Gray nominates two transgender women to Human Rights Commission
Mayor Vincent Gray has nominated transgender activists Earline Budd and Alexandra Beninda for seats on the D.C. Commission on Human Rights.
If the two are confirmed by the City Council, as expected, they would become the first transgender persons to serve on the 15-member commission, which rules on discrimination complaints brought under the comprehensive D.C. Human Rights Act.
The act bans discrimination in employment, housing, public accommodations and other areas based on an individual’s sexual orientation and gender identity and expression as well as other categories such as race, religion, national origin, and ethnicity.
“To be getting one transgender person on the commission would be great, but to be getting two is fantastic,” said Beninda, a systems analyst for a software company and member and former treasurer of the Gertrude Stein Democratic Club, the city’s largest LGBT political group.
“I’m really excited and looking forward to serving,” said Budd while attending Saturday’s LGBT Youth Pride festival in Dupont Circle. “This is important for the entire community.”
Budd released to the Blade an email she received last week informing her of the appointment.
“I am pleased to inform you that Mayor Vincent C. Gray has transmitted your nomination to the Council of the District of Columbia, where it is pending Council consideration,” said Davida L. Crockett, an official with the city’s Office of Boards and Commissions, in the April 26 email to Budd.
“The Office of Boards and Commissions appreciated your willingness to serve the District, and is confident that you will bring a strong and dedicated commitment and leadership to this public service,” Crockett told Budd in the email.
Beninda said she received a similar email informing her of her nomination to serve on the commission.
Pedro Ribeiro, director of the Mayor’ Office of Communications, released to the Blade on Monday a letter from Gray to City Council Chair Kwame Brown (D-At-Large) dated April 26 that places Budd’s and Beninda’s names in nomination for the Human Rights Commission appointments. Gray’s letter also places in nomination eleven other people he has designated as appointees to the commission.
Budd currently serves as a treatment and healing specialist for Transgender Health Empowerment (THE), a D.C. based transgender advocacy and services organization that she helped found in 1996.
Budd has been credited with playing a key role in transgender advocacy efforts and HIV prevention efforts targeting the transgender and LGBT youth communities in D.C. for over 20 years. Among her duties at THE is to provide training for D.C. government and private sector employees, including employees at the city’s Department of Corrections, on transgender related issues.
In addition to her association with the Stein Club, Beninda is a member of the board of the D.C. LGBT Community Center and serves as treasurer of the D.C. based All Souls Unitarian Church. She says she’s also an active volunteer with D.C. Democracy, a group that advocates for D.C. voting representation in Congress and greater home rule autonomy for the city.
The Commission on Human Rights is an independent agency within the D.C. Office of Human Rights. The OHR investigates discrimination complaints and sends them to the commission for a ruling if the office finds probable cause that discrimination might have taken place. Commissioners are appointed to three-year terms and don’t receive compensation.
Budd’s and Beninda’s appointments come at a time when the Commission on Human Rights has been operating with just three members, with 12 of its 15 seats vacant since January, according to Garrett King, director of the City Council’s Committee on Aging and Community Affairs, which has jurisdiction over the commission.
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Communities to rally for slain transgender woman
Paige Clay. Photo: Courtesy Brian Turner.
A social worker at Taskforce Prevention and Community Services, is organizing a community event to call for answers in the murder of Paige Clay, a transgender woman who was killed on the city’s West Side on Monday morning.
Brian Turner, the organizer, said the motivation for this event is also due to the dissatisfaction over the police investigation.
“My main reason for doing this is because it seems like it is in the process of being swept under the mat,” he said.
Clay, who was 23, was found with a gunshot wound to her forehead early Monday morning in an alley behind the 4500 block of West Jackson Boulevard. Area North detectives are investigation the case and no suspects are in custody. Initial information obtained from police and the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office could not confirm her gender identity.
Turner, who runs a program for transgender women called Women of Many Voices of which Clay was a member, has taken it upon himself to be a voice for the now silenced Clay.
This silence is also coming from investigators and Cook County officials, according to Turner. He said he has contacted numerous officials and investigators and has not been contacted in return. Turner was also turned away from identifying Clay’s body because he was not considered immediate family.
Turner describes Clay as an adopted member of his family via his aunt, Denise Turner, who was a foster mother to Clay.
“Why should it matter if I’m not immediate family if my aunt was her foster mother? This is the woman that raised her, who took her into her own home,” he said.
Cook County has given Turner 90 days to wait to see if any biological family makes a claim, something he finds frustrating and confusing.
“She has people who love her who were not her immediate family, but they were family.”
Turner knows what it is like to be a “ward of the state” and was one himself until his grandmother took him in, he said. Clay never had that advantage of a loving mother father home, but that she did have a community and a life, he explained.
Clay was well known in the ball community and held down several part-time jobs in the area.
“She was a human being just like anyone else and she was trying to do better,” Turner said.
The event, Justice for Paige, will be held at Taskforce, located at 9 N. Cicero Ave. Tuesday, May 1 from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. More details will be updated on posted on that page.
The event is intended to bring the community together to share useful information about the murder. The event is also meant to heal the community wounded by this event.
“[We want to] do what we can do to bring this person into custody and do what we can do as a community to get us back on track,” Turner said. “Comfort one another and ensure that this does not happen to another trans girl.”
Turner is calling for the police investigating to release what leads they have and to really become involved with the community.
Our heavy hearts are with Paige’s family and friends in Chicago.
Montgomery Found Competent to Stand Trial: Trial of man accused of fatally stabbing transgender woman, Deoni Jones, in Northeast D.C. moves forward
The suspect charged with the Feb. 2 fatal stabbing of 23-year-old transgender woman Deoni Jones as she waited at a Northeast D.C. bus stop has been found competent to stand trial after appearing in D.C. Superior Court for a mental observation hearing this morning, March 23.
Based on two separate mental observation hearings, on March 21 and 23, Judge Robert E. Morin found suspect Gary Niles Montgomery, 55, of Northeast D.C., competent to stand trial, without prejudice, for the crime. Montgomery was arrested Feb. 10 after the Metropolitan Police Department released a video of a man they thought to be Jones’s assailant and asked for the public’s assistance in identifying the suspect.
Montgomery has been scheduled for a June 22 felony status hearing in Morin’s court. He will continue to be held without bond as he awaits trial on a charge of second-degree murder while armed.
Jones … was stabbed in the face around 8 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 2, while waiting at a bus stop at the intersection of East Capitol Street NE and Sycamore Road NE, in the city’s Benning Heights neighborhood. According to witness accounts, Jones was stabbed following an altercation with her attacker. A third person at the bus stop reportedly chased after the attacker, but ceased pursuit and returned to Jones upon realizing she needed medical attention.
Witnesses flagged down a Metro Transit Police officer, who responded to the scene, finding Jones bleeding and unconscious. Officers from the Metropolitan Police Department’s Sixth District, and units from D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services, also responded to the scene. Jones was transported to Prince George’s Hospital Center in Cheverly, Md., where she died Feb. 3.
A Feb. 7 vigil in Jones’s honor attracted about 200 people to the site where she was attacked.
The DC Trans Coalition is now on Tumblr!
Hi everyone! We’re happy to be here!
Everyone should go follow DCTC!
MPD Reports Reveal More Anti-LGBT Attacks: Recent attacks sparking strong community reaction are not alone among reported incidents of past few months
As seasonal temperatures rise, attacks with some indication of anti-LGBT bias are also apparently increasing.
A shooting at a Columbia Heights IHOP Restaurant and a combined robbery and assault at Irving Street and Georgia Avenue NW grabbed the most attention. Both have been initially classified as hate crimes. Both attacks also left two gay men in the hospital and inspired friends of the victims to organize a march and fundraiser, scheduled for Tuesday, March 20.
But a look at the past month reveals at least four other incidents that have singled out members of the LGBT community for their sexual orientation or gender identity, including more marginalized populations, such as transgender individuals, youth and the homeless.
On March 12, a transgender woman in her 20s was assaulted near the intersection of Mount Olivet Road and West Virginia Avenue NE, in the city’s Trinidad neighborhood.
According to transgender activist Earline Budd, who knows the victim, the woman was attacked from behind by two male suspects and beaten unconscious. Budd points out that the woman was not robbed, which would seem to suggest she was targeted because she was transgender.
Budd says the victim required hospitalization for a concussion suffered in the attack.
On four separate attempts – the latest being March 19 – to retrieve the incident report from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), Metro Weekly was told the report was unavailable as it has not yet been written.
Also on March 12, two lesbian minors reported being stalked by a male suspect who threatened to rape them as they walked in the 4000 block of Minnesota Avenue NE, heading to the Minnesota Avenue Metro Station, 4:50 p.m.
According to the MPD report, the suspect approached the girls, ages 15 and 16, and stated, ”Yeah, little bitch, I’ll pull your pants down and rape you at the mother fuckin metro station; you and your dom,” before continuing to follow them to the Metro station. The suspect, a black male in his 30s, was later arrested.
The incident report says that because of the domestic relationship between the girls, MPD’s Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit (GLLU) was notified and responded to the scene. However, the crime was classified as ”felony threats” and is not being labeled a hate crime.
The area around the Minnesota Avenue Metro Station has served as the backdrop for at least two other anti-LGBT incidents. On Sept. 10, 2011, three transgender women reported being approached near the station by a man brandishing a gun. A month later, a gay male reported that his car, which he had parked in the 3400 block of Minnesota Avenue SE, had been vandalized with anti-gay graffiti and set on fire following several weeks of harassment by people in the area, who frequently attacked him with homophobic epithets.
A 24-year-old gay homeless man reported to the MPD that an acquaintance had threatened to kill him while he slept at a homeless shelter on the St. Elizabeth’s Hospital campus, in the 2700 block of Martin Luther King Ave. SE, on the evening of Feb. 26.
According to the police report, the man was lying on his bed at the shelter when he was awakened by the sound of someone talking nearby. The man said he saw the acquaintance standing over his bed talking to other residents of the shelter, and then stated, ”I should cut him now!” According to the victim, the suspect cuts hair for some residents of the shelter and keeps a blade with him. The incident has been labeled a hate crime.
According to the police report, the suspect is a slender black male with a dark complexion, in his 40s to 50s.
The incident at St. Elizabeth’s follows an assault against a transgender woman four months ago, in December 2011, who was called homophobic slurs, threatened and struck as she walked past the shelter.
Another local woman was attacked at her workplace by a female coworker March 8. According to the MPD report, the attacker threw a dustpan at the victim and punched her in the face multiple times. The victim told police that her coworker had previously confronted her, saying, ”I don’t like you or your lesbian lifestyle.” The victim also told police that her attacker’s husband had recently left her for a man. The attack is listed as a hate crime.
Brian Watson, director of programs for Transgender Health Empowerment, tells Metro Weekly he has heard of several other attacks against transgender women in recent months that have not been reported to police. He says that transgender women remain less likely to report assaults because they are distrustful of police and because they believe they will be blamed for their attacks and accused of engaging in sex work.
Watson says he doesn’t believe any of the recent LGBT attacks are related, but raises other concerns.
”There are many different people running around performing these attacks,” says Watson, fearing a culture in the city hostile to LGBT residents. ”Is it just a crime scene, or is this some form of hate against the community?”
Watson says that LGBT people, particularly transgender individuals, are often at risk because they are perceived to be ”easy targets” for robbery or assault, and that some attackers believe police will not take any action if a crime is committed against a transgender person.
”If it’s just pure hate going on, we need to have our community leaders step forward and do something,” he says.
At a Feb. 29 City Council oversight hearing for the MPD, Jason Terry of the DC Trans Coalition (DCTC) aired a number of complaints or concerns regarding MPD’s handling of cases involving transgender victims, including the quality of sensitivity training for GLLU affiliate officers, the closure rate for murders of transgender people, and the appearance of an inability to regularly track and provide updates on the development of crimes committed against transgender people.
The perception of indifference toward crimes against transgender people is also apparent in online forums, where people are allowed to vent more freely. One person, writing anonymously in response to a Metro Weekly article on the fundraiser and march for the victims of the IHOP shooting and robbery, posted the following comment:
”[W]hy does it take the attack of two gay guys to get the gayz in DC to organize a fundraiser and march when over the past year (and even just weeks ago) young trans women have been brutally attacked AND murdered on almost a monthly basis? (EVEN BY THE MPD THEMSELVES!). And what about the trans woman who was attacked but because she was KNOCKED OUT they don’t consider it a hate crime? The self-proclaimed gay activists in this city should be ASHAMED of themselves. What, because these young folks weren’t carrying iphones and ipads when they were attacked they don’t count? …Obviously the MPD and the Mayor don’t care much about them and it doesn’t seem the majority of gays in this city do either.”
Another reader, ”brian,” responded: ”*Guest* makes some very valid points and observations. The violent assault on a trans woman on Mar 12th, which occurred in MPD’s 5th District (WV Ave, NE/ Gallaudet U. area) was not even reported as part of the MPD-5D listserv Daily Report…not on the 13th, nor on the 14th. Is anyone at MPD-5D, besides GLLU, paying attention to assaults on trans women? One has to ask, was that intentional on MPD’s part? And if so, why?”
A spokeswoman for the MPD countered claims of selective pursuit of crimes.
“Part One offenses,” generally more severe, violent crimes, ”are automatically posted to the listserv in the reports,” Gwendolyn Crump, public information officer for MPD, told Metro Weekly March 19 via email. ”No one is reviewing the incidents and deciding what to include.” She added that she would be looking further into any possible discrepancies.
The group Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV), a program of The DC Center, thanked MPD for their ”prompt action” in response to the attacks and offered support to the victims.
”We expect MPD to respond by increasing patrols in the affected areas and tenaciously investigating the crimes committed,” GLOV’s statement reads, in part. ”As the weather warms, our community needs to be even more vigilant. Unfortunately, the historical trend indicates that higher crime, including bias-motivated crime, often correlates with warmer weather.”
(via cocksucking-accent)
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Assault on Transgender Woman in Northeast D.C. Still Not Considered Bias Crime, Police Say
Assistant Police Chief Peter Newsham, right, with Jeffrey Richardson, an adviser to Mayor Vince Gray on LGBT issues.The Metropolitan Police Department said at a press conference Thursday evening it is making headway in investigations of three recent violent crimes in which two victims were gay men and another was a transgender woman.
Assistant Chief Peter Newsham, who heads up MPD’s investigative services branch, said the investigation into a shooting early Sunday morning at the IHOP restaurant in Columbia Heights was “going well.” Newsham confirmed earlier reports that the shooting, which left the victim with non-life-threatening injuries, arose out of a verbal confrontation between the group the victim was dining with and another group of IHOP patrons. The argument started when the group the assailant was with started flinging homophobic slurs toward the victim’s table, Newsham said.
One of the witnesses to the shooting was an off-duty MPD detective who intervened in the fight, according to an email sent to Columbia Heights residents by Councilmember Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who represents the area.
In the second incident, a man was assaulted at the corner of Georgia Avenue and Irving Street NW about 9:40 p.m. Monday. The victim, who was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries including a broken jaw, was attacked by a group of assailants at first seeking to rob him, Newsham said, but evidence has been found suggesting that the incident was also motivated by anti-gay bias. It was originally reported that separate groups of assailants had attacked the victim and then stolen his personal belongings, but police are still determining whether this was the case.
Both the shooting Sunday and Georgia Avenue assault on Monday are being investigated as bias-motivated crimes. The third incident, however, is not, despite circumstances that some activists say should make it designated as such.
About 11:52 p.m. on Monday, a transgender woman was assaulted and knocked unconscious near the intersection of West Virginia Avenue and Mount Olivet Road NE. Newsham said the motive is still unknown, although there is “some” information to suggest it was biased. The victim, The Washington Blade reported Wednesday, could not immediately recall the details of her assault, but told investigators at a hospital later that she said she believed she was attacked because she is transgender.
However, police say they do not have enough evidence to conclude the attack was an anti-transgender crime. The ambiguity is nagging at transgender activists like Jason Terry of the D.C. Trans Coalition, who has been critical of MPD’s handling of several recent violent crimes that have left transgender victims dead or seriously wounded. Terry told DCist yesterday he believes the incident should be classified as one driven by an anti-transgender bias. “”I trust the victim here,” he said. “I hope MPD does.”
But he was disappointed when hearing Thursday evening the case had not been designated as a potential hate crime. “Of course not. Sigh,” Terry wrote on Twitter.
Newsham was joined at the impromptu press conference by Jeffrey Richardson, who head up Mayor Vince Gray’s outreach efforts into the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities.
“We are very concerned when we think about bias crimes,” Richardson said.
Richardson also urged people to be on the lookout for their personal safety: “No one should put themselves in a situation where they might be harmed,” he said.
For the year, Newsham said MPD had investigated nine bias crimes—four dealing with sexual orientation, three with race and two with ethnicity. He said 2012 is behind the pace set in 2011, when police investigated 91 incidents believed to be motivated by bias.
Trans mexicana and LGBTQ activist Agnes Torres has been found murdered
Justice for #AgnesTorres!
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia on March 7 filed several new charges against Kenneth Furr.
Furr, the Metropolitan Police Department officer who, while off duty, allegedly shot at a car containing three transgender women and two others in August, initially faced one count of assault with a dangerous weapon, with no bias enhancements. He is now charged with five additional counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, one count of assault with intent to kill and two counts of sexual solicitation for prostitution.
Appearing before Judge Ann O’Regan Keary for a felony arraignment this morning, Furr pleaded not guilty to all charges. Furr’s next status conference has been scheduled for April 13.
The shooting followed an altercation between the two groups in the early morning hours of Aug. 26, 2011, in Northwest D.C.’s Sursum Corda neighborhood, leaving a male victim with serious injuries and two of the transgender women with non-life-threatening injuries.
When a possibility of a plea deal for the single count of assault with a dangerous weapon was raised, it led to an outcry among members of the LGBT community. Several community members, pairing with local activist groups, held a protest in November in front of the U.S. Attorney’s Office to call attention to what they felt were inadequate responses by lawyers from the office to several cases, including Furr’s, involving LGBT victims.
Since that time, Ronald Machen, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, has reached out to several groups within the LGBT community, including the DC Trans Coalition (DCTC) and Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV), to discuss providing cultural sensitivity training or changing internal procedures or policies viewed has having anti-gay or anti-transgender bias regarding the prosecution of crimes committed against members of the LGBT community.
After Furr’s Aug. 26 arrest, Keary found probable cause that Furr committed two different assaults with a weapon and, based on evidence from the preliminary hearing, ruled he might pose a danger to the community, ordering him held in custody without bail.
According to charging documents, the incident began when Furr approached one of the transgender women at a CVS store and allegedly propositioned her, prompting a fight between Furr, the woman, a female companion and a male companion outside the store. Furr allegedly pulled out a handgun and pointed it at the three, who ran inside to inform a security officer what transpired. Those three were shortly after joined two others, and decided to trail Furr’s vehicle. Furr, apparently noticing he was being followed, exited his car near the corner of First and Pierce Streets NW. He then allegedly pointed the handgun at the other vehicle and began firing, as the two cars collided. Nearby MPD officers immediately responded to the scene and arrested Furr, who, five hours later, submitted to a breathalyzer test showing his blood-alcohol content was .15, almost twice the legal limit.
More Felony Charges for Furr
More Felony Charges for Furr
U.S. Attorney’s Office adds charges against MPD officer accused of shooting at group of transgender women and others
By John Riley
Published on March 9, 2012, 3:13pm | Comments
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia on March 7 filed several new charges against Kenneth Furr.
Furr, the Metropolitan Police Department officer who, while off duty, allegedly shot at a car containing three transgender women and two others in August, initially faced one count of assault with a dangerous weapon, with no bias enhancements. He is now charged with five additional counts of assault with a dangerous weapon, one count of assault with intent to kill and two counts of sexual solicitation for prostitution.
Appearing before Judge Ann O’Regan Keary for a felony arraignment this morning, Furr pleaded not guilty to all charges. Furr’s next status conference has been scheduled for April 13.
The shooting followed an altercation between the two groups in the early morning hours of Aug. 26, 2011, in Northwest D.C.’s Sursum Corda neighborhood, leaving a male victim with serious injuries and two of the transgender women with non-life-threatening injuries.
When a possibility of a plea deal for the single count of assault with a dangerous weapon was raised, it led to an outcry among members of the LGBT community. Several community members, pairing with local activist groups, held a protest in November in front of the U.S. Attorney’s Office to call attention to what they felt were inadequate responses by lawyers from the office to several cases, including Furr’s, involving LGBT victims.
Since that time, Ronald Machen, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, has reached out to several groups within the LGBT community, including the DC Trans Coalition (DCTC) and Gays and Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV), to discuss providing cultural sensitivity training or changing internal procedures or policies viewed has having anti-gay or anti-transgender bias regarding the prosecution of crimes committed against members of the LGBT community.
After Furr’s Aug. 26 arrest, Keary found probable cause that Furr committed two different assaults with a weapon and, based on evidence from the preliminary hearing, ruled he might pose a danger to the community, ordering him held in custody without bail.
According to charging documents, the incident began when Furr approached one of the transgender women at a CVS store and allegedly propositioned her, prompting a fight between Furr, the woman, a female companion and a male companion outside the store. Furr allegedly pulled out a handgun and pointed it at the three, who ran inside to inform a security officer what transpired. Those three were shortly after joined two others, and decided to trail Furr’s vehicle. Furr, apparently noticing he was being followed, exited his car near the corner of First and Pierce Streets NW. He then allegedly pointed the handgun at the other vehicle and began firing, as the two cars collided. Nearby MPD officers immediately responded to the scene and arrested Furr, who, five hours later, submitted to a breathalyzer test showing his blood-alcohol content was .15, almost twice the legal limit.
