History:
Gwen Araujo, an American teenage trans woman, was murdered in Newark, California, in October 2002. She was killed by four men, two of whom she had been sexually intimate with, who beat and strangled her after discovering she was transsexual. Two of the defendants were convicted of second-degree murder, but not convicted on the requested hate crime enhancements. The other two defendants pleaded guilty or no contest to voluntary manslaughter. In at least one of the trials, a trans panic defense - an extension of the gay panic defense - was employed.

The crime received widespread national and international attention and prompted some authors to write about the bearing of homophobia and transphobia on Araujo's murder, along with questioning whether transgender people were being represented fairly and accurately in both mass media and the criminal justice.Reaction to the case was an impetus for law reform movements in several states. The events, including both criminal trials, have been portrayed in a TV movie, A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story. The murder was regularly compared to the Matthew Shepard case and was a rallying cause for the transgender and ultimately the larger LGBT communities.


Biography
Araujo had engaged in oral and anal sex with two of her murderers in the weeks leading up to the attack. At a party held on October 3, 2002, a forced inspection by one of the guests revealed Araujo to possess male genitalia. Over the course of the next five hours, Araujo was beaten to death with a frying pan and a barbell, and driven to a remote location in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where she was buried in a shallow grave.

Trial
One of the defendants, Jaron Nabors, provided information to the police on the killing in return for a manslaughter plea. A jury convicted Michael Magidson and Jose Merel of second degree murder, and Jason Cazares of voluntary manslaughter. However, the jury did not consider the killing to be a hate crime, but rather a reaction to a sudden and shocking revelation.

Activism
Araujo's case and the failure of the jury to convict the defendants of a hate crime sparked protests across the country. In 2006, the film A Girl Like Me: The Gwen Araujo Story premiered on the Lifetime Network network. Actress J.D. Pardo played Gwen, and Mercedes Ruehl played Gwen's mother, Sylvia Guerrero.










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