Transgender Student Slashed In Campus Restroom

The victim was identified by name. The victim was attacked specifically because of being transgendered, with the words “IT” carved into the victim’s chest. This IS a hate crime by every definition of the term. Or is “not a hate crime” using the same definition as the “started as a prank but got out of hand” situation like the lesbian student who was attacked for being a lesbian and nearly thrown from a cliff in Kentucky by 3 of her classmates? (Rolling eyes.)

Mostly likely it is not known if the victim had anything to do with it. Just because there was violence doesn’t make it a hate crime. We are only seeing one side of the story. If it was done just because the victim was transgendered and that was the whole story, then yes, it is a hate crime, but not knowing the whole story you shouldn’t just make a judgment. For all we know it could have been revenge, payback or whatever the like.

Re: Chris –

Very good points, and it would be a solid counterargument, save for one crucial thing: ‘revenge’ and/or ‘payback’ usually imply a personal connection of some sort, so the student probably would have had at least an inkling of who his attacker was; if not by name, then by facial features. They may have met somewhere or something, even if only a few times. Just because a survivor is known to their attacker by name, does not necessarily mean that the survivor knows who that attacker is. This would be a phenomenon known as ‘stalking’, which means the attack, in that case, would most likely premeditated to some degree. Nice try at devil’s advocate, though.

if the person had IT carved into their chest you can bet it was a hate crime. no one deserves to be treated that way- transpeople are NOT objects, we are people. We are not ITs.