Gwen Araujo: Anatomy of a senseless death

Gwen Araujo is known to many by means of the Lifetime movie based on her life, “A Girl Like Me.” Gwen for those unfamiliar with her was a beautiful young woman with a loving mother, older sister, and younger brother. She was also brutally murdered in her teens and dumped like refuse by her killers.

On February 24, 1985, Gwen was born Edward. Gwen was a transgender youth growing up the same as any other child aside from the fact that she was dealing with Gender Identity Dysphoria (GID) which is a condition in which a persons mental perception of their gender does not match the physical anatomy they born with. It is hardly an easy life, and it took her family time to grow to accept Edward as Gwen. No matter how much love there is, it is not an easy thing to come grips with.
They did however learn to accept Gwen and supported her in her transition to living a full female life. Part of a full life male or female is having friends, and Gwen did have several. On the night of October 2, 2002 she met with several of those friends, one of whom had told the others she suspected that Gwen was actually a male.

This was disturbing to the boys she shared her suspicions with - Gwen had after all engaged in limited sexual activity with a pair of them. So disturbing was this in fact that they had had their female friend who was full of information call Gwen and invite her over under the guise that her former boyfriend would be present and wanted to see her. As expected, Gwen dod go, but when she got there she entered a scene far different than would be expected.

She was forced into the bathroom where one boy ripped her pants off to manually inspect her genitals. She was then pushed from the room where the remainder of the boys - all 4 of them - beat her with fists, feet, a soup can, and apparently any object that was handy. They then strangled her and continued to punch her in the face. Once she was dead they put her in a car, drove her out to a location in the Sierra Nevada mountains, partially buried her, and then they went out for pancakes. After breakfast two of the boys returned to the scene of the crime to clean up.

When the case went to trial the boys attorneys argued the “trans-panic defense.” They claimed that their actions were a product of the heat of the moment. Their attorney argued for understanding, that the boys were duped and angry and under normal circumstances would never turn to violence. The prosecution shot one hole after another into the defense arguments and secured a pair of murder convictions for Jose Merel and Michael Magdison - but not a hate crime which would have carried an even stiffer penalty. The other accomplices Jason Cazares and Jaron Nabors pled guilty to manslaughter with no argument and were sentenced to 6 and 11 years respectively.

There was no explaining why the hate crimes charge didn't stick. It was a premeditated plan in which the final result was fueled by hate. Observers could hardly believe it, it even seemed as if the judge could believe it. Still, at that time, crimes against the LGBT community were rarely prosecuted, and when they were it was almost never to the full extent of the law.

The Gwen Araujo trial became a landmark case in many regards. Prior to this trial the trans-panic defense had been successfully argued much like the Twinkie defense. It was believed that if a transgender person was murdered they brought it upon them self. They were asking for it. Since then not only has that defense become obsolete, hate crimes are far easier charges to make stick in such cases due to the blatantly blind eye turned to that option in this case.

Gwen is gone and there is nothing left of her but a family in pain and memories. Her mother Sylvia Guerrero has become a fierce and outspoken activist fir the transgender community speaking at countless engagements each year to raise awareness so that no one has to lose a son, daughter, friend, loved one due to being different in ways they cannot control. So that no other person has to die with their finals words being a pleading “But I have a family….”