One Hundred Nineteen Times
By: Gwen Saoirse
Tags: LGBTQ, Equality, News, Transgender, Violence

Photo by Elijah O'Donell on Unsplash

One Hundred Nineteen Times

The Deadly Consequences of Hyperbole, or Tell Me Again How I’m Overreacting

A few weeks ago I stumbled across a short story in my feed on Medium. In the story, a man orders a drink at a bar and spots an attractive woman across the way. They make eye contact; the man asks if he can buy her a drink and join her, and she agrees. She proceeds to seduce the man and things get hot and heavy.

The story itself ended on a rather problematic note. The story’s climax was based on the “catfish” trope. The man discovers that the woman has male genitalia. She was there simply to trick him into believing she was a woman. She leaves him there, shocked and flustered, and tells him she is going home to her wife.

The woman in the story didn’t self-identify. You don’t know if she was a transgender woman or a man in a dress who gets off on tricking men into believing he is a woman. The character was purposefully flat and undeveloped.

I found the story itself well-written, but as a transgender woman, I thought it was in poor taste. To each their own. What was too problematic for me to ignore were the comments in response to the story. The story, and the subsequent comments have been removed from Medium, so I will paraphrase from memory.

“You can bet if that ever happened to me, there would be a shooting,” read the first comment. “Ha ha, I bet! If that happened to anyone I know, there would definitely be a shooting!” came the next comment.

When I read these terrible words, my heart sunk, and I became a bit nauseous. As an openly transgender woman, this is one of my fears, and certainly my wife’s greatest fear; that someone will attack me simply for being transgender. Sure, my situation is different than the one in the story. I’m not seducing men in bars, and I’m not encouraging them on to third base.

However, in the few short months since I’ve been out, I have had inebriated men hit on me. I did not initiate or welcome the attention. It is plausible that a man could be attracted to me, despite my best efforts to fly under their radar. Is it really that much of a stretch to imagine that someone, upon learning that the woman they find attractive is transgender, could then become violent?

When I respectfully challenged these folks on their commentary, letting them know that such discourse was harmful to transgender people, I received more than a small amount of push-back and gas-lighting.

“Gwen, You’ve made your point. No need to continue hurting or embarrassing me!” “Nothing about this was harmful to anyone. Quit whining and acting like a victim. Haven’t you ever heard of hyperbole?”

I have, in point of fact, heard of hyperbole. That their comments were hyperbolic was not lost on me, not in the slightest. I initiated my response by acknowledging that these folks were just joking among themselves, and likely did not mean any harm. Even lacking the intent to do so, hyperbole can be harmful to people who live in the margins; it is simply wrong to perpetuate the idea that violence against transgender people is acceptable.

To the author’s credit, she promptly apologized and eventually removed her story. It certainly wasn’t my intent to hurt or embarrass anyone, but I felt passionately that what I was witnessing, regardless of intent, was wrong.

This morning, I awoke to a headline that reminded me exactly why that message is so vitally important.

Dee Whigham was stabbed and slashed 119 times in the face and throat by a man who “lost it” when she revealed to him that she was transgender.

One hundred nineteen times.

Then he took a shower and went home, leaving her for dead in the hotel.

Somewhere along the line, this man was socialized to believe that killing a transgender person is justified. That he was the victim, after stabbing Ms. Whigham one hundred nineteen times, simply because she was not born a cisgender woman. That such a disclosure was grounds for him completely losing his mind and becoming an enraged killer.

One hundred nineteen times.

I lost it. I lost it.

That’s what he says in the courtroom video. He tried to use the “gay panic” defense. This is a legal strategy which blames the victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity for the defendant’s violent reaction, including murder.

Not a bad strategy, considering that legal defense is still allowed in all but a few states. California became the first state to outlaw the gay panic defense, Illinois followed their lead at the start of this year. Similar restrictions have been advocated or formally proposed in a few other states including Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Georgia, Washington, New Jersey and New York.

The common discourse in our country regarding people who live in the margins is directly responsible for this woman’s death. This “hyperbole” regarding women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, and all the intersections therein is harmful, and it is passed down through the generations.

One hundred nineteen times.

The common discourse in our country regarding people who live in the margins is directly responsible for 12-year-old Maddie and her family having to flee their Achilles, OK home in fear of transphobic violence.

One hundred nineteen times.

A commenter in a closed Facebook parents group said Maddie, who was not “out” as transgender, should be castrated “with a good sharp knife.” Another commenter suggested having their own children attack Maddie to teach her a lesson. Her family is now moving to Houston, fleeing for her safety.

One hundred nineteen times.

Nothing about this was harmful to anyone. Quit whining and acting like a victim. Haven’t you ever heard of hyperbole?

I may not (yet) be a victim, but there’s no shortage of victims of transphobic violence out there. Many of them no longer have a life, nor a voice.

Fear of such violence keeps many people trapped in the closet where they can be isolated, alone and riddled with fear and mental anguish.

Here’s my call to action.

If you witness people, whether it is in the grocery store or on social media, advocating violence against the LGBTQ community, even casually or merely in jest, I implore you to speak out. It is no laughing matter.

Lives are at stake.

Now it’s time for Jaimz Mallett to sing us out.