I read the story the other day and what little information they released is horrible enough that I wasn't sure that I wanted to post about it, though of course I want to remember Sam and to recognize the fear that pervades the LGBTQ community (and its vast network of allies) on a day to day basis.
I personally feel that crimes tend to be symptoms of a greater sickness in society. The Manson Family murders were symptom of a few things at that time, but mostly the ability of anyone awful enough to be able to leverage racial animosity to weaponize directionless and potentially mentally ill young people to commit horrible crimes. Not unlike Hitler and certainly akin to what is happening today. When people have access to healthcare, access to addiction services, access to good jobs, safe housing, and clean food, it makes it all the harder for the Jim Jones', the Manson's, and the Ziz's of the world to operate.
Why didn't Sam have safe housing? Access to medical care? A safe place to go and people they could call for help? We know the answer to that and the answer is hate. I love trans persons, you love trans persons (I'm gonna guess), Jesus loves trans people, but society fucking hates trans people.
Maybe you find something here you agree with, maybe you don't. Let me wrap up by apologizing for writing Yet Another Post that takes a senseless tragedy and tries to make enough sense of it to squeeze it into my worldview. It's a human tendency and I apologize: shit like this, to a certain extent there's just no sense to be made of it.
