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Sexuality and Hate Crimes

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Betty Waltermire
Crime and Criminology JUS-110
January 18, 2014

Sexuality and Hate Crimes
A hate crime is an act of abusing an individual because they are convenient, vulnerable targets incapable of fighting back or will not fight back. People in this category may include homeless, gay men, lesbian women, transgender, transsexuals, and transvestites. These are specific crimes that drive a person by violence or a strong and selfish desire to severely injure or kill a person because of who they are or what they stand for.
From coast to coast and throughout America’s heartland the murders of innocent people are occurring because they are different. They may or may not look any different than anyone else in your school, in college, at work or your neighbor. They are our sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, cousins, mothers, fathers that are gay, lesbian, transgender, transsexual that are being targeted, beaten severely, and killed.
Anna Marie Lambert drove up the driveway to the rented farmhouse to visit her daughter and grandson. Inside the house she found the grisly, brutal, bloody scene and called the police. She took the grandson away from the bedroom and out to the kitchen away from the bodies.

The male on the living room couch was identified as Phillip DeVine, 19. In the bedroom was the body of her daughter Lisa Lambert, 24, who was partly under the covers. The third victim was the body of Teena Brandon, 21 who was identified by Richardson County Sheriff Charles Laux. Teena Brandon had filed a police report a week earlier that John Lotter and Tom Nissen had raped, sodomized and beat her severely after a Christmas party (Ramsland, n.d.).
Teena Brandon was a transsexual, female to male, and going by the name of Brandon Teena. Her greatest fear in life was to be touched sexually and raped by a man. One male relative exposed her to repeated sexual abuse (Ramsland, n.d.).
Another victim was a 21 year old college student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming on October 6-7, 1998. Two people Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson took Shepard to a remote area east of Laramie robbed him; pistol whipped him, tortured him and tied him to a rail fence. According to the doctors at the Poudre Valley Hospital he had “fractures to the back of his head; in front of his right ear, severe brainstem damage which affected his ability to regulate heartbeat, body temperature, and other vital functions. There were a dozen small lacerations around his head and face. His injuries were too severe for doctors to operate.” He remained in a coma until he died on October 12, 1998 at Poudre Valley Hospital, Fort Collins, Colorado (Wikipedia, n.d.).
A third case was Lawrence Fobes “Larry” King, a 15 year old student at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, California. On February 12, 2008, Larry was shot twice in the

back of the head, during a computer class. Brandon McInerey, age 15, was the shooter. King was an out gay student and McInerey did not like it. After shooting King, he dropped the gun and left the school (Wikipedia, n.d.). King died February 14.
As each of these victims suggest, each was different from the so called normal person. Yet, who are we to say what is normal and what is not normal. First a young woman who acted and dressed as a young man because that was a comfort zone for the transsexual. Then the young college student, a young man, who was openly gay, had HIV and was killed by two men who brutally beat him, leaving him to die, tied to a rail fence. Lastly a young man, who stated he was openly gay, was murdered in a classroom, shot in the back of the head by another student. Each of these crimes made headlines in the national news and changes were made to laws that are now in the grouping of hate crimes. Their memories will not and has not faded. Books have been written, movies have been made about their lives and their deaths. Today there are people continually being murdered because they are different. If we do not stand up for them and have laws that protect them they will continue to be murdered. Hate crimes should always be punished more harshly than other crimes because of the total disregard for another person’s life because they are different than you.

REFERENCES
Ramsland, K. (n.d.). Crime Library Criminal Minds and Methods. Retrieved from The Brandon Teena Story: http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/not_guilty/brandon_teena_story
Boys Don’t Cry, Searchlight Productions, director Kimberly Peirce, 2000.
The Brandon Teena Story, by Susan Muska and Greta Olafsdittir, Zeitgeist Films, 1998.
“Execution of Brandon Teena’s Killer Stayed,” March 6, 2000. www.datalounge.com.
Hohlt, Jared. “Double Trouble: The Two Lives and One Murder of Teena Brandon,” Oct. 7, 1999.
“John Lotter Convicted in Death of Teena Brandon,” Press Release, Falls City, Nebraska, 1995.
Jones, Aphrodite. All She Wanted. New York: Pocket Books, 1996.
“The Life and Death of Teena Brandon,” American Justice, A&E, 2000.
“Nebraska Court Rules Former Sheriff was Negligent in Cross-Dressing Woman’s Murder,” AP, April 20, 2001.
Matthew Shepard, Wikipedia, n.d. Retrieved 1/16/2014 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard
Murder of Larry King, Wikipedia, n.d. Retrieved 1/16/2014 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Larry_King

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