Why I Fight, Chapter 2004

September 27, 2004
Washington, DC

A friend and I were walking from the hotel where we were staying to the Navy Yard Metro station in the late afternoon, on our way to Northern Virginia to visit a friend. We took the direct route down Half Street SE, which happened to be through "the projects".

Along the way, a group of young men, I'd guess aged 17 - 21, gathered and started following us, shouting slurs and telling us we didn't belong there. We didn't stop to confirm that it was, in fact, a public street in a neighborhood paid for entirely with tax (and drug) money. As we got near M Street SE, I felt something hit the back of my head. Hard. It was a padlock one of them had thrown at me. It hurt, but I was more surprised than anything. I picked it up and tossed it gently over the fence surrounding one of the front yards, and continued walking. We got a bit closer to M Street, and suddenly the right side of my face was caved in. I felt a flash of pain and slumped to the ground. I must have lost consciousness, because the next thing I remember is being 50 or so yards closer to M Street on the other side of Half Street from where I was struck. It turns out one of them ran up behind me and smashed a brick into my face.

I was semi-conscious on the ground, being kicked and punched over and over. I curled up to protect my head and prayed I would survive. I have never been more religious in my life. It is hard to write this - even more than 13 years later - without crying. An elderly woman came out into her yard and yelled at them to stop, but they didn't.

After what seemed like an eternity, I was convinced they were going to kill me. My friend had a pocket knife and stabbed one of them in the butt. She later told me that she did so deliberately to avoid permanently injuring anyone. The distraction gave me a moment to get to my feet, and my adrenaline level was high enough that I didn't know or care that my right eye was literally falling out of its socket. Most of these guys were obviously unwilling to engage in combat with someone who was actually fighting back (like most predators, they're lazy cowards), so I focused on the one who was attacking my friend, who for some insane reason had crawled into the back of a motorist's car on M Street, screaming for them to call the police. I don't feel sorry for the amount of damage I did to that guy.

By this time it was well after sunset.

An ambulance arrived first, and the EMT's began trying to treat my injuries, but the DC police arrived shortly afterward. The first thing they did was put me in handcuffs, over the objections of the EMT's. Our attackers fled, except for the one who was still unconscious. When I tried to point them out to the cops, a female cop fondled her firearm and instructed, "Put your hands behind your back!" The other cops present showed no desire to pursue the actual criminals, who all fled into the neighborhood. After a few minutes, the realization that I wasn't likely the one guilty of any crimes came to those geniuses, and they released me from the back of the police cruiser to be taken to a hospital in the ambulance.

The DC police are protected by law against negligence lawsuits.

I don't know what hospital they took me to. I was in and out of consciousness. I did my best to tell the cops who showed up what happened, but my memory of the events was and is fragmented. They never released the police reports to me, and after a time I gave up trying to get them. To this day I want the pictures they took while I was on that operating table. I want you to see what hate looks like. I asked one of the nurses for a mirror, and only one time in my life have I cried harder than the moment I looked into it.

I had been a moderately successful independent model in a generation where trans women were erased from existence outside of crude pedantic "jokes". I made a good living and didn't have to prostitute myself to do so. I realized in that moment that my life as I knew it was over.

I didn't have insurance, so the hospital refused to call a surgeon. My face was mutilated. Two medical students arrived as I was losing consciousness - at least it was from anesthesia - to put me back together. Bless their hearts, they did the best they could, and honestly they did a hell of a good job considering how swollen my face must have been.

Several hours later I awoke, and still groggy from the anesthesia walked toward the nearest [EXIT] sign. I was not prescribed pain medication and was refused even an ACE wrap for my broken ribs. There were no hospital personnel around the area I staggered into, so I went to one of the nurse's stations and dialed "9" for an outside line. Usually that works, and so it did. I called my friend we were going to visit in Virginia to let him know what happened. He told me that the friend I had been with when this incident occurred was at his house, and that I should go there instead of back to my hotel. I didn't have any money, but a woman in the hospital visiting another patient overheard my phone conversation and walked over to hand me a $50 bill. I felt terrible, but would have been a fool to try walking from Southeast DC to Alexandria, VA in that condition, and thanked her as sincerely and profusely as my foggy mind would permit. I dialed "9" again and called a cab. I don't remember the ride to Virginia.

Nobody would remove the stitches due to my lack of insurance, not even the hospital that put them there. Eventually the skin of my eyelid started to grow over them, and I was forced to remove them myself. Putting sharp metal objects near my mangled face was traumatic, to say the least, but I had no choice. To this day my right eyelid is droopy, less because of the damage than because those stitches were in it for two weeks longer than they should have been.

The guy who was still unconscious when the cops arrived was the only one prosecuted for this. He received a sentence of less than three years because he was 18 and tried as a juvenile. I was not allowed in the courtroom for any of his court dates.

The Washington Post and NBC News both told me - using almost the exact same words - "Violent crimes against trans women are so common in the District that it's not news-worthy."

In February 2005, Ted Kennedy referenced the incident on the floor of the US Senate, although notably he did not consult with me before doing so, as I would have pointed out that roughly 40% of trans women who are murdered are murdered by cops, that all violent crimes can be classified as hate crimes, and that such laws utterly fail to achieve his stated noble goal of "protection", which is itself a racket. All they do is increase funding for those cops.

the damaged one, a year later

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If anyone can perform a successful search of the Washington Blade Archives where the original article is hopefully available, please let me know. I'm getting Gateway Timeouts and the DC Public Library Archives don't cover the year I'm looking for.