TDoR 2015 / 2015 / July / 21 / India Clarke


India Clarke


21 Jul 2015
Tampa, Florida (USA)
Beaten

TDoR list ref: tgeu/21-Jul-2015/India Clarke

India Clarke
India Clarke [photo: www.facebook.com]

India was found dead by a park employee at about 9am in a grassy area near a playground at University Area Community Center. She died as a result of blunt force trauma.

The following evening hundreds of people attended a vigil at the park where her body was found.

A week after her murder Keith Lamayne Gaillard, 18, turned himself in and was booked on charges of first-degree murder and possession of a firearm.

In keeping with a pattern that followed many of the previous nine murders of trans women this year, coverage of the investigation by local media often misgendered Clarke—identifying her with male pronouns or her birth name rather than her chosen name—despite established journalistic guidelines dictating that the media use an individual's preferred name and pronouns.

This refusal to acknowledge a name change is unique to transgender people. Journalists comply when rappers change their names, "which they do frequently," says Andrew Seaman, ethics chair for the Society of Professional Journalists. It shouldn't be any different, he argues, for people who identify with a gender and a name different from those they were assigned at birth. So why do some journalists insist on misgendering India Clarke and other transgender people in the news?

In Clarke's case, the misgendering began with the police investigation. Despite the fact that Clarke clearly identified as female on her Facebook page, investigators have insisted on identifying the victim as male. "We are not going to categorize him as a transgender. We can just tell you he had women's clothing on at the time," Detective Larry McKinnon, a spokesman for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office told BuzzFeed News. "What his lifestyle was prior to that we don't know—whether he was a cross-dresser, we don't know." (The only explanation as to why officials can't refer to Clarke as a woman appears to be the fact that the medical examiner identified her as a male.)

DESPITE THE FACT THAT CLARKE CLEARLY IDENTIFIED AS FEMALE ON HER FACEBOOK PAGE, INVESTIGATORS HAVE INSISTED ON IDENTIFYING THE VICTIM AS MALE. "The police were basically saying, 'It's a man in a dress,'" Seaman says. "And what often happens—too often actually—is that journalists just take police reports and descriptions and run with it."

While most journalists may be in favor of a policy in which any and all story subjects are referred to by their preferred pronouns–she, her, he, him, etc.–and updated style guides reflect that, another part of the problem may be that bad habits can be hard to shake. Advances in technology and medicine are often slow to catch on, and the same goes for journalism, according to Seaman. "When there's a change in practice it takes time," he says. "You can see the same thing with the terms 'undocumented' and 'illegal' immigrants. There are still places that use the term illegal immigrant when much of the profession has moved to undocumented immigrant."

But it's more than just a "whoopsie" for the people who are misgendered. It undermines transgender acceptance and dignity, and in cases like Clarke's, it could impede justice. "LGBT anti-violence organizations have long warned that misgendering transgender victims and quickly downplaying gender identity as a factor in investigations can alienate people who know the victims and who could provide tips that identify a suspect," BuzzFeed's Dominic Holden writes.

"You're not doing anyone any favors by misgendering someone," Seaman adds. "If you could avoid the harm caused to the victim, and in this case, the victim's family and friends who are the ones dealing with the aftermath of this, why wouldn't you?"

India was a cosmetology student. Her Facebook profile is https://www.facebook.com/india.milan.3.

"[She] was a good-hearted person. Very loving person," [her] mother, Thelma Clarke, told WTSP through tears.

Thelma says her [daughter] was different, but loved to laugh, make people smile, and certainly did not deserve to die the way [she] did.

"[Her] last words when [she] headed out the door were, "Mom, I love you, Dad, I love you. And we both said, 'We love you too."

TvT project: The Guardian 22.07.2015 & MTV.com 23.07.2017

https://www.pghlesbian.com/2015/07/arrest-in-the-murder-of-25-year-old-trans-woman-india-clarke/

https://psmag.com/social-justice/the-misgendering-of-india-clarke

https://transgriot.blogspot.com/2015/08/arrest-made-in-india-clarke-case.html

https://www.glaad.org/blog/transgender-woman-india-clarke-murdered-tampa-florida

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/transgender-woman-murdered-in-family-friendly-park-in-tampa_us_55afb51ae4b0a9b948532979

https://www.advocate.com/transgender/2015/07/22/tampa-fla-sees-tenth-trans-woman-murdered-us-2015

https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/84373664-157.html

http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/teen-arrested-in-connection-with-india-clarke-murder-sheriffs-officials-say/2239133

https://abcnews.go.com/US/trans-woman-found-beaten-death-florida-believed-10th/story?id=32638584

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transgender-person-found-murdered-near-tampa-park/

https://www.facebook.com/events/414101295457458/permalink/415240652010189/

Report added: 31 Oct 2018. Last updated: 13 Jan 2021

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