The Brandon Teena Story

Watching the Brandon Teena story was very disturbing. It reminded me of how cruel and how evil our society really is. If a person is not seen as being the "norm" in society, they immediately begin to feel alienated, which is not fair because we are supposed to have a country that people could feel free to be themselves.
Born Teena Brandon, but later began going by Brandon Teena, he knew that he was different while growing up. He did not like doing the normal things that girls would do. He didn't like wearing dresses and he was a tomboy.
In high school, Brandon began dating a girl and unfortunately he got into some legal trouble by forging a check and he ended up in jail. This story went public and Brandon's true gender was revealed, and it caused a lot of issues in his life.
Brandon was physically assaulted by ex-convicts that didn't like his lifestyle (which unfortunately happens to many transgendered people). After the assault, Brandon filed charges against the attackers, and the police did not really take action in time and this resulted in the murder of Brandon and two other people.
This story really affected me, because Brandon should not have gotten killed just because he was different. This reminded me of the Matthew Shepard story (Matt Shepard was a gay male in Wyoming who was also murdered because of his sexuality). We are all human and we should be treated equally despite what life choices we make. Brandon had already been subjected to enough trauma by being harassed constantly in his teen years, but it seems like being harassed wasn't enough. He had to die because he was different.
Since we have been exploring different types of violence, this type of violence is not surprising to me, because there are always stories that I hear about gay/lesbian/transgendered people being assaulted and it is not fair.
Watching this documentary, opened my eyes to see how unfair our justice system is and how much torture that some people have to endure because they are not considered the "norm". This leaves me to ask the question, What really is the norm of our society? And even if someone is not defined as the "norm", does that give us the right to make their lives a living hell?




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Coming to Power

Reading the book "Coming to Power" was definitely something different than what I am used to reading. The book explores many different themes and reading the book, I came to the conclusion that the purpose for the book was for women to explore their bodies and sexual fantasies that they may want to explore. In our society, there is a lot of controversy about lesbian/gay relationships, and for women there was a time when they were not allotted any rights, so for this particular novel being published, it showed how far women have come.
When I say that the book was for women to explore their bodies and experiencing things they may not necessarily have did before, and example of this is in the story "How many more" by Crystal Bailey, her friend Chris who had never experienced S/M was curious and would ask certain questions such as "Will you spank me? Will it hurt?(pg. 22)" shows her curiosity about her sexuality and S/M and wanting to get to explore that side of herself. Mandy who was supposed to be the "dominant" person even questions herself, for instance "Did I like the boss/slave part of the game? Did I really know how to push her and yet stay where there was a semblance of security for both of us?(pgs.23-24)". Basically, the novel reminded me of a individual person trying to figure out what pleases them sexually.
Although, I would have never read anything such as this novel on my own, it helped me not be judgmental and realize that we all at some point in our lives have to explore things that may please our lives and make us fulfilled.

A Long Night's Journey into Day

The documentary "A long night's journey into day" was a very emotional film. Being in this course, we have discussed many different forms of violence so far and this particular type of violence in the film was very unfortunate and we see and hear about so many cases of violence dealing with the police department. When police attacks occur, it usually seems to be justified and the police usually do not have any consequences to face for the crime they committed.
The particular story that stood out to me in the film was the part of the seven black men that were set up by the police. It was called the Guguletu 7. The men were supposed to attack a police department, but instead they were murdered by the police. This was very disturbing to me.
The mothers of the men found out about the murders over the news unfortunately. For many years, the police never took any responsibility for the murders and the mothers never got justice for their sons being killed. Out of all the police who took part in the murders, only one seemed to be sorry for the vicious crime. I could not believe how evil people could really be. How could someone murder someone else and not show any kind of remorse for the crime?
I was shocked to see that some mothers actually forgave the officers for the murders of their sons. I know that was a big step for them to do especially when it took years for the truth to come out about what really happened.
I am truly inspired by the mothers of the men because of their strength. I am not a mother, but I can only imagine that losing a child is the hardest thing that a parent has to endure but because of these women's strength, it makes me think that experiences that I've had and thought were terrible, were nothing compared to what they've endured.