Theres something about a tragedy that shows people’s true horrible colours.
I live in a village in the north west of England. Its quiet, its rural, its predominantly white. Apart from a time a few years ago when people would commute from Liverpool or Manchester to try to ram raid the local bank, its quiet and safe. There was some NIMBY mutterings when asylum seekers were housed in a nearby hotel but it stayed as that.
This Saturday a 16 year old was murdered in our village. Her name is Brianna Ghey.
People said how sad and horrific it was, but in the same breath turned venomously on the asylum seekers, insisting it was one of them, that no one was safe. They used Brianna as a reason to want asylum seekers gone, and glossed over her and who she was and the terrible thing that happened to her, in an attempt to back their racist argument.
Then it was revealed that she was trans. And the tide turned again. People who had been saying what a nice young girl she seemed in her pictures started using male pronouns for her, the fucking TIMES revised an article they had published to include her deadname, as though that was somehow what was important now. There are even fuckers claiming that whoever did it might have done it as panic, that she had “tricked” someone and they reacted when they realised she was trans. Instantly to them shes not just the victim, a poor girl who was brutally murdered after being bullied for years, after having to leave her school in the village to go to another further away because it was that bad, a fucking child who was lured to the park on a Saturday in a place she should have been safe, and murdered for no other reason than she was trans.
They’ve arrested two suspects. Two fifteen year olds. They lured her to a park and they murdered her. They murdered her because she was living her life as who she was. She was bullied for years and the school knew and did nothing, didn’t step in to help her, they’ve essentially left her to those murderous bastards. She was a child and two other fucking children stabbed her multiple times and left her for dead. She should have been protected and she has been failed. I’m so sorry this was done to you Brianna.