From All Over: GenderNews
  • Teen Cross-Dresser Attacked In Wisconsin
  • NYC: Matthew Shepard Memorial March Draws Ugly Police Response
  • Gay Drag Queen Shot in Maryland

  • Posted
    November 8
    1998




    GenderNews Headlines

    GenderNews Index

    Other News Sources

    Community Notices

    IFGE Home

     

    Teen Cross-Dresser Attacked In Wisconsin

    Via the Gay Lesbian Bisexual & Transgender Student Support Services at Indiana University -- glbtserv@indiana.edu. This appeared originally in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (http://www.jsonline.com/) of October 15th.

    By Meg Jones, of the Journal Sentinel staff

    An 18-year-old cross-dresser was attacked by a man wielding a broken beer bottle in Madison Tuesday evening, shortly after hundreds of people attended a vigil for a gay University of Wyoming student who was beaten to death. Madison police tentatively labeled the attack a hate crime because the victim was a man dressed in women's clothing. Police said they don't think the victim attended the rally.

    The Madison man was hit on the back of the head with a full 40-ounce bottle of beer and then stabbed in the abdomen with the broken glass bottle, Madison police spokesman Dave Gouran said.

    He was wearing women's clothing, including a padded bra, when he was attacked in a south side neighborhood as he walked with two friends. He apparently crossed paths with the suspect while walking across a convenience store parking lot, and the suspect followed him, yelling obscenities.

    "Because he is a cross-dresser, the suspect referred to him as something like a 'he-she,' " Gouran said Wednesday. The comments from the suspect "didn't address his sexual orientation or the perceived sexual orientation."

    Police were called to St. Mary's Hospital about 9:45 p.m. with a report of a female patient who had been stabbed. Hospital officials later discovered the victim was a man.

    Between 50 and 60 stitches were required to close his wounds, officials said.

    After giving police a fake name, the man gave his real name and later fled the hospital when officers discovered there was a warrant for his arrest on a traffic violation, Gouran said.

    Police were searching Wednesday for the victim and attacker involved in the 9:30 p.m. incident, which occurred minutes after a rally ended for slain Wyoming student Matthew Shepard.

    A candlelight vigil in Shepard's honor drew 750 people to the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. Shepard died Monday from the injuries he suffered after he was lured from a campus hangout, beaten and lashed to a split-rail fence near Laramie, Wyo.

    The attack has spurred calls nationwide for hate crime legislation protecting gays. Police said robbery was the main motive but that Shepard apparently was chosen because he was gay.

    DeEtte Tomlinson, executive director of OutReach, a Madison gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender center, said crimes against gays are increasing. "It is very distressing to see it happen in Madison," Tomlinson said. "Unfortunately, this year an atmosphere has been created where this is happening more often, not only in Madison but across the country."

    Madison police statistics reflect this. Complaints of crimes against gays and lesbians have jumped from 12 in 1996, to 16 last year, to 43 this year. Gouran said most of the hate crime complaints concerning gays and lesbians involve vandalism and disorderly conduct. An attack as serious as the one Tuesday is rare, Gouran said.

    "A lot of people were shocked," Tomlinson said. "They were very upset that this incident happened on the heels of such a tragedy" like the Shepard slaying.


     
     




    GenderNews Headlines

    GenderNews Index

    Other News Sources

    Community Notices

    IFGE Home

     

    NYC: Matthew Shepard Memorial March
    Draws Ugly Police Response

    On October 19th, there was march down Fifth Avenue to protest the killing of the gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard. Planned as a peaceful rally by "an ad-hoc coalition" of activists, the event turned ugly as the police used heavy-handed tactics to break up the march when participants left the sidewalks for the streets.

     


    Excerpts from a release by the Workers World News Service, taken from the October 29th issue of Workers World.

    Jail House Rocks: "Matthew Shepard Lives!"

    By Leslie Feinberg
    One Police Plaza, Central Booking, New York

    "Matthew Shepard lives! Matthew Shepard lives!" we thundered as cops dragged another activist into our cellblock. Each new prisoner received a hero's welcome from his peers: cheers, applause, hugs, a shower of kisses.

    We were packed into a makeshift men's "bull" pen: 68 gay and bisexual men, one drag queen who had fought the cops at the 1969 Stonewall rebellion that ignited the gay liberation movement, and--unbeknownst to some of the police--one transgendered female. In addition, a nearby cellblock held 33 lesbian and bisexual activists. We were held in an old central booking station, long unused.

    All of us were arrested Oct. 19 for taking our anger about the horrific murder of a young gay Wyoming student onto the streets of New York. That demonstration, built by a grassroots and word-of-mouth mobilization, swelled at times to more than 10,000.

    Earlier in the evening, thousands of us gathered in front of the swank Plaza Hotel in midtown at the height of rush hour to hold a political funeral for Matthew Shepard. The rally bristled with placards linking the anti-gay lynching of Shepard to the racist lynching in June of James Byrd Jr. in Jasper, Texas.

    Some 80 of us were the first to get busted when we stepped off the curb to take our march onto Fifth Avenue. Cops cinched our hands behind our backs with plastic handcuffs and dragged us into four police vans that blocked the avenue. Police rounded up all the legal observers, march negotiators and marshals they could get their hands on.

    Three precincts were used to house the volume of prisoners. I was in a group that was brought to the old Central Booking Station. All of us were locked up without water or food. Some had their desperately needed medications confiscated.

    We were not allowed to make phone calls or see our attorneys, and were not told what we were charged with.
     



     


    This item is from InYourFace on-line news. For prior press releases, check the GenderPAC website at http://www.gpac.org.

    Transinclusion In Matthew Shepard Protest

    [New York, NY: 24 Oct 98] Transgender activists were prominent in the gathering on Monday (19 Oct) in which more than 6,000 people marched in NYC to protest the murder of gay man Matthew Shepard in Wyoming. Billed as a 'political funeral,' the protest organizers expected to draw no more than 500 for the event.

    Commenting on the visibility and inclusion of the transcommunity, Christine Quinn, Executive Director of the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project, said, "It was refreshing that organizers didn't even have to discuss including the word 'transgender' on many of their protest signs. It shows something about the folks who are running this. They have an expanded vision and perspective."

    The NY Blade News (23 Oct) reports that more than 120 arrests were made. Among those arrested were transactivist Leslie Feinberg and Stonewall Veteran Sylvia Rivera. Said Feinberg, " I was probably the only butch lesbian who spent the whole night locked up in a men's bullpen. My bisexual and gay brothers... assured me that they would take care of me. I will never forget that solidarity."

    The protest, which police say got out of hand by blocking 5th Avenue, has energized the city's gay and lesbian activists. Said Sylvia Rivera, "That night, I saw a new revolution being born." The task now facing the gay and lesbian community is how to channel the outpouring of enthusiasm into further activism.


     
     




    GenderNews Headlines

    GenderNews Index

    Other News Sources

    Community Notices

    IFGE Home

     

    Gay Drag Queen Shot in Maryland

    This came to us from Phyllis Randolph Frye, PRFrye@aol.com . It originates from the Free State Justice Campaign, P.O. Box 13221, Baltimore, MD 21203, (301) 891-1111, http://www.igc.org/fsjc, Liz Seaton, Executive Director.

    Baltimore, MD - Less than a month after gay college student Matthew Shepard was viciously murdered in Laramie, Wyoming, a gay drag queen living in Baltimore, Maryland was shot six times -- nearly to death -- by youths saying that they would "not allow drag queen faggots" into their neighborhood.

    The Shooting

    On Wednesday, October 28 at approximately 9 p.m., 31-year-old Leonard "Lynn" Vines, a lifetime resident of Baltimore, walked onto the 200-block of Maderia Street (in eastern Baltimore). He was going to pick up a key from his cousin's house. A large group of young men and women, perhaps 20 of them, were hanging out on the street. Leonard heard one of them say "Hey y'all, there's a drag queen faggot." One of the youths told Leonard that they "didn't allow no drag queen faggot bitches" to come through the street.

    Leonard said that he didn't want any trouble. While he was explaining that he was there to pick up from his cousin a key to an apartment he was thinking of renting in the neighborhood, one of the youths struck him in the face.

    When Leonard repeated that he didn't want any trouble, another of the youths pulled out a gun and shot him six times - twice in the arm, twice in the chest, once in the back, and once in the shoulder. Then all of the youths sauntered off leaving a seriously wounded and bleeding Leonard behind on his cousin's front stoop.

    Quick Action by Firefighter Saved Life

    Luckily for Leonard, a man working at the fire station around the corner heard the shots and brought the ambulance immediately, meeting Leonard's cousin who frantically flagged him down in the alley. Leonard was taken to Johns Hopkins University Hospital, where doctor's expressed dismay at the violent attack and surprise that Leonard did not die en route to the hospital.

    Leonard Vine is Recovering, Case is Under Investigation

    Leonard spent a week in the hospital before being released into his mother's care on the evening of Tuesday, November 3. Given the number of times he was shot and the extent of his injuries, his doctors expect him to have a long, slow recovery. He is currently using a wheelchair, and it will be some time before Leonard can return to his regular job with a housekeeping agency.

    The case continues to be under investigation by the Baltimore Police Department, Eastern District. The perpetrators are thought by many to be local youths. Leonard believes that the police have caught the man who punched him, but they have not yet caught the shooter.


     
     
    Send news stories or comments to the editor at iphge@hotmail.com.
    GenderNews Headlines
    GenderNews Index
    List of Community Notices

    Back to IFGE Home

    Page prepared by Beth Lewis.