Transgender Woman Attacked Outside 7-Eleven in Fredericksburg

18-year-old Laqueta Webb arrested

 Wednesday, 25 May 2011, 12

FREDERICKSBURG, Va. - A 32-year-old Fredericksburg, Va., transgender woman is recovering from a beating outside a 7-Eleven on Fall Hill Avenue last Saturday.

According to police, at least three people began to argue with and then attacked the victim.

The victim told FOX 5 she has been harassed in the neighborhood because of her transgender status and during the beating, the attackers used hateful language about her gender identity.

Police have arrested and charged 18-year-old Fredericksburg resident Laqueta Webb with malicious wounding by mob and detectives believe other arrests are coming.

Virginia’s hate crime legislation makes no special protections for sexual orientation or identity, only classifying as hate crimes those which are motivated by the victim’s race, religious conviction, color or national origin.

05/03/2011

Salinas police are investigating a stabbing early Sunday as a possible hate crime.

Police said the victim was a transgendered woman who was found with a stab wound to the abdomen on East Market Street about an hour after leaving an area bar with a man in a small, black Toyota pickup.

Police spokesman Lalo Villegas confirmed that detectives are investigating the possibility the victim was attacked because of her sexual orientation. If so, he said, the unidentified suspect could face hate-crime charges.

Villegas said police were called to East Market and Griffin streets around 12:30 a.m. on a report of a stabbing. The victim was unable to talk to police when they arrived and was transported to Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital where she underwent surgery and is expected to survive.

A friend told police the victim was at Marion’s Place nightclub on the 400 block of East Market Street earlier that night, before getting into the black pickup with a Latino male between the age of 30 and 40. Villegas said police believe she was stabbed in the area of Market and Kern streets.

Police said the victim, whose identity police have yet to confirm, was a man who had undergone some surgical augmentation to become a woman.

Villegas said Marion’s Place has been the site of numerous police responses in the past. A motive for Sunday’s crime has not been determined, he said, but the reports do not indicate the victim was robbed.

http://www.mercurynews.com/rss/ci_17982533?source=rss&nclick_check=1

TNN, Dec 23, 2010

CHENNAI: A 21-year-old transgender lodged a complaint with police commissioner T Rajendran on Wednesday alleging harassment by personnel from the Anna Square police station.

Sabitha in her complaint said she and four other transgenders had, around 7 pm on Tuesday, gone to the Marina beach where four police personnel asked them to leave.

“The others with me fled but I was caught. One constable caught hold of my saree and harassed me. The others hit me with lathis and after this I could not walk,” said Sabitha, a graduate.

She was later taken to the Kilpauk Medical College Hospital. “Even today, when I went to the commissioner office, the police personnel who harassed me were there and threatened me again. Just because I am a transgender can’t I visit the beach like others?” she said.

According to other transgenders who came with Sabitha, they face regular harassment by the police. “If some transgenders commit some crime let the police take legal action. They cannot assault us brutally,” said T Rajakumari of Thai Vizhuthugal, an NGO fighting for the rights of the transgenders.

Rajkumari said many transgenders were forced into the sex trade as society shunned them. “There are graduates among us. Some have discontinued their education due to the harassment faced in colleges and the workplace,” she said.

Anto James, advocacy officer of the Social Welfare Association for Men, said he was trained by the Tamil Nadu State Aids Control Society (TANSACS) to create awareness about transgenders. “We have been educating police officers about why some people become transgenders, the problems they face and other aspects. But some police personnel continue to harass them,” said James.




Read more: Transgender alleges harassment by police - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Transgender-alleges-harassment-by-police/articleshow/7147812.cms#ixzz18stTvwxU

Friday, December 10, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO — A transgender woman on Thursday filed a claim against the California Department of Motor Vehicles, saying the clerk who handled her application for a new driver’s license sent her a letter at home calling her gender change a “very evil decision” that would condemn her to hell.

Amber Yust, 23, said the clerk at the department’s San Francisco office processed her application for a license with her female name in October.

She received the letter addressed to her old name, David, four days later. It identified the writer as the person who processed Yust’s application.

“Although I helped you with the name change, I have to say I do not support the reason for it,” says the letter, signed with only a first name and typed on plain paper. “I also do not believe the state’s recognition of it - through official documents - makes it legitimate or any less evil.”

Yust alleges the clerk used a state database to find her home address. She said she also received a pamphlet from a New York-based conservative Catholic ministry to whom she thinks the DMV clerk furnished her address.

Yust took the first step toward suing the DMV by filing the claim stating that its employee’s actions violated her privacy and civil rights, and seeking more than $25,000 in damages.

“Going into a DMV isn’t exactly a fun experience,” she said. “So to have someone who dislikes something about you or has some strange interest in you decide to use your personal information for something other than what it was supposed to is really scary. I want people to feel safe.”

DMV spokesman Mike Marando declined comment on the matter because it involves pending litigation and a personnel matter. Marando said the department has been investigating Yust’s allegations since it was alerted six weeks go.

All DMV employees are trained to be sensitive to transgender Californians who, like Yust, have obtained the necessary paperwork to have their driver’s licenses changed to reflect their new names and genders, he said.

“This is something we are taking very seriously,” Marando said. “Generally, and not speaking specific to this case, employees are not allowed to contact customers offline. They are not allowed to access department records or databases unless it’s specific to the business at hand.”

Yust’s lawyer, Chris Dolan, said he and staff members at the nonprofit Transgender Law Center in San Francisco think the worker who wrote Yust is a DMV clerk who was disciplined last year for allegedly telling another transgender woman that he did not want to help her and “God will send you to hell.”

Transgender Law Center Kristina Wertz said the August 2009 incident produced an apology from a regional DMV administrator and an opportunity for the center to provide additional transgender sensitivity training at the San Francisco office.

Read More: http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/state&id=7837570&rss=rss-kabc-article-7837570

DMV investigates note sent to transgender woman

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — A hate-filled letter sent to a San Francisco transgender woman has prompted an investigation at the Department of Motor Vehicles. The anti-gay letter claims to have been written by a DMV clerk who assisted the woman at the San Francisco branch last week.

The usually painful experience at the DMV became a traumatic one last week for Amber Yust. A transgender woman, Yust went to the San Francisco branch to legally change her name on her driver’s license.

A few days later a letter was mailed to her house. The writer claims to be the DMV clerk who helped her and then went on to say being transgender is “evil.” He urged her not to go through with the transition from man to woman. He said Yust is going to hell.

“Understandably, I think, she was scared to get a letter sent to her home from a state employee who presumably found out her address through his official capacity as a state employee and it was an incredibly harassing and traumatizing experience for her,” Kristina Wertz, legal director of the Transgender Law Center, said.

Yust is not speaking publicly, but she turned to the Transgender Law Center for help.

The DMV is now investigating the allegation. A spokesperson for the agency said in a statement, “This is a personnel disciplinary matter which the department does not discuss, but the DMV does not condone or tolerate the access or use of personal information for non work-related purposes.”

Advocates for the transgender community say discrimination like this is nothing new. The Transgender Law Center in San Francisco receives more than 1,500 calls a year from transgender people seeking help.

“I think it’s a sad indication of where we are,” Wertz said.

Wertz says Yust has not yet reported the letter to the police, but they believe a biblical verse quoted in the letter is clearly a threat. It says, “Let [gay people] be put to death”

The writer signed the letter, “In charity, Thomas.”

Assault on transgender woman in Hollywood caught on tape; five suspects sought

October 27, 2010

Los Angeles police investigators are seeking five suspects in connection with an attack on a transgender woman in Hollywood that left the 25-year-old victim bloodied and battered with a broken jaw and cheek bone.

The victim had just left a bar near the intersection of La Brea and Melrose avenues in the wee hours of Oct. 1 when she was attacked by three women and two men.

According to witnesses, the attackers were beating and kicking the victim in the middle of the street, said Los Angeles Police Sgt. Mitzi Grasso. The victim was kicked in the face and was hit on the head with a bottle, leaving cuts on the victim’s neck.

The victim, who lives in the San Fernando Valley, is 5’4” and 125 pounds. Police have not yet classified the attack as a hate crime but said the investigation was continuing, said Grasso, who called the attack “unusually vicious.”

The suspects fled in a white Chevy Suburban. Anyone with information is asked to call the LAPD Wilshire Division’s Major Assault Crimes Section at (213) 922-9234 or (213) 922-8268. During non-business hours or weekends, callers can try 1-877-LAPD-24-7 or anonymously contact Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS, (800)-222-8477.

Tipsters may also contact Crimestoppers by texting 274637 (C-R-I-M-E-S on most key pads) using a cellphone. All text messages should begin with the acronym LAPD. Tipsters can also go to www.LAPDOnline.org, click on “web tips” and follow the prompts.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/10/lapd-seeks-help-in-case-of-assault-on-transgender-woman-in-hollywood.html

October 7, 2010

A New York City correction officer was arrested and charged on Thursday with forcing a transgender inmate to engage in a sex act with him at a Manhattan jail.

The victim, a 23-year-old transgender woman, was an inmate in a male housing unit at the Manhattan Detention Complex near City Hall, where she was being held on a parole violation, when the attack took place in September 2009.

According to a suit filed against the city last month, the woman said the correction officer, Roberto Morales, 40, groped and sexually harassed her several times over the course of about a month.

Her lawyer, Ilann M. Maazel, said in an interview that the woman had undergone hormone therapy but had not had gender reassignment surgery. In one instance, the lawyer said, Officer Morales was escorting the woman from a clinic when he pushed her into a stairwell and forced himself on her. A rape kit found DNA implicating the officer in the attack, he said.

Officer Morales was charged with committing a criminal sexual act — a felony — and harassment and suspended from his job, where he earns about $74,000 a year, the city’s Department of Investigation said. A 13-year veteran of the Correction Department, he faces up to four years in prison himself if convicted of the felony charge. His lawyer could not be immediately reached for comment.

Mr. Maazel said his client’s case was representative of the daily harassment faced by transgender inmates.

According to a complaint filed in court, the victim had filed a grievance with the Correction Department about a month before the stairwell attack took place, complaining that Officer Morales had repeatedly harassed her.

In her suit against the city, the woman alleged that she was also assaulted earlier in the summer of 2009 when — as an inmate at Rikers Island — she was taken to the prison ward of a hospital for treatment. In that incident, a nurse forced her to perform oral sex on him in her hospital room, the suit contends. The nurse, Carl Wiley, later pleaded guilty to committing a criminal sexual act.

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/08/nyregion/08inmate.html

Transgender Women Targeted by D.C. Police

October 05, 2010

What’s life like for a transgender woman in Washington, D.C.? It leaves quite a bit to be desired.

Police are charged with routinely harassing transgender women under the “assumption that everyone is a sex worker” who is simply outside or in possession of condoms, according to Sadie-Ryanne Baker of the D.C. Trans Coalition. Amanda Hess reports that a recent sting operation netted six women on prostitution charges, but there are questions about whether the one transgender woman in the group was picked up for her gender identity rather than any evidence of selling sex. This isn’t the first time we’ve faced transphobia in police work and use of condoms to charge women with crimes, an issue 18,000 of you have spoken out against.

Worse, the transgender woman arrested in this operation was not locked up with the other women, but was instead put in a cell with men. Though this is against police regulations, the presence of transphobia amongst law enforcement means that it does happen; while it’s unclear how much of this arrest was premised on discriminatory targeting, the fact that this woman was entered into the police report as “male” demonstrates an obvious problem in their treatment of a transgender woman. As Michael A. Jones has written on the Gay Rights blog before, transgender persons also face outright harassment and brutality at the hands of the law enforcement that should be protecting them. These abuses were chronicled in the report Moving Along: Policing Sex Work in Washington, D.C.

Transgender women in D.C. have the right to be treated like other women when arrested. They have the right not to be unfairly targeted as potential sex workers, and they certainly have as much right as anyone else to carry condoms without fearing that being used as evidence against them. And they have the right not to fear police.

http://womensrights.change.org/blog/view/transgender_women_targeted_by_dc_police

Tue Oct 5, 4:09 am ET

HONG KONG – A transgender woman lost a legal challenge Tuesday against Hong Kong marriage rules that prevent her from marrying her boyfriend.

The plaintiff underwent sex change surgery from man to woman in 2008 and obtained identification documents listing her new gender. But Hong Kong’s Marriage Registry only allows couples who were men and women at birth to wed.

The woman, who is in her 20s and can only be identified as “W” under court order, argued her rights to marry in the constitution and Bill of Rights were violated.

Hong Kong’s constitution says freedom of marriage of Hong Kong residents should be protected by law. The Bill of Rights says the right of men and women to marry should be recognized.

High Court Judge Andrew Cheung ruled that he saw no evidence to support “a shifted societal consensus in present day Hong Kong regarding marriage to encompass a postoperative transsexual.”

Cheung expressed sympathy for W, saying he is “acutely conscious of the suffering and plight of those who suffer from transsexualism, and the prejudice and discrimination they face as a minority group in our society.”

But he added, “That alone, however, is quite insufficient to found the fundamental change in the law sought by the applicant in the present case.”

Transgender marriage is permitted in many Asian or European countries and some U.S. states. Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, as well as mainland China, allow it, but this semiautonomous southern Chinese territory maintains a separate legal system, largely preserved from its British colonial days.

Read More: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101005/ap_on_re_as/as_hong_kong_transgender_marriage_1

Transgender Teen Couldn’t be Homecoming King

September 27, 2010

The ACLU and people around the world are reacting to a local school district’s decision not to crown a local teenager as Homecoming King.

An attorney with the ACLU out of Detroit says they’re now looking into the case of a local student who wasn’t allowed to be Homecoming King because he’s a trans-gender student. They’ll move forward with their interest if the teen wants them to get involved.

Seniors say 17 year old Oak Reed received enough votes to be voted Homecoming King at Mona Shores High School last week, but that he wasn’t crowned because he’s technically a girl even though he has been living his life as a boy.

It has caused a lot of reaction at the school and around the country.

The Superintendent wouldn’t respond specifically to what happened. Terry Babbitt said in a statement that the school has a “nurturing environment for all students” and that they were guided by legal counsel last week when carrying out the homecoming activities.

Read More: http://www.fox17online.com/news/fox17-transgender-teen-couldnt-homecoming-king,0,181021.story?track=rss

SAPD: Man snaps, brutally beats transgender

kens5.com

Posted on September 23, 2010 at 12:24 PM

SAN ANTONIO — A man was in for quite a surprise after learning the woman in his car was a transgender.

Police say the man apparently snapped and brutally beat the woman.

Before dumping her off at an apartment complex in the 3200 block of Hillcrest.

The 24-year old knocked on a complete stranger’s door, begging for help.

Police aren’t calling it a hate crime, but say the man will face aggravated assault charges.

http://www.kens5.com/news/local/SAPD-Man-snaps-brutally-beats-transgender-103637904.html

by KENS 5 Staff