They were our sisters: Feminists should not abandon Mya Hall or Myriam Carey
http://feministing.com/2015/04/03/they-were-our-sisters-feminists-should-not-abandon-mya-hall-or-miriam-carey/By Katherine Cross 4/4/15
Why did the press so forcefully assert and repeat the "men dressed as women" meme? The obvious answer seems to be transphobia, but it's, as ever, more complicated. The misgendering speaks to the very fears that saw Mya and her companion in the SUV shot at in the first place. We are so inured to fanciful stories about terrorist activity that we'll believe the staggeringly unlikely — that a group of terrorists dressed up in women's clothes to crash into an NSA car as some sort of big plot — before accepting a more mundane, far less threatening truth: that someone in distress made a wrong turn, lost their bearings, and panicked when police surrounded them. According to new AP reports that interview those who knew Mya, she was struggling with her mental health and was unable to afford treatment.
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Once the crucial detail of Carey's identity and the fact that it had all been a dreadful accident was revealed, we suddenly stopped hearing about the case
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I had lost track of this story, and believed what the press was selling - that this was a nefarious plot that involved a disguise rather than one of our transgender sisters dehumanized and ungendered by the press. I'm thankful to this blog entry for bravely providing a needed counterpoint.
