CeCe McDonald and Intersectionality

CeCe McDonald is an African American transgendered woman who identifies as bisexual. In 2011, she was charged with murder for killing a man who attacked her during a racist and transphobic assault. 

The assault occurred on June 5, 2011 when she and a group of friends who also identified as LGBTQ people of color took a walk to a grocery store in Minneapolis. As they were passing a bar, Dean Schmitz and his friends assaulted them with numerous slurs such as "faggots", "tranny", and "niggers". She testified that Schmitz yelled, "You niggers need to go back to Africa!" and "Look at that boy dressed as a girl, tucking his dick in!". 

McDonald

A glass bottle was thrown at McDonald and when Schmitz approached her with his fists up, she stabbed him with a pair of fabric scissors. Police arrested McDonald and she was later charged with two counts of second degree murder.

She commented, “The incident in itself was so complex. We dealt with race. We dealt with sexual orientation. We dealt with transphobia and transmisogyny. We dealthy with homophobia…you don’t know what part of you that you’re defending. I didn’t know if I was fighting for myself because I was black. I didn’t know if I was fighting for myself because I was trans. But it all coincided.”

After her arrest, the movement #FreeCeCe was started where the CeCe Support Committee pursued two goals: to get her the best outcome in her case and to activism around the prison-industrial-complex, especially for trans women of color. 

The intersections woven into this narrative are complex. If CeCe McDonald were a straight white women, the narrative would be altered. If she were a cisgendered white woman, it would be different. She not only is a woman of color but she is transgendered and bisexual. Therefore, she doesn’t fit neatly into any category. She faces discrimination in every aspect. We have to consider these intersections when discussing a case like this.

Schmitz

It was revealed that Schmitz had a swastika tattoo, but this was deemed irrelevant in court. How is having a blatant racist engraving on your body deemed irrelevant in a hate-crime? The media also neglected to report on his extensive criminal record which included charges of burgulary, domestic assault, and drug possession. However, the media painted CeCe as Chrishaun Reed who is a poor and dangerous person in transition from a man to a woman.