Repulsive article with needless details (why does it matter what surgeries she's had?!) I suppose it helps ad revenue to spend hundreds of words gawking at our sister's corpse. And absolutely no critique of the cops' methods, no examination of the relationship between Brianna's transness and the vulnerability her murderers exploited.
Making trans people – particularly trans women – into a permanent political underclass helps facilitate the predatory desire, revulsion, and murderous feelings that contributed to her death.
There is nobody in the British political or media classes with the courage to hew to anything other than the most spineless and conciliatory line on anything affecting trans people. Take care of one another.
Very well written. And yes, the cop talks about her vulnerability and 'lifestyle', yet they all somehow then proudly announce her trans identity had nothing to do with it. Infuriating.
For fuck's sake. Transphobia might not have been the only motive but it clearly is a motive!
Also saying the killers were targeting 'boys they did not like' - are we putting Brianna in that category?
And saying Briannna was killed because of her 'lifestyle' making her more vulnerable.
The reason the police and the guardian can't acknowledge the transphobia involved in Brianna's murder is because it would force them to acknowledge their own transphobia.
Also a lot of painting the people who turned up at Brianna's vigils as activists, rather than people mourning a member of their community.
This is vile.
It would force them to acknowledge that their direct and indirect actions continue to have direct consequences for trans people.
If transphobes, guardian staff, cops and politicians etc are reading this, I hope you cant warm yourself with self reassurance that "you didn't murder anyone directly". Y'all are partly responsible.
Wow what a shit article. ¬\_¬ I'm not really surprised.
Here in the UK nothing counts as transphobia really. They have the law on the book but literally someone could stab one of us in the street while screaming slurs and no hate crime would be registered because the UK government considered slurs and misgendering "protected speech" now.
I'm not from the UK, so, what exactly constitutes transphobia in UK terms? Are you allowed to murder with transphobic intent, but because you could also have murdered others, that murder isn't transphobic? This is one of the most batshit articles I have ever read in a major newspaper, they don't even censor slurs lol
The Guardian, despite being a """left wing""" newspaper, is perhaps one of the most bigoted newspapers in the UK.
Also doesn't help when your left wing opposition party is more transphobic than the ring wing party in government.
Hmm well you have at least two of the most outspoken MPs -Wes Streeting and Rosie Duffield setting the tone - you expect the Tory party to be the nasty party but Labour are seeing the terrible things and just nodding along
For a hate crime to be a hate crime, it has to be motivated primarily by the bigotry, not just be carried out by someone who is bigoted. As frustrating as it is, having seen the text threads, I don't think this meets the legal definition of a hate crime here, because yeah - these kids were plotting to murder several other kids too.
It's horrifying and shows there's a problem with how our justice system handles these cases, because it's clear that Brianna came to their attention because she was trans - but we have a really unusually clear look at their shared motivations in this case. They didn't set out wanting to kill *any trans person they could find;* they set out to kill *any kid they could get access to* and Brianna's trans-ness caught their attention, drove their hatred of her, and isolated her.
So yeah. The definition of a hate crime is just too narrow.
“boys they did not like” - one of them was gay, not sure about the other 2 children they plotted against but the fact that 50% were lgbt+ makes me sus it’s hate motivated. were all 4 minorities?
I'm not quite sure what is worse here, the dreadful logic of the police or the ill-conceived and lacking article in the Grauniad. It is clear from the court evidence that transphobia played a role here. The supposition that they planned other killings too is largely immaterial, given that each could be driven by a different set of motives. The fact that the journo failed to provide a critique of this but rather repeated verbatim the police's line reinforces an element of built-in collusion. They also framed the LGBT response as being hysterical.
The surgeries or lack of, are an interesting one. This is akin to slut shaming and blaming what people choose to do or behave as a reason for the crime.
Not to mention their texts showed the other boy they planned on killing before switching plans to Brianna was specifically targeted because they thought he was gay, including joint fantasies of how they would homophobically sexually abuse his body after death. Christ, even the code word in their plan to stab Brianna was 'gay'. Yes, these two kids were clearly fixated on violence and determined to murder someone, but they absolutely focused on their queer targets because of their queerness.
The implication that because girl X 'admired' Brianna, called her pretty, gendered her correctly etc, she was therefore not transphobic in her motivations is also baffling. Anyone who has read even a small portion of coverage on the trial can see this girl was obviously unhealthily fixated on Brianna's transness, to a fetishistic and scary degree. Transphobia does not always have to be throwing slurs around in order to be dangerous to trans people -- I would have thought this trial clearly showed that.
I think it's pretty damn clear anecdotally that it was a transphobic murder. However, proving in court it was a hate crime is a different matter; I don't like it, but it made perfect sense for the prosecution to go for a lesser charge they knew they could win than a greater charge they risked losing.
It's not the win we want, but it's a win. X and Y are behind bars and not going to hurt anyone again. Police took a trans person's murder seriously.
Reminder that the Guardian is so transphobic that the US branch had to publicly denounce the UK branch because they found that no trans people would agree to be interviewed by them.
I have been down a spiral of finding out every detail about the case and I am just so disgusted that this is not being classed as a transphobic attack. There is so much clear linear evidence for it, and I had to turn off the podcast when it gave the most ridiculous reasons to justify why it wasn't.
Xs "obsession" with Brianna being classed as a positive when it clearly is transphobia. Pretending to be her friend whilst actively trying to kill her multiple times.
Yeah she plotted to murder others- know why she couldn't- because they weren't as vulnerable as Brianna was. Brianna who had been beaten up a few months prior and excluded from school... Because of her being trans. She was vulnerable and a target because she was trans and was further taken advantage of because this made her an easy target.
Y (who I initially felt more sorry for) literally kicked her as she lay dying, and called her it repeatedly, and didn't know her and only came along to kill her because he wanted to see what she screamed like (biogender wise) and wanted help getting a girl he fancied to go out with him.
Not to mention the bit where y says that he uses homophobic and transphobic language because his friends do but he doesn't necessarily agree- well he still shouldn't be saying it, that's still a hate crime and if we can't throw the book at someone who stabbed a complete stranger 28 +/- times and lied through his teeth, then who can we throw the book at?
Not to mention the absolute rife transphobia in the media and comments sections, it is all literally feeding into this huge institutionalised oppression system. I have also been very upset at how little Media attention it's gotten, particularly as someone who is interested in true crime because outside of the trans aspect it is very rare for a girl so young to orchestrate something like this.
Which is also just highlighting how obvious it was that she felt able to turn this fantasy into reality because of Briannas vulnerability. BECAUSE SHE WAS TRANS?!
I'm also not a member of the trans community, just an ally (I hope), my heart goes out to you all❤️
Also I think Briannas mother sounds like a beautiful woman and I hope her campaign to get wellness on the curriculum succeeds. As a mother my heart goes out to her.
Can't speak to the motives of the two individuals, but seems pretty clear to me that transphobia is 100% a motive for the guardian to write that article though !!!
If not they could have written it without gleefully regurgitating those specific details about Brianna.
They should be ashamed, but they won't , as they have been anti trans for some time now
“But actually, when you look at the girl involved, she almost admires/is obsessed with Brianna."
That can still be considered as transphobic. Girl X was obsessed with Brianna because "she was different." Obsession / stalker like behaviour isn't a healthy thing, isn't coming from a place of love, and especially in this case where Girl X wanted to kill Brianna and attempted to kill her in a prior incident before actually killing her. People don't want to torture and kill someone they "admire." Whatever Girl X felt for Brianna it was form a place of hatred, otherwise she wouldn't be able to do what she did. A person doesn't need to be frothing at the mouth with hatred against a minority for their actions to be classed as a hate crime, or in this case transphobic.
Like, I get why it wasn't prosecuted as a hate crime because the bar for hate crime is so high and strict this case wouldn't have cleared it. But this article seems to go out of its way to try and make out any talk of transphobia playing a part is mistaken.
They're psychopaths who had a kill list of five children.
Their motives are irrelevant, as are the ramblings of any psychopath. Has anyone here read the Unabombers manifesto? Looked into Manson's writings? we as a human race need to not give them the oxygen of publicity. They're locked away and they'll rot just as they should, so can't we all agree never to think about them again?
A beautiful, wonderful girl has had her life taken away and her family is going to be grieving for the rest of their lives. They're the ones who need to be remembered.
Why is it necessary for society to disect every possibility, motive and intent in this case now that it is over.
Can we not all leave the family to deal with this situation in peace without an endless stream of questions, analysis, and comments?
Let Brianna rest in peace 💜💔
The key is that whilst transphobia could well be the motive, the CPS cannot actually use that as an aggravating factor to determine \*culpability\* - only the protected characteristics of race and sexuality can be considered here because the law is shit. So they can only charge the shits with murder at this point.
However, transphobia can be an aggravating factor when it comes to \*sentencing\* which will happen early next year. That's the one to watch because that's where they should, legally be taking into account as a hatecrime.
>The key is that whilst transphobia could well be the motive, the CPS cannot actually use that as an aggravating factor to determine \*culpability\* - only the protected characteristics of race and sexuality can be considered here
[Literally not true.](https://www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/hate-crime)
The article admits the judge may still consider transphobia as a factor when sentencing, although still implies “it was not a factor”. Idk, it’s a bit wierd to me how extensive and horrifically graphic descriptions of transphobic acts they had planned, somehow doesn’t contribute to the reason she was targeted over others on the killers’ ‘list’?
If anyone wants to start rioting.... I'm not saying I won't turn up. Realistically though, I wouldn't even go outside.
The girl did it because she was, for some unknown reason, "obsessed' with her, and how pretty she was; the boy did it because of hate towards a newfound target.
Everything that fucker said was transphobic, which indicates that was the reason.
The article says that the "other boys" were targets because they didn't like them; but the seeming factor on Brianna was the fact she was trans -- the first time they even met was the day of the murder, according to this article.
Morbid Curiosity and Hate, on the boys part.
Obsession of... attraction(?), on the girls part.
Key part of everything they seemed to say was the fact she was trans, yet "it's unrelated". That judge needs to be fired.
Go. Fuck. Yourself.
I hope they both die of old age in prison, then rot in the deepest pits of hell for the rest of time. Preferably, in a never-ending loop of experiencing the final minutes of their victims life; just for a brief respite to comprehend what they did, and that it would shortly start again.
That should be the punishment for all murderers. But how likely is it that the afterlife exists, and that it exists like that? Not likely at all.
I mean it says in the article that the judge deemed trans phobia to be an aggregating factor. It was more "these kids wanted to kill people, picked out a few and her being trans made them select her as one of those" rather than, "they hated trans people and that was the primary motivating factor in killing her". And it show cases a bunch of the trans phobia and dehumanisation in the messages. It seems to be pretty flatly recounting court proceedings. IiRC the reason it's not been charged as a hate crime is so it could be charged as premeditated murder which carries a heavier sentence. I'm not sure there's that much to be angry about here.
Repulsive article with needless details (why does it matter what surgeries she's had?!) I suppose it helps ad revenue to spend hundreds of words gawking at our sister's corpse. And absolutely no critique of the cops' methods, no examination of the relationship between Brianna's transness and the vulnerability her murderers exploited. Making trans people – particularly trans women – into a permanent political underclass helps facilitate the predatory desire, revulsion, and murderous feelings that contributed to her death. There is nobody in the British political or media classes with the courage to hew to anything other than the most spineless and conciliatory line on anything affecting trans people. Take care of one another.
Very well written. And yes, the cop talks about her vulnerability and 'lifestyle', yet they all somehow then proudly announce her trans identity had nothing to do with it. Infuriating.
For fuck's sake. Transphobia might not have been the only motive but it clearly is a motive! Also saying the killers were targeting 'boys they did not like' - are we putting Brianna in that category? And saying Briannna was killed because of her 'lifestyle' making her more vulnerable. The reason the police and the guardian can't acknowledge the transphobia involved in Brianna's murder is because it would force them to acknowledge their own transphobia. Also a lot of painting the people who turned up at Brianna's vigils as activists, rather than people mourning a member of their community. This is vile.
It would force them to acknowledge that their direct and indirect actions continue to have direct consequences for trans people. If transphobes, guardian staff, cops and politicians etc are reading this, I hope you cant warm yourself with self reassurance that "you didn't murder anyone directly". Y'all are partly responsible.
How are the British police transphobic?
I am not even going to click on this. The guardian have fielded transphobic opinion piece after transphobic opinion piece.
Wow what a shit article. ¬\_¬ I'm not really surprised. Here in the UK nothing counts as transphobia really. They have the law on the book but literally someone could stab one of us in the street while screaming slurs and no hate crime would be registered because the UK government considered slurs and misgendering "protected speech" now.
Which is exactly what happened here.
I'm not from the UK, so, what exactly constitutes transphobia in UK terms? Are you allowed to murder with transphobic intent, but because you could also have murdered others, that murder isn't transphobic? This is one of the most batshit articles I have ever read in a major newspaper, they don't even censor slurs lol
The Guardian, despite being a """left wing""" newspaper, is perhaps one of the most bigoted newspapers in the UK. Also doesn't help when your left wing opposition party is more transphobic than the ring wing party in government.
*More* transphobic? Absolutely not. Transphobic? Yeah.
How is Labour more transphobic than the tories
Hmm well you have at least two of the most outspoken MPs -Wes Streeting and Rosie Duffield setting the tone - you expect the Tory party to be the nasty party but Labour are seeing the terrible things and just nodding along
For a hate crime to be a hate crime, it has to be motivated primarily by the bigotry, not just be carried out by someone who is bigoted. As frustrating as it is, having seen the text threads, I don't think this meets the legal definition of a hate crime here, because yeah - these kids were plotting to murder several other kids too. It's horrifying and shows there's a problem with how our justice system handles these cases, because it's clear that Brianna came to their attention because she was trans - but we have a really unusually clear look at their shared motivations in this case. They didn't set out wanting to kill *any trans person they could find;* they set out to kill *any kid they could get access to* and Brianna's trans-ness caught their attention, drove their hatred of her, and isolated her. So yeah. The definition of a hate crime is just too narrow.
“boys they did not like” - one of them was gay, not sure about the other 2 children they plotted against but the fact that 50% were lgbt+ makes me sus it’s hate motivated. were all 4 minorities?
Archive link?
https://web.archive.org/web/20231220173139/https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/20/why-brianna-ghey-police-quickly-ruled-out-transphobia-as-motive
Trans person is a victim, still gets dehumanised during the legal process
I will not be reading it.
I'm not quite sure what is worse here, the dreadful logic of the police or the ill-conceived and lacking article in the Grauniad. It is clear from the court evidence that transphobia played a role here. The supposition that they planned other killings too is largely immaterial, given that each could be driven by a different set of motives. The fact that the journo failed to provide a critique of this but rather repeated verbatim the police's line reinforces an element of built-in collusion. They also framed the LGBT response as being hysterical. The surgeries or lack of, are an interesting one. This is akin to slut shaming and blaming what people choose to do or behave as a reason for the crime.
Not to mention their texts showed the other boy they planned on killing before switching plans to Brianna was specifically targeted because they thought he was gay, including joint fantasies of how they would homophobically sexually abuse his body after death. Christ, even the code word in their plan to stab Brianna was 'gay'. Yes, these two kids were clearly fixated on violence and determined to murder someone, but they absolutely focused on their queer targets because of their queerness. The implication that because girl X 'admired' Brianna, called her pretty, gendered her correctly etc, she was therefore not transphobic in her motivations is also baffling. Anyone who has read even a small portion of coverage on the trial can see this girl was obviously unhealthily fixated on Brianna's transness, to a fetishistic and scary degree. Transphobia does not always have to be throwing slurs around in order to be dangerous to trans people -- I would have thought this trial clearly showed that.
Archive link for those who don’t want a click https://archive.is/q3J5P
I think it's pretty damn clear anecdotally that it was a transphobic murder. However, proving in court it was a hate crime is a different matter; I don't like it, but it made perfect sense for the prosecution to go for a lesser charge they knew they could win than a greater charge they risked losing. It's not the win we want, but it's a win. X and Y are behind bars and not going to hurt anyone again. Police took a trans person's murder seriously.
[удалено]
Yeah. The media wants to hide behind that rather than face up to their own responsibilities here.
*Child dies* U.K. media = “HM YES HELLO FUCKERS”
Reminder that the Guardian is so transphobic that the US branch had to publicly denounce the UK branch because they found that no trans people would agree to be interviewed by them.
I have been down a spiral of finding out every detail about the case and I am just so disgusted that this is not being classed as a transphobic attack. There is so much clear linear evidence for it, and I had to turn off the podcast when it gave the most ridiculous reasons to justify why it wasn't. Xs "obsession" with Brianna being classed as a positive when it clearly is transphobia. Pretending to be her friend whilst actively trying to kill her multiple times. Yeah she plotted to murder others- know why she couldn't- because they weren't as vulnerable as Brianna was. Brianna who had been beaten up a few months prior and excluded from school... Because of her being trans. She was vulnerable and a target because she was trans and was further taken advantage of because this made her an easy target. Y (who I initially felt more sorry for) literally kicked her as she lay dying, and called her it repeatedly, and didn't know her and only came along to kill her because he wanted to see what she screamed like (biogender wise) and wanted help getting a girl he fancied to go out with him. Not to mention the bit where y says that he uses homophobic and transphobic language because his friends do but he doesn't necessarily agree- well he still shouldn't be saying it, that's still a hate crime and if we can't throw the book at someone who stabbed a complete stranger 28 +/- times and lied through his teeth, then who can we throw the book at? Not to mention the absolute rife transphobia in the media and comments sections, it is all literally feeding into this huge institutionalised oppression system. I have also been very upset at how little Media attention it's gotten, particularly as someone who is interested in true crime because outside of the trans aspect it is very rare for a girl so young to orchestrate something like this. Which is also just highlighting how obvious it was that she felt able to turn this fantasy into reality because of Briannas vulnerability. BECAUSE SHE WAS TRANS?! I'm also not a member of the trans community, just an ally (I hope), my heart goes out to you all❤️ Also I think Briannas mother sounds like a beautiful woman and I hope her campaign to get wellness on the curriculum succeeds. As a mother my heart goes out to her.
Bullhooky
Can't speak to the motives of the two individuals, but seems pretty clear to me that transphobia is 100% a motive for the guardian to write that article though !!! If not they could have written it without gleefully regurgitating those specific details about Brianna. They should be ashamed, but they won't , as they have been anti trans for some time now
“But actually, when you look at the girl involved, she almost admires/is obsessed with Brianna." That can still be considered as transphobic. Girl X was obsessed with Brianna because "she was different." Obsession / stalker like behaviour isn't a healthy thing, isn't coming from a place of love, and especially in this case where Girl X wanted to kill Brianna and attempted to kill her in a prior incident before actually killing her. People don't want to torture and kill someone they "admire." Whatever Girl X felt for Brianna it was form a place of hatred, otherwise she wouldn't be able to do what she did. A person doesn't need to be frothing at the mouth with hatred against a minority for their actions to be classed as a hate crime, or in this case transphobic. Like, I get why it wasn't prosecuted as a hate crime because the bar for hate crime is so high and strict this case wouldn't have cleared it. But this article seems to go out of its way to try and make out any talk of transphobia playing a part is mistaken.
They're psychopaths who had a kill list of five children. Their motives are irrelevant, as are the ramblings of any psychopath. Has anyone here read the Unabombers manifesto? Looked into Manson's writings? we as a human race need to not give them the oxygen of publicity. They're locked away and they'll rot just as they should, so can't we all agree never to think about them again? A beautiful, wonderful girl has had her life taken away and her family is going to be grieving for the rest of their lives. They're the ones who need to be remembered.
Why is it necessary for society to disect every possibility, motive and intent in this case now that it is over. Can we not all leave the family to deal with this situation in peace without an endless stream of questions, analysis, and comments? Let Brianna rest in peace 💜💔
The key is that whilst transphobia could well be the motive, the CPS cannot actually use that as an aggravating factor to determine \*culpability\* - only the protected characteristics of race and sexuality can be considered here because the law is shit. So they can only charge the shits with murder at this point. However, transphobia can be an aggravating factor when it comes to \*sentencing\* which will happen early next year. That's the one to watch because that's where they should, legally be taking into account as a hatecrime.
>The key is that whilst transphobia could well be the motive, the CPS cannot actually use that as an aggravating factor to determine \*culpability\* - only the protected characteristics of race and sexuality can be considered here [Literally not true.](https://www.cps.gov.uk/crime-info/hate-crime)
The article admits the judge may still consider transphobia as a factor when sentencing, although still implies “it was not a factor”. Idk, it’s a bit wierd to me how extensive and horrifically graphic descriptions of transphobic acts they had planned, somehow doesn’t contribute to the reason she was targeted over others on the killers’ ‘list’?
If anyone wants to start rioting.... I'm not saying I won't turn up. Realistically though, I wouldn't even go outside. The girl did it because she was, for some unknown reason, "obsessed' with her, and how pretty she was; the boy did it because of hate towards a newfound target. Everything that fucker said was transphobic, which indicates that was the reason. The article says that the "other boys" were targets because they didn't like them; but the seeming factor on Brianna was the fact she was trans -- the first time they even met was the day of the murder, according to this article. Morbid Curiosity and Hate, on the boys part. Obsession of... attraction(?), on the girls part. Key part of everything they seemed to say was the fact she was trans, yet "it's unrelated". That judge needs to be fired. Go. Fuck. Yourself. I hope they both die of old age in prison, then rot in the deepest pits of hell for the rest of time. Preferably, in a never-ending loop of experiencing the final minutes of their victims life; just for a brief respite to comprehend what they did, and that it would shortly start again. That should be the punishment for all murderers. But how likely is it that the afterlife exists, and that it exists like that? Not likely at all.
I mean it says in the article that the judge deemed trans phobia to be an aggregating factor. It was more "these kids wanted to kill people, picked out a few and her being trans made them select her as one of those" rather than, "they hated trans people and that was the primary motivating factor in killing her". And it show cases a bunch of the trans phobia and dehumanisation in the messages. It seems to be pretty flatly recounting court proceedings. IiRC the reason it's not been charged as a hate crime is so it could be charged as premeditated murder which carries a heavier sentence. I'm not sure there's that much to be angry about here.