I was recently contacted by a reporter. They wanted to ask me about the recent transgender murder in Houston. Here’s my answers:

Q: The police said they were "working with the transgender community" in their investigation. Do you know how so? Is TFA working with police?

A: I spoke with HPD and raised a number of concerns about their use of victim identifiers. HPD claimed that the victim was male, self-identified as male, had legal identification as male and they would therefore continue to refer to the victim as male.

We therefore went out into the community to conduct our own investigation. We took this action because we have learned from past experiences that we can’t rely upon HPD or the news informed by HPD to deal with the story as professionals. Contrary to the information HPD gave to the media, our investigation revealed that she was a transsexual woman. I’m not sure why HPD refuses to use professional media standards (such as the AP style guide) when issuing media releases, but they seem to be very committed to their history of eschewing professional media standards when it comes to dealing with crimes against transgender people in the media. 

To be clear, HPD has not contacted us, shared information with us or engaged us in any way.

Q: What are your thoughts about how the media covered this story? Do you see improvements in media coverage from past incidents?

A: Each and every single time a transgender person is murdered in Houston, HPD has consistently chosen to disregard professional standards when making media releases. They consistently release wrong information about the victim and consistently hinted at some illegal behavior as being the reason for the murder.

For Myra Ical, HPD stated that she was found in an area known for prostitution and drug dealing. This bit of sensationalism was unprofessional and drove each media story about Myra. As it turned our, Myra was returning home after seeing a concert and became the first victim of a Houston serial murderer who went on to attack and murder other transgender women.

In a paper presented at the 2010 Rice University SWGS Symposium, Laura Richardson stated:

In the police report of the incident and in many of the early media responses to the crime, Ical was identified as a man, by her birth name, and with male pronouns.  One report by Houston Press, which has since been revised, even went so far as to claim Ical fooled or tricked police – as if her dead body was telling a lie to law enforcement officials who initially recognized her for what she really was: a woman.  This identification serves as a second type of violence inflicted on Ical – a representational injury that amounted to a disavowal of her person.

Although her violent passing did receive a lot of coverage, there is still much to be said for Ical, the events surrounding her death, and her physical, verbal, and written victimization, for there was a third type of violence inflicted on Myra Ical.  Several reports, including the original police report (which still stands unedited), labeled the field where Ical’s body was found as an “area [] known to have incidents of prostitution, drug use and homeless camps,” failing to mention that the 4300 block of Garrott is just a few blocks from a metro station, multiple bars and pubs, and a 24-hour restaurant.  Several online and televised news reports of the crime also included the information from the police statement about the location where Ical’s body was found in their coverage of her murder, including Houston Press and The Houston Chronicle.  Why did the police and the media insist on “clausing” Ical’s murder with a sentence qualifying that the area where Ical was found was known for illegal acts of prostitution and drug use, as well as for being a site frequented by the homeless?  An interpretation of two sentences of the HPD report of Ical’s murder, “Mr. Ical was found partially clothed in a field and had no identification. The area is known to have incidents of prostitution, drug use and homeless camps,” reveals the ways in which the police and media displaced Ical’s identity as a woman, scandalized her murder, and fell back on discriminatory caricatures of transgender people when representing her body.  Ical was strangled to death and then identified as a man – physical and discursive violences done to her person, but the qualifying sentences of the police report inflict yet a third type of violence on Ical and the transgender community: a dictional and syntactical violence that works to distance readers from the suffering of a woman."

Laura Richardson’s paper sums up the transgender community’s feelings about the way that HPD’s media arm as well as media in general handles crimes against transgender people.

You can see the paper here: http://www.tgctr.org/2010/04/01/syntactical-distancing-in-the-case-of-myra-ical/

Q: What are your thoughts about hate crimes being just as much about sending the entire community a message as they are about the crime itself?

A: NeNe was a transgender woman. Someone put a gun to her head, pulled the trigger and then threw her remains away at an apartment garbage dumpster. I understand that the person who murdered her wouldn’t have a problem with murdering me or the people I care for. I get the message the murder sent loud and clear. We all got the message.

When something like this happens, it is traumatic for the entire community. As transgender people, most all of us have suffered at the hands of cruel people. I’ve known a number of transgender people who were murdered and many more who took their own lives due to the bullying they endured in our society.

As transgender American, it’s perfectly legal for an employer to fire me or not hire me because he doesn’t like my kind of people. If my landloard found out that I’m transgender, it’s perfectly legal for for him to tell me that he doesn’t like my kind around and kick me out of my home. If I need emergency shelter, I’m out of luck because Houston shelters like the Star of Hope refuse to serve transgender people. Doctors can refuse me treatment because I’m transgender. There are many, many people who will state that this type of society is fair and just. They will fight for their perceived right to stand in the way of transgender Americans accessing their 14th amendment guarantees. I hear this stuff from self-proclaimed religious leaders like Dave Welch all the time.

As a transgender person, this is the American reality I live with and when yet another transgender person is literally thrown away with the garbage to then be fed to the media as a bit of odd sensationalism by HPD… Yes. This sends a very loud message and believe me… we all understand what they’re saying.

Here’s what Houstonians had to say about her murder on a CH 11’s news site:

Q: Anything else you’d like to say about Nathan Davis?

A: Nobody but the family that refused to accept her knew Ms. Davis as Nathan.

When we went out into the neighborhood, we found that NeNe was very well liked and held in high regard. Everyone we talked to – from thugs to her hair stylist – claimed that she was one of the kindest people they knew. When we set up a memorial for her, community members joined in. When I went back to check on the memorial the next day, people had added to the memorial.

NeNe endured a life that was purposefully made difficult. She did the best she could do given her circumstance and moreover, she was a kind person in the face of such cruelty. Despite what the media has to say, my hope is that NeNe will be remembered for doing what so few seem to be able to do: respond with kindness when faced with cruelty.

Ms. Davis