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Brandon Teena

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Brandon Teena
BrandonTeena.jpg
Born
Teena Renae Brandon

(1972-12-12)December 12, 1972
Lincoln, Nebraska, US
DiedDecember 31, 1993(1993-12-31) (aged 21)
Humboldt, Nebraska, US
Cause of deathGunshot wound
NationalityAmerican
Other namesBilly Brinson
Teena Ray
Known forHate crime murder victim

Brandon Teena (born Teena Renae Brandon; December 12, 1972 – December 31, 1993) was an American trans man who was raped and later, along with Phillip DeVine and Lisa Lambert, murdered in Humboldt, Nebraska.[1][2][3] His life and death were the subject of the Academy Award-winning 1999 film Boys Don't Cry, which was partially based on the 1998 documentary film The Brandon Teena Story. Both films also illustrated that legal and medical discrimination contributed to Teena's violent death.[4]

Teena's murder, along with that of Matthew Shepard, led to increased lobbying for hate crime laws in the United States.[5][6]

Life[edit]

Brandon Teena was born[7] in Lincoln, Nebraska. His father died in a car accident in Lancaster County eight months before he was born, and he was raised by his mother JoAnn.[8] JoAnn named him, her second child, after their German shepherd dog, Tina Marie.[8] Teena and his older sister Tammy lived with their maternal grandmother in Lincoln, before they were reclaimed by their mother when Teena was three years old and Tammy was six. The family resided in the Pine Acre Mobile Home Park in northeast Lincoln. JoAnn received disability checks[9] and worked as a clerk in a women's retail store in Lincoln to support the family. As young children, Teena and Tammy were sexually abused by their uncle for several years,[8][10] and Teena sought counseling for this in 1991.[11] JoAnn remarried once from 1975 to 1980.[8] Teena's family described him as being a tomboy since early childhood; Teena began identifying as male during adolescence and dated a female student during this period. His mother rejected his male identity and continued referring to him as her daughter. On several occasions, Teena claimed to be intersex.[12]

Teena and his sister attended St. Mary's Elementary School and Pius X High School in Lincoln, where Teena was remembered by some as being socially awkward.[8] During his second year, Teena rejected Christianity after he protested to a priest at Pius X regarding Christian views on abstinence and homosexuality.[8] He also began rebelling at school by violating the school dress-code policy to dress in a more masculine fashion. During the first semester of his senior year, a U.S. Army recruiter visited the high school, encouraging students to enlist in the armed forces. Teena enlisted in the United States Army shortly after his eighteenth birthday, and hoped to serve a tour of duty in Operation Desert Shield. However, he failed the written entrance exam by listing his sex as male.[8]

In December 1990, Teena went to Holiday Skate Park with his friends, binding his breasts to pass as a boy. The 18-year-old Teena went on a date with a 13-year-old girl. He also met the girl's 14-year-old friend, Heather,[8] and began regularly dressing as a male. In the months nearing his high school graduation, Teena became unusually outgoing and was remembered by classmates as a "class clown".[8] Teena also began skipping school and receiving failing grades, and was expelled from Pius X High School in June 1991, three days before high school graduation.[8]

In the summer of 1991, Teena began his first major relationship, with Heather. Shortly after, Teena was first employed as a gas station attendant in an attempt to purchase a trailer home for himself and his girlfriend. His mother, however, did not approve of the relationship, and convinced her daughter to follow Teena in order to find out whether Teena's relationship with Heather was platonic or sexual.[8]

In January 1992, Teena underwent a psychiatric evaluation, which concluded that Teena was suffering from a severe "sexual identity crisis".[8] He was later taken to the Lancaster County Crisis Center to ensure that he was not suicidal. He was released from the center three days later and began attending therapy sessions, sometimes accompanied by his mother or sister. He was reluctant to discuss his sexuality during these sessions but eventually revealed that he had been raped. The counseling sessions ended two weeks later.[8]

In 1993, after some legal trouble, Teena moved to the Falls City region of Richardson County, Nebraska, where he identified solely as a man. He became friends with several local residents. After moving into the home of Lisa Lambert, Teena began dating Lambert's friend, 18-year-old Lana Tisdel and began associating with ex-convicts John L. Lotter (born May 31, 1971) and Marvin Thomas "Tom" Nissen (born October 22, 1971).

On December 19, 1993, Teena was arrested for forging checks; Tisdel paid his bail with money obtained from her father.[13] Because Teena was in the female section of the jail, Tisdel learned that he was transgender. When Tisdel later questioned Teena about his gender, he told her he was a hermaphrodite pursuing a sex change operation, and they continued dating.[12] In a lawsuit regarding the film adaptation Boys Don't Cry, this was disputed by Tisdel.[14][15] Teena's arrest was posted in the local paper under his birth name and thereupon his acquaintances learned that he was assigned female at birth.

Rape and murder[edit]

During a Christmas Eve party, Nissen and Lotter grabbed Teena and forced him to remove his pants, proving to Tisdel that Teena had a vagina. Tisdel looked only when forced to and said nothing. Lotter and Nissen later assaulted Teena and forced him into a car. They drove to an area by a meat-packing plant in Richardson County, where they assaulted and gang-raped him. They then returned to Nissen's home where Teena was ordered to take a shower. Teena escaped from Nissen's bathroom by climbing out the window and went to Tisdel's house. He was convinced by Tisdel to file a police report, though Nissen and Lotter had warned Teena not to tell the police about the gang rape or they would "silence him permanently". Teena also went to the emergency room where a standard rape kit was assembled, but later lost. Sheriff Charles B. Laux questioned Teena about the rape; reportedly, he seemed especially interested in Teena's transsexuality, to the point that Teena found his questions rude and unnecessary, and refused to answer. Nissen and Lotter learned of the report, and they began to search for Teena. They did not find him, and three days later, the police questioned them. The sheriff declined to have them arrested due to lack of evidence.

Around 1:00 a.m. on December 31, 1993, Nissen and Lotter drove to Lambert's house and broke in. They found Lambert in bed and demanded to know where Teena was. Lambert refused to tell them. Nissen searched and found Teena under the bed. The men asked Lambert if there was anyone else in the house, and she replied that Phillip DeVine, who at the time was dating Tisdel's sister,[16] was staying with her. They then shot and killed DeVine, Lambert and Teena in front of Lambert's toddler.[17] Nissen later testified in court that he noticed that Teena was twitching, and asked Lotter for a knife, with which Nissen stabbed Teena in the chest, to ensure that he was dead.[18][19] Nissen and Lotter then left, later being arrested and charged with murder.[17]

Teena is buried in Lincoln Memorial Cemetery in Lincoln, Nebraska, his headstone inscribed with his birth name and the epitaph daughter, sister, & friend.[20]

Nissen accused Lotter of committing the murders. In exchange for a reduced sentence, Nissen admitted to being an accessory to the rape and murder. Nissen testified against Lotter and was sentenced to life in prison. Lotter denied the veracity of Nissen's testimony, and his testimony was discredited. The jury found Lotter guilty of murder and he received the death penalty. Lotter and Nissen both appealed their convictions. In September 2007, Nissen recanted his testimony against Lotter. He claimed that he was the only one to shoot Teena and that Lotter had not committed the murders.[21] In 2009, Lotter's appeal, using Nissen's new testimony to assert a claim of innocence, was rejected by the Nebraska Supreme Court, which held that since—even under Nissen's revised testimony—both Lotter and Nissen were involved in the murder, the specific identity of the shooter was legally irrelevant.[22] In August 2011, a three-judge panel of the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected John Lotter's appeal in a split decision.[19] In October 2011, the Eighth Circuit rejected Lotter's request for a rehearing by the panel or the full Eighth Circuit en banc.[23] Lotter next petitioned the Supreme Court of the United States for a review of his case. The Supreme Court declined to review Lotter's case, denying his petition for writ of certiorari on March 19, 2012, and a further petition for rehearing on April 23, 2012,[24][25] leaving his conviction to stand. On January 22, 2018, Lotter was denied a third appeal by the U.S. Supreme Court.[26]

Cultural and legal legacy[edit]

Because Teena had neither commenced hormone replacement therapy nor had sex reassignment surgery, he has sometimes been identified as a lesbian by media reporters.[27][28] However, some reported that Teena had stated that he planned to have sex reassignment surgery.[29]

JoAnn Brandon sued Richardson County and Sheriff Laux for failing to prevent Brandon's death, as well as being an indirect cause. She won the case, which was heard in September 1999 in Falls City, and was awarded $80,000. District court judge Orville Coady reduced the amount by 85 percent based on the responsibility of Nissen and Lotter, and by one percent for Brandon's alleged contributory negligence. This led to a remaining judgment of responsibility against Richardson County and Laux of $17,360.97.[30] In 2001, the Nebraska Supreme Court reversed the reductions of the earlier award reinstating the full $80,000 award for "mental suffering", plus $6,223.20 for funeral costs. In October 2001, the same judge awarded the plaintiff an additional $12,000: $5,000 for wrongful death, and $7,000 for the intentional infliction of emotional distress.[30][31] Laux was also criticized after the murder for his attitude toward Teena – at one point, Laux referred to Brandon as "it".[32] After the case was over, Laux served as commissioner of Richardson County and later as part of his community's council before retiring as a school bus driver. He has refused to this day to speak about his actions in the case and swore at one reporter who contacted him for a story on the murder's twentieth anniversary.[33]

In 1999, he became the subject of a biographical film entitled Boys Don't Cry, directed by Kimberly Peirce and starring Hilary Swank as Teena and Chloë Sevigny as Tisdel. For their performances, Swank won and Sevigny was nominated for an Academy Award. Tisdel sued the producers of the film for unauthorized use of her name and likeness before the film's release. She claimed the film depicted her as "lazy, white trash, and a skanky snake". Tisdel also claimed that the film falsely portrayed that she continued the relationship with Teena after she discovered that Teena was transgender. She eventually settled her lawsuit against the movie's distributor for an undisclosed sum.[14][15]

JoAnn Brandon publicly objected to the media referring to her child as "he" and "Brandon". Following Hilary Swank's Oscar acceptance speech, JoAnn Brandon took offense at Swank for thanking "Brandon Teena" and for referring to him as a man. "That set me off," said JoAnn Brandon. "She should not stand up there and thank my child. I get tired of people taking credit for what they don't know."[34] However, in 2013, JoAnn told a reporter that she accepted Teena being referred to as transgender in the media. Although she was unhappy with the way Boys Don't Cry portrayed the situation, she said about the film, "It gave them [gay and transgender advocates] a platform to voice their opinions, and I'm glad of that. There were a lot of people who didn't understand what it was she (Teena) was going through. We've come a long way." When asked how the murder affects her life today, JoAnn replied, "I wonder about how my life would be different if she was still here with me. She would be such a joy to have around. She was always such a happy kid. I imagine her being a happy adult. And if being happy meant Teena living as a man, I would be fine with that."[35]

Brandon, an interactive web artwork created in 1998 by Shu Lea Cheang, was named for Brandon Teena. The artwork was commissioned by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. Much of the site's content relates to Brandon's story.[36]

The British duo Pet Shop Boys released a song called "Girls Don't Cry" (a bonus track on UK issue of I'm with Stupid) about Teena in 2006. Vancouver-based pop-punk band JPNSGRLS released the song "Brandon", off their debut 2014 album Circulation, in memory of Brandon Teena.

In 2018 Donna Minkowitz, the journalist whose reporting on Teena's murder first brought the story to a wider audience, wrote a piece for the Village Voice in which she expressed her regret for not understanding transgender issues when she wrote her original report.[37]

See also[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Note: – as Brandon Teena was never his legal name, it is uncertain the extent to which this name was used prior to his death. It is the name most commonly used by the press and other media. Other names may include his legal name, as well as "Billy Brenson" and "Teena Ray"
  2. ^ "U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals – JoAnn Brandon v Charles B. Laux". FindLaw. Retrieved December 7, 2006.
  3. ^ Howey, Noelle (March 22, 2000). "Boys Do Cry". Mother Jones. Retrieved December 7, 2006.
  4. ^ Jeon, Daniel. "Challenging Gender Boundaries: A Trans Biography Project, Brandon Teena". OutHistory.org. Retrieved December 4, 2015.
  5. ^ "Hate crimes legislation updates and information: Background information on the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (LLEHCPA)" Archived March 23, 2012, at the Wayback Machine. National Youth Advocacy Coalition. Retrieved December 2, 2011.
  6. ^ "25 Transgender People Who Influenced American Culture". TIME.com. Retrieved December 13, 2016.
  7. ^ Dunne, John Gregory (January 13, 1997). "The Humboldt Murders". Retrieved January 25, 2018 – via www.newyorker.com.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Konigsberg, Eric (January 1995). "Death of a Deceiver: The True Story of Teena Brandon". Playboy.
  9. ^ "Brandon Teena". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved June 10, 2019.
  10. ^ Sloop, John Rhetorics of sex identity in contemporary U.S. culture, page 77 at Google Books
  11. ^ "Teena Brandon / Brandon Teena – Boys Don't Cry". Retrieved January 25, 2018.
  12. ^ a b Ramsland, Katherine. "The Teena Brandon Story: A Grisly Find". TruTV. Archived from the original on December 14, 2013.
  13. ^ Jones, Aphrodite (1996). All She Wanted (Reprint ed.). Pocket Books. ISBN 978-0671023881.
  14. ^ a b "Brandon film lawsuit settled". Chicago Sun-Times. March 11, 2000. Archived from the original on October 16, 2007. Retrieved February 22, 2009.
  15. ^ a b Hawker, Philippa (March 1, 2002). "Seeing doubles". The Age. Melbourne. Retrieved February 22, 2009.
  16. ^ Ramsland, Katherine. "The Brandon Teena Story: Teena or Brandon?". TruTV. Archived from the original on December 14, 2013.
  17. ^ a b Ramsland, Katherine. "Teena Brandon". TruTV. Archived from the original on December 14, 2013.
  18. ^ Directed by Susan Muska and Gréta Olafsdóttir (1998). The Brandon Teena Story (film). Bless Bless Productions.
  19. ^ a b Beck, Margery A. "Panel rejects death row inmate Lotter's appeal". Lincoln Journal Star. August 24, 2011
  20. ^ Wilson, Scott. Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, 3d ed.: 2 (Kindle Location 5192). McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers. Kindle Edition
  21. ^ Jenkins, Nate (September 20, 2007). "Inmate Recants Teena Brandon Story". Associated Press. Retrieved March 1, 2010.
  22. ^ State of Nebraska v. Lotter, 771 N.W.2d 551, 564 (Neb. 2009) ("[B]ecause of the joint participation in the felony and the reckless indifference to human life, it is irrelevant to the degree of culpability by whose hand the victims actually died.").
  23. ^ Pilger, Lori (October 31, 2011). "8th Circuit denies Lotter's request for rehearing". Lincoln Journal Star. Lincoln, Nebraska. Retrieved March 28, 2013.
  24. ^ Pilger, Lori (March 26, 2012). "Supreme Court turns down review of Lotter case". Lincoln Journal Star. Lincoln, Nebraska. Retrieved March 28, 2013.
  25. ^ "John L. Lotter, Petitioner v. Robert Houston, Warden". Supreme Court of the United States. April 23, 2012. Retrieved March 28, 2013.
  26. ^ http://journalstar.com/news/local/911/u-s-supreme-court-won-t-take-up-nebraska-death/article_8d0d6bad-928a-5959-89f5-71543f5f2df0.html
  27. ^ John Gregory Dunne, The Humboldt Murders. The New Yorker, January 13, 1997.
  28. ^ "Brandon Teena Gets Dunne Wrong". Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. January 24, 1997. Archived from the original on September 29, 2007. Retrieved December 7, 2006. A New Yorker writer does not understand Brandon Teena's transgender identity, and describes him as a 'predatory' butch lesbian, referring to him as 'her' for most of the piece.
  29. ^ Griffy, Anna M. (July 4, 2004). "The Brandon Teena Story: Chapter 2: Brandon". The Brandon Teena Story. Justice Junction. p. 2. Archived from the original on November 3, 2006. Retrieved December 7, 2006. Teena made her decision for good: she was going to live as a man and began to tell people she was having a sex change operation.
  30. ^ a b Friedman, Herbert J. "Teena Brandon [sic], An American Tragedy". Archived from the original on June 11, 2015. Retrieved November 15, 2015.
  31. ^ The victims of prejudice, B.B.C. News, December 26, 2003
  32. ^ O'Hanlon, Kevin. "Sheriff Negligent in 'Boys Don't Cry' Death". ABC News. April 20, 2001
  33. ^ Fairyington, Stephanie. "Two Decades After Brandon Teena's Murder, a Look Back at Falls City". Retrieved January 25, 2018.
  34. ^ "Nebraska and India slam Oscar injustices". The Guardian. March 29, 2000
  35. ^ Bergin, Nicholas (December 29, 2013). "Brandon Teena's mom: 'We've come a long way'". Lincoln Journal Star. Retrieved February 8, 2017.
  36. ^ "Brandon". Guggenheim. January 1, 1998. Retrieved March 3, 2018.
  37. ^ "How I Broke, and Botched, the Brandon Teena Story". Village Voice, June 20, 2018.

References[edit]

External links[edit]

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