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Happy Hour #234: The Gay Panic Defense · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Okay, this is Annie and Samantha.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: I'm welcome to stuff I never told you inflection of iHeartRadio,
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: and welcome to another edition of Happy Hour. As always,
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: if you're choosing to drink or what if you're choosing
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: to do, please do so responsibly. Samantha, are you sipping
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  Speaker 2: on anything?
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  Speaker 1: I have my bubbly water right next to me, keeping
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  Speaker 1: me alive.
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  Speaker 2: Great love that, thank you?
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: What about you?
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  Speaker 2: I have some rose.
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  Speaker 1: It's been hot.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is incredibly hot. I've been waking up hot
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: in bed and that's like one of my least favorite things.
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: I don't like it at all.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Are you sweating?
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: Sometimes? Sometimes? Menopause? Heard the perimenopause, whisperer. I feel like
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: you've told multiple of my friends that they might have perrymenopause.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: I've never told any of your friends that they have
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: peri menopause. I haven't scene dumb enough.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: I think the telephone method. We're all saying, oh, my
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: friend experiences this, and you're like.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, fair, I'm not being fair. I'm not be fair.
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  Speaker 1: You're right, You're right to be fair. We are of age.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: We are of age.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, keep going, keep going, but bloody times that
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  Speaker 1: means Jose for me, it does sometimes, but we are
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: of age, but we still like to have fun and
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: we like to have fun with you listeners where we can.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: So just a reminder, it is coming up. We are
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: going on a voyage with our friends at Virgin Voyages.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: We are taking a trip from New York to Bermuda.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Other podcasts, stuff you should know and stuff they don't
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• 2:01
  Speaker 2: to do a live podcast. They're going to be events
• 2:03
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• 2:05
  Speaker 2: just gonna be hanging out. You can come and just
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: talk with us, have a happy hour with us. It's
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: adults only. So I'm excited. I'm very excited. We've been
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: talking about topics and we think that we've landed on
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: what we're going to discuss and it's gonna be fun
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: and so please come along. We would love to see you.
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: If you want to learn more, go to virgin voyages
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: dot com slash stuff and let us know if you're
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: going so we could meet up. So this happy hour
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: does come with the content warning. We're going to be
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: talking about some violence and death. Very briefly. I wasn't
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: anticipating this to go the way that it did, but
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: I want to talk about it because you listeners know,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: I'm still going through all of these topics about being
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: queer abated that I have on an outline. There's a
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: whole outline everybody and I have learned a lot. That's
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  Speaker 2: the silver lining of this whole thing is I have
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  Speaker 2: learned quite a lot. And one thing I absolutely didn't
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  Speaker 2: know and that we should do a full episode on
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  Speaker 2: is the legal history of the gay panic defense. So
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  Speaker 2: since this is a happy Hour, we're only going to
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  Speaker 2: go over the basics, but yes, we should do a
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  Speaker 2: full episode one day. I'm very familiar with the lighthearted
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Internet usage of the term gay panic. Essentially, it is
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  Speaker 2: when someone feels some sort of gay attraction and panics.
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  Speaker 2: You're flustered and embarrassed. It's usually really cute. It's very
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  Speaker 2: rom calm level. This can be from someone who's closeted
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  Speaker 2: or isn't and usually results in clumsiness and hilarity. But
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  Speaker 2: I have seen it written very angstily. Sometimes I often
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  Speaker 2: mix it up with disaster gay, which is a similar trope.
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  Speaker 2: It's very sweet, it's very cute. It's nice because it's normalized.
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  Speaker 2: It's a gay relationship, but it's totally normalized. But a
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  Speaker 2: lot of the original uses of this phrase are pretty
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  Speaker 2: dark now. Homosexual panic the mental disorder was first coined
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  Speaker 2: in the nineteen twenties and was used to describe so
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  Speaker 2: called perverse tendencies or cravings of the sexual nature that
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  Speaker 2: were said to be uncontrollable. Some variation of this remained
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  Speaker 2: in the DSM five until twenty thirteen. Early attempts to
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  Speaker 2: explaining this so called disorder penneded on like enclosed same
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  Speaker 2: sex settings like camps, like spaces where it was all
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  Speaker 2: same sex people. Not true, I hope, obviously, But yeah,
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  Speaker 2: not true. But this brings us to the gay panic
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  Speaker 2: slash homosexual panic slash trans defense. In simplest terms, this
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  Speaker 2: is a victim blaming legal defense wherein a heterosexual person
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  Speaker 2: charged with a violent crime against a same sex attracted
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  Speaker 2: person argues that they reacted violently after an unwanted sexual advance.
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  Speaker 2: This defense is usually deployed to get a lesser sentence
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  Speaker 2: or acquittal, even in cases of violence and murder. By
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  Speaker 2: the way, the person question may not even be gay.
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  Speaker 2: The person who was attacked just perceived to be so
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  Speaker 2: the trans defense is very, very similar. Gay Panic defense
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  Speaker 2: first started showing up in the nineteen sixties in the US,
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  Speaker 2: which was a time when more gay people were living
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  Speaker 2: more outwardly in this country. It relied on the historic,
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  Speaker 2: inaccurate idea that queer people didn't exist before then, so
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  Speaker 2: this was a new thing and we should be very
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  Speaker 2: worried about it. Here's a quote from lgbtqbar dot org.
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  Speaker 2: The goal of the strategy is to employ homophobia and
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  Speaker 2: transphobia to persuade a jury and to fully are partially
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  Speaker 2: acquitting the defendant, whether or not this appeal to bigotry
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  Speaker 2: is successful in court. Every time a defendant invokes the
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  Speaker 2: LGBDQ plus panic defense, they reinforce the dangerous and discredited
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  Speaker 2: belief that LGBTQ plus lives are worth less than others.
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  Speaker 2: There are multiple instances of this happening, and all of
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  Speaker 2: them are as upsetting as you'd imagine, like truly truly awful.
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  Speaker 2: Here's a quote from a Refinery twenty nine article called
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  Speaker 2: Let's Talk about Gay Panic by Quinn Rhoades. The horrific
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  Speaker 2: violence later justified by the gay and trans panic defense
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  Speaker 2: comes from the need to prove one is not queer.
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  Speaker 2: A recent example of this is the killing of Daniel
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  Speaker 2: Spencer by his neighbor, James Miller in twenty fifteen. During
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  Speaker 2: the trial, Miller claims that he rejected a sexual advance
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  Speaker 2: from Spencer and had attacked him in self defense, even
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  Speaker 2: though physical evidence showed he was never in danger. Miller
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  Speaker 2: was only convicted of criminally negligent homicide, which carries a
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  Speaker 2: lighter punishment than murder or manslaughter. Harry Ann, who is
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  Speaker 2: clear and transfemme, explains from her perspective, trans panic is
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  Speaker 2: the fear that someone will be sexually interested in me,
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  Speaker 2: realize I'm not sis, then feel an embarrassed and aggressive
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  Speaker 2: need to assert their heterosexuality by abusing me verbally or physically.
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  Speaker 2: Can you imagine your masculinity being so fragile that you
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  Speaker 2: feel the need to murder a transwoman who you found
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  Speaker 2: attractive just to reaffirm that you are straight?
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  Speaker 1: Uh? Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So this defense is still legal in many states, despite
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  Speaker 2: the fact that many argue it is a hate crime.
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  Speaker 2: Research suggests that the defense works in some fashion about
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  Speaker 2: one third at the time. Several states have eliminated it, though,
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  Speaker 2: and organizations like lgbtqbar dot org are pushing to get
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  Speaker 2: rid of it altogether. We've mostly been discussing the US today,
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  Speaker 2: but other countries have similar laws. So listeners write in
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: if you if you want us to talk about that.
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  Speaker 2: I do think we should come back and delve into
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  Speaker 2: this more in depth. But yeah, I think that quote
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  Speaker 2: from the Refinery twenty nine article sums it up really well.
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  Speaker 2: But the fact that this is a defense and that
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  Speaker 2: you would someone potentially would feel such a need to
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  Speaker 2: prove they're not okay. Yeah, uh, that's we've got a
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: ways to go. We've got a ways to go. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: So I'm glad to know this. It is so different
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: than the internet usage of gay panic. So hopefully now
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  Speaker 2: now we all know there is this dark history and
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  Speaker 2: other meaning because it is such a fun term moment
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  Speaker 2: in the internet fling.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, not people, I'm like definitely those moments of
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  Speaker 1: like taking something really dark and trying to not as
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  Speaker 1: they reclaim it, yeah, but like bring some hope in
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  Speaker 1: a way. But yeah, it is, it is. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I wasn't expecting to find this, That's what I'll say.
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  Speaker 2: But I have learned a lot during this queer banning experience.
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  Speaker 2: So here we go. Uh in the you have, Indeed
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: you have, I really really have, I really have. Well. Well, listeners,
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: If there's something I missed, or something you want us
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: to talk about, or any resources we should bring up,
• 10:05
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• 10:08
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• 10:11
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• 10:22
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• 10:25
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• 10:28
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