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Verbal Confrontation with Killer Ends with Her Slit Throat Transgender Community Adopts Black Stripes/Armbands |
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Compiled By GayToday
New York, New York— Amanda Milan, a beautiful 25-year-old black woman,
a transsexual, bid her friends good-bye and was on her way home at 5a.m.on
June 21 when she was subjected to gender-slurs shouted by a black man.
Although she didn't know him, it was the same man, say witnesses, who'd been
verbally harassing Amanda and her transgendered sisters earlier that night.
The man yelled such phrases as "You're a man!", and "I know that's a dick you
have in between your legs!"
Amanda shouted back at him, and a verbal confrontation ensued. Amanda turned to leave and walked toward a fleet of N.Y. yellow cabs parked along 46th Street. The man was handed a knife by another man, who egged him on. As Amanda was opening a cab door, her sisters and many other witnesses watched helplessly as the man ran up to her from behind and slashed her throat, severing her jugular, before fleeing. While a few bystanders tried to help, several of the yellow cab drivers parked along the street cheered and applauded as Amanda bled to death. She was conscious for the first two minutes, struggling to breathe through her own blood. She died on the way to St. Vincent's Hospital. Both suspects are in custody, awaiting a grand jury indictment.
Transgendered activists are meeting to discuss strategy. An announcement e-mailed to friends and allies expresses their alarm: "Had Amanda Milan not been a woman of transsexual experience, she would be alive today. Instead, she lies next to Marsha P. Johnson, Brandon Teena, and the multitude of America's children slain through hatred and intolerance for just being different, just for being who they were born to be. The time has come to stand together as a community against these gender-based hate crimes! Amanda's murder occurred only hours before the Senate approved the Hate Crimes Prevention Act (HCPA). The HCPA vote will now go to the House where it is NOT expected to pass." Sylvia Rivera (famed founder of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries and a Stonewall Riot Veteran) and her lover, Julia Rivera-Murray issued the following statement:
Famed transgender activist Sylvia Rivera (right) and her lover Julia Rivera-Murray (left) with GayToday's Jack Nichols. "As Julia and I are getting ready to fly to Italy and meet the trans community for the first time we are sending this message of yet another murder of another trans woman. We of the trans community and the gay community that is supporting us tomorrow June 25th, which is our gay pride here in New York in the memory of Amanda Milan, the trans community and our supporters will be wearing black arm bands and the rainbow colors will have black lines going through it. "If it's not too much of a problem, we are asking our trans community in Italy and our gay brothers and sisters of Italy to show support for us in their own way and if you could possibly forward this to any press that you have access to so that the community in Italy knows the ordeals and hardships of the trans community in New York and the United States. We are hoping that the trans community of Italy does not suffer the things that we suffer here in the States. "Power to all the People." |
