Brianna Ghey Murder Trial Texts Show The Moral Imperative To End Anti-Trans Hate

Today, the trial of the alleged killers of Brianna Ghey began. Prosecutors presented evidence including alleged texts showing extreme anti-trans violent rhetoric that may have lead to her killing.

ERIN REED Nov 27, 2023



Extreme discretion is advised on reading this story. It contains explicit descriptions of violence and transphobia beyond what I typically report on.



Brianna Ghey Family Handout
Please support my independent reporting and advocacy on transgender legislation by subscribing. You help me keep this going and keep people informed.

Extreme discretion is advised on reading this story. It contains explicit descriptions of violence and transphobia beyond what I typically report on.

Today, as a transgender journalist, I am reporting on a profoundly difficult story. In the United Kingdom, the trial of Brianna Ghey's alleged murderers has begun, during which the prosecutors presented evidence that could lead to their conviction. Before delving further, it's crucial to understand that the details in this case exhibit extreme transphobia and depravity, resulting in the killing of a young, beautiful transgender teenage girl, targeted for being different. Under UK law, it is imperative to stress that these are allegations presented at trial, and I am obligated in my own reporting to refrain from referring to the defendants as her "killers" or "murderers" to prevent a mistrial due to the extremely low bar of “prejudicing a trial” there. This case highlights the systematic violence and rhetoric against transgender people and how such attitudes contributed to this abhorrent killing. The details of this case are explicit, especially with regards to the evidence presented on the first day of the trial, and I advise extreme caution for transgender readers or parents of transgender children reading further.

I have made the decision to republish these messages in a story specifically because I believe that the alleged text messages show the violent, brutal nature of transphobia and what a transphobic society enables. The messages are not just cruel and horrific, they contain elements of all of the things said by the most ardent anti-trans activists, TERFs, and grifters who have made targeting transgender people with hate a full time career.

Brianna Ghey was a 16 year old transgender's girl, TikTok creator, and a “beacon of positivity” according to her friends. She would often film videos set to music while showing off her makeup or walking in a park. It was in one of these parks that her life was taken in in February of this year. In the immediate aftermath of her murder, countless people mourned for her and decried the senseless violence. Her TikToks became makeshift memorials with millions of likes and views. Days later, two teens near her age were arrested and charged with her murder.

Many people considered the idea that anti-trans sentiment and rampant transphobia in the United Kingdom may have played a role in her murder. A study indicated that the Daily Mail, a leading British newspaper, had more negative coverage of transgender people in 2023 than in the previous four years combined. Public figures such as JK Rowling and Maya Forstater have been criticized for normalizing transphobia, advocating against gender-affirming care, and labeling transgender activists as “rapist rights activists.” Brianna Ghey tragically experienced this transphobia. Days before her murder, she posted a TikTok about being excluded from school. Damian Harry, whose daughter was friends with Brianna, confirmed this, saying, “She said she was devastated by the constant abuse and even talked of ending it all. It was down to her being trans. It is disgusting what happened.”

The following will include text messages that are very graphic and disturbing. Extreme discretion is advised.

Joseph Edelman isn't known for donating to conservative causes, but HuffPost uncovered major donations to groups opposing trans rights.
By
Molly Redden
Oct 26, 2023, 02:19 PM EDT


Joseph Edelman, chief executive officer of Perceptive Advisors LLC, pauses during a Bloomberg Television interview in New York on Feb. 25, 2016.CHRIS GOODNEY/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES

Hedge fund CEO and billionaire biotech investor Joseph Edelman and his wife provided a $1 million donation to help launch Do No Harm, a new conservative advocacy group pushing anti-trans legislation in statehouses across the country, HuffPost has found.

Do No Harm bills itself as a group of doctors who are concerned about ideology influencing the medical profession. The organization has not disclosed its donors or fundraising, but tax filings for the Edelman Family Foundation, which Edelman founded and chairs with his wife Susan Lebovitz-Edelman, show that the foundation approved a $1 million donation to Do No Harm in 2022, the same year the activist group was founded.

In the year since, Do No Harm has hired lobbyists or sent advocates to half a dozen statehouses and provided the model language for at least two bills restricting gender-affirming care that have become law. The group has also filed a handful of lawsuits against efforts to promote diversity in medicine.

Edelman is founder and CEO of Perceptive Advisors, a New York-based biotech hedge fund with more than $8 billion in assets under management. His home is an oceanside Orange County mansion he purchased for a record-shattering $70 million after trading in his 10,000 square-foot Park Avenue penthouse. Forbes estimates his net worth to be $2.5 billion.

[…]

Inside the New York Times’ trans coverage: ‘I wonder if people at the top fully believe in trans people’s humanity’
Insiders say the Gray Lady is ‘too excited to question whether or not it’s OK to be trans’
Soleil Ho
Updated: Aug. 31, 2023 9:44 a.m.

Members of El/La Para TransLatinas walk in the 2022 San Francisco Trans March. Critics say the New York Times’ coverage of trans issues mirrors right-wing talking points.
Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle 2022

Back in March, the Chronicle held a community feedback session in its newsroom for trans San Franciscans to speak to our journalists about what the media was getting wrong about their lives. They bemoaned a lack of trans reporters and articles that read more like medical records than human stories. Most urgently, attendees discussed how some news outlets have elevated extremist right-wing talking points about trans people, helping turn their very existence into an inflammatory cultural debate.

“Don’t let them capture your platform,” one person implored.

“Not like what’s happened with the New York Times,” was the quiet part that no one said out loud.

Over the past few years, as the Republican Pary has embarked on a state-by-state campaign to systematically push trans people out of public life, critics say the country’s leading newspaper has played along. Coverage has ranged from features overplaying the health risks of chest binding, a nonsurgical method of flattening one’s chest, to opinion columns reframing gender inclusivity as misogyny.

“Month after month, story after story, the Times is pouring its attention and resources into the message that there is something seriously concerning about the way young people who identify as trans are receiving care,” wrote Tom Scocca of Popula, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
[…]

"Biological Clothing" - Dress Codes Espoused By UK TERFs, US Conservatives
In a Sex Matters event in the Manchester, England, "Gender Critical" activists espoused gendered dress codes. The same is being pushed by US conservatives. Here's how these policies affect us all.



ERIN REED
SEP 21, 2023

Sex based uniforms are also lawful,” a slide proclaimed at a Sex Matters event in Manchester, England. “Children’s actual sex must be known by everyone in the school environment.” Meanwhile, in the United States, Harrison County School District made headlines when it announced that students would be forced to dress in clothing “consistent with their biological sex.” In Texas, the department of agriculture released a letter to employees, requiring all state employees in the department to “comply with this dress code in a manner consistent with their biological sex.” Those who oppose the existence and visibility of transgender people in public life now seemingly have turned their efforts of gender conformity to everyone.

In a Manchester museum, the Sex Matters event unfurled, steered by ardent campaigners against transgender rights, Helen Joyce and Maya Forstater. Among the aims of the events were items such as “the fight to make sure the law protects women’s rights.” Interestingly, the gathering presented a distinct dress code for its attendees: “Be the billboard for sex-based rights (Adult Human Female; This Witch Doesn’t Burn – or your preferred slogan); embody the spirit of the Suffragettes in tones of purple, green, and white; or wear whatever you like” (emphasis added). While giving the presentation, Maya Forstater could be seen in a relaxed pose, donned in trousers and sandals. Behind her, a slide loomed, advocating for stringent measures on social transition for trans people in schools. The restrictions espoused included “Sex-based rules” relating to restroom usage, pronouns, and attire, even barring students from donning “the uniform of the opposite sex.”

Meanwhile in the U.S., a flurry of gender-conformity laws and policies have emerged, seemingly in response to the rising visibility of transgender people. Earlier this year in Mississippi, a transgender girl was told she would be barred from her own graduation walk because she desired to wear the same dress the other girls were wearing. On graduation day, a cisgender girl met a similar fate, this time for her decision to wear pants. In the midst of this, her grandmother voiced her anguish: “I don’t understand how a moment this important can be taken away from a child that’s worked 12 years to get here.” The district has since solidified its clothing policies, stating that all students must wear clothing “consistent with their biological sex.”

Increasingly, policies that were originally aimed at transgender people are now being aimed at all of society. Major influencers in the modern anti-trans panic such as Ben Shapiro have advocated for local laws dictating what men and women can wear in public. PragerU, recently contracted out to major school districts, advocates for gendered dress codes. Yet, this shift isn't confined to dress codes alone.

[…]

The GOP Has a Master Plan to Criminalize Being Trans
[size=50]By Brynn Tannehill
Aug 14, 2023[/size]

A coalition of powerful conservative organizations have put together a 900-plus-page playbook that maps out their strategy to enact a sweeping "Don't Say Gay" policy that will eradicate queer and trans lives and destroy democracy, if given the power. We can't let them.


‘Most people aren’t aware of Project 2025, or its playbook, “Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise”—but you need to be. In stark terms, Project 2025 reveals the conservatives’ plan to enact a sweeping “Don’t Say Gay” policy that will effectively blot out all LGBTQ content on the internet as well as any published material with LGBTQ content, no matter how benign.

Project 2025 is a coalition of prominent conservative organizations that includes the Claremont Institute, Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Research Council, Hillsdale College, Heritage Foundation, Freedom Works, American Legislative Exchange Council, American Principles Project, and dozens of others. The organization’s goal is to lay out a “first 180 days” agenda for the next administration, and to recruit conservatives to fill positions within the federal government appointed by the executive branch.

“The Mandate for Leadership” is a 920-page document that details how the next Republican administration will implement radical and sweeping changes to the entirety of government. This blueprint assumes that the next president will be able to rule by fiat under the unitary executive theory (which posits that the president has the power to control the entire federal executive branch). It is also based on the premise that the next president will implement Schedule F, which allows the president to fire any federal employee who has policy-making authority, and replace them with a presidential appointee who is not voted on in the Senate.

The document is basically a wish list for social conservatives and mega corporations. The business wish list calls for eliminating federal agencies, stripping those that remain of regulatory power, and deregulating industries. The president would directly manage and influence Department of Justice and FBI cases, which would allow him to pursue criminal cases against political enemies. Environmental law would be gutted, and states would be prevented from enforcing their own environmental laws.’

[…]

Why We Must Abandon The Young Turks: Transphobia and Progressive Influencers
Never attach yourself to idols
Laura Halls
Published in Prism & Pen
4 min read
Apr 22

I’ve written a couple of articles lately going over problems with Ana Kasparian and her recent delving into transphobia. In both articles, I explained why I thought transphobia would be something we would likely continue to see, and that outbursts of transphobia from Ana and The Young Turks (TYT) commentary program she co-hosts and produces would likely grow worse over time.
While it has not been long since I made those points, Ana and her co-host Cenk Uygur have continued to double down on transphobia. Keep in mind that all of this stems from Ana being wrong about how inclusive language is being used, a point she herself has criticized people for being wrong about in the past.
People have continued to explain this to Ana and Cenk, yet they are both refusing to listen to those correcting them. In fact, they both seem to be repeating the same old lie about women being called birthing persons instead of women. This is a lie on their part. Nobody is mandating that anyone call women birthing people, simply saying that language such as that is used in certain settings to be inclusive of non-binary or trans people.
More than enough people have responded to them in good faith, correcting them and explaining why they’re wrong. At this point, they cannot simply not be misunderstanding, so we can be sure that this is just them being dishonest.

[…]

They’re throwing trans people under the bus in the middle of a massive moral panic from the right.

He’s The Trans Son Of An Anti-Trans Influencer. It’s His Turn To Speak.
Renton Sinclair’s mother is a former Miss Illinois who wants to force trans people out of public life. That’s exactly what makes her a rising star in MAGA World.
By
Christopher Mathias
Jun 30, 2023

[…]
What makes him angry is that the pain in these pages — their chronicles of depression and confusion, an overdose, and wanting deeply every day to die — is what so many politicians across the country want to inflict on trans people. To codify that cruelty he experienced, that sheer unkindness, into law. Like his mom, these legislators are uninterested in listening to trans people like Renton. To listen to them would mean seeing them as something besides a convenient wedge issue — the latest scapegoat to be sacrificed in a cynical ploy for votes and clout. To listen to them would mean to know the people they’re trying to disappear.
Renton first contacted HuffPost after watching a video I posted of his mom speaking at the Great ReAwakening. “Hey, maybe this is weird, but this is my mom,” he wrote in a Twitter DM. “I’m trans.”
Seeing his mom on that stage made him realize it was time to speak up, to take back his story. “Just being in a position now where I’m like, OK, I can actually fucking stand up for myself, and I don’t just have to sit and just take this bullshit forever, and I can actually like have a say in it, that is cool,” he said.

[…]

In a tense text exchange with his mom about transitioning, he remembers asking her, “Would you like a dead kid or a trans one?” It’s a question that has emerged as a refrain among trans activists during debates about giving trans adolescents puberty blockers or hormones.

Colorado Republican Party attacks 4 of their own in anti-trans fundraising email
State party “went out of their way to eat their own” in attack on elected Republicans

By NICK COLTRAIN | ncoltrain@denverpost.com | The Denver Post
PUBLISHED: June 21, 2023 at 7:30 p.m. | UPDATED: June 22, 2023 at 1:07 p.m.

he Colorado Republican Party officially reprimanded four elected GOP officials Monday for joining Democrats in defense of a Montana lawmaker who was kicked off the chamber’s floor while defending gender-affirming care for that state’s youth.

New Colorado Republican chair Dave Williams announced the reprimand Wednesday morning in a fundraising email loaded with anti-trans and anti-drag rhetoric. The email and the formal resolution admonished state Reps. Ron Weinberg and Rick Taggart, Castle Pines Councilmember Roger Hudson and Douglas County Commissioner Abe Laydon, all Republicans.

Weinberg, a Loveland Republican who just finished his first legislative session and is one of just 19 members of his caucus, said he felt abandoned by his party for standing up for First Amendment rights. Republicans have less power and less representation in Colorado state government than at any point since World War II.

“They went out of their way to eat their own,” Weinberg said of the fundraising letter. “This was intended to make Republicans look bad. It wasn’t a simple ‘statement and read the letter.’ It was a blatant attack on Republicans.”

[…]