12 Crimes That Changed the LGBT World

[Shana A]

12 Crimes That Changed the LGBT World
BY Diane Anderson-Minshall
May 07 2012 3:03 AM ET

warning, violence triggers

http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/advocate-45/2012/05/07/12-crimes-changed-lgbt-world

As more than 70 countries prepare to memorialize the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia on May 17, criminalists, activists, and survivors in many cities been discussing ways to deal with crimes against — and occasionally by — LGBT folks. There have been more than 600 reports of murdered trans people in almost 50 countries since January 2008 (including killings this year in Detroit, D.C., Florida, and California), and there was an overall 13% increase (in 2010, the most recently recorded year) in violent crimes committed against LGBT or HIV-positive people, according to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. Some murders are so iconic they're steeped in popular culture: Brandon Teena, murdered by his rapists in Nebraska in 1993; Angie Zapata, a trans woman killed by a transphobic boyfriend (Zapata's murderer was later tried on hate crime charges, a first for a transgender victim). But there are others who slip under the radar; some in which victims' families never find justice — like Martha Oleman, a lesbian killed in Sugarcreek Township in 1997, her murder part of Ohio's cold case files — and others in which police action is swift but resolution remains murky.

[SandraJane]

Let it not become "Hidden History"!

[spacial]

While each of these is tragic, they are all basically hate murders.

I know it might seem debatable, but I will suggest that the attack upon Chrissy Lee Polis in MacDonalds, was possible a more important case.

Granted, she didn't die, but that her attack was encouraged and filmed by staff must have caused serious alarm bells both for MacDonalds and other major chains. It was essentially saying that some people, customers, are not safe in MacDonalds, nor can they expect to be.

Not wishing, in any way, to diminish the individual importance of each of the terrible deaths.