality. You say you think I am equal, but would you just treat me the way you would any other female? If you would treat me ANY differently, then you do not think I am equal. Saying simply not showing sympathy for someone's hardships because of their differences is treating them equally, doesn't mean you are giving the person true equality. I am glad you can't cross into my shoes, as I would not wish my life on anyone. Although I think it would help if ''normal'' people could walk for a while in a transperson's shoes, I'm sure if most people could do that, they would change their attitudes very quickly.

Thank you, and same to you.