An Ohio father is being tried for murder after stabbing his gender nonconforming child to death.
Brian Golec, who for some time identified as transgender and went by Bri (though friends say lately they’ve been going by Brian), was a musician and artist whose death is being mourned not just by friends and family, but the larger LGBTQ community.
The Human Rights Campaign said:
“Regardless of whether Golec was transgender, genderqueer, or otherwise gender nonconforming, (Golec joins) a staggeringly long list of LGBTQ individuals who have been murdered in 2015, including transgender women Lamia Beard, Ty Underwood, Yazmin Vash Payne, Taja Gabrielle DeJesus and Penny Proud.”
Brian’s father Kevin lied to dispatchers, saying a group of people came in and attacked Kevin and Brian.
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The following is the transcript of that call:
“Oh my God, are you guys for real man? This is like the fourth f*cking time I’ve tried to call 9-1-1.
“They attacked us, they came into our house. I don’t know who did. A bunch of them came in, and attack us in our house f*cking — just bring and ambulance! Because I think he’s dead!
“He’s in to a cult and all this sh*t. These guys came in. I fought them off. They got him. They got me.”
Disturbing audio is available here.
When police arrived at the scene, it was discovered that Kevin had in fact stabbed his child.
Local activists told the Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents blog that the “cult” Kevin blamed may have been referencing the transgender support group that Brian attended.
Brian’s obituary read:
Brian K. Golec, 22, of Akron, went to be with our Creator on February 13, 2013.
“He was a deeply spiritual and artistic person. His interests included painting, jewelry making, meditation, martial arts, video games, and anime. He loved attending outdoor festivals and raves.”
Captain Obvious
Purposely killing your own child has to be like the biggest sin around. Enjoy hell, bastard.
Giancarlo85
I don’t get how one could do that to their own children… just so sick.
ingyaom
Makes me wonder what happened to that gender-non conforming “rainbow” kid that used to be on this site all the time. Maybe he went back to conforming with his own gender.
Ladbrook
This is why I still support the death penalty.
AtticusBennett
http://littlekiwilovesbauhaus.blogspot.ca/2010/11/gender-nonconformity.html
congrats to all the trolls of the world who continue to anonymous rail against “fems” from a place of cowardice – you played a role in this kid’s murder. way to freakin’ go.
Giancarlo85
@AtticusBennett: I’m with you on that one. I am fem. Maybe gender non-conforming.
People always attack those who are different than them. They feel insecure about themselves.
And this is the result. 🙁
Realitycheck
Guys according to other news outlets the murder was
about a drug related fight the son had with the father,
about the father use of cocaine.
That said, yes how can anyone do this to their own
child? So many monsters out there.
jayj150
1- His death had nothing to do with his gender-noncomformity; it was drug-related.
2- It is offensive to his memory to call him transgender simply because he refused to conform to gender stereotypes; in fact it’s contradictory. Transgenderism is the most extreme form of gender conformism; it works under the assumption that effeminate boys are really girls and butch girls are really boys. Transgender people are homophobic, mysoginist CONFORMISTS.
onthemark
@AtticusBennett: So basically you’re saying the homophobic father must have been in the habit of reading LGBT websites, and the comments (anti- or pro-fem) on those sites, and was influenced by that to kill his own kid? You always find a way to blame gay people for literally everything but that’s pretty extreme even for you.
praenomenal
@jayj150: wtf, no. Shut up. I am not a mysoginit because I am transitioning. I am female gendered, and male sexed. That is my gender expression and has no reflection on anyone else’s. Transgender means just that, bridging genders. It is an expression spectrum that contains non-binary, transsexual, and gender queer, interested and many others. I am not homophobic you asshole. I identify as pansexual in the extreme. I have been with women, men and other transpeople of different stripes. In point of fact many people told me I could not be trans because I did not appear classically feminine in my time presenting as male. I was not corralled into being trans to explains some esoteric struggle to find a place for me, it is who I am and have always been. Your blatant generalizations are so absurd as to be hard to believe.
praenomenal
Yes, I know there was a couple typos. Am on an iPad and blame autocorrect. Thank you.
Giancarlo85
Jay’s response is transphobic. Period. Remember “LGBT”.
Maybe I did jump to conclusions in my last post, but the sheer amount of disrespect towards trans people from gay men really pisses me off.
AtticusBennett
@onthemark: i don’t doubt for one moment that the cowardly internet trolls don’t make the same comments to the anti-gay bigots they suck up to in their own lives. every time a gay men denigrates perceived “fems” he’s telling the world two things: 1. his family is ashamed of him. 2. he hates gay people more than anti-gay people.
onthemark
@AtticusBennett: ??? – But this kid’s father was not only ashamed of him, he killed him.
And as usual, you’re making the “logical” leap to blame internet trolls for it. We don’t know if the murderer even had a computer.
For all we know, maybe the kid read YOUR bizarre creepy inc*stuous daddy-obsessed comments and “stood up to his father” etc. etc. and the father killed him and it’s your fault? (by your own “logic”).
Giancarlo85
Well we don’t really know what happened here with this case and hope to see more details. But truthfully… fem gay men and non-conforming people have a difficult time in the LGBT community and are attacked not only by society but by other gay men. Maybe that wasn’t the case here, but the point is a good point.
onthemark
@Giancarlo85: Agree.
BRENT
I’m just gay, as simple as that. I’ll soon turn sixty and I’m still with the guy I met when I was twenty. My apologies if I don’t know an awful lot about transgender people or transpeople, or all the different variations on the gay theme; I am not an expert on human sexuality, and I look askance at those who profess themselves to be. Nothing they say is of any importance here, for this case is not so much about the boy’s sexuality but rather it is about the father’s corrosive hatred of a concept that was way beyond his understanding. None of this matters when the fact is that the boy is dead.
I suspect that like most people I do not need to know anything about anybody in order to know the fundamental truth that it is wrong to insult or upset anyone who has done nothing to deserve it, and it is wrong in every possible sense it can be wrong, to murder a fellow human being for any reason, least of all for the ‘crime’ of being different. Time was, when the finality of the death penalty was anathema to me in case of miscarriages of justice — time was. Now, as I watch in horrified wonder the dreadful acts that our flawed species is capable of, I am minded to think again. For some people — and I would guess the father in this case is one of them — there can be no realistic chance of redemption, and for that reason I would be happy to see this madman hang.
jayj150
@praenomenal: When you tell an effeminate young child that because he has stereotypically feminine interests(and behaviors, tastes, mannerisms, etc.) that he is not really a boy but a “girl in the wrong body” and that the only way to help him is to inject him with hormones to block his normal development and then have surgery so he can be “normal”, instead of simply accepting him for the unique non-conforming person than he is, that IS the very definition of homophobia(not to mention horrifically cruel child abuse). PERIOD. When a child is told that he has to “transition” into something he is not for society to accept him simply because he doesn’t adhere to society’s gender stereotypes, that is HOMOPHOBIC. I don’t care about the “T” in LGBT, I don’t think it belongs there. LGB is about being different, non-conforming and taking pride in it, while the “T” literally comes from transitioning, from changing who you are so society can accept you. So, no, I have zero interest in the necessities of people like you, you don’t get to tell gay people what their priorities should be. Trans activists consistently and openly disregard gay people’s fights or they flat out try to sabotage them. Transgenderism works under the assumption that there are certain social interests and traits that are exclusively inherent to either sex, and if you don’t adhere to that norm, you need to transition, or as just put it “bridge genders”. In reality, there’s NO NECESSITY to bridge anything, men and women should and can pursue any interest without having to worry that is “matches” their gender. When you say you have to bridge your sex to your certain expression, you are asserting that homophobic, misogynistic notion that each sex has certain roles that people can’t dare to go astray from(unless of course, they “transition”). It is people like YOU who are obsessed with the ‘gender binary’ , and it is people like YOU who makes it so hard for truly non-conforming people like this young man to be be accepted by society while being faithful to themselves.
Giancarlo85
@jayj150: Nobody is telling effeminate children to take hormones and other things. I think hormones should be a decision one makes when they are an adult. Transitioning itself isn’t accepted by society and people who transition aren’t looking for complete societal acceptance. They are just looking to be themselves.
Oh and many trans people have been part of the LGBT struggle going back to Stonewall. So your disapproval means little in the long run. And trans activists aren’t looking to disregard or undermine the rights of gay people. That’s absolutely ridiculous.
jayj150
@Giancarlo85: You said “Nobody is telling effeminate children to take hormones”. Wow, that’s delusional, cynical denial if I’ve ever seen it. You might want to google “hormone blocker for trans children”, you hypocrite.
Giancarlo85
@jayj150: Wow what a crass and vicious response. Learn the difference between effeminate and transgendered. You have such little intelligence about this subject, I don’t even know why I am bothering responding to your trash.
You don’t define what the gay community does, so stop acting as if you’re some spokesperson.
Giancarlo85
Anyone who can’t distinguish the difference between “EFFEMINATE” and “TRANSGENDERED” is not worth my time or the time of anyone else. What idiocy.
praenomenal
@jayj150: No, you could not be more wrong, and wow, are you trying to dictate to me my experience. Interestingly I got asked when I was starting my transition, at 24, “are you sure your are not just gay?” By a dear friend, who could understand being gay, but not being a woman. He loved being a man, I never did I did try. See, I know people who are non-binary. I love them, but I felt like presenting as a woman, I feel like that role fits me. So who are you to say that is in any way harmful. It’s my life, and for most transpeople that is the truth. There are very few transitioning children. It is remarkably difficult to do so. Also I identify as both transgender as well as pansexual, and for a long time lived as a lesbian in both presentation and societal acceptance. I have no intention of telling “gays” what their priorities are, unless I am speaking in my capacity as a non-heteronormative individual speaking my opinions. So, I hate to break up your screed, but you are just wrong.
onthemark
@jayj150: “while the “T” literally comes from transitioning, from changing who you are so society can accept you.”
Oh really – society accepts them? They might be surprised to hear that. (Society might be a little surprised too.)
praenomenal
@jayj150: more to the point, the anger you present makes me think you were deeply affected by the actions of someone reading gender. Who hurt you? What happened? Because your experience does not mesh with anything like mine to the point of hyperbolic hilarity. I want to honestly know how to help you understand that what you are perceiving as a global transgender agenda is not accurate. I do not imagine perceptions like that are born out of aether. So let’s talk it out. Really. Transpeople come in all types and there is nothing I reject more than the idea of forcing people into a gener binary who do not wish to be.
nyscorpio2
And we call the Taliban barbaric? This happened right in the Ohio, can’t get more Middle America than that!
jayj150
@praenomenal: You said “but I felt like presenting as a woman, I feel like that role fits me”. Talk about reducing the female experience. That’s how transsexuals see being a woman, a “role”. Womanhood is more than just injecting yourself hormones and putting on a dress. I hope you someday realize that you don’t need to call yourself something you’re not to be truthful to yourself, and that, that is in fact contradictory. Do you like things that are considered by society as stereotypically feminine?. By all means pursue those interests, all of them, even the ones regarding presentation, but don’t call yourself a woman just because you don’t have the balls to be a non-conforming man.
praenomenal
@jayj150: Again you presume my experience. I spent a large number of years as a non gender conforming male presenting person. I made a choice to persue transition. An informed and adult choice. I cannot reduce the female experience, I live it day to day. It is complex and beautiful and mine. Why do you feel the need to reduce me? How do you define “woman”? Since that seems to be something I am reducing by my very existence within that space, or do you propose the total dismantling of gender binary? The thing with a spectrum is you have to accept the people at the ends too, for me the non-binary expression did not resonate with me. I lived it, so I know what it was like. When I was very young and learning about my gender identity I identifed as a cross dresser, and as bi-gendered. Those expressions changed based on the same fluidity that speaker to non-binary folks, mine just lead me into a classic presentation, however much I still may be perceived as “butch”, and in many ways I am. You are very angry and you seem to feel it is a zero sum game, that my expression somehow effects yours or anyone else’s. What you have not explained is how mine is less valid? You seem to be the one dictating how things are, not allowing expressions beyond your personal bias.
aliengod
“Gender nonconforming”? How stupid!
Giancarlo85
@jayj150: People can call themselves whatever the heck they want without judgment and insults.
shelleybear
Life in prison without parole.
May the sun never shine freely on his face again.
Harley
@shelleybear: And I might add, raped and beaten on a daily basis.
shelleybear
@Giancarlo85:
Bravo.
Note to gay community:
We don’t tell you you might be trans and are suppressing it.
You don’t tell us we might be gay and are suppressing it.
Follow that rule and we can all get along.
jayj150
@shelleybear: Right. What you DO tell us is we’re bigots if say we have zero sexual interest in “women with penises” or “men with vaginas”. Respect our homosexuality, stop trying to validate your delusional “identities” by disrespecting our orientation, and we can all get along. Peace 🙂
Giancarlo85
@jayj150: Stop trying to act as if you’re some kind of spokesperson for the gay community. Nobody is “disrespecting” your homosexuality.
TransParency_
@jayj150: Gay men LIKE vaginas. YOU don’t like vaginas because YOU are a transphobe. It’s not for privileged Cis-homos like you to decide vaginas are not sexually appealing at the expense of transpeople’s identities. Any cis-gay man saying they don’t like vaginas simply hasn’t opened their mind to the idea or is a bigot. Privigeled Cis homos and Cis lesbians need to start showing some gratitute for the decades of fights fought by transpeople while Cis homo people reaped the benefits, and yes, that gratitude must include treating us as viable sexual partners. Bigoted, close minded TRASNPHOBES like you are to blame for this tranperson’s brutal death. Shame on you and your fellow privileged Cis-homo brothers and sisters.
The American Council of Witches
THE AMERCAIN COUNCIL OF WITCHES 2015 PRESS RELEASE
Contact: [email protected]
Wiccan killed by father.
Brian was 22 years old when he was brutally murdered by his father.
The media has made this a case about gender and religion. The facts are that he confronted his heroin addicted father about personal items having been stolen from his home and in a rage his father killed him. Brian was allowing his father (Kevin Golec) to stay with him on his couch and Kevin used his son’s beliefs as a crutch to put blame on his son rather than shine light on his heroin addiction.
Close friends and other relatives report that he was engaged to be married, and while he did attend some meetings as a teenager for Trans-gendered persons, he felt he was more comfortable in his own body. Brian had been a member of a Wiccan coven for several years and enjoyed the opportunity for personal growth. His close friend Dominic Joseph Catalano states that Brian was an amazing pure-hearted idealist who touched the hearts of many individuals. People who had no one else, he would altruistically accept as friends. Brian had a tremendously difficult life, but he persevered and held the most noble intentions until the very end.
Wicca has been recognized as a religion in the U.S. since 1986. Recent ACLU of Ohio cases highlight the organization’s commitment to both defending the right to practice religion and preventing the government from supporting religion. We at the American Council of Witches 2015 strongly defend the right to practice our spirituality the way we choose and will strongly support the rights for others to do so as well. One of our goals is to be an avenue of resources for individuals and organizations including law enforcement when dealing with circumstances such as this.
At this time the council has chosen not to pursue a call for a hate crime charge to be filed against the father for the following reasons: In light of new understanding, including how drugs distort one’s perception of reality and the fact that the Father did not make a hate based decision, but rather made a drug induced fear based decision. This underscored the necessity of the Pagan community to continue to reach out to members of all faiths, find common ground, and build bridges. The council sends their deepest sympathy and prayers to everyone involved, for one live was lost while another was destroyed.
enlightenone
@Giancarlo85: “… Maybe that wasn’t the case here, but the point is a good point.”
I agree as well!
shelleybear
@jayj150:
Huh?
How do you arrive at that comment?
Jacob23
Ti agree that it is crass and exploitative to treat a drug-related homicide as if it were a hate crime. That kind of calculated dishonesty is part and parcel of trans activism.
In any event, there’s an interesting detail in this story which unlike the homicide actually does have something to do with gender identity: Golec had earlier declared himself to be a “transwoman” only to change his mind and then declare himself to be a man. This illustrates a phenomenon that trans activists don’t like to talk about. People misidentify themselves and then change their minds. This is a very good reason NOT to celebrate those parents who allow the bodies of thei very young children to be surgically altered and pumped with hormones and drugs. You let a 14-year old “transition” and then at 17 he decides he made a mistake, you now have a disaster on your hands. Of course, at that point, trans activists won’t care about the kid or his family.
Giancarlo85
Looks as if he was trying to help his father and that ended tragically. This story gets even more sad.
praenomenal
@TransParency_: I have to say your response is just as bad as the person you are responding to. Granted he never had e balls to finish our discussion and address the points made, but conversely, if a person does not like vagina or even a man who was born with one, does not make him a transphobe. It’s a preference. People are allowed to like what they want. They just cannot and should not legistlate such preferences. When you spew like you did you degrade the whole effort.
praenomenal
@Jacob23: first off, your assertion of trans activists actions is silly and a straw man argument in the extreme. There is not global agenda. Also, all transpeople I know, and have spoken to acknowledge that people detransition. I myself confronted that when things got hard, however, that is why the standards of care exist. To help with making these choices. I knew in my heart at 14 I wanted to transition, it was fear and lack of acceptance that made me wait. If I had transitioned earlier things would have been physically much healthier for me. I wish I had had that option and the support, but I did not. To say that it should not be an option because someone might change their mind is hyperbolic in the extreme. That would be an analog to saying that because cars are expensive and you not regret your choice you shouldn’t persue it. I also disagree vehemently with your last assertion that these trans activists you have straw manned into existence would care more about an agenda than a person. That is patently incorrect and libelous.
Captain Obvious
@nyscorpio2: Wealthy Americans have participated in the trafficking of children for sex for centuries.
Crime is only considered barbaric when it’s committed by brown people.
I am Gay (just like you), Black, HIV-Positive, and Back Bitches!!!
22 years old is hardly a child though uh… Queerty! So when dispatchers arrives at the scene? What scene? What’s the scene? The house that they both were still living in, daddy with his son dressing as a woman, and having a gay sex something er other when daddy came home? I don’t know! I can only guess! And that means that something tells me there’s a lot more to this story that Queerty just isn’t reporting…
Giancarlo85
@I am Gay (just like you), Black, HIV-Positive, and Back Bitches!!!: You don’t even know what you are talking about. If you actually read the story you would realize the whole fight started because he confronted his dad about his drug use. You ignoramus.
Tereasa
This man is a fucking idiot. How the hell can you kill anyone especially your own child. I hope he burns in hell.