Trans and Gay Panic Defense

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14, shot classmate Larry King, 15, two times in the head. Larry King was an openly gay student at E.O. Green Junior High. The day before McInerney shot King, Larry and his friends were playing a game in which you have to ask someone to be your valentine. When it was King’s turn, he went to Brandon and asked him to be his valentine. Brandon’s friends began joking about the two were going to have “gay babies”. Later, in the hallway, Larry blew Brandon a kiss and said something along the lines of, “What’s up baby?” After this comment, McInerney goes up to one of King’s friends and tells her, “Say goodbye to Larry because you will never see him again.” The following day Brandon brought a .22 caliber handgun to school. McInerney then deliberately sat behind King for 20 minutes, staring at his head. McInerney hears King tell a classmate he is changing his name to Leticia. Brandon then pulls out his gun and proceeds to shoot Larry in the back of the head. Their teacher looks and Brandon and asked, “What the hell are you doing?” Brandon then fired a second shot into King. McInerney justified his actions by saying that Larry’s flirtation forced him to act the way he did. Brandon was afraid to be seen or thought of as gay. Brandon McInerney pleaded with gay panic defense and was charged guilty to second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.

Gwen Araujo was a transgender female who was murdered on October 3rd, 2003. She was 17 years old. Gwen was beaten to death by four male peers. She had sexual relations with two, having performed oral and anal sex with them. But, when either of the two asked her for vaginal sex, she claimed to be on her period. This rose suspicions in the boys. They began to wonder if she really was “a women”. Nicole Brown, one of the four defendant’s girlfriends, forced Gwen into a stall and pulled down her pants. Finding out that Gwen was anatomically male was so upsetting, it provoked them to murder her. Three out of the four defendants were charged with second-degree murder; Merel, Magidon, and Jason.They were also charged with voluntary manslaughter, even though they had beat her, Gwen, several hours before she died. They justified their actions using the trans panic defense.

The trans and gay panic defense laws are horribly misused. They lessen the defendant’s guilt and end chances of the victim getting full justice. In many cases, the defendant uses these defense laws to their advantage and justifies their actions in order to get a lower sentence, past trials have proved this. The United States needs to outlaw all forms of the trans and gay panic defense laws.

Work Cited

Lee, Cynthia, and Peter Kar Yu Kwan. "The Trans Panic Defense: Heteronormativity, and the

Murder of Transgender Women." SSRN Electronic Journal SSRN Journal (n.d.): 1-57.

Web. 9 Feb. 2016.

Molloy, Parker M. "California Becomes First State to Ban Gay, Trans ’Panic’ Defenses |

Advocate.com." Advocate. N.p., 17 Nov. 2015. Web. 09 Feb. 2016.

Talusan, Meredith. "The Failed Logic Of "Trans Panic" Criminal Defenses."BuzzFeed. N.p., 25

Aug. 2015. Web. 09 Feb. 201

Wilcox, Christine. Teens and LGBT Issues. San Diego, CA: ReferencePoint, 2016. Print