One of the personality traits that I’m most thankful for is that I usually handle stress pretty well. That said, I’m feeling more stressed today than I have in a long time. With all of the various things happening – some of which I’ve detailed here and some of which I haven’t – and all the decisions to be made it’s almost overwhelming. These are the times to close your eyes, take deep breaths, and count to ten. I’ve already done that a half dozen times today.
The big news of the day is that an arrest was made today in the murder of Angie Zapata in Colorado a couple of weeks ago. Here are some of the sickening details:
9NEWS has learned the man arrested in the murder of an 18-year-old transgender person was on date with who he thought was a girl. Police say when the suspect discovered his date was actually a man, he killed her.
The affidavit says Andrade met Zapata on a social networking site, Mocospace, and the two arranged to meet July 15.
Zapata picked Andrade up in Thornton where he lived and the pair returned to Zapata’s Greeley apartment together. Andrade told police Zapata performed a sexual act on him.
The following day, the affidavit explains, Andrade started to look at photos in the apartment and questioned Zapata’s sex. That night, Andrade questioned Zapata directly, according to the affidavit, and Andrade says Zapata responded, “I’m all woman.”
Andrade told police he grabbed Zapata in her genital area and felt a penis. He became angry and hit Zapata with his fist before grabbing a fire extinguisher and hitting her in the head twice, according to the affidavit.
Andrade explained to police that he thought he “killed it,” referring to Zapata but when she made gurgling noises and started to sit up, he hit her with the extinguisher again.
He also admitted to police that he stole Zapata’s car and drove away.
Do they have the death penalty in Colorado?
Somehow, everything else I could write at the moment pales in comparison to that.
There’s an article in today’s NY Times about “gender testing” for some of the female athletes in the Olympics that begin next week.
By the time they arrive in Beijing, most athletes have resigned themselves to the possibility of undergoing a battery of tests for banned substances, like anabolic steroids and certain cough medicines.
But some female athletes may find they are asked to submit to an entirely different examination — one that will test whether they are, in fact, women.
Organizers of the Beijing Olympics have set up a sex-determination laboratory to evaluate “suspect” female athletes, the official Chinese news agency Xinhua reported Sunday. The lab is similar to ones set up at previous Olympics in Sydney and Athens, and will draw on the resources of the Peking Union Medical College Hospital to evaluate an athlete’s external appearance, hormones and genes.
Dr. Christine McGinn was interviewed for the article.
I said in my Sunday entry that I’d share Joe Solmonese’s speech from the San Francisco HRC gala if/when it was available. HRC posted it on their Backstory Blog (read it here) earlier today.
One thing I will say is that HRC holds gala dinners all across the country all year long and they never post specific speeches from their dinners – either the text or the video. This is highly unusual for them.
Donna As Sadden as I’m am by this young womens death and how horrible it was. I can’t not Ignor the fact that this AGAIN is a case of pre -opertive trans girl picking up a staight guy and it ending badly. How many times must the trans community relive this same Drama before they learn straight Males are VERY homiphobic and well responded with vilolences to cover thier embearassment. It happen not to long ago In Menphis Tenn remember the women who found next to the day care beatten to death same story. All to often its the same story play over and over again in city after city. It’s only common sense that you DO NOT give the Impression to be a whole and complete women and then turn out to be Male. It’s no secret that Straight men do not like male genitaila. I’m so sad this beautiful young women had to die I wish people would get counseling and do transition the right way instead of just doing whatever suits them. is she had i’m sure it something her therapist could have warned her against doing or they could have at least talked about it. but they don’t and in the same way they don’t get counseling they make bad decssions like thinking it’s ok to pick up straight men without telling.
The story says they talked online she should have been open and honest with himif she had may very well still be a live maybe heart broken ,but alive. I hope that others who are thinking of picking up men without telling will take pause and give this young women death some thught before doing so.
Brandi Parker
SWVA Rep Equality VA
I have to agree with Brandi on this subject. I do think that the man who did this should pay the price of killing a person. The murder is unexcusable. She had to pay with her life. I’m so sorry that a young girl had to lose her life. She deserved more and better treatment.
I read Joe’s speech, very compelling. He had said the same a few years back and had changed his course. He could do it again. I do think that we need to get over the bickering and get onto what we started out to do. That is get equality back into our lives. I don’t think a lot of people are going to trust him, but he is only one. Lets not let him ruin our lives. Lets go on and hope that HRC does the right thing. Keeping a chip on our shoulders doesn’t look good in societies eyes and society is our challenge. We need to change their thoughts about the GLBTQ community. I for one will not forget but I will let it go and forgive to help myself.