6/29/14

Trans woman Yasmien Love charged with premeditated murder on the University of Miami Campus

A 35-year-old woman is facing felony charges after allegedly trying to shoot an employee inside the University of Miami School of Communication building Friday morning.

The incident happened around 11:45 a.m. on the final day of Summer A testing. According to Coral Gables police, Yasmien Love entered the building’s equipment room intending to kill a victim identified only as Landess. According to the university website, a man named Tod Landess works as a production equipment supervisor in the School of Communication.

Love has been charged with one count of premeditated murder, one count of aggravated battery and one count of discharging a firearm on school property. Police originally said no one was injured during the altercation, but according to the Coral Gables Police report, Love bit Landess and hit him with an unidentified object.

Love told police she arrived at the university with a gun and waited until Landess got to work. Then, they struggled over the gun and a round was discharged. She told investigators she wanted to kill herself in front of Landess because of their recent breakup.

Love identifies as female, but Coral Gables police identified her as a male on the affidavit. Police spokeswoman Kelly Denham said Saturday that Love’s driver’s license lists her gender as male, which is what the police based their report on..

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6/28/14

Seattle Trans March kicks off Pride with 2000

SEATTLE - Gay pride is a mainstream cause in Seattle, symbolized by a glittering Sunday parade that in recent years has moved from the LGBT heartland of Capitol Hill to Fourth Avenue downtown.

TransPride, the cause of the transgender community, is newer, edgier and angrier, the product of continued discrimination abroad in society and mistreatment even at home in the LGBT community.

But a TransPride rally, on a cool Friday night, drew to Cal Anderson Park a crowd of nearly 2,000 people.

"It is amazing to see you all. What a ***damned gorgeous crowd. I could not imagine this growing up, which is not too long ago. You were lucky if you knew even one other trans person," said keynote speaker Elena Rose, a writer and religious scholar.

Kai Green, a writer-poet-filmaker from California, described twin prejudices that make for the edginess: "I think homophobia is still with us, and trans-phobia still exists in the gay community. These are two things that we have to tackle simultaneously."

Transgendered people have long been stigmatized, but Green argued that they cannot be stereotyped. "We come in all different shades of color, from all class backgrounds, from all parts of the country. There is no single 'trans background,'" he added. "It's part of the reason why the trans movement intersects all sorts of movements about social justice." More at KOMO News