Guilty plea in Araujo case
Plus, the Associated Press learns how to use pronouns.

As anyone who's been reading this blog for a while knows, I've had a lot to say about the brutal hate crime slaying of young transgender woman Gwen Araujo (see cartoon, "No Respect for the Dead", and various reader responses). But since legal proceedings began recently there have been a lot of new developments. For one, one of the defendents is actually pleading guilty. From the AP ("Guilty plea in Calif. transgender slaying"):

One of four defendants in the October slaying of a transgender teen pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter Monday and agreed to testify against his friends.

Jaron Chase Nabors, 19, will get 11 years in prison in the slaying of Eddie "Gwen" Araujo under the agreement reached with prosecutors. He had faced a murder charge. His plea came during a preliminary hearing into whether Nabors and the other three should stand trial.

Jose Antonio Merel, 23, Michael William Magidson, 22, and Jason Michael Cazares, 22, still are charged with murder in the beating and strangulation of Araujo at Merel's house in suburban Newark.

About two weeks after the slaying, police say, Nabors led them to the body in a shallow grave in the Sierra foothills about 150 miles east of Newark.

But there's another development, significant in it's own way--even though they're still calling her "Eddie," the press is USING THE RIGHT PRONOUNS. Check it out:

Araujo was found buried -- wrists and ankles bound -- in the miniskirt she was last seen wearing while going by the name "Lida."

Prosecutors say the 17-year-old Araujo was killed after Nabors and his three friends found out for sure that the person they knew as "Lida" was biologically male.

Witnesses told police Araujo was beaten, dragged half-conscious into a garage and strangled with a rope, according to court documents...The plea came on what would have been Araujo's 18th birthday.

Sigh... happy birthday, Gwen. It's not much, and it won't bring you back to life, and they're still putting your name in quote marks, but it's... something.

According to the affidavit, another young woman at the party, Nicole Brown, had discovered Araujo's secret after taking her into a bathroom to determine her gender.

After Brown announced Araujo was biologically male, police said, Merel allegedly knocked Araujo to the floor and Nabors and Magidson joined in.

The AP's newly sensitive use of pronouns didn't come out of nowhere, of course--it was the result of the hard work and effort of trans educators and advocates in the wake of the original awful coverage of Araujo's death. (See my January post "Araujo Case Prompts Media Outlets to Revise Stylebooks")

Good news, from Florida of all places
Transsexual man wins child custody battle

From the AP ("Florida transsexual man gets child custody")

A judge Friday granted child custody to a female-to-male transsexual engaged in a bitter divorce and ruled that the person is a man under Florida law.

The ruling confirms Michael Kantaras, who was born female, is the legal parent of the couple's two children, a boy whom he adopted and a daughter she conceived during their marriage with donated sperm.

Lawyers for Kantaras' former wife had argued that Kantaras was not legally a man when they married in 1989 so the marriage was invalid.

"I'm so relieved," Michael Kantaras said after the ruling. "Now my kids and I can get on with our lives in peace."

This is a REALLY GOOD THING. Kantaras' ex-wife's argument that their marriage was invalid because "Kantaras was not legally a man when they married" (even though she was well-aware Michael was born biologically female) reminds me of all the nasty court battles Randall Kennedy writes about in his new book about interracial sex, marriage, and adoption, Interracial Intimacies. The following example is from a recent interview on Africana.com:

I was surprised by the amount of case law stemming from the enforcement of anti-miscegenation laws. I mean, I knew there had been anti-miscegenation laws, but I had never seen much written about the enforcement of such laws... White man wants to get rid of the wife, wants to get rid of the wife without paying alimony, child support, says, "This woman, unbeknownst to me, is actually colored under state law. Therefore we were never legally married."

I wonder how awful the children of marriages like that must have felt--just as I wonder how Kantaras' kids must have felt to hear their mother arguing that they shouldn't see their dad because he wasn't legally male when they were married.

Don't imagine I'm all excited about Florida now, though. They still ban gay and lesbian people from adopting, among other things...

On "Empowerment," among other things
Recommended reading

In my first attempt to leave my apartment since I became ill, I realized that one of the nice things about New York is that you can pick up The Onion for free on random street corners. This week's issue has a great bit of satire on the ridiculous and patronizing overuse of the word "empower" by makeup companies, women's magazines, Oprah, and cellulite cream manufacturers (among other culprits):

Women Now Empowered by Everything a Woman Does

OBERLIN, OH—According to a study released Monday, women—once empowered primarily via the assertion of reproductive rights or workplace equality with men—are now empowered by virtually everything the typical woman does.

"From what she eats for breakfast to the way she cleans her home, today's woman lives in a state of near-constant empowerment," said Barbara Klein, professor of women's studies at Oberlin College and director of the study. "As recently as 15 years ago, a woman could only feel empowered by advancing in a male-dominated work world, asserting her own sexual wants and needs, or pushing for a stronger voice in politics. Today, a woman can empower herself through actions as seemingly inconsequential as driving her children to soccer practice or watching the Oxygen network."

Klein said that clothes-shopping, once considered a mundane act with few sociopolitical implications, is now a bold feminist statement... (entire article)

Anyway, that piece made me laugh so hard I almost forgot I'm still too weak to eat anything but mashed-up rice, so please check it out.

And in case you don't have time, the serious moral of the story is: JUST BECAUSE A WOMAN DOES SOMETHING DOESN'T MAKE IT DEFACTO FEMINIST OR GOOD. Women are not better people (or worse people!) than men, it just so happens that in general, various groups of women have historically not been in positions of power and have been treated in multiple nasty ways and such by male-dominated societies. And a lot of women have reacted in some pretty amazing ways to this oppression, which is pretty cool. Women are complicated and nice and mean and good and bad, just like men are. (And for good measure, plenty of women were born biologically male and plenty of men were born biologicially female, so chew on that). There's plenty more to be said on this, but it's probably best said, in my opinion, in Nicola Griffith's absolutely brilliant science fiction novel Ammonite (which imagines a world without men as neither utopia nor dystopia, but, simply, another world with its share of war, peace, strife and happiness).

A miserable introduction to New York
Mikhaela misses her first cartoon deadline (and the big anti-war rally), and vomits for two days straight. Oh, and there's a blizzard, too.

On the plus side, I will never forget my move to New York this weekend. On the extremely minus side, I missed the anti-war rally on Saturday because I wasn't finished packing, got to my apartment a scant few hours before the big blizzard, and promptly came down with a horrible case of food poisoning (from what, I don't know). So I spent my first 24 hours in New York staring at a toilet, while my Boston Phoenix cartoon deadline came and went. At this point, I can barely stand up, but at least I can keep water down, which is a bright new development. Maybe I'll even try to eat a few Cheerios this afternoon, who knows.

But putting my inability to digest anything aside for the moment, I really wish I could have gone to the rally. Instead I was at my parent's house in Lowell, MA trying to watch the sparse and sad coverage it got on CNN, which began with an over-madeup news anchor furrowing her brow and asking the onsite correspondent: "Who ARE these people?" She then went on to suggest that perhaps they were just professional protesters who would come out for any cause they could just because they liked to hold up signs and chant slogans (in THAT weather???) but the onsite guy had to admit that actually, for the most part they were there despite the freezing cold because they really didn't think the war was a good idea.

New Cartoon!
pretending to be COMPASSIONATE when you're really a CONSERVATIVE

My first cartoon for Bay Windows AND my first time drawing Ari Fleischer.

Mikhaela-Toons Shall be Weekly Once More

Yes, that's right. As you may have noticed, since I graduated from Harvard I've only been cartooning every other week, as that's how often I cartoon for the Boston Phoenix. But, after meeting with the friendly and fabulous new editor-in-chief of Bay Windows yesterday, it looks like I may be weekly again (that is, on the weeks I won't be doing cartoons for the Phoenix I'll be doing them for Bay Windows).

New Cartoon!
...in (gasp!) only one panel

I know, it's sort of shocking--me, doing a one-panel? I just thought I'd give it a shot. I don't know how I feel about it yet. And yes, of course this cartoon refers to the all-too-recent disenfrancisement of thousands of black voters. And like all my cartoons, it's also available in black & white.

And a special thanks to my friend Geoff (and his friend Miguel) over at the Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong, who helped me edit the caption to make this the least wordy Mikhaela-toon ever, I think.

Sigh... or: the update

Your humble correspondent is currently a bit swamped, owing to her recent illness (made much worse by Bush's State of the Union Address, I might add). I'm currently involved in the painful process of weeding through the hundreds and hundreds of paperback science fiction novels I've accumulated in my 22 years of life, as I'm moving to New York and won't have room for most of them anymore. I'm also trying to get my cartoon into more newspapers, trying out some recipes (no more school cafeteria), and trying to sew myself some button-down shirts. And drawing a cartoon, which I'll have for tomorrow. So my apologies, but I will be back, I promise.