Femicide by Any Other Name: An Inventory of Unmentionable Crimes
By aurora linnea
A public memorial to the countless female victims of Juarez, Mexico’s ongoing femicide epidemic.
Photo credit: ALFREDO ESTRELLA/AFP/Getty Images.
In November 2021, a 28-year-old prostituted woman was stabbed on the sidewalk in Argentina’s capital city of Buenos Aires. She died several days later from her injuries. Security camera footage from the scene shows a man approaching the victim and seizing her in a headlock before stabbing her repeatedly; footage from a second camera shows the attacker leaving with an accomplice. For a year, the murder was reported as a femicide, defined in Argentinian law as a crime of “gender violence” perpetrated by a man against a woman. Then, in November 2022, two male suspects were taken into custody, and the femicide classification was promptly dropped. The young woman’s murder would no longer be recorded as a femicide, for it was no longer a crime of male violence against women. The men involved denied being male. Indeed, both claimed to be women, and just like that, their violence ceased to be male violence; it became impossible for them to be guilty of femicide, since femicide is a crime only men can commit—and they are not men, because they say so. Obligingly, respectfully, the police and media take their word for it. Thus, to cosset the egos of violent men, a femicide is wiped from the record.
The widely accepted theory regarding trans-identifying males and violence is this: men who say they are women are different from other men in that they are feminine, whereas most men are masculine. Like wearing Timberland steel-toe boots and watching sporting events whilst consuming large hunks of dead animal roasted over open fires, violence against women is a masculine pastime. Since men who say they are women naturally opt for feminine activities, such as pedicures and posting lingerie selfies online, their innate femininity will likewise shine through in a reduced propensity for beating, raping, torturing, and murdering females. Ergo, men who choose pink over blue don’t kill women because it does not befit their femininity to do so. Furthermore we must never, ever forget that men who say they’re women and subvert all codes of patriarchy by Living Their Truths via lipgloss and electrolysis are the most victimized, most vulnerable creatures this cruel world has ever known. They are always the murdered, never the murderers; to imply otherwise is to deny “trans genocide.”
When this theory is shaken by the revelation that some man saying he’s a woman has dabbled in unfeminine violence by, for example, murdering his girlfriend, the activists who’ve made it their life’s work to defend such men inevitably come rushing in to launch a three-phase damage control strategy.
Phase one is the blackout approach: media outlets that champion men saying they’re women will not report on their crimes or else cover them as minimally as possible, any public reference to or discussion of their crimes will be stigmatized, a major faux pas; with the result being that most people will continue to operate under the officially endorsed impression that men who say they’re women are soft, gentle, harmless and defenseless beings akin to baby seals. Baby seals hurt no one; they just flop about being adorable until they are victimized by heartless evildoers with clubs. So too men who say they’re women, the theory goes.
Phase two is initiated if news of the men’s violent crimes cannot be suppressed. In this phase, confusion is sown through steadfast propagation of the illusion that the rape or murder in question was committed by a woman. Casual media consumers who read no more than headlines have little cause to suppose that the serial killer accused of dismembering “her” victims is in reality a man. They are therefore likely to regard the story as an anomaly – a female serial killer chopping up other women? How bizarre! – rather than yet one more tragically unremarkable case study in men’s war against women.
The third and final phase entails the diversion of attention away from the men’s violence by shifting it onto their struggles for justice and self-realization as “trans women,” e.g., the hardships they face in compelling the state to fund their cosmetic surgeries, validate their identities by approving requested transfers into women’s prisons, and so forth. Given that these poor men already have such a tough row to hoe, it begins to seem a bit harsh to hammer on about the women whose lives they’ve stolen.
The damage control efforts of men’s many devoted defenders have proven extremely effective. They have kept the “baby seal” perception intact, such that women who object to violent men being fast-tracked into women’s shelters, women’s prisons, women’s hospital wards, etc. can be dismissed as paranoid fearmongers. Women’s objections are attributed to transphobia: the prejudiced assumption that because these men are “trans,” they deviate from the norm and therefore pose a unique danger. But male violence is not a deviation: it is absolutely normal. I do not believe that men who say they’re women are uniquely likely to harm women. What concerns me is that they may be equally likely to harm women as men in general, that they are equally as dangerous. Men who say they are women are not dangerous because of the “difference” their identity claims seek to cultivate—the real threat is that there is no difference. They are the same as other men, because each and every one is a man like any other.
What follows is a (no doubt incomplete) record of women murdered by men who say they are women in the United States. Without reservation I call these killings femicides. I call the killers men.
1969. Kansas City, Missouri. Karen Sue Kemmerly, a 24-year-old university student, was strangled and killed in December, 1969, by Thomas Lamb, who now demands to be called “Michelle Renee.” According to Lamb, he killed Kemmerly after she called him a “handsome man,” which upset him because he says he is female. Kemmerly’s nude body was found by hunters in a rural area twenty miles outside of Kansas City. A month later, Lamb kidnapped 18-year-old Patricia Ann Childs from a shopping mall parking lot and raped her. Psychiatrists have alleged that Lamb believed he was a “girl” while committing these crimes, and that his male persona had no part in them. He was convicted of two counts of kidnapping and one count of first-degree murder. While in prison serving three life sentences, Lamb was provided with “therapeutic” hormone drugs and “female undergarments” by the Kansas Department of Corrections. Dissatisfied with the state’s deference to his self-concept, Lamb sued the KDOC in 2017, demanding cosmetic genital surgery and other “affirming” procedures, “access to more female items,” recognition of his chosen name, and transfer to a female-only facility. At that time, his transfer request was rejected on the grounds that he presented a danger to women, having killed one and raped another. Reduxx reports that as of January 27, 2023, Lamb had been transferred to Topeka Correctional Facility, a women’s prison.
1990. Spokane, Washington. From February to May of 1990, the bodies of three women were found dumped along the Spokane River, fully nude or with their breasts and genitals exposed. All had engaged in prostitution, all had been shot to death. Yolanda Sapp was 26 years old when she was murdered; Kathleen Brisbois was 38; and Nicki Lowe was 34. Their murders were unsolved until 2012, when a DNA sample from a man arrested for illegal firearm possession in Texas was linked to samples taken at the now two-decades old crime scenes. That man’s name is Douglas Perry, though he had by that time changed it to “Donna.” Perry says he is female and, in 2000, he traveled to Thailand to undergo cosmetic genital surgery in support of this delusion. According to a former cellmate, Perry boasted that he had killed 20-30 prostituted women, saying of his victims, “They were nobodies. They were pond scum.” He is currently serving three life sentences at the Washington Corrections Center for Women.
1990. Mansfield, MA. Robert Kosilek, who changed his name in 1993 to “Michelle Lynne,” strangled his wife, Cheryl McCaul, with rope and piano wire, killing her and nearly decapitating her. He left her body in the backseat of her car in a mall parking lot. The killer’s Wikipedia page informs us, quoting Kosilek’s own testimony, that McCaul did not accept her husband’s gender identity, that she chased him with a knife in a “transphobic rage,” and thus forced the man to defend himself against her, at which point he blacked out from the trauma of it all. Kosilek is serving a life sentence at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Framingham, a women’s prison. For many years, LGBT advocacy groups rallied for Kosilek to be provided with cosmetic genital surgery at the state’s expense.
1993. New York, New York. Luis Morales, who has since christened himself “Synthia China Blast,” and his boyfriend, Carlos Franco, kidnapped 13-year-old runaway Ebony Williams and held her captive in a Hunts Point apartment. There, Morales slashed the child with a boxcutter while raping her multiple times. The men tortured Williams until, eventually, they attempted to stab her to death. Upon noticing the girl was still alive, Franco stomped on her neck until her spine broke. The men then packed Williams’ corpse into a box and dumped it near an expressway underpass, where they set it on fire. In 1999, while serving a sentence of 25 years to life in a men’s prison in New York, Morales successfully demanded that the state provide him with hormones. He also sued the state for refusing him cosmetic genital surgery. The Sylvia Rivera Law Project, a trans legal aid organization, has organized on Blast’s behalf, recruiting the actor Laverne Cox to star in a PSA pleading for Blast’s release from solitary confinement. Cox later apologized for his part in championing Blast, claiming he’d been unaware of the man’s crimes. Blast has also been profiled sympathetically in New York Magazine, VICE, and Jezebel. He was released on parole in 2018 and discharged from parole supervision in July of 2022.
1995. Corcoran, CA. Mary Perkins was 38 years old when she was stabbed and killed on August 24, 1995 by her live-in boyfriend, Carmen Guerrero. The couple’s 14-year-old daughter was in the apartment at the time and called 911 to report the attack on her mother. Guerrero pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and received a sentence of 15 years to life. It is unclear when Guerrero began saying he was a woman, but when he was murdered by his prison cellmate in 2015, NBC News publicized the case as evidence that men deserve to be “housed in facilities consistent with their gender identity,” i.e. in women’s prisons. The Guardian ran a piece quoting Guerrero’s former cellmate and romantic partner, who said he fell in love with “the kindness and sweetness in her [sic] heart.” Neither article mentions the woman Guerrero murdered.
2002. Saco, Maine. Connie Gagliardi, 41, traveled by train from Massachusetts to Maine in September, 2002 with Walter Moore, who now refers to himself as “Nikki Natasha Petrovickov.” Soon after their arrival to Maine, Moore took Gagliardi to the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge in Saco, where he tied her between two trees and killed her, cutting her wrists and throat. Gagliardi had been letting the man stay with her prior to the murder, but the two were not thought to have a romantic relationship. In his defense, Moore alleged that Connie was suicidal, and that he murdered her in an effort to be helpful. Moore is currently serving a 60-year sentence at the Maine State Prison, a men’s facility. In 2016, he sued the state Department of Corrections for denying him hormone drugs and, after “treatment” began 2018, Moore continued to file complaints regarding the type and dosage of the drugs prescribed.
2004. Newport Beach, CA. Jackie Hawks and her husband, Thomas Hawks, met with Skylar Julius Deleon, now Skylar “Preciosa,” on the pretense that Deleon was interested in buying their yacht. While out on the yacht, Deleon and three male accomplices forced the Hawkses to sign the boat’s title over to Deleon, who then tied the couple to the anchor and threw them overboard. Their bodies were never recovered. Deleon has also been convicted for the murder of a man he’d killed a year before killing the Hawkses. The motive for both killings was financial gain, with the Hawks murder specifically carried out to pay for Deleon’s cosmetic genital surgery. Sentenced to death and awaiting execution in California’s San Quentin Prison, Deleon asserted that he was a woman. He legally changed his sex to “female” in 2019 and since then, articles about his case have focused on the child abuse he suffered and whether or not the state should fund his cosmetic genital surgery.
2013. Chester, Illinois. When 17-year-old Erin Schneider broke up with her boyfriend, Jordan Kuykendall, 20, she filed for an emergency order of protection against him. Their four-year relationship had been abusive, according to the girl’s mother, and law enforcement had investigated at least one allegation of dating violence prior to the break-up. On the day before the scheduled hearing for Schneider’s order of protection, Schneider went to see Kuykendall at his home. Her reasons for visiting him remain unknown, but at some point after she entered his house, Kuykendall stabbed the young woman multiple times in the neck and torso, killing her. Jordan Kuykendall proclaimed himself female in 2014 and now demands to be called “Sora.” In 2018 the ACLU of Illinois filed a lawsuit on behalf of Kuykendall and four other incarcerated men asserting their “right” to hormone drugs, cosmetic genital surgery, and transfer into women’s facilities. Kuykendall is currently serving a 40-year sentence in Logan Correctional Center, a women’s prison.
2016. Winthrop, Maine. Alice Balcer, her husband Antonio Balcer, and their dog, Lily, were stabbed to death by the couple’s 17-year-old son, Andrew Balcer. The Maine Chief Medical Examiner testified that Alice was stabbed nine times and Antonio thirteen times. Andrew Balcer has stated that he murdered his parents because of their refusal to support his gender identity, which caused him to “snap,” though the young man’s uncle denies any lack of support on the part of the Balcers. Later during the trial Andrew accused his parents of abuse and molestation, allegations his older brother refuted as “absurd.” Andrew, now 24, has changed his name to “Andrea” and was moved into the women’s section of the Maine Correctional Institute in November 2022.
2016. Oakland, California. Lesbian couple Patricia Wright, 56, and Charlotte Reed, 57, along with their adopted son, Toto “Benny” Diambu, 19, were killed by David Warfield on the evening of November 11, 2016. After entering the family’s home, Warfield shot and stabbed Wright and Reed while they slept in their bedroom, and shot Diambu, who was found bleeding to death in the front yard. The brunt of Warfield’s violence centered on Reed, whom he stabbed nearly 30 times in the face. Warfield then set the house on fire, presumably to destroy the evidence of his crime. When responders arrived to the scene, a blood-and-gasoline-soaked Warfield was apprehended as he fled from the garage. David Warfield purports to be a woman and calls himself “Dana Rivers”; subsequent to undergoing cosmetic genital surgery in the 1990s he was a vocal advocate for the rights of men who say they are women, as well as a major figure in men’s protests decrying the female-only policy of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. Reed and Wright had both attended the festival during its 40-year run, though the potential connection between Warfield’s campaign against the event and the victims’ history of attending was not raised during Warfield’s trial. Instead, prosecutors theorized that he killed the couple in response to Reed’s decision to leave a motorcycle club that Warfield had invited her to join. David Warfield was found guilty of the murders in November 2022 and is awaiting sentencing.
2017. Rockdale, TX. While babysitting his boyfriend’s 20-month-old granddaughter, Patricia Ann “Annie” Rader, Shawn Vincent Boniello grew frustrated with the infant and beat her to death. Boniello says he is a woman and uses the name “Shayla Angeline.” During a police interview, he stated that he punched, slapped, shook, and ultimately squeezed the girl for three minutes until her bones began to “pop and crush.” According to Rader’s family, this was not the first time that Boniello was violent with her. He is currently serving a life sentence in the James V. Allred Unit, a men’s prison.
2020. Colorado Springs, CO. Although Bridget Kenner, 44, was stabbed and killed on April 28, 2020 by her sixteen-year-old daughter, Emma Kenner, who would prefer to be male and goes by “Kenny,” the facts of the case indicate that Emma Kenner was acting under pressure from her boyfriend, Cohen Heath. Heath, 19 at the time of the killing, says he is a woman and calls himself “Vinn.” Emma Kenner has testified that Heath began encouraging her to murder her mother early in April, with his plan being to sell Bridget Kenner’s belongings and use the money to flee to Texas. Heath allegedly told Emma Kenner that she should “be a man” by killing her mother and promised to be proud of her for doing so; on the night of the murder, he said that he wanted to wake up to the sound of her mother screaming. Emma Kenner also believed that Heath would leave her if she did not follow through with the killing. After Bridget Kenner was dead, Heath recorded himself engaging in necrophilic acts with the woman’s corpse, video of which was shown as evidence during trial. He also ransacked the dead woman’s bedroom in order to steal articles of clothing and jewelry. In October 2019, Heath had been investigated by police for stabbing and dismembering his mother’s cat. For his role in Bridget Kenner’s murder, Heath was sentenced to 40 years in Sterling Correctional Facility, a men’s prison.
2022. New York, New York. Body parts discovered in a shopping cart outside a Brooklyn pawnshop on March 3rd of last year were determined to belong to Susan Leyden, 63, last seen entering the apartment of her neighbor, Harvey Marcelin, 83, several days earlier. Marcelin says he is a woman and has renamed himself “Marceline Harvey.” When police searched his apartment, they found Leyden’s head and an electric saw; video footage from a local shop shows Marcelin driving around the store in his electric wheelchair, sitting on Leyden’s severed leg. Marcelin had been released from prison in 2019, after serving 34 years in prison for the 1984 murder of Ana Laura Sierra, a 29-year-old prostituted woman with substance abuse issues who periodically stayed with Marcelin, who was at that time trying to make money as a pimp. The man stabbed her to death and left her corpse in a plastic bag outside of Central Park. Before murdering Sierra, Marcelin had spent twenty years in prison for shooting and killing his girlfriend, Jacqueline Bonds, who had recently broken up with him. When Harvey Marcelin was 14 years old, he was accused of attempting to rape an 8-year-old girl. This man is currently awaiting trial for Leyden’s murder in the women’s facility at Rikers Island prison complex.
Aurora linnea is a radical lesbian (eco)feminist writer living at the ocean’s edge in the region of North America colonizers dubbed “Maine.” She strives to contribute to the global feminist struggle to end male dominion through poetic dissidence and uncompromising disloyalty to the necrophilic patriarchal empire presently destroying life on earth.