Aggressively asking for the time
The BBC has a prominently placed news item about an attack on Laverne Cox:
Orange is the New Black star Laverne Cox has said “it’s not safe if you’re a trans person” after being caught up in a transphobic attack in Los Angeles.
Cox posted a 10-minute Instagram video explaining she had been walking with a friend in a park on Sunday when a man “aggressively” asked for the time.
He then proceeded to ask the friend if Cox was a “guy or girl?”
The man then physically attacked her friend, according to the star, who said she was “still in shock”.
“The guy is like hitting my friend, and then my friend is going toward him,” said Cox.
“I pull out my phone and I call to dial 911, and all of a sudden it’s over and the guy is gone.”
That sounds very unpleasant, and scary.
However. The physical attack was on Cox’s “friend,” who I’m guessing is probably male, because surely Cox or the BBC would have spelled it out if the friend had been female.
I’m just wondering how often the BBC does a big news item about such an incident involving a woman and a man walking in a park. A guy comes up, act aggressive, then throws some punches at the man, then departs the scene. Would that be any kind of news item?
Maybe if the woman were a tv star it would be…but I can’t say I recall seeing a lot of stories of that kind.
The rest of the article is about transphobia.
The 48-year-old said she had “been harassed and bullied my whole life” and felt “lucky and grateful” that her friend was there this weekend. The attack, she said, was a reminder that “it’s not safe in the world”.
“It’s not safe if you’re a trans person. Obviously, I know this well. It’s just really sad,” she sighed.
“It doesn’t matter who you are. You can be Laverne Cox, you know, or whatever that means. If you’re trans, you’re going to experience stuff like this.”
Last month, UK crime statistics obtained by the BBC showed there had been a 25% increase in reports of transphobic hate crimes in the UK.
Again – it sounds like a nasty and upsetting incident. It shouldn’t happen. People shouldn’t accost and throw punches at other people in parks. It’s a bad thing to do. But is it worse because Cox is trans? Is it headline news because Cox is trans and a tv star? Is the BBC frantic with worry about transphobic violence while it barely notices violence against women?
I feel bad for Cox, it would have been very scary (I’ve been randomly assaulted before, so I do understand). I feel especially sorry for her friend, because from the sound of things the anger and assault were directed at them, not Cox.It’s quite possible that this was an attack motivated by transphobia, directed at the friend (not trans?) as punishment for hanging out with a trans person. It’s also possible that it was just a random attack guy on guy and Cox’s gender ambiguity was of passing note. Impossible to assess without being a dispassionate observer.
Either way, wrong, scary and utterly commonplace unfortunately. So commonplace that when it happened to me, police shrugged their shoulders and said “well, they’re gone now” even though you could still see them walking away a few hundred metres down the road.
Rob, I guess you should wear a dress if you’re going to be attacked randomly; then everyone would care. Of course, how you’re supposed to know when you will be the victim of a random attack is anybody’s guess.
Random guy-on-guy violent crime has happened to me too, more than once. Not fun.
Attacking the friend shows that Laverne wasn’t the target. Given that it was safer for Laverne than it was for her friend, does this mean it’s actually safer to be trans?
Also, we don’t know what the friend did after the assailant asked whether Laverne is a man or a woman. Maybe he said “fuck you.” Maybe he just looked funny. It doesn’t take much if someone is spoiling for a fight.
It’s also shocking how quickly Laverne just assumed the assailant’s gender. Maybe the assailant was trans, and was offended by that. In TRA world, that justifies such an attack.
I was thinking something similar to Papito. There is never an acceptable excuse for unprovoked violence so I’m not trying to justify that part, but ‘aggressively asked the time – questioned Cox’s sex – launched into assault’ just doesn’t quite ring true. That’s how children tend to describe the events leading up to a fight, recounting what the assailant said and did while neglecting to mention how they responded during the build-up for fear they may be told that they’re partly to blame if they responded in kind, for example.
I’d have found the story more believable if Cox had filled in some of the details of their responses whatever they may have been. As things stand, Cox is not only playing the part of the totally blameless victim but claiming victimhood by proxy since it was the friend who apparently was assaulted.
Personally, I don’t fully believe Cox’s claim about the ‘guy or girl’ question. Why would that question even arise about a persom who was, in Cox’s words, in a hoodie and yoga pants, I’m completely covered up, I’ve got my mask on, and who, by the account given, had not even spoken?
Call me a cynic, but I’m more inclined to think that the friend had reacted negatively though not necessarily aggresively to the assailant’s manner, maybe even ignored the question altogether, which led to punches being thrown, and Cox has added the question about sex in order to play the poor victim of a transphobic attack and make the story all about Laverne Cox.
Allow me to add another voice supporting the fact that random man-on-man violence is common, even here in my squishy liberal university town (it has happened to me more than once since I moved here twelve years ago). Having spent time in Los Angeles, I would not be surprised if it’s even more prevalent there. It is because of this that I applied for (and received) a CCW license. The simple fact of the matter is that many men are violent and seeking out situations in which to attack others. I obviously wasn’t there, but I’d be astonished if Laverne Cox being trans was the underlying reason for the attack.
“You can be Laverne Cox, you know, or whatever that means.”
What the hell does this sentence even mean? The first clause was fine, amounting to “you can be a famous person and still be attacked”, but what on earth is the second clause doing there?
And not even just man-on-man violence – I’ve been randomly assaulted by a woman (a stranger) not once but twice in groovy Seattle. I mean really random, no preliminary remarks, just BAM. I assume it was mental illness/drugs/alcohol in both cases, but anyway, it happened. I did kind of wonder “why me?” but also knew there was no answer, it was just random and arbitrary.
I suspect that the fight would have happened even if Laverne Cox identified as male. It does not appear that the assailant had his rude question answered. Cox is a female-presenting male, which irritates some people, regardless of identity.
It bothers me to see historical cross-dressers called trans, and it bothers me to see rejection of gender-non-conforming people called transphobia. They keep trying to shove anything and everything under that trans umbrella.
People are weird. There are also a lot of people (mostly men but not always), who whether because of mental illness, drugs or sheer shittiness look for confrontation. Looking at the replies above I’m ‘lucky’ to have only been randomly assaulted once. That said, I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve walked away from people who were verbally abusing either me or my friends and clearly seeking confrontation. The last time was walking through town at lunchtime with a colleague who was wearing a pale blue pinstripe suit. Apparently that was ‘gay’ and made the whole group of us ‘gay’. That guy was scary. He didn’t move, but he was screaming angrily and obscenely at us long after we’d moved on. If we’d hung around or given any excuse I have no doubt he would have become physical.
I suspect these things happen to everyone, not because they are a particular individual target, but just because they are ‘the’ target of chance. Arseholes or unbalanced people will pick whatever reason is in front of them to unload.
I am not ready to believe that this happened at all. Cox is a Professional Transgender who needs to stay in the public eye as a victim to keep being given roles and awards. So some man (did they even ask how this alleged attacker identified?) who is not described in any way (height, weight, skin color, age, etc.) rambles up to TWO people in a park and “aggressively” asks the time from one of the men? Then we are to believe he is THAT close to Cox and can’t tell he is a man? Cox is HUGE.
Then the male companion of Cox decides to get in a verbal dick-swinging contest with the alleged attacker? Punches are thrown and Cox claims to have called 911. Do the cops have a record of the call? Are there any other witnesses or video footage to be had?
Amazing how real women get ALL the questions I have asked above and plenty more if they are attacked but Cox is a man so his claims are treated as the gospel truth. Nah, not buying it unless something other than Cox and his buddy’s claims come up.
southwest88, that sounds a lot like another phenomenon – Christians. There are books out there that literally tell Christians stories they can tell about how Jesus saved them. Took them from drug abuse/alcoholism/sex addiction – you name it.
And Christians who pester and pressure and badger someone about where they go to church, what their religion is, etc, get peeved and bent out of joint when that someone finally answers with a polite “I’m an atheist”, and announce that they have been attacked. The simple statement “I am an atheist” sometimes even meets with a counter-attack in the form of “how dare you…[fill in whatever violent act the Christian chooses to accuse said atheist of]”. A simple, polite disagreement will be seen as a vicious attack.
Yep, trans is definitely religion.
On the other hand, it occurs to me, if Cox decided to make up a story of that kind surely it would be a better story. Surely the punch would be thrown at Cox, not the friend. It’s such a trivial story it’s kind of credible, because really, what is there to it? Not much.