Missing Trans History: The Brandon Teena Demo

I was asked today to provide some transgender history for the upcoming GLBT history month (October). I did some research, and was disappointed to find some events that I considered pivotal to our history absent from most accounts.

The most important missing event, I think, is the demonstration on behalf of murder victim Brandon Teena on May 15, 1995. That's my photo from the event at right, showing a local news camera person and some of the demonstrators (click to enlarge).

Below is my email to "Jamie," including an account of the Brandon Teena demonstration, written shortly after by one of three event organizers, Davina Anne Gabrie. Following Davina Anne's account is my own brief observation.

Date: 05/18/95 11:23:03 PM

Jamie,

You're welcome to post whatever you wish. Here's the latest:

The Brandon Teena vigil was a resounding success. The weather was
perfect, the speakers brilliant, the sheriff supportive, the townsfolk
confused... and yes, there was some hostility, but much more support and
compassion. Here's one person's account:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Activists Protest Violence Against Transpersons

(KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI) -- Approximately forty persons from across the
United States traveled to Falls City, Nebraska on Monday, May 15, 1995 to
participate in a demonstration objecting to violence against transsexual
and transgendered persons. They demonstrated by conducting a peaceful
vigil commemorating the life of Brandon Teena, a preoperative
female-to-male transsexual whose murder was widely reported in both
mainstream and queer media in early 1994. The demonstration and vigil
took place outside the Richardson County Courthouse in Falls City and
coincided with the opening of the trial of John Lotter, 23, of Falls
City, the second defendant accused of murdering Brandon on December 31,
1993 in nearby Humboldt, Nebraska.

Participants in the demonstration came from as far away as California,
Washington, New York, Boston, Florida, Arkansas, New Jersey and
Minnesota, as well as from Nebraska, Missouri, and Kansas, and included
noted activist/authors Leslie Feinberg, Minnie Bruce Pratt and Kate
Bornstein.
Leslie Feinberg is the author of the Lambda Award winning novel "Stone
Butch Blues" and the pamphlet "Transgender Liberation: a Movement Whose
Time Has Come". Her upcoming book "Transgender Warriors: A History of
Resistance" is scheduled to be published by Beacon Press later this year.
Minnie Bruce Pratt is the author of several books including "Rebellion:
Essays 1980-1991"; "We Say We Love Each Other" and "Crime Against
Nature", which won an American Library Association Gay/Lesbian Book Award
and was an Academy of American Poets Lamont Poetry selection. Her most
recent book "S/he" was published by Firebrand Books earlier this year.
Kate Bornstein is an acclaimed playwright and performance artist. She is
author of three plays: "Hidden: A Gender"; "The Opposite Sex Is Neither"
and "Virtually Yours". Her first book, "Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and
the Rest of Us" was published by Routledge Publishers in June 1994.

Approximately 150 persons also turned out to hear Feinberg, Pratt and
Bornstein speak about the relationship between the trans community and
the larger queer community and to read from their works at All Souls
Unitarian Universalist Church in Kansas City, Missouri the previous day,
Sunday, May 14 1995. That event was sponsored by the Kansas City chapter
of Interweave, the queer affiliate organization of the Unitarian
Universalist Church.

Residents of Falls City were generally supportive of the demonstrators,
although some residents who drove by them, mostly adolescent and young
adult males, expressed support for Lotter and disdain for the
demonstrators in a variety of ways, ranging from cheers for Lotter to
verbal insults and hand gestures directed at the demonstrators. There
were no incidents of actual violence or threats of violence. Local
authorities were respectful of and cooperative with the demonstrators.
An unidentified retired lawyer who spoke to the demonstrators stated that
there was virtually no support for Lotter among the townspeople, and that
most were very resentful towards him because of the amount of negative
publicity that this case has focused on Falls City, as well as because of
the enormous expense that has incurred to Richardson County in order to
try his case.

One man, Marvin Thomas Nissen, 22, also of Falls City, has already been
convicted of one count of first degree murder in the death of Brandon
Teena and two counts of second degree murder in the deaths of Lisa
Lambert, whom Brandon was living with at the time, and Phillip DeVine, a
friend who was visiting them on the night of the murders. Nissen was
also convicted on one count of first degree burglary. Nissen was
convicted on Friday, March 3 1995, following eighteen hours of
deliberation over the course of two days, by a jury of ten women and two
men, all from Omaha, Nebraska, and sequestered in Falls City throughout
the course of the trial. According to reports in the North Platte
Telegraph, even Nissen's supporters felt that he was guilty.

John Lotter has pleaded not guilty to involvement in the murders,
claiming that although he was with Nissen on the night they were
committed, he was outside asleep in the car while Nissen was committing
the murders. Lotter's attorney stated in his opening arguments on May 15
that all of the evidence linking Lotter to the murders is circumstantial,
and is seeking to prevent Nissen from testifying against him. Lotter has
demonstrated a propensity toward violence by twice ripping the sink off
the wall of his jail cell while awaiting trial.

Lotter's jury is also composed of ten women and two men, all from Omaha,
and being sequestered in Falls City for the duration of the trial.
Jurors were selected from Omaha because the defendants' attorneys
successfully argued that Nissen and Lotter could not be provided a fair
trial by local residents because of the amount of negative publicity that
has been generated about the case.

Brandon Teena, whose birth name was Teena Brandon, was originally from
Lincoln, Nebraska, and moved to nearby Humboldt in 1994, shortly after
beginning to live full-time as a man in preparation for eventual
sex-change surgery. Brandon passed easily as a man in Humboldt, but was
discovered to be biologically and legally female by local police
following his arrest on a misdemeanor check forgery charge two weeks
prior to his slaying. Police publicly released this information to the
local newspaper, the Falls City Journal. One week later, on Christmas
Day 1994, Brandon was raped and assaulted at a Christmas party by two
men, whom he identified to local police as Nissen and Lotter, despite the
fact that they had threatened to kill him if he reported the incident to
the police.

However, charges of rape and assault were not filed against Nissen and
Lotter until after Brandon's slaying, despite the fact that his sister
Tammy Brandon had called Richardson County sheriff Charles B. Laux four
days before the slaying to ask why Lotter and Nissen had not been
arrested when Brandon had identified them as his attackers. According to
Tammy Brandon, Sheriff Laux had responded to her inquiry by telling her
that "he didn't need [her] to be doing his work." Laux, who has also
been quoted as stating of Brandon that "you can call it 'it' as far as
I'm concerned" has claimed that he had been "pursuing" the rape charges
at the time of Brandon's death. Yet during preliminary hearings last
fall, Sheriff's deputies testified that they were convinced that Lotter
and Nissen had committed the rape and sexual assault, but had been
directed by Sheriff Laux not to arrest them. Laux was defeated in his
bid for re-election as Sheriff last November.

Local authorities have denied that their outing of Brandon in any way
contributed to his killers' motives, and have declined to classify the
murder as a hate crime. However, Lotter's sister has confirmed that both
Lotter and Nissen were enraged after learning that Brandon was
anatomically female but had been living as a man and was even dating a
local woman (Lana Tisdale). Witnesses for the prosecution at Thomas
Nissen's trial testified that both Nissen and Lotter were enraged at and
resentful of Brandon after learning that he was anatomically female but
living as a man. Testimony during that trial also revealed that the
Sheriff's office had interviewed dozens of people and prepared an
extensive report on Brandon's rape and sexual assault during the week
between the rape and the murder.

Leslie Feinberg, along with the New York City Gay and Lesbian
Anti-Violence Project, has called upon the United States Justice
Department to investigate possible violations of Brandon's civil rights
by local authorities due to their failure to arrest Nissen and Lotter
prior to Brandon's death. "It's fair to ask if Brandon Teena would still
be alive today if authorities and the local newspaper had not forcibly
outed him after he had successfully passed as a male in a small town,"
Feinberg was quoted as stating in the 8 March 1994 issue of The Advocate.

Sentencing for Nissen has been delayed until after the completion of
Lotter's trial. The minimum sentence for first degree murder in Nebraska
is life imprisonment; the maximum penalty is execution. Second degree
murder is punishable by a sentence ranging from ten years to life
imprisonment. Both Nissen and Lotter could also subsequently be charged
with rape and sexual assault, but it is unlikely that they will face
charges on those counts if they are sentenced to execution.

As was Nissen's, Lotter's trial is being presided over by Judge Robert
Finn. Judge Finn is the same judge who presided over the trial of
Michael Ryan, who was the leader of a fundamentalist Christian cult in
nearby Rollo, Nebraska in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and who was
convicted in the death the five-year old son of one of his followers in
October 1986. That trial was widely reported in the national media in
the mid-1980s. Ryan was sentenced to execution by Judge Finn following
his conviction in that case.

- Davina Anne Gabriel

This demonstration/vigil was organized by Riki Anne Wilchins, co-founder
of "The Transexual Menace", a leading activist for gender liberation.
Riki can be reached at riki@pipeline.com. Working with Riki was Nancy
Nangeroni, nrn@world.std.com. Local organizing was done by Davina Anne
Gabriel, DavinaAnne@aol.com.

Meanwhile, on Monday, May 15, even while the demonstration/vigil was
taking place in Falls City, Nebraska, another transsexual - Debbie Forte
- was murdered in Haverhill, MA. As reported in the Boston Herald, "He
had been badly beaten around the head and shoulders in addition to
suffering the knife wound." Debbie's naked body had been found with a
steak knife stuck in her chest. According to the roommate of a close
friend "She was a very nice looking girl. She had a heart of gold. We
all loved her. I can't believe someone would do something like this to a
nice person."

The murder occurred just three days after noted transgender activist
Leslie Feinberg delivered the commencement address at Bradford College in
the same town.

The violence, born of ignorance and feeding on fear, continues.

- Nancy Nangeroni