Hate crimes and violence against the Transgendered

Abstract

According to J. Caputi, “in mainstream discussion, violent crimes against women are frequently presented as inexplicable and their perpetrators as social deviants ... [Researchers] have argued for an awareness of the sexually political and conformist nature of such crimes and have invented the word ‘gynocide’ to name the range of systematic violence against women by men.” Similarly, crimes of violence and victimization against transsexual, transgendered and cross‐dressing persons are often characterized as either the actions of individuals (males) who do not live within the rules of society, or as being somehow provoked by victims through their deviancy with regard to gender expectation. In each case, these arguments are simply extensions of the traditional discourse regarding violence against women: either the perpetrator is a “mad dog” (i.e. a criminally deviant male) or the victim “asked for it” (via exhibiting the “provocative behavior” of failing to conform to gender role expectations).