It's Time to Talk About Gwen

Anyone who knows a great deal about the violence committed against Transgender women of color, know about Gwen Amber Rose Araujo. For those who don’t, let’s take some time to talk about her.

Gwen Araujo was seventeen years old, who know who she was from an early age. With this knowledge, she took the steps to make herself into the woman she felt she was inside. A woman who loved make up, who loved her family and the few close friends she felt free enough to let her guard down with. A young woman who loved Gwen Stefani, and chose her name for that reason, a young woman who loved butterflies, for the idea they start as one thing, then transform into something beautiful. Gwen Araujo would have done amazing things for so many people with a story similar to hers; born as one gender, only to identify as the opposite. Unfortunately, on October 4th 2002, any of those possibilities were taken away, by hate.

Trigger Warning: The following paragraph depicts a summary of the actions committed against Gwen Araujo. If this is something that is difficult to deal with, skip to the following paragraph.

Gwen Araujo went to a party, where in the midst of the party, her biological history was discovered. Rather than asking her to leave and not come back, to let her go on her way without any further issues, four men decided to take her life in the most violent fashion possible. She was beaten with a frying pan, canned goods, a shovel, and a barbell weight. She was then hog tide, strangled, then wrapped in a sheet and taken two hundred miles away and left in a three foot grave with boulder rocks covering her body, both as an attempt to prevent her body from being found, and keep any wild animals from eating her. One of the men involved in her death, would lead police to her body two weeks after she was reported missing.

Gwen Araujo seventeen years old the night she was killed, she was a child who was only doing the best she could to survive living in her own skin.

Four men would be prosecuted for Gwen’s death. Two would receive manslaughter charges, while other two would be charged with first degree murder, only to be found guilty of second degree murder at the end of the second trial, the first trial ending in a hung jury. The defense used “trans-panic” as their defense, or that it was a heat of the moment action, since they felt they had been deceived.

Here’s the thing I want to make clear. Even if Gwen did deceive anyone (which she didn’t), those who were at the party could have just asked her to leave, they could have asked her not to speak to them again, let the whole thing go, and let that be the end of it. That is NOT what they decided to do. THEY decided they would do away with her, with the threat that because she had been born male, that meant they were gay for allegedly having sexual relations with her. THEY decided to commit the crime of murder. Gwen only lived as her true self and these men killed her for it. All of it falls on THEM, not Gwen. None of this was her fault. That’s the truth that matters here.

What would follow in the wake of Gwen’s death, is the truth that evil is real, that evil hates, and pushes hatred for what can’t be easily understood.

The only talk about Gwen Araujo in recent years was the Lifetime Original Movie “A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story”, a decent attempt for the time it was made, but a failed one when one considers those involved with the case, the facts of the case itself, and of course the portrayal of Gwen. Other than this, very little has been said about her other than by those who either lived in the area where she was killed at the time of her death, or who as I mentioned earlier, are knowledgeable about the violence Transgender women have been forced to endure simply for who they are.

Well, at this time, eighteen years since the time of her death, I would like to talk about Gwen.

I did not know Gwen Araujo personally, though I grew up and have lived in the neighboring city where had lived and where she was killed. I also know and have met people who knew her or knew of her, and very few who actually knew her well. I learned of her story when I was fourteen years old, when ads for the film were shown on TV and segments on the local news made to talk about the film and the story itself. I had never really hard the term transgender before, but found myself intrigued and deeply saddened by the entire thing. Here was a beautiful girl, with no interest of hurt anyone, but only in being herself, and was ultimately killed for it. I couldn’t make sense of it at all. I watched the film, read every article I could find. Even arriving at this moment, after so much research I’ve done on the case, I still can’t make sense of it, nor do I think I ever will. What I can make sense of, is the truth that if I never learned about Gwen’s story, I don’t know if I ever would have become a writer.

In my desperation to understand how this heart breaking event could happen, I began to write about her, for her, anything I could do that I thought at the time could bring me closer to answer the question of why she was stolen from us, and also closer to her.

I’ve never stopped writing, and I have Gwen to thank for that. I wish more than anything I could thank her in person. Of course, I can’t do that. I can only continue to write, continue to listen to the stories with those who knew her, and to in turn share Gwen’s story with the world of those struggling with their gender identity.

Gwen, if only you could see how so many like you are now living out loud and without shame. Gracing the cover of magazines and playing the leads for top rated network television shows. We’ve come a long way. We still have a lot of work to do, but we’ve come a long way. While we wish you were here, you’ve got the best seat in the house, with a view of the whole stage. We love sweet girl, rest in peace. I know I will be blasting Gwen Stefani’s music until our ears are pulsing from the rhythm.