Assumptions can be dangerous to people who are habitually marginalized.  One of the big assumptions that people make about the concept of “transgender” is that transgender is a subset of homosexual.  It is not.  I do not have data to turn to, but I have heard, as I shared in a diary last week, that about 1/4 of transgender people are gay or lesbian, 1/4 are heterosexual, 1/4 are bisexual and 1/4 are asexual.  

What exactly that says about the influence of the normalized control of gender and sexuality by our culture is something I’ll let other people discuss.

But the assumption has a large impact on the everyday lives of gender-variant people.  Even scientists studying sexually-transmitted diseases jump to the conclusion that transgender women are “men who have sex with men.”  And even direct evidence to the contrary often does not dissuade people from adopting the assumption.

Tonight I have two cases in point.

On the afternoon of September 9 Leticia Alvarado, cashier at a motel in the 13900 block of Francisquito Avenue in Baldwin Park CA, discovered the body of her friend Melony Smith in her motel room.  

Alvarado says that Smith had been staying in the motel on and off for three years.

We became very close.  She called me sister.  I was her sister.

Before I go to work, I always stop by her room and we have breakfast.  That day she wouldn’t answer her phone.

–Alvarado

So Alvarado went to the room and had the maid open the door and found Smith’s body lying on the floor.

She was all bruised up.  She had blood on her head.  She was lifeless.  I could tell she was dead.

–Alvarado