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Melanie85
04-21-2008, 05:38 AM
http://gender-org.armadillodesigngroup.com/remember/#

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John

Location: Desert City, California
Cause of Death: Shot
Date of Death: October 31, 1986
Source: Anonmyous
How My Friend John Was Murdered Twice

At the beginning of the film The Brandon Teena Story, we see the tombstone of Brandon, an individual who presented as a male, and seemed to want to be accepted and thought of as male, being referred to as a daughter and sister. After death, Brandon had no say in the matter. The death was a violent murder, shot at close range. It reminded me of my friend John. Too much.

...a desert city man was fatally shot...*

John’s murder occurred on Friday, October 31st, 1986. The newspaper accounts appeared on the following Monday. By then, I already knew about it. John and I had been friends for seven years. I had met him just before his eighteenth birthday, when he could start taking hormones. Although I was was two years his senior, he began taking hormones before I did. A year later, when he was 19, he had chest surgery, again before I did. Though younger in years, he was wise in many aspects of daily living. I looked to him as a brother, mentor, and my best friend.

I was supposed to have visited him, his fiancée and her little girl that Halloween. We had been planning my visit for almost a month and I was looking forward to seeing him. I was very disappointed when, only a couple of days before I was to leave, he called telling me it was not a good time to visit. This was very uncharacteristic of him. Over the last seven years we had helped each other through a major physical transformation from hormones, rejection from others, poverty bordering on homelessness, failed relationships, and surgery. Through it all, I had never closed my door to him, nor he to me.

I had worried about his new relationship. Not because of his fiancée, but I had concerns about her estranged husband who had been in jail for two years and had recently been released. He was upset that his wife had asked for a divorce, and wanted the house and custody of their daughter. He saw John as the man who took that all away from him. Armed, he went to the house on Halloween night.

On the morning of November 1st, I received a call from John’s sister, telling me of his murder. There was a part of me which could not allow myself to believe that he was really dead. On the phone, we consoled ourselves with the thought that, at least, he was reported as the man he was for the past seven years. There was no mention of his transgendered history in any of the newspaper accounts.

11-2-86. The gunman and his 17 year-old son... forced their way in and fatally shot John while he was taking a shower... the pair then kidnapped the gunman’s estranged wife and drove south in the van... A police officer saw the van and pulled it over when he noticed a headlight was out... The suspect climbed out of the driver’s seat and pointed a handgun at the officer... The officer fired several shots, hitting him in the arm and leg... the suspect was listed in stable condition, authorities said.*

The authorities also found John’s fiancée in the back of the van, along with the body of another woman who the estranged husband had killed to get the van in the first place. After the authorities found John’s body, the suspect was charged with a double homicide, which, upon conviction, can carry the death penalty. Here was a man who had served two years in jail for an assault on a peace officer; he was on parole for less than three months and had killed a woman for a van, kidnapped his own estranged wife and killed John. My biggest disappointment at the time was that the police officer had not killed him.

For justice, I had to wait for the trial. At the time, I had no idea it meant that John could be killed again. He would be unable to say anything in his own defense, unable to protect himself in any way.

John’s mother had gone to the coroner to identify his body. At best, it must have been a horrific sight. Shot while in the shower, or just coming out of it (depending on the newspaper accounts) bits of John, mixed with shattered glass littered the small bathroom. His body had fallen back into the shower, the water still falling on him as his blood drained out. Only in nightmares do I see what the body must have looked like when the authorities found him, or when his mother saw him at the coroner’s.

She asked the coroner to list John as male on the death certificate. He had been male his entire adult life, his friends and colleagues at school and work knew him only as the man he was. Like Brandon, he made an effort to leave his past behind. His death certificate, a public record, would live forever, to anyone who wanted to see it, determine his gender, his own wants, wishes and desires completely irrelevant.

11-6-86. Murder-kidnapping takes a new twist.*

When I saw the headline, my heart skipped a beat. I skimmed the entire article before finding out that the ‘twist’ referred to the discovery of the body of a woman in the van, not to any disclosure or discovery about John’s past. I felt helpless to protect John or his memory. I wondered, not for the first time, if something could happen to me. What if I were a victim of violence? What if I were simply in an accident and could not speak for myself? Could my own history of being female be a matter of public record, known to anyone, whether or not I wanted it to?

I wanted to believe that the trial would be a straightforward prosecution. The accused had murdered two people, shot an an officer, kidnapped a woman and stolen a vehicle. John’s personal history was irrelevant to any of it.

At the end of 1987, I learned how wrong I could be. At the preliminary hearings, the defense attorneys demonstrated that they had been doing a little research.

June 25, 1987. Slain ‘man’ was a woman.*

Attorneys revealed that the wife’s companion, known as John, was a woman... John dressed, lived, and worked as a man and had reportedly taking male hormones for years. The relationship between the accused’s estranged wife and John will play a key role in the defense...

According to the autopsy protocol... external and internal female organs were intact, and the death certificate listed the victim as female. The sex of the slain victim will become a pivotal point...*

The coroner obviously did not honor the request to list ‘male’ on the death certificate. What is required for ‘male’ to be listed? Brandon, by the very nature of his tombstone, will now forever be female. Despite John’s wants and desires, both his birth and his death certificates list him as female. If I die in any way which requires a coroner’s report, how will I be listed, when I can no longer express my wishes, and even if someone expresses my wishes for me, might they still be ignored?

The defendant was smart enough to know how to delay a trial. He continued firing one court appointed attorney after another. Accused of two murders, he was allowed two attorneys. It took three more years before the trial began. The special circumstance of multiple murders could allow the jury to impose the death penalty, if they convicted him. Despite the turnover in attorneys, the defense kept the promise to make an issue of John’s sex.

Among the dead is a 25 year-old woman who used the name John and reportedly had taken male hormones for years. John lived as a man and had a beard, moustache, and chest hair. “He only told very personal friends of the secret” his girlfriend added.*

John had now become a woman, not only on a death certificate, but in a newspaper article. As article followed article, John’s status changed, but not the way he wanted.

...killed his ex-wife’s transvestite lover in the heat of passion, so the crime is voluntary manslaughter, not first-degree murder... when the defendant learned his ex-wife’s lover - a woman taking hormones and dressing as a man - wanted his daughter to call her Daddy, it was the final straw. “Would that make a reasonable man angry? It would make my blood curl,” the defense attorney told the jury.

...and shot John, a woman posing as a man...*

To me, it began to sound like they were making John out to be guilty of provoking the attack which ended his life. By posing as a man, ‘taking’ a real man’s wife and daughter, he obviously posed an incredible threat to his girlfriends estranged husband. Could I be seen as being the same kind of threat? Did the length of time matter? John had been a man in every meaningful way for seven years. That was not long enough. If it had been ten years, would that have made a difference? Twenty years? Thirty? Was there any magic number beyond which John, and by extension myself, would be safe? No matter what I accomplished in my life, would I ultimately be seen as ‘posing’ as someone I was not?

7-12-90. The defendant began suspecting, though phone calls after leaving prison in early 1986, that his wife’s lover, John, was actually a woman. Intending to confront John... burst in and found the victim taking a shower. “His worst fears are confirmed. This is not a man. This is an it,” the defense counsel said.*

7-18-90. Lesbian lover led to rage slaying, defendant says. The defendant... fired his shotgun in a rage after bursting into a bathroom and discovering that the lover was a woman. He said he pulled the trigger because a homosexual, by taking away his wife, “took my life.” He insisted that he immediately realized that John wasn’t a man.*

The defense position became clear. By declaring John to be an ‘it’ something less than human, the defendant could not be convicted in the murder of two human beings. He could escape the death penalty if convicted.

I had debated about going to the trial. I had wanted to see this man who could so easily destroy and murder and make excuses for it, essentially claiming the right to kill John. I wanted to see this person who had forever changed my sense of security about my past. However, I was afraid. Just seeing the accounts in the newspapers, altering the reality of John’s life to suit their immediate needs, making him a woman, a lesbian, a masquerader or an it, depending upon the moment, was too much for me. And my own fear increased. If they could do this to him, years after he dies, what control did I have of my own life? Watching Brandon’s story brought back all these same fears, insecurities and questions. No matter what I did in my life, what I felt, expressed, or how I lived, it could be destroyed by events completely outside my control.

8-21-90. The jury found the defendant guilty of killing John, a transsexual... they now must decide whether he should die in California’s gas chamber or spend the remainder of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.*

For the first time, the term ‘transsexual’ was used to describe John. I found no consolation in it. He was still ‘outed,’ with no possible control of the conditions or method. His friends, co-workers, fellow students all now had access to aspects of his life that he never chose to share. Even if nothing else about him had ever been printed, those four words after his name were enough to change the perspective, views and opinions of those who only knew John. By what right did the newspaper have to do that? Those four words had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that Isaac shot him to death. It wasn’t bad enough he killed John almost four years earlier. Now because of him, the press was killing John all over again.

Almost three months later, the jury returned with the sentence. John’s death was not yet complete.

11-15-90. ...that the defendant... receive the death penalty for killing his ex-wife’s transvestite lover... there he shot John, in the shower.*

John’s physical death and subsequent murders in the press had a profound effect on me. I felt if this could happen to him, it could easily happen to me as well. The only defense I had was to withdraw. I had to live with the secret, as did whomever would be my partner, but no one else need know. I had to hide, blend in as thoroughly as possible, deny part of what made me the man I am and maybe, just maybe, I would be safe, able to find a modicum of peace. I found, to my dismay, that hiding is not blending. Denying a part of yourself is unhealthy to the extreme. Insidious shame overwhelmed me at times.

I began to seek out that which I ran so far and hid so effectively from for so many years. I was able to pretend to myself that John’s case was unusual, it happened many years ago, when people were not so savvy about transsexualism. Then I watched the movie about Brandon. All of the same questions came up. Can I really be safe? Do I really have control of the events in my life, and how I chose to be known?

I have found that I am happier when I don’t live my life in hiding, fearful of being discovered. Yet, I am not ‘out’ either. I have no desire to be known as ‘the one who was female birth assigned’ or, worse, an ‘it.’ I am a person and am most at peace with myself when others accept me as such. And, I would prefer my transgendered background to remain private to the world at large, which is how most people treat their personal issues. There are now people I choose to tell about my past, but I want the choice to be mine. John never was given that choice. Brandon was never given that choice. I can’t help wondering if the choice is, ultimately, mine. How about you?

Contributed anonmyously. Used with permission.

* Newspaper quotes are from The Bakersfield Californian and The Desert Sun.

Do you have more information on this person that you would like to see here? If so, please write to [email protected], with a subject line of “remembering our dead.”

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