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Post by Cannibal Lecter on Jan 18, 2007 23:06:51 GMT -5
I decided to make an official thread dedicated solely to Gwen Araujo. And please believe me when I say this: stay on topic at all times in this thread and do not start arguments with someone in this thread, and just in case, if you want to say something negative about her, this is not the place to do it.
Just found this on Youtube. And I plan on watching this eventually...
A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story [/b] Part 1Part 2Part 3Part 4Part 5Part 6Part 7Part 8Part 9Part 10[/center] |
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Post by shawnamichaels on Jan 19, 2007 0:59:42 GMT -5
i found it too...and I just got done watching it...and I'm in tears...I really hate how some people are...how blinded by society ... It really sucks. RIP Gwen Amber Rose Araujo. We love you and thank you for being so brave and true to yourself. May your soul find peace.
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Post by /*/Hayden\*\ on Jan 19, 2007 18:47:20 GMT -5
I saw the movie around a week ago, and of course, I knew the story for a little while longer. it puts a smile on my face to see everyone embracing her like they have. I'm glad I could help her memory live on through the RWC. Gwen was a beautiful person, her death was a tragic showing of intolerance and misunderstanding. Gwen Amber Rose Araujo, in my opinion must have been a beautiful person internally, and was a goregous person externally.
Rest In Peace... May you fly with the Butterflies
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Post by melcena on Jan 19, 2007 20:26:13 GMT -5
that story was touching that guy that pulled his/hers pants i would have killed him and i feel that every 1 should should be treated like every 1 eles but in her case every 1 had to be an ass about it and not respect her decision
RIP Gwen Amber Rose Araujo
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Post by Cannibal Lecter on Jan 20, 2007 1:12:36 GMT -5
I think I actually watched A Girl Like Me before. Or parts. I do know I've at least seen the preview on Lifetime.
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Post by /*/Hayden\*\ on Jan 20, 2007 13:15:43 GMT -5
A good movie, no doubt
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Post by /*/Hayden\*\ on Jan 21, 2007 16:54:08 GMT -5
Life after Gwen
by: Sylvia Guerrero
Thursday, January 26, 2006
I am not sure how I expected to feel at this point. When my daughter Gwen, a transgender teenager, was brutally murdered on Oct. 4, 2002, I was sure that I would never feel whole again. Looking back, I didn't yet know exactly what "transgender" meant or how to fully embrace my child's identity. But I knew one thing: I wanted justice for my child.
I thought that maybe I'd feel better on the day when the four suspects in her murder were brought to justice. More than three years and three months since Gwen's murder that day is finally here. On Friday, these men are being sentenced to prison terms for their actions, two of them convicted of second-degree murder and two taking plea bargains for voluntary manslaughter. I guess I hoped that once we got to the sentencing date, the pain would end and I could get back to my life. But it hasn't and I can't.
No amount of justice can return the part of me that these men took when they killed Gwen. The closure that people keep talking about hasn't come. It would be so much easier to write that it had. After all, that is what most people want to read: The system worked; my family is whole; the story is over. It would be comforting and allow us to get on with our lives. Of the many things I'm feeling, closure isn't one of them.
I'm angry. Angry that Gwen's brothers and her nieces and nephews won't get to grow up knowing her the way her aunts, uncles, older sister and I did. Angry that instead of celebrating her birthday, we get together each year to commemorate her death. Angry that, in both trials, the defendants tried to blame Gwen for her own murder. Angry that other young lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender kids continue to face the discrimination she did in our public schools and our workforce.
I'm also grateful. Grateful that my family and our friends rose to the challenge and sat through two gruesome and explicit criminal trials to make sure that everyone knew that Gwen was loved for who she was. I'm grateful for the support we've all received from perfect strangers who have told us in-person and through e-mail that we are in their thoughts and prayers. I'm grateful for the remorse that two of the defendants and some of their family members have expressed to me and my family.
And I'm sad. Sad that I'll never get to see Gwen grow into the beautiful woman she would have become. Sad that four men chose to end my daughter's life, and throw away their own simply because they thought they were acting like "real men." And sad that other transgender women have been killed since Gwen's murder and that we don't have a realistic end in sight to that violence.
Within this mix of emotions, though, the one that I hold onto most dearly is hope. Since that tragic night, my own family has grown by two beautiful grandchildren. More and more parents are supporting their transgender children. California has become the country's most protective state for transgender people. And just this month, a new law has been proposed in Sacramento, the Gwen Araujo Justice for Victims Act, authored by Assemblywoman Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View, and sponsored by Equality California, an LGBT civil-rights lobbying group, to protect people from being blamed for their own murder.
Maybe the reason I don't have closure around Gwen's death is that there is still work to do. If I've learned anything since Gwen's murder, it is that hope alone is not enough. Each of us who hopes to live in a state where our families are protected needs to work toward making California that place. For instance, boys and girls in schools throughout the Bay Area need to hear, firsthand, how important it is to be themselves and to respect each other's differences.
None of us can change the way the world was on Oct. 4, 2002. But each of us now has an important role to play in creating a state where we can celebrate more birthdays and commemorate fewer murders.
Sylvia Guerrero is the mother of Gwen Araujo and an activist for LGBT civil rights. She speaks at schools around the Bay Area through the Gwen Araujo Transgender Education Fund administered by the Horizons Foundation.
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Post by /*/Hayden\*\ on Jan 21, 2007 20:18:36 GMT -5
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Post by shawnamichaels on Jan 30, 2007 1:55:43 GMT -5
On myspace, I found a whole lot of 'in memory spaces' for Gwen...even added one...*nod.*
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Post by /*/Hayden\*\ on Mar 23, 2007 16:12:43 GMT -5
Gwen Araujo murder case
Prison sentences for the killing of transgender teen Gwen Araujo were handed down Jan. 27, bringing some closure to a drawn-out case that drew national attention.
The two men convicted of second-degree murder, Michael Magidson and Jose Merel, were sentenced 15 years to life. An accomplice, Jason Cazares, received a six-year term.
The sentences followed a five-month retrial of the three men that ended Sept. 9 in Hayward, Calif., with guilty verdicts for two of the defendants and a mistrial for the third.
The second trial occurred approximately one year after a jury declared itself "hopelessly deadlocked," ending in a mistrial on June 22, 2004.
On Oct. 4, 2002, the 17-year-old Araujo was beaten and strangled to death at a house party in the small Silicon Valley town of Newark after it was learned that she was biologically male. Investigators found her body in a shallow grave between Sacramento and Lake Tahoe.
One of the four suspects, Jaron Nabors, agreed to plead guilty and testified against his accomplices in exchange for an 11-year sentence.
Araujo's murder instantly became a lightning rod for the transgender community in California's Bay Area and across the nation. The circumstances surrounding the crime are strikingly similar to the 1993 murder of Brandon Teena, which was the basis for the award-winning film "Boys Don't Cry." Both had taken bold steps -- with great pains -- to live their lives in the ways that seemed natural to them, and both were murdered as a result of others finding out they were actually transgendered.
Araujo didn't get a chance to make as big a difference in the world alive as she has done now that she's gone. Her family remembers her as an unfailingly positive person who was loath to bad-mouth anyone, even those who made fun of her and drove her from school. Her friends remember her as fashionable and funny, a regular teenager.
In honor of her courage, in honor of the very real individual who didn't get a chance to tell us her story in her own words, Gwen Araujo was PlanetOut's Person of the Year for 2002.
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Post by /*/Hayden\*\ on Mar 23, 2007 16:18:03 GMT -5
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Post by /*/Hayden\*\ on Jul 11, 2007 1:05:03 GMT -5
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