Trigger warning
This is pretty devastating. Last Saturday in San Francisco, a lesbian was beaten and repeatedly raped by four men, while the perpetrators "made comments indicating they knew her sexual orientation." They then left the 28-year old naked outside of an abandoned apartment building, who was helped by someone living nearby.
This year has brought an increase in violence against LGBT individuals and a dramatic spike in murders resulting from LGBT hate crimes. And not surprisingly, some folks believe that anti-LGBT legislation such as California's Prop 8 is what is fueling the fire. Avy Skolnik of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs (NCAVP) responded:
"Anytime there is an anti-LGBT initiative, we tend to see spikes both in the numbers and the severity of attacks. . . People feel this extra entitlement to act out their prejudice." (Emphasis mine)
The NCVAP is beginning to conduct research in the states that had gay marriage bans on the ballot this year to document the correlation with hate crimes.
Police in Richmond are offering a $10,000 reward to those who could lead them to the attackers. In the meantime, the local rape crisis center has set up a trust fund for her. Just donate in honor of "Jane Doe Richmond."
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: San Francisco woman gang raped, reported as LGBT hate crime.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/11117
Thanks for Information !
Extremely Repugnant and Repellent hate crime. I like to investigate in the Internet what happened in these cases in order to report later and make a roster of names, cities, locations and type of Crime.
Just yesterday I was reading that three people had been murdered in Memphis, Tennessee, because of Sexual Orientation, and another human being was in grave condition after being shot there.
I am astonished by this year 2008, everything shows that Hate Crime is increasing at fast speed :
Racial Crimes, Sexual Orientation Crimes and Ethnics Crime.
I am reporting here :
Raciality.com
Vicente Duque
Authorities in the area of S.F. and Richmond, CA are offering a $10,000. dollar reward and are looking for two suspects out of the four that used the names "Blue" and "Pato". Anyway that you can help will be greatly appreciated, possibly rewarded, so get on it and thank you.
The suspects also stole the women's car and her wallet, so they might have some leads soon.
I saw this and it makes me so sick. Poor woman, my sympathies go out to her. she must be so traumatized, too scared to go out.
of all places... in SAN FRANCISCO!!!
It didn't happen in San Francisco. It happened on the other side of the bay and in a city with one of the worst crime rates in CA.
From Wikipedia:
"In 2004, Richmond was statistically the second most dangerous city in California, surpassing Oakland and was named the 8th most dangerous city in the country. However, those rankings have changed and Richmond is now the third most dangerous in California behind Compton and Oakland and 11th most dangerous nationally according to the Morgan Quitno rankings.
The racial makeup of the city was 36.06% black or African American, 21.36% white, 0.64% Native American, 12.29% Asian, 0.50% Pacific Islander, 13.86% from other races, and 5.27% from two or more races. 26.53% of the population were Hispanic or Latino of any race."
Now these cities like Oakland and Richmond have primarily black-on-black crimes. Oakland has about 70% homicide victims being black despite less than 36% black residents. I would think this rape has more to do with a culture of violence in these cities than with a LGBT hate crime. The only thing is you don't hear about the hundreds of other rape victims from the Richmond or Oakland areas. They'll never get their story heard here. Makes you wonder who's actually being helped by the readers of this blog...
Did you not remember the part where they made references to her sexual orientation? I bet they stalked her, knew about her sexual orientation and planned it out. I'm fucking sure it was a hate crime.
Oh woops. I realized to late that this was by the troll that I'm sure by now has been deleted from the forum.
Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.
What are the descriptions of the assailants? There are no, height, race, descriptions in any of the articles I've read. I hope they catch these bastards!!
This is a really shocking news story. Truly terrifying that these things continue to happen.
I am so incredibly saddened by this! I first read about this here... http://www.womensspace.org/phpBB2/2008/12/23/lesbian-brutally-kidnapped-brutally-gang-raped-in-san-francisco/
I wish I could send $ but I am broke. In the meantime I can send her healing energy!
Wow... that is quite some blog. From some quotes of the readers:
"The central reason for these crimes are male hatred of women - not because of the woman’s sexual orientation but because she is female not male."
And...
"I think I’d be a little more convinced that men were not all evil conniving snakes if I saw more moral outrage on their part against crimes men commit routinely against women all the time!"
And...
"This is what freedom looks like women! Heart creates a serious space for serious women. The male voice is not allowed to run wild here the way it is everywhere else on the Internet."
And...
"Fuck men. Fuck them. They don’t talk about rape because they don’t give a fuck about it…so long as no one (except them) rapes their prized pieces of pussy."
And...
"It is sobering to understand, to know, that if given half a chance, just about every man I/we encounter on the street/at work/anywhere in life (even amongst those I/we might call ‘friends’) would beat me/us, rape me/us, and leave me/us for dead…that in the back of all of their heads this is the ultimate sick, fucked up, perverse, woman-hating ‘fantasy’…of taking their hatred of us to it’s absolute logical conclusion their ultimate desire."
Remember, you are judged by the company you keep.
way to hijack. what the hell is your point? wait don't tell me - take it to a post where it's relevant.
Ignore the troll. Report abuse.
Yes, the comments at that place are horrendously ignorant, what's your point?
I had a point and posted it. It got deleted. Sorry you weren't around to see it. This blog prefers keeping alternate viewpoints out of the discussions rather than allowing readers to make up their own minds. You'll have to bring up that issue with the moderators.
His point was that since some people in the blogosphere make extreme comments, we all look like assholes. "you are judged by the company you keep."
Oh, and his second point was that we don't care about real people getting raped, just about people who appear in the news. Because we're all ignorant or something. Nice one, Bill Diamond. That's a really valuable opinion you have there. I'm really sad that the big bad moderators pulled that one down, it so enriched my life.
This story literally brought me to tears
Those men that did that to her don't deserve to live.
Thats so horrible. I can't afford much these days but 10 bucks is better than no bucks. =/ I hope everything pans out for her. I also hope those men get hit by buses.
How fucking horrible. I'd like to do a few things to those fuckers that did that....loooong after the prison sentence.
Maybe it's just a cultural difference, what with the US having more guns and being generally more pro-death penalty than Australia, but IMHO wishing that anyone dies or wanting to perpetrate violence against others is not positive no matter how dispicable the act (in this case, horrifying). Violence begets violence, an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind, etc. etc. You've heard it all before but it's difficult to remind yourself of these things when it's against someone you really despise. I just wanted to point that out, that I don't like to see violence being wished upon or perpetrated against anyone.
re: the crime. Words cannot describe. It's just horrible and wrong. Nothing more. Horrible and wrong. Hopefully the men can be caught and brought to justice, and hopefully it will bring some deserved attention to the LGBTQ movement. All those saying that LGBTQ people aren't persecuted or oppressed will have to eat their words. Just.. gah. Just, gah.
Furthermore though, I think this serves as a strong reminder that not all gay bashings are perpetrated against men. Oftentimes the idea of a woman being targeted for being gay is ignored in the mainstream media. Not anymore, I hope.
This is awful. Absolutely god awful. I really hope that she'll be okay. I'll keep her in my thoughts.
This is absolutely awful. I hope that she'll be okay. I'll keep her in my thoughts.
This is horrible. I made a donation to the rape crisis center (their site says they offer quite an impressive list of services) and posted the information and link on my own blog. I've seen a few other people do so as well and hope others who read Feministing, and keep personal blogs and such repost the information to get it out there further.
As a curious aside, given that part of the attack focussed on the woman's sexual orientation, does anyone else find it odd that one of the perps goes by "Pato"? Technically, it means "duck", but it's also commonly known in Spanish as a derogatory term for a homosexual.
The info regarding "Pato" might be good to share with Richmond PD, if they don't already know. I'd put a call in to inform them.
That is horrific. I grew up in the Bay Area and I stay out of Richmond. Very sad to hear.
I saw this and it makes me so sick. Poor woman, my sympathies go out to her. she must be so traumatized, too scared to go out.games