The Case of CeCe McDonald: Murder—or Self-Defense Against a Hate Crime?

[Shana A]

The Case of CeCe McDonald: Murder—or Self-Defense Against a Hate Crime?
She pled guilty to manslaughter, but activists believe this trans woman was "on trial for surviving a hate crime."

—By Nicole Pasulka
| Tue May. 22, 2012 3:00 AM PDT

http://www.motherjones.com/transition/inter.php?dest=http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/05/cece-mcdonald-transgender-hate-crime-murder%3fpage=2

Since her arrest last June, support for McDonald's case and her self-defense argument has been steadily growing. According to Katie Burgess, executive director of the Trans Youth Support Network, a Minneapolis organization that McDonald was also involved with, this is because many believe McDonald was "on trial for surviving a hate crime."

[...]

The judge also ruled that the defense could not call an expert witness who would testify to transgender people's experiences of violence in their everyday lives. For supporters like Burgess and Lex Horan, the reports that Schmitz and his friends initiated the fight that night, shouted racist and transphobic slurs, and injured McDonald bring to mind other cases of violence against transgender people—a violence that's endemic and likely underreported, according to the Population Reference Bureau, a DC-based nonprofit that analyzes data on demographics.

On April 27, McDonald's friend Rai'vyn Cross spoke on Democracy Now about the threats and harassment she and McDonald regularly encountered, saying, "We experience this on a day-to-day basis."

[Jamie D]

I would like to see her pardoned by the Governor, or at least have the sentence commuted.