Tag: Laverne Cox

BiPM includes a poll in his Friday C&J to select who won the week.  I decided I needed to riff off that for my title.

I don’t know that I have ever read the magazine Glamour.  I mean, I may have done so, once upon a time.  When I was a child, I read whatever I could get my hands on, just for the joy of reading.

On November 10, Glamour honored its 2014 Women of the Year award recipients at Carnegie Hall in New York City.

Glamour’s annual Women of the Year Awards is one of our favorite issues of the magazine, and the event marks one of the most inspiring nights of the year; it’s a chance to celebrate trailblazing women from all walks of life-Hollywood stars, political and cultural leaders, groundbreaking scientists and researchers, and more come together to honor the women who helped to shape and change the year. But let’s not forget that phenomenal women are all around us; to celebrate the spirit of Women of the Year, we named 50 standouts-one for every state. Flip through to see the hometown heroes whose work we recognize this year.

Flipping through the inspiring women from each state, one eventually encounters…

On July 30 a 15-year old trans girl boarded a Metro green line train in the District of Columbia with a couple of her friends.  One might assume that was a peaceful act.

But when 24-year old Reginald Anthony Klaiber of Greenbelt, MD boarded the same car on that train, he reacted to the trans girl violently.  At first he disliked her hair color (the girl was wearing a red wig).  Then he questioned her clothing.  When the girl asked him to leave her alone, her friends say he asked her, “Are you a boy?  Are you a boy?  …Why are you looking like a girl?”

He came to my friend and said you have red hair.  My friend said ok, and then he said, ‘Oh, you’re a man!’

Then he started bothering my friend.  My friend got up out of her seat to go by the door while the train was moving and told him to please leave her alone.  He faced her and said I will stab you up and blow your brains out.

—Jae-la White, friend of the victim

The vigil for Islan Nettles, who died last week after being beaten into a coma and being declared brain dead, drew a crowd of hundreds to Jackie Robinson Park in Harlem.  Nettles was a 21-year-old transwoman who was pursuing a career in fashion.

On August 17 Islan was walking with a transwoman friend when they encountered a group of men outside a Harlem police precinct station.  One of the men, Paris Wilson, 20, had recently friended Islan on Facebook.  Wilson reportedly began flirting with Nettles, until one of his friends yelled that she had been born a man.  The friends began teasing Wilson until he attacked her.  As he was beating her, the “friends” shouted anti-trans and anti-gay epithets.  He continued to pound on her face after her head had been driven into the sidewalk.  Wilson was arrested after police finally arrived.  He was charged with misdemeanor assault and released on $2,000 bail.