Brandon Teena

Brandon Teena
Born	Teena Renae Brandon (1972-12-12)December 12, 1972 Lincoln, Nebraska
Died	Humboldt, Nebraska
Cause of death	Murder by gunshot
Resting place	Lincoln Memorial Park, Nebraska
Nationality	American
Other names	Billy Brinson Teena Ray
Known for	Hate crime murder victim
Parent(s)	Patrick and JoAnn Brandon

Brandon Teena (born Teena Renae Brandon; 1972–1993) was an American woman who passed as a man, and has been held up as a martyr of the transgender movement since her tragic death in Humboldt, Nebraska. She has been extensively misrepresented by those who want to use her as a mascot for their ideology. Her life and death were the subject of the Academy Award-winning 1999 film Boys Don't Cry, which was partly based on the documentary film The Brandon Teena Story. Both of these films select evidence to argue that Teena's murder was an outcome of discrimination against transgender people.

Teena's death has been used by the LGBT movement to further their "victim" narrative. The lesbian writer Carolyn Gage, in her article "The Inconvenient Truth about Teena Brandon" has argued that Teena could be regarded either as a lesbian or as a survivor of childhood sex-abuse, who became an abuser of other underage people in her turn, and that she was possibly targeted not because she was a transgender, but because she was seen as a lesbian. "What it does claim is her status as an unrecovered survivor of incest with Complex PTSD who appeared to be in active syndrome up to the time of her death. "

Others may accept none of these views. The truth seems to be that Brandon was killed along with two other people, by a pair of known criminals in revenge for her reporting to the police that they had sexually assaulted her. There is no clear proof that she was killed either for being a lesbian or for passing as a man. The truth is more complicated.

Life

Brandon was born Teena Renae Brandon in Lincoln, Nebraska, the younger of two children of Patrick and JoAnn Brandon. Her father died in a car accident eight months before she was born, and she was raised by her mother. JoAnn named her, her second child, after their German shepherd dog, Tina Marie. Teena and her 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, and JoAnn 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, a disturbing experience that is surely significant in understanding why Teena later became such a troubled young woman Teena sought counseling for this in 1991. JoAnn remarried in 1975 and divorced in 1980, due to her husband's alcoholism. Teena's family described her as being a tomboy since early childhood;

Teena and her sister attended St. Mary's Elementary School and Pius X High School in Lincoln, where Teena was remembered by some as being socially awkward. Teena at one time wanted to be a priest but eventually rejected Christianity. She wore trousers to school which was permitted for either girls or boys: she was not violating any dress-code. During the first semester of her senior year, a U.S. Army recruiter visited the high school. Teena enlisted in the United States Army shortly after her eighteenth birthday, and hoped to serve a tour of duty in Operation Desert Shield. However, she failed the written entrance exam.

In December 1990, Teena went to Holiday Skate Park with her friends, binding her breasts to pass as a boy. The 18-year-old Teena went on a date with a 13-year-old girl. She also met the girl's 14-year-old friend, Heather, and began regularly dressing as a male. In the months nearing her high school graduation, Teena became unusually outgoing and was remembered by classmates as a "class clown". 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.

In the summer of 1991, Teena began a relationship with Heather, who was seriously under the legal age of consent. Teena worked as a gas station attendant in an attempt to purchase a trailer home for herself and her girlfriend. Her mother, however, did not approve of the relationship, and persuaded Tammy to follow Teena to find out if the relationship was sexual.

When Sarah, her best friend, told Heather that Brandon was a female. Heather terminated the relationship and Brandon attempted to kill herself by taking a bottle of antibiotics.

In January 1992, Teena underwent a psychiatric evaluation, which concluded that she was suffering from a severe "sexual identity crisis". She was later taken to the Lancaster County Crisis Center to ensure that she was not suicidal. She was released from the center three days later and began attending therapy sessions, sometimes accompanied by her mother or sister. She was reluctant to discuss her sexuality during these sessions but eventually revealed that she had been raped, another traumatic experience that must shed light on her disturbed condition. " At the time, she was seriously underweight from an eating disorder and taking seven showers a day, with seven complete changes of clothing. Drinking heavily, she faced twelve pending charges of forgery and a possible charge of sexual assault on a minor, was suffering from a recent, unreported and untreated rape, and was involved in an ongoing sexual relationship with a fourteen-year-old girl, in which she was passing as male. She reported to therapists that, as a child, she had been a victim of years of sexual abuse perpetrated by a male member of her family."

In 1993, after some legal trouble, Teena moved to the Falls City region of Richardson County, Nebraska, where she identified as a man. She became friends with several local residents. After moving into the home of Lisa Lambert, Teena began dating 19-year-old Lana Tisdel who believed she was a boy, 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 her bail. Because Teena was in the female section of the jail, Tisdel learned that Teena was female. When Tisdel later questioned Teena, she told her she was a hermaphrodite pursuing a sex change operation, and they continued dating. In a lawsuit regarding the film adaptation Boys Don't Cry, this was disputed by Tisdel. Teena's arrest was posted in the local paper under her birth name and her acquaintances subsequently learned that she was female.

Teena's decision to pass as a man was never consistent or final. "On Christmas day of 1993, when Lisa brought Brandon back… from Falls City, [a friend] met him[Brandon] at the door and said "Hi Brandon" In reply [the friend] was told by Brandon that there was no Brandon, Brandon was gone. Her name is Teena. That didn't change at any point in that last week. (private email, December 20, 2004)."

Sexual assault and murder

During a Christmas Eve party, Nissen and Lotter grabbed Teena and forced her to remove her pants, proving to Tisdel that Teena was anatomically female. Tisdel said nothing and looked only when they forced her to. Lotter and Nissen later assaulted Teena, and forced her into a car. They drove to an area by a meat-packing plant in Richardson County, where they assaulted and raped her. They then returned to Nissen's home where the two men ordered Teena to take a shower. Teena escaped from Nissen's bathroom by climbing out the window, and went to Tisdel's house. She was persuaded by Tisdel to file a police report, though Nissen and Lotter had warned Teena not to tell the police about the rape or they would "silence her 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 her, 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, was staying with her. They then shot and killed DeVine, Lambert and Teena in front of Lambert's toddler. 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 she was dead. Nissen and Lotter then left, later being arrested and charged with murder.

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

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. 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. 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. In October 2011, the Eighth Circuit rejected Lotter's request for a rehearing by the panel or the full Eighth Circuit en banc. 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, leaving his conviction to stand.

Cultural and legal legacy

Because Teena had neither commenced hormone replacement therapy nor had sex reassignment surgery, she has quite reasonably been identified as a lesbian by media reporters. However, some reported that Teena had stated that she planned to have sex reassignment surgery.

JoAnn Brandon sued Richardson County and Sheriff Laux for failing to prevent Teena'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. 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. Laux was also criticized after the murder for his attitude toward Teena – at one point, Laux referred to Teena as "it". 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.

In 1999, Teena 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.

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"—the name Teena Brandon adopted—and for referring to her 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."

The British duo Pet Shop Boys released a song called "Girls Don't Cry" (a bonus track on U.K. 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.

Interpretation of Her Death

The view of Teena Brandon as a transgender icon for the LGBT movement has been challenged by lesbians and survivors of childhood sexual abuse who both regard her as belonging to their category and reject the argument that gender dysphoria is a perfectly normal condition that is misunderstood by a stupid "trans-bashing" society. The full facts about her tragic life are inconvenient because "incorporating information about child sexual abuse into the narrative of Brandon's life pathologizes the transgendered identity adopted by Brandon and for which she has become an icon. This is perceived as disrespectful and "transphobic" . But it is important to resist that ideology-driven narrative and to confront the evidence that before her tragic death, she was a deeply troubled individual.

See also

• Corrective rape
• List of transgender-related topics
• Transphobia
• Violence against LGBT people

References

• The Brandon Teena Archive, Judith Halberstam

External links

• Brandon – An American Tragedy. By Herbert J. Friedman, Friedman Law Offices, Nebraska