Guest Post by Melissa Pope about California murder

The below is an entry from a guest writer - Triangle Foundation's very own Director of Victim Services (and an absolutely fabulous woman) - Melissa Pope.

Her essay is in response to the shooting of a gay middle school student discussed in this previous entry.
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By Melissa Pope, Director of Victim Services, Triangle Foundation

The Northern Illinois University community is beginning to heal after last week’s shooting rampage that claimed six lives. The focus is on the victims and their families and, of course, trying to figure out what made the assailant kill before taking his own life. While we may never know all of the details of what motivated this man to kill, we do not have a living killer to bring to justice.

With the murder of Lawrence King, a fifteen year old gay, gender-bending youth, we have an offender who is very much alive to suffer the consequences of his actions. It appears that King’s killer will be charged with first-degree murder and committing a hate crime. While nothing guarantees that this boy will spend the rest of his life in prison, clearly his life will never be the same.

Did you notice I called him a boy? King’s killer is only 14 years old. By law, he is still a child. We cannot talk about the death of a fifteen year old and call King a child without acknowledging that the killer is also a child.

As I write this, one part of me cries out for vengeance against this killer – child or not. I want to see him punished for taking the life of another human being. In all honesty, this part of me wants him to suffer so that he knows the pain he has caused King’s family and friends. But another part of me says that we must stop and look at this child to find out how to help him unlearn the hatred that lead to his heinous actions. I am not just talking about finding out how he became this hate-filled monster so that we can implement programs to prevent other children from developing this same revolting ideology. I am also talking about working with this child to bring him to a place of acceptance so that he is not lost forever in an internal maze of lies and intolerance, destined to be miserable.

At Triangle, we reach out to the victims of hate. We want them to know we are here to be with them, to advocate for them and to help them in any way possible. But we are also here for the offenders – to educate them so that they no longer harbor prejudices that can fester and erupt into volcanoes of violence. And we are here for the entire state of Michigan, to offer educational programming that highlights the price we all pay when prejudice is allowed in our homes, our schools, our work places and our society.

It hurts to admit that we will lose more children – some to murder, some to suicide and some lost to the hatred in their hearts. With every loss, we must remind ourselves to continue to strive for true equality for all people so that these losses diminish over time until they no longer exist.

And now a message from Kate Clinton

Yet another reminder of why I love Kate Clinton so much...

Playing the blame game...

This is a great commentary on how some groups try to place the blame on some pretty odd things when incidents like school shootings happen. It's unfortunate that they put so much attention on the symptoms and peripheral factors rather than the root of the problem... Video games aren't why youth are committing crimes... You could argue that it's a part of the climate that we've created and therefore a part of the problem in a way...but not to the level that folks like Jack Thompson have indicated. This follows a pattern of other folks who are more keen on scapegoating others than accepting where the true blame lies. It's a pattern that we must end.

Playing the blame game
Why search our souls when video games make such an easy scapegoat?
COMMENTARY
By Winda Benedetti
MSNBC contributor
updated 3:31 a.m. ET, Mon., Feb. 18, 2008

Say what you will about Jack Thompson, but the attorney-turned-anti-video-game crusader has what can only be described as a breathtaking genius for transforming ghastly national tragedies into shining moments of self promotion.

On Friday, police were still struggling to figure out why a seemingly polite, well-respected graduate student named Steven Kazmierczak had shot and killed five students at Northern Illinois University and then turned the gun on himself. But Thompson had it all figured out. Faster than you can say wild speculation and reckless sensationalism, he leapt in front of Fox News cameras and suggested that video games were to blame.

“We find from brain scan studies out of Harvard that if you get started playing, for example, violent video games you are more likely to copycat the behaviors in the games,” Thompson said in a rambling commentary that had nothing to do with what the interviewer had actually asked him. “The disturbing thing that keeps popping up in many of these…is that you can rehearse these type of massacres on simulators, which are called video games.”

During his brief air time, Thompson made sure to plug a book he’s written (which I will not plug here). Then, fresh off the boob tube, he began firing off press releases to various Web sites, trumpeting his screen time and flashing a photograph of himself in all his broadcast glory. (Look ma, I’m on TV!)

And in what can only be construed as an attempt to terrify grandmothers everywhere, Thompson declared in a “news” release: “We have a nation of Manchurian Candidate video gamers out there who are ready, willing, and able to massacre, and some of them will.”

The Northwest Herald and New York Post have since reported that Kazmierczak's former dormmates say he used to play the popular first-person shooter “Counter-Strike.” Though Thompson is now using these reports to make himself sound like a prognosticator extraordinaire, the truth is he's simply playing the numbers. The fact is, one would be hard pressed to find a young man of Kazmierczak's age who has not played video games. Indeed, The Herald reports that Kazmierczak's dormmates said playing "Counter-Strike" was a common activity among the students living in the building — none of whom have opened fire on their classmates.

While the video game connection remains tenuous at best, what seems far more pertinent are initial reports that Kazmierczak previously had been placed in a psychiatric treatment center and had recently stopped taking antidepressant medication.

This is not the first time Thompson has put his mug in front of every camera possible immediately after a mentally disturbed gunman has opened fire on innocent people. When last we spoke with the controversial Florida attorney, he was blaming video games for the massacre of 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech last April.

Not-so-funnily enough, while Thompson's misinfomation-laced pronouncements claim that the shooter — Seung-Hui Cho — had a passion for violent video games, a governor-ordered review of that horrific incident found no connection whatsoever with games. Instead, what the review panel found was a young man with a long history of psychiatric illness and a student who fell through the cracks of a deeply flawed mental health system. In fact, according to the the extensive 260-page report, it's unclear if Cho — who was passionate about books (gasp!) and not video games — ever played anything more aggressive than the kid-friendly "Sonic the Hedgehog."

Needless to say, video game players and proponents are collectively rolling their eyes in disgust at Thompson’s latest attempts to use a nightmarish tragedy to further his own cause and beat his own drum.

“Blaming video games for the behavior of the mentally-challenged is vile on many levels,” Hal Halpin, President of the Entertainment Consumers Association, wrote in a public statement.

“My opinion is that Jack is a distraction from the real issues,” said Jason Della Rocca, executive director of the International Game Developers Association. “When these kinds of tragedies occur, it’s horrible, horrendous and sad, and it’s very difficult for people to wrestle with the real issues. It’s easier to say, ‘Oh it was those video games that brainwashed him.’ That’s much easier than saying our society is messed up, people don’t take care of each other, teachers aren’t in control, there’s rampant bullying, and there are no parents at home because they have to work two jobs.”

In his personal blog, Della Rocca also posts an interesting e-mail conversation he had with Thompson after the Virginia Tech shooting. In it, Thompson challenges Della Rocca to a series of gaming debates and explains that they each stand to net $3,000 or more per event. Della Rocca declined this money-making endeavor, though not before suggesting they instead agree to a free debate...which Thompson declined.

“Not only must we question what good is this guy actually doing, but we should be questioning his motive,” Della Rocca said. “That is to say, are these massacre chasers profiting inappropriately from the deaths and fears of these tragedies?”

Speaking of the scapegoat de jour...
When games aren’t turning our children into a bunch of gun-wielding psychopaths, it seems they’re turning them into a bunch of Fatty McFattersons. Or so Steve Easterbrook, CEO of McDonalds UK, suggested to The Times of London.

“Kids are sat home playing computer games on the TV when in the past they’d have been burning off energy outside,” he opined during an interview about the role the golden arches have played in rising obesity rates.

To his credit, Easterbrook admits that obesity is a “complex” problem. At least on that point the developers over at Persuasive Games agree. They say that obesity is, indeed, a complex problem with no simple solutions. They also suggest that, among other things, it just might be fast food that makes you fat.

I know, I know! What a bunch of loons with loony ideas about how the world works. One of those loony ideas: They made a video game about the labyrinthine and systemic problem behind America’s ever-expanding waistline. Aptly enough, this little simulation game is called “Fatworld” and it’s free to download at www.fatworld.org.

I took a few moments to speak with Ian Bogost, the brain behind “Fatworld” (and the author of the book “Persuasive Games: The Expressive Power of Videogames”). While games frequently get a bad rap for being violent diversions forged in very mouth of hell itself, Bogost believes that video games are, in fact, a medium uniquely suited to presenting complicated and thought-provoking issues to the public at large.

With that in mind, he created “Fatworld” to be an exploration of the intricate relationship between obesity, nutrition, socioeconomics and politics.

“Unlike television or even novels, instead of telling stories, video games represent systems and complicated interactions between multiple dynamics,” Bogost says. “They're a model of the world rather than an individual story within it.”

And so you start “Fatworld” by creating a character — selecting body shape, age, socio-economic class, and predispositions to things like heart disease and diabetes. In “Sims”-esque style, you lead your character through daily life, choosing what foods to eat and buy, whether to exercise (or not). You can acquire and run restaurants and the types of food you put on the menu will affect the health of the people in your town.

Meanwhile, you can stroll on over to the Govern-O-Mat to change government food subsidies or bribe a politician, and you can visit the Health-O-Mat to check on how your character is faring. (Using vending machines to affect government and health care policy is a bit of divine commentary, I think).

Throughout it all, the choices you make affect your character's health — you’ll watch yourself get fatter or thinner, live a long life or die. Yes, the game plays a little clunky here and there (the exercising mingames especially), but if "Fatworld" stumbles at times in the gameplay department, it more than makes up for it in the thought-provoking department.

“If anything, what I hope to do with the game is to show that any simple answer is wrong,” Bogost says.

Stick that in yer McNugget hole and eat it
For those looking for a game that feels plenty comfortable pointing the finger of blame at fast food, check out the free “McDonald’s Video Game” at www.mcvideogame.com, which gives players a satiric peek at the ugliness that goes into the making of a Big Mac.

Welcome to McDonald’s. Would you like a side of rainforest deforestation with your double-hormone beef patty? Mmmm, mmm good!

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23204875/

10-year-old trans youth commits suicide

Yet another tragedy this week...

See my below post for my thoughts on all of these things from this week... Sadly - even though I wrote it before learning of this incident - it still applies. My condolences to the family of Cameron McWilliams...

Gender torment of 10-year-old Cameron

A BOY of 10 has been found hanged at his South Yorkshire home after telling his

mum he wanted to be a girl.

Tragic Cameron McWilliams had already asked for permission to wear make-up, and been teased after he was found wearing his half-sister's knickers.

His desperate mum Kelly McWilliams told a Doncaster inquest she had bought him girls' underwear to wear in private, but had refused his requests to be allowed to wear make-up.

She said: "It was apparent he was unhappy and said he wanted to be a girl. He did like girls' things."

Mrs McWilliams told a Doncaster inquest Cameron was older than his years and had expressed an interest in transvestism.

He had been teased after once being found in his half-sister's knickers, and had asked if he could wear make-up. His mum told him he would have to wait until he was older.

Mrs McWilliams found her son hanging, with a black leather belt around his neck, in his half-sister's bedroom at the family home in Montrose Avenue, Intake, Doncaster.

"When I got in the room he was not asleep, he was standing by the window with a dressing gown on," she said.

"His head was down and I realised something really serious had happened and I screamed."

The court heard Cameron was a lonely boy with no friends outside school. He spent all his time at home listening to music, playing on his XBox and using a laptop computer.

His mother revealed Cameron had been very interested in recent reports of a spate of teenage hangings in Bridgend, South Wales.

"He was not himself but he made no mention whatsoever that he would harm himself," she said. "On that day he was happy as Larry."

She said her son was in the habit of writing her notes if he wanted to discuss something, and added: "He would have asked me questions about hanging but he never did."

Doncaster coroner Stanley Hooper told the court: "I do not know what was in the mind of this little boy. All I know is he was an unhappy little boy and that he wore his sister's underclothing, and that would be a cause of worry to his mother and stepfather."

Referring to Victoria Beckham's famous claim that her husband David wore her knickers, he added: "If there is anything I can say to avoid similar fatalities in the future, I observe it is well-known that there is a very rich and successful footballer married to a pop singer who is known to have worn his wife's underwear."

Attempts by police to revive Cameron when he was found in the early hours last Monday were not successful, and his body was taken to Sheffield Children's Hospital for a post mortem examination. Inquiries into his death are continuing.

The inquest was adjourned to a later date.

A SUPPORT group for children with gender issues today extended their "heartfelt sympathy" to Cameron's family.

Susie Green from Mermaids, which helps youngsters struggling with gender identity issues, along with their friends and family, said today: "We extend our heartfelt sympathy to the family at this terrible time. The loss of a child is impossible to imagine.

"A large number of members at Mermaids are parents with children who have experienced, or are experiencing, gender identity problems, so this strikes a chord.

"A number of our children have made attempts on their own lives, thankfully unsuccessful.

"Children with gender dysphoria are often isolated, bullied and persecuted for being different. Making friends is hard, as they do not conform to the gender norms that others expect.

"Life alone with this can seem intolerable.

"Finding Mermaids as a source of information and support has been a turning point for many, as the knowledge that you are not alone can provide comfort and solace.

"This is a terrible, terrible tragedy, and for many of us at Mermaids, a sharp reminder of what we could have faced. Our thoughts are with Cameron's family.

Click here for original article

Shooting of a gay middle school student

In addition to the tragic news of a shooting at Northern Illinois University, many of us have also been deeply impacted by the news of a gay and gender bending middle school student who was shot in the head, was subsequently pronounced brain dead and died...

Each of these incidents causes my heart to sink... So many young lives wasted this week... The NIU incident is jarring for me personally because of my time working in Student Affairs and the respect I have for folks working in higher education and for the students working to better themselves. However, the death of Lawrence King - the gay and gender bending youth - brings me to tears.

Lawrence was 15-years-old - an eighth-grader in middle school - and he was shot by a 14-year-old classmate. Before you read any further...take a moment to digest that...we're talking about two middle school students who weren't old enough to vote, drive a car or even enter high school...

Many of the students interviewed have indicated that the two students had previously fought. The reason for these fights stemmed from Lawrence's sexual orientation and outward appearance and behavior - aka gender expression. Brandon McInerney is being charged with first-degree murder in Lawrence's death, with a special allegation that the killing was indeed a hate crime.

At least two lives have been destroyed because of heterosexism and transphobia. I said at least two, because I've seen situations like this unfold into people who work at the school losing their jobs and careers as a result of these incidents. In this case, from what I've seen, the school did a pretty good job going into this. It appears as though no one expected that this would happen and that the school had responded to previous reports of bullying.

It is TRULY amazing to me that a young person's motive for killing another young person would be that person's sexual orientation and gender identity. I have to imagine he intended on killing him as he shot him twice in the head. I also have to imagine that he knew he'd be throwing away his life in the process... He did it in front of a group of students and left the gun behind - not exactly a plan for "getting away with it" in my humble opinion.

I can't help but think of other lives wasted because of heterosexism and transphobia, including Ian Guarr and of course Matthew Shepard. I don't care what your attitude about homosexuality and transgender people is - how can anyone feel comfortable with a society that cultivates a mentality that pushes people's hatred towards anyone to the point where they decide to take another human being's life? Things have simply got to change - and I know we've said this before - but we must once again commit ourselves to making this change happen.

At Triangle Foundation we are doing many things to address the heterosexism and transphobia that exists. When people's hate boils to a point where they act out - we are also here to help the victims of hate. However, we know that there is more that needs to be done and frankly - we need your help.

Aside from the obvious step of supporting the work of Triangle Foundation and others - I have a suggestion for something that you can personally do to help fight the hatred that, in this case, has destroyed the lives of some of our young people. Hate doesn't just happen overnight. It is developed and, oddly enough, nurtured over time. However, I think we often are willing to dismiss the things that cause this to happen.

How many times have you had a family member forward a clearly racist or homophobic email and ignored it because...well...they're family and you don't want to start a conflict? Have you ever heard someone use a derogative word and let it slid because...after all...who are you to call them out on it? It is so evident to me, and many others, that these "simple" selection of words is truly a root of hatred. Granted, it's not the only root, but it is one that we see in our daily lives and that we are able to address.

I challenge you to not pass up on opportunities - so long as they are safe - where you can speak up and let someone know that you're not okay with their hateful language being used. Often times the other person doesn't think they're using hateful language - so use it as a teachable moment. There's no need to attack them verbally or belittle them - just let them know that you don't think what they've said is okay and share with them why.

I know this sounds like a simple step - but I am horrified at the number of times a young person who has perpetrated a hateful act claims the comfort and ease at which they could use hateful speech as evidence of society giving them permission to hate that group. "My teacher never tried to stop me from saying Fag or Gay in a negative way - so I figured that meant they agreed with me."

Hatred in any form is simply wrong and unnecessary. It is up to all of us to let those around us know that we do not agree with their hateful remarks, intentional or otherwise, and that they shouldn't either. Please - don't let these opportunities pass you by. I'm tired of seeing so much hatred and violence around us. Even if this only does a little bit to help - it's well worth the investment of time and energy.

To the family and friends of Lawrence King - I am so very sorry for your loss. Our community is also mourning the loss of Lawrence. I hope and pray that the day when things like this are no longer the way that we decide to settle our disagreements and differences is not far off.

Creating Change - The End...

The 20th Creating Change Conference has come to a close. It was a GREAT conference and The Task Force did an amazing job putting it together. I'm really proud of the Detroit Host Committee and how good of a job Detroit did hosting the conference.

I'm already looking forward to next year's conference and I hope to see you there!

Check out this Creating Change 2008 Video Montage...


Oh Kate Clinton...how we love thee...

Creating Change - United ENDA & Mara Keisling

A number of organizations involved with the United ENDA effort honored The Task Force for their work in getting United ENDA started and for their ongoing support of Transgender issues. Mara Keisling - the Executive Director of the National Center for Transgender Equality - spoke about this work and the United ENDA effort. Kudos to The Task Force for doing this important work and to folks like Mara for taking the time to recognize their contributions.

Check out this clip from Mara's remarks...