A Troubling Look at Why Men Kill Transgender Women

[Ayla]

.. Broadly spoke with Judith Butler,  philosopher, queer theorist, and author of the books Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity and Undoing Gender to get her take on why men kill transgender women. In short, Butler believes that certain men feel threatened by transgender women and their undoing of the male gender. “Trans women have relinquished masculinity […] and that is very threatening to a man who wants to see his power as an intrinsic feature of who he is,” she said.

Those same men seem to feel especially threatened when trans women flirt or engage with them, which was the case with som of those who were killed. 21-year-old Zella Ziona was reportedly shot in the head by her friend after he became embarrassed by her “flamboyant” behavior. And 20-year-old Papi Edwards was apparently killed after revealing to her alleged attacker, Henry Gleaves, that she was trans. According to Butler, these men likely feel that any flirtation or interaction from trans women is an attack, and one they need to combat. “I presume that the straight man who shoots the trans woman, he feels like he has been ‘attacked’ by the flirtation,” she said. “That is very crazy reasoning, but there is lots of craziness out there when it comes to gender identity and sexuality.”

And, if the craziness of men murdering transgender women due to embarrassment wasn’t enough, most of these murders are brutal. As Broadly pointed out, many of the victims were stabbed and shot — and one victim, Tamara Dominguez, was run over in a car multiple times by her killer. “[The extreme brutality] is because [the murderer] wants to obliterate any trace of his own relation to that living person, obliterating a part of himself and living person at the same time,” Butler said. “But also establishing his absolute power, and his own masculinity as the site of that power. Perhaps he is rebuilding his gender as he continues to try to take apart and efface that trans woman who never deserved to die.”   

www.teenvogue.com/story/transgender-women-killed-by-men   

[Deleted]

I personally believe she is not quite right in her theory. How the hell are we threatening the male gender? Personally I think the ones that kill us are secretly attracted to us or are curious and they can't stand it about themselves and they have to hurt in order to quell and appease their own shadow self. In other words, they may find themselves disgusted with themselves by being attracted to another biological male no matter how feminine she is or femininity she puts off or whether she is pre op or post op or HRT or non HRT. I do believe they are so fragile in their own masculinity, which may feel like a threat to them but I would say it is less a threat than self loathing, that they have to hurt the object of their attraction.

BTW anyone that kills someone else other than for self defense is not quite right anyway. I dare care for stupid people that have an opinion about everything no matter right or wrong (Shit that sounds like myself ) but I don't go around killing them because I can't stand them.  So no excuses other than someone is a murderous psychopath and should be locked away forever if they kill for something as trivial as how someone lives their own life.

[Kira]

Society teaches men that a challenge to their masculinity is about as bad as it gets, they see the bullying of effeminate kids, see the way women are treated, even join in with it. Its not a place to aim to be. Conforming is all important. It's drilled into them and explicitly linked to gender presentation and sexuality. It also teaches them that aggression is respected and to be bigger and meaner makes you safer and less vulnerable.

Someone comes along that gets them to challenge a belief, which people don't like to do anyway, and threatens to place them together with us on the non conforming side and they act in the way they have been trained... Aggression. Society has a problem with the way it values men and masculinity. Until that changes the way they treat is will not be resolved, the way men are treated will not be resolved and equality between genders will not be properly addressed.

[Deleted]

Who knows? It's hard to know what's going on in somebody else's mind. I'd like to ask these guys, "Why did you do that?" I'd be willing to bet, though, that they couldn't give you a meaningful answer. What could we expect from a mind that's willing to butcher somebody?

My own theory: men are supposed to be "manly"--i.e., warriors, i.e., violent and aggressive as needed in order to defend society, women and children. An "unmanly man" isn't that way and thus becomes an object of contempt as useless to society.

But that's just my favorite little theory. I don't know how violent animals think.

[Mingma]

"Regardless of these killers’ reasoning, one thing is pretty clear: These murders are hate crimes, even though many people and police are reluctant to deem them that. Tiffany, a transgender woman who was friends with Papi Edwards and was present when Papi was killed, told Buzzfeed News, “If a person gets mad at you for being transgender and then comes back and kills you because his pride was crushed, and he was interested in someone he thought was a woman, it’s a hate crime.”

I think that it is more than just a protection of masculinity and gender pride.  I was raped as a teenager essentially for being a sissy, and because he knew I wouldn't tell.  He was right.  I think it is deep seated misogyny.  A hatred of women and unreasoning rage that someone like me would assume the mantle of femininity and become someone, something shameful.  It sets off rage in a small group of people who equate me with their own imasculation.  If you hate a class of people so that they are reduced to  nothing but objects of your hatred then brutality towards them is okay.  Viciousness is called for.  It was forty-five years ago and still is.  I pray that one day that changes, perhaps it is changing now, but I don't see it.

Sadly,
Ming

[Deleted]

Actually, folks, on this issue I’m a “reductionist”. What I mean is, I don’t think there’s any real reason for hatred of transpeople—that is, no logical or intellectual reason. I think the reason we’re hated is purely an emotional one with no sort of reasoning behind it.

Consider one of my experiences: I made the mistake one day of passing by a secondary school too closely. A few of the schoolboys were outside (when they should have been in class) and before I knew it, stones were flying. I heard one of them shout, “You woman, or man, or whatever you’re supposed to be!” Clearly there’s no thought or reasoning here. They see something they don’t like, they immediately go into attack mode.

Or consider the sort of anti-trans blogs we see so often on the net. Aisla’s given links to two or three such things in the last few days. These are written by people who could be considered intelligent, thoughtful people, given that they’ve gone to the trouble of actually writing a piece.

And yet what they write is totally illogical. We have no trouble whatsoever in punching lots of holes in them. Their arguments are simply empty. Like this one, e.g., that I once saw: transpeople already have equal rights in most places in the Western world, and in addition they have the special privilege of getting to use the loo of the opposite sex.

Ridiculous, of course. How much research would you have to do before you see that transpeople don’t in fact have equal rights in most parts of the Western world? And as for our “special privilege”, how many cispeople actually want to use the loo of the opposite sex? An odd sort of privilege, one that nobody wants.

But this is the sort of “rational argument” that we’re routinely faced with. I don’t believe that people’s hatred is based on any reasoned argument. I’d say rather that those who hate us begin to look for justifications, after the fact, for the hatred they already feel.

Now what we’re doing on this thread is looking for the reasons for this hatred. That is, I think we’re doing the same thing that our enemies are doing: we’re trying to supply explanations of that hatred. Take my little theory, e.g.: transwomen are hated because we’re not being the “warriors” that “men” have always been meant to be.

I don’t really take this theory seriously. Just a talking point, really. Now for the sake of argument, it may be that there is something like this deep in the male (and perhaps female) psyche. But what I’m saying here is that I don’t think there’s any real need to look for such things because I don’t believe trans-hatred is based on such things. I’m a “reductionist”: I think we’re herd animals and therefore anyone outside the herd, for whatever reason, is automatically a target of suspicion and hatred.

Suppose that we all agreed that my theory is correct. Then the logical way to end trans-hatred would be to explain to men the reason for their hatred (“You hate us because we’re not proper male warriors”) and show them that that reason is unfounded. But we all know this would be a waste of time. You don’t change people’s feelings with rational argument. Feelings don’t go away simply because you understand the reason for them.

In other words, I think we’re missing the boat if we try to address this problem with logical argument. It’s an emotional issue, and we will win or lose this battle on emotional grounds, not on intellectual ones. People who are naturally inclined to hate will hate, and people who are not so inclined will not hate.

And this is the reason, I think, that bit by bit we are winning the battle—because most people these days are not inclined to hate others for no good reason, and when we show them there’s no good reason to hate us, they won’t hate us. We show them that we’re decent people, and then they’re OK with us.

Another of my experiences: right after I came out, I could see that a young woman who worked in the pharmacy didn’t like me at all. Every time I went in she’d get a look on her face like she’d eaten something that disagreed with her. And yet as time went on, she eventually came round. When I went in, she’d smile and say, “Good morning”, and when I left, she’d smile and say, “Thanks! Bye-bye!”

And what had I said to her to change her mind? What sort of arguments did I give her? None at all. I never said a thing. Bit by bit she copped on that I was no real problem to her and it wasn’t worth it to her to ruin her moment, let alone her day or her life, over the issue.

In fact, in this little town of mine, I’ve never said a thing to anybody—but nobody I know personally has ever given me any hassle. People who aren’t naturally inclined to hate won’t do so if you show them they have no good reason to.

So as I say, it’s my feeling that it’s a waste of time trying to figure out why people hate us. There’s no good reason for their hatred and no amount of argument is going to change that hatred. And I think it’s important to recognize that trying to make this issue an intellectual one, as some transpeople do, is a mistake. If we try to win the battle with argument, we’ll get nowhere. It’s an emotional battle, and it’s on that basis that we’ll win or lose.

One thing I think argument can achieve: it’s handy for those who are inclined to side with us to have a justification for the sympathy they show us. That way, if some hater is trying to convert them to hatred, they’ll have an argument that will justify their continuing sympathy. But it’s not that argument that has won them over to our cause. It’s the fact that they’re decent people that’s done that.