Posted on 05/27/2004 1:58:55 PM PDT by adam_az
FREMONT, Calif. - The name on the birth certificate was Edward Araujo Jr., but the teenager preferred the first name Gwen. At age 17, before getting a chance to make the name change official, Araujo was beaten and strangled after the people she thought were her friends found out she was biologically male.
This week, Araujo's family asked a court for a posthumous name change to Gwen Amber Rose Araujo.
"She's Gwen to me, and I'm her mother," Sylvia Guerrero said outside the courthouse. "This is who she was. She's transgender and she's Gwen."
Superior Court Commissioner Thomas Surh called the request "a novel situation" and said he would let Guerrero know his decision in about a month.
Araujo's family said she had used the name Gwen for years, convinced from an early age that her sexual and biological identities conflicted.
In October 2002, police found her body in a shallow grave 150 miles east of her home in the San Francisco suburb of Newark.
The man who took police to the site, 21-year-old Jaron Nabors, later said Araujo was viciously beaten and strangled following the revelation of her gender.
Nabors pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Three other men, including two who were sexually active with Araujo, are on trial in a case expected to go to a jury next week.
Officially recognizing Araujo as Gwen has symbolic importance, said Christopher Daley of the San Francisco-based Transgender Law Center, which helped the family request the name change.
"The courts serve as a voice for the people of California," Daley said. "By filing this petition, we gave the people an opportunity to explicitly recognize Gwen as Gwen."
Araujo picked the name Gwen after the singer Gwen Stefani, Guerrero said. Guerrero added Amber Rose because those were names she picked in pregnancy, believing she was carrying a girl.
"I lost Eddie a long time ago, and I had to say goodbye to Eddie," Guerrero said. "Unfortunately, to Gwen, too."
Excellent point! Sounds like there's more to this than merely respected for the recently departed. A lot more.
Didn't either/any of these partners notice?? You know, when they commenced to do, er, this-and-that wouldn't they have noticed the,er, plumbing was rigged a little different on this supposed "chick"?
How about folks calling them what they really are -- eunuchs</>
You may want to look at Talblack's post # 15. He explains some of the legal issues involved.
What an awful, awful story. Parents encourage a 17 year old boy to be a girl...perhaps even allowing brutal, unnecessary surgery on a minor. Then the truly foolish boy leads on several over-sexed male teenagers looking for a good time (not a homosexual experience)and winds up being beaten to death. How did we get to this point??
If I had a child as perverted as this I would want to change my name too.
Would also be thankful that someone put him away.
Total waste of carbon molecules
"She" has a penis? The article refers to it as "she" - it is a "he."
This poor creature had one messed up mother - they both belonged in the looney bin.
Agreed. I don't think the "hate" was anything more than outrage at being lied to; a lie which resulted in having sex with something other than what you believed to be female. If you're heterosexual, this would be unsettling to say the least, and most of us would feel violated. As far as brutally murdering this person? Despicable. It just doesn't warrant murder.
Thank you for the head's-up. After reading Talblack's post I found myself wondering if this (requiring legal name on tombstone) would be the same if the remains were cremated,then taken to another resting place and the name given -- in this case -- as "Gwen"? Probably not, but I was just wondering if there was a way around it. I mean outside of a heft bribe or something. (<- joking)
If he was biologically male, then why does AP refer to him as "she" and "her"? I could say I'm the Queen of Sheba, but that would not make it so. Would AP have to refer to me as such?
Sooo, the defendants had sex with 'Gwen' and claimed to not know she had a weenie??? Yeah...sure.... (wink, wink)
There's no lengthy legal proceeding in the offing here. The family submitted a paper filing to the court, possibly accompanied by an extremely brief courtroom appearance. The judge will have his clerks do a little research to see if there's any applicable statutory or case law that needs to be considered, and then he'll issue a paper ruling, possibly accompanied by an extremely brief gavel-banging in the courtroom. Lengthy proceedings require 2 opposing sides, and unless some vicious religious nuts file an appeal to block the judge's (probable) decision to allow the change, there won't be anything to proceed about.
Me, I'd lean towards justifiable here.
Judges being forced to take of their time listening to arguments about changing the names of dead people.
I'd say "only in California" but I'd probably be wrong.
If the men knew that they were having sex with a man why bother to send a woman in to find out for sure?
I suppose you do not believe that any crime has been committed when someone videos (without permission) himself having sex with a woman (maybe even a one night stand).
The murder was a crime of passion. Premeditated but still the result of rage.
I will not play these sematics games with you. You know that this man designed his own death trap by toying with what homosexuals call "rough trade". This is not the only incident where this type of thing occurs. Labelling it a "hate crime" is a fallicy. It speaks nothing of the "hate" that the homosexual community has for heterosexuals by which they feel "I'll show them, I can get them off."
It is a sexual violation which is RAPE.
THAT SAID, I think the fact that this pitiful freak was murdered by his peers was pure human nature. Homosexuality -- which has always existed and always will -- may gain enough acceptance in our present-day civilization enough to cause said civilization's downfall (as has happened before), but genuine acceptance of homosexuality will never be a permanent aspect of the human condition. Nor will there ever be permanent acceptance of homosexuality's accompanying perversions such as "transgenderism." Why? Because you can't fool mother nature.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I know it's a cold thing, but this was nature at work. We are children of God, but creatures of nature.
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