A Case on Trans-misogyny and Anti-Blackness
**Content warning: transphobia/homophobia, anti-Blackness/racism, houselessness/classism, murder**
The date is Saturday, June 5th, 2011. It was a warm summer night and CeCe McDonald was walking down a street of Southern Minneapolis with a group of friends looking for open grocery stores. When a group of bar patrons at the close-by Schooner Tavern began yelling derogatory and aggressive verbal remarks at McDonald and her group of friends, it became apparent that violence could arise at any moment. Being followed by three older men, young McDonald pulled out a pair of scissors from her purse, fearful, in case of the need of self-defense. The three men continued shouting at McDonald’s group until McDonald confronted the other group to hopefully put a stop to their remarks. In the end, however, violence broke out, each group’s members had non-fatal injuries, and one of the men by the name of Dean Schmitz died moments after the outbreak (Buist 2013:43).
Where in fact the real story unfolds lies within the criminal justice process and the eventual unethical sentencing of McDonald, despite her valid acts of self-defense, to 41 months in an all-male correctional facility in St. Cloud, Minnesota, guilty on the account of second-degree manslaughter (Buist 2013; Erdely 2014). CeCe McDonald, at the time, was a 23 years old, unhoused Black transgender woman. As a queer trans youth of color–as well as having a long list of perpetuated-violence against her on the basis of her race, gender, and class–McDonald had every reason to fear for her life on this Saturday night. Dean Schmitz, the two other white men, and Schmitz’a white ex-girlfriend by the name of Molly Flaherty continued shouting grotesque remarks at McDonald and her friends, all of whom were also queer trans youth color. Schmitz’s group continued yelling statements such as: “Faggots!,” “Bitches with dicks,” “That’s a man!,” and “You niggers need to go back to Africa!” (Erdely 2014). After moments of this, McDonald turned around and confronted Schmitz’s group by explaining, “We’re just trying to walk to the store” (Erdely 2014). Molly Flaherty then chuckled “I’ll take all of you bitches on!” and smashed a beer bottle across McDonald’s face, leaving her with a punctured salivary gland and the need of 11 stitches (Buist 2013:43). Schmitz then began sprinting after McDonald, continuing to threaten her during the chase. McDonald later stabbed Schmitz once in the chest out of survival and, upon hearing him cry “Bitch, you stabbed me!”, McDonald left back for her group of friends, blood dripping down her face (Erdely 2014). Schmitz wobbled back to the Tavern where he got to the sidewalk floor. When McDonald and one of her friends, Thomas, waved down a police car in need of immediate help, the two of them were handcuffed and arrested. Schmitz, meanwhile, was bleeding through his shirt across the street, showcasing the Swastika tattoo on his chest, sweating out the meth still in his bloodstream and, upon trying to get up, collapsed and died there on the floor.
It is undeniable that McDonald’s race, gender, and class were the defining characteristics that resulted in both the hate crime itself as well as the criminal justice process and decided-outcome of the event. Had the roles been reversed–in which case McDonald hypothetically would have started the fight and Schmitz would have murdered McDonald–the court would have without a doubt found Schmitz to have been acting out of self-defense. Because of the ways in which Black bodies are politically viewed as “violent” and “criminal,” McDonald’s cases brought alive those stereotypes (Barkan 2018). Such stigmatism was the reason Schmitz attacked McDonald; it was the reason McDonald was immediately handcuffed and brutalised by police enforcement and it is why the court system treated her as less than human when her human life was at risk (Erdely 2014). In McDonald’s case, however, the court intentionally downplayed Schmitz’s racist and transphobic past, including his listed-arrests for fifth-degree assault and domestic assault as well as multiple financial crimes (Buist 2013:44). Schmitz’s violent past was so downplayed that, in fact, McDonald was accused of lying about her own actions being derivative of self-defense. Her verdict of second-degree manslaughter results from the court’s inability to see her life as that of equal to Schmitz and, likewise, her actions of that as “deceptive” and “untrustworthy” and fully in line with the prejudice held within the systems of law enforcement and criminal justice (44).
Because of McDonald’s intersecting identities as a poor Black trans woman, and the systematic forces that oppress people of such marginalized backgrounds, the court was able to not only discredit her testimony of self-defense but additionally hint that her identity and expression alone was the rationale for Schmitz’s actions. Had it not been for Schmitz, there would literally be no case; Schmitz’s actions were a direct result of internalized racism, transmisogyny, and classism and McDonald became the target of such forms of anger and hate. Likewise, had McDonald and her group of friends not been walking down that street at that time, Schmitz most likely would not have acted violently against anyone else. It is because we live in a society in which the lives of poor queer trans people of color (QTPOC) hold significantly less weight than that of rich white cishet men that McDonald received no justice in court.
McDonald’s case, inclusive of the event, prosecution, and sentencing, all together highlight the larger socio-economic implications that lie at the heart of such a case. We live in a country where, today, the U.S. houses one-fourth of the world’s incarcerated population–over half of whom (64%) are Black and brown folx (Barkan 2018:345). The War on Drugs of the late 1970s and 80s was a direct attack on poor Black and brown and antiwar-radical communities in effort of silencing dissenting opinions around international warfare and devastating urban renewal projects (343–345). Although 91% of those incarcerated in the U.S. are male-identified, it is evident that queer and trans women of color disproportionately make up a large population of the women incarcerated within this country (Barkan 2018:342; Buist 2013). Likewise, because of the intersecting realities of people of color, poor people, and queer and trans people–all of whom who are still systematically discriminated against in employment, housing, medical, and political realms in addition to facing heightened levels of violence–McDonald’s positionality in the case rests in the hands of those who hold the political power over QTPOC (Buist 2013).
Nonetheless, although McDonald’s case may seem out of the ordinary, for trans folx the circumstances McDonald faced are more or less typical. In Carrie Buist and Codie Stone’s critical piece on “Transgender Victims and Offenders” (2013), they specifically plot CeCe McDonald’s unique positionality within the larger scope of U.S. history and political conversations as it pertains to the outcome of her case. Centuries ago, during the 1850s, dressing as the “opposite sex” was illegal in most states because of munipal ordinances; it was this early form policing trans individuals’ gender expression that led to the late-19th century medicalization of “gender variant behavior” which would further criminalize trans people for being and appearing as themselves (Buist 2013:36). Urbanism and first-wave feminism of the early-20th century concurrently supported queer and trans people’s flight to cities and rising-suburbs across the country as well in effort of creating new and thriving safe communities in a post-WWI economy (36). Specifically, poor QTPOC found sanction in urban areas because of its housing opportunities for other systematically exploited and disenfranchised populations. Anti-sodomy, anti-sex work, anti-homeless, and anti-Black policies quickly became enacted across state lines to ensure that the folx coming in to these cities who could not financially support themselves were further prosecuted for attempting to find any means of survival (36). As a result of the Compton Cafeteria and Stonewall Inn riots in the late 1960s that resulted out of such brutal forms of violence and criminalization from police enforcement officials, the narratives and needs of trans people have only in the past few decades become public-place, common colloquium.
Discrimination and systematic oppression still manifests physically and psychologically in the lives of trans people, from those such as police and law enforcement to everyday folx. In a study on Aggression and Violent Behavior, Rebecca Stotzer underlines the way in which interactions between law enforcement and trans communities is a rather emotional and intergenerational subject:
“Contact between LGBT people and LECJ [law enforcement and criminal justice] personnel is often dictated by a systematic need to reinforce what is normative, such as in police raids of gay bars, prosecuting same-sex public sexual contact while dismissing heterosexual public sexual contact, illegal stops of people who are ‘deceiving’ others by wearing clothes different than their natal sex would indicate is appropriate, etc.” (2014:264).
CeCe McDonald’s case was not an isolated case. Her case is a part of a larger system with histories of decades of policing marginalized communities in effort of eradication and genocide. It is obvious that McDonald was acting out of self-defense against Dean Schmitz in 2011; yet, when up to 71% of all trans people have been arrested in their lives, it is not shocking that McDonald received similar treatment when approaching police for help regarding her visibly cracked and bleeding head because of the incident (272).
Stotzer, in her article, similarly mentions that evidence and research on trans people’s experience with LECJ “has been understudied” because of these systems of power that inequitably put poor QTPOC at the bottom of the political and social pyramid (2014:264). However, it is worth stating that the evidence is out there in everyday life–trans women of color face violence and discrimination on the daily. That is not to say we do not need numbers and data to back up these experiences, but rather we as a society must critically reflect on whether or not the policing and legal systems we have set up today are working. And, if they are, who and how are they working.
Each year, the murder against trans women of color rises (HRC 2019). This is not an accident. CeCe McDonald’s actions in 2011 were in response to this. CeCe McDonald was defending against her life, and the criminal justice system saw no life worth defending. In the foreword of Captive Genders, McDonald writes openly that “[her] political education began while [she] was incarcerated for defending myself against a racist and transphobic attack.” (2015:1). She recognizes that the prison industrial complex (PIC) is set up “[like] slavery, there is no other way around the violence” and thus, her case, outcome, and treatment were all, likewise, a direct result of this oppressive system in place still today (2).
Works Cited
Barkan, Steven E. 2018. Criminology: a sociological understanding. 7th ed. Boston, MA: Pearson.
Buist, Carrie L. and Codie Stone. 2013. “Transgender Victims and Offenders: Failures of the United States Criminal Justice System and the Necessity of Queer Criminology.” Wilmington, NC: Springer.
Erdely, Sabrina R. 2014. “The Transgender Crucible.” Rolling Stone. Retrieved September 16, 2019
Stanley, Eric A. and Nat Smith, eds. 2015. Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex. 2nd ed. Baltimore, MD: AK Press.
Stotzer, Rebecca L. 2014. “Law enforcement and criminal justice personnel interactions with transgender people in the United States: A literature review.” Pp. 263–277 in Aggression and Violent Behavior. Vol. 19. University of Hawaii, Mãnoa: Elsevier Ltd.
