Light a Candle for Angie Zapata

Angie Zapata, an 18-year old Colorado woman, was murdered last July. The man accused of her murder, Allen Andrade, claims that he became "enraged" when he discovered that Angie was transgendered, and subsequently beat her to death. In other words, Angie was murdered for being trans.

Andrade goes to trial this Tuesday, April 14th and is being charged with a hate crime under Colorado state law, which added sexual orientation and transgender status as protected categories under its hate-crime legislation in 2005. This is the first time that the murder of a trans* person is being tried as a hate crime under this legislation, and discrimination based on gender identity has yet to be addressed by US federal law.

Angie's family, in conjunction with 50 civil-rights groups, has started an awareness raising campaign both in local papers and online to raise awareness of the effects of transphobia and promote acceptance of trans* individuals, and to increase pressure on US policy-makers to expand hate-crimes legislation to include gender-identity based violence and discrimination. One aspect of the project is an online candlelight vigil through Facebook, which is something that everyone can (and should) participate in. I've lit my candle.

The below video, found via Feministe and produced as part of the larger education campaign, shows her family talking about what Angie meant to them and calling for an end to discrimination. It's powerful, and a beautiful testament to the love and support she had in her life:



Please light a candle, re-post the video and links, talk about trans* issues with your peers, and help to raise awareness and put pressure on the government to help protect an incredibly vulnerable group of people.

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This campaign made me curious about the degree of protection that trans* people receive under law up here in Canada, and I discovered it's muddier and less comprehensive than it should be. From what I've read, there is no explicit protection for anyone under "gender expression" in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (which is our federal human rights legislation). However, provincial Human Rights Commissions in British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan have ruled that gender expression is included under the definition of "sex", which is a protected category. Both Ontario and the Northwest Territories explicitly define "gender expression" as covered, while the situation is unclear in Manitoba, which lists "gender based characteristics" under the "sex" portion of its human rights code.

The Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) doesn't list gender identity in its definitition of "sex", nor does the Criminal Code include trans* individuals under its definition of an "identifiable group" that is in danger of being targeted with a hate crime. Though the CHRC has acknowledged that

There is a significant body of human rights jurisprudence that has found that discrimination on the basis of transsexualism constitutes sex discrimination.

and has indicated (see note under "1996") that it will hear complaints from trans* people of discrimination on the basis of sex, the fact that this is not explicitly laid out in the federal Human Rights act and the lack of hate-crime provision in the Criminal Code leaves trans* people in a weird sort of semi-protected limbo.

There is still much work to be done at home as well as across the border to ensure that all of us are granted the equality and protection we need under law.

Light a candle.

Bits & Bobs

Here's a round up of random things I found interesting today, as I continue to avoid going back to work on the epic of a post I have brewing:

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The old spectre of appearance policing within the feminist community has reared its ugly head again, and some interesting shit is going down both over at Hoyden About Town--a very worthwhile place to visit, by the by--and Shakesville in response to an opinion piece by one Monica Dux, who seems to think that non-conventionally attractive, hairy lesbians are bad for feminism's image (because, you know, it's a brand and we need to pay attention to what sells). Women on both sides of the appearance question--those who reject feminine beauty standards, and those who don't, at least not entirely--are talking about how it feels to be judged for their appearance, and there's a fair amount of judging going on as well. I don't have too much to add, as I think this whole business of presentation policing ultimately doesn't do anybody any good, except that somebody at a bigger blog than mine seems to have come to a similar conclusion: lookee.

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On another note, I love that the CBC is broadcasting results/news from the Paralympics with the same frequency and giving it the same prominence (first item on the hourly news) as they did with the "regular" Olympics. It's encourage to hear these amazing athletes getting the coverage they deserve, free of obsessive discussion of what exactly their disability is or other such fetishizing and othering bullshit.

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While flipping through the Hoyden archives, I came across this bit of brilliance from earlier this year. While I get the impression that trying to discuss anything with mAndrea is a little like arguing particle physics with the cat (I mean, shit. Her entire stated purpose for writing is to sway people to her one true path of feminism through her amazing powers of logic, and then she admits the following, "The extent of my study of logic consists of reading a couple webpages"? Really? Lauredhel is right: that is just desperately bad performance art) the arguments that many of the posters put forth--especially tigtog and Lisa Harney--are sheer brilliance, and I want to keep them forever and ever as a reference to make use of the next time I end up arguing with an anti-trans* arsehole.

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And finally, I saw a girl on the bus today wearing a shirt that said, "I'm just pretending to be gay for all the social benefits." It made me laugh in a way that snarky t-shirts seldom do, because it was just so...pointed...and smart.