An incredibly disturbing video showing two trans women being verbally harassed and beaten by several male assailants on Atlanta’s MARTA train has surfaced online, bringing to light one of the first attacks against transwomen we’ve seen since Time declared “the trans tipping point.”
Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the video is the lack of compassion and concern coming from passengers not involved in the brawl. Everyone who crosses the camera’s lens is either cheering, standing on seats to get a better vantage point, or filming the incident with their phone.
“Nobody tried to help,” Janell Crosby, one of the trans ladies attacked in the video, told GA Voice this week. “They were all standing up on chairs and videotaping. That’s how it ended up on so many sites.”
The horrific event has driven both women to move away from Atlanta. Crosby says she was en route to New York a week after the attack occurred, and her friend Tyra Woods, who is stripped in the uncensored version of the video below, is now in Cleveland, Ohio. “I don’t feel safe here,” Crosby said of living in Atlanta. “We don’t get no protection.”
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(It’s worth noting that other sources are reporting that Woods was stripped by the male assailants during the attack, but it is clear in the video below that this information is false — Woods loses her top during a scuffle and later undresses herself. The removal of her clothes does not appear to be a sexually-motivated attack, but rather a decision Woods made on her own. It is not clear whether Woods was intentionally sexually assaulted once her clothes were removed, and Crosby does not claim either were sexually assaulted during the attack.)
Crosby also says she reported the attack to a MARTA officer, but claims the officer had “no interest in taking a report.” She says the attack was instigated by the initial assailant below, who “kicked” her because “he didn’t like certain things [she] said to him.”
At time of reporting, no official investigation had been launched into identifying the attackers.
Watch a censored version of the video below, and head on over to FlyVidz if you want to watch the uncensored version. Be warned that it is NSFW and extremely graphic.
Nowuvedoneit
That is really horrible for those two women to have experienced. Violence is never acceptable.
Jakehard49
We don’t have any business criticizing human rights issues in other countries, until we clean up our own shit.
robirob
Violence is never the answer.
gskorich
what? its looks to me like the trans women were the aggressors. they were not innocent by standers. regardless what amazes me is how people know something is going to happen so they decide to film it and send it to the media, hmmm. what don’t we get to see what happened before the trans woman goes off on her accomplishments, why did the guy call her out? why wasn’t that filmed
Stache99
@gskorich: No. Those that threw the fists were the aggressors.
gskorich
@Stache99: seriously? she was running around yelling and repeating herself, maybe they felt attacked? there is more to the story, looks like a lot was left out
Tackle
True that violence is never the answer. But having a big mouth and instigating sh!t doesn’t help. I feel the physical part could have been avoided if the fat one would have just ignored the guy or guys,and just kept her mouth shut, like I have done many times to avoid a fight. Just don’t put your hands on me. But it was no sense in her arguing back and forth with a fool. She was doing just as much verbally harassing as he was doing. No wonder why no one came to her aid. Her and her friend got their ass whipped, now they want to cry foul, and pretend they are innocent victim’s. This is a good instruction video on how NOT to respond when you are being verbally harassed. No sympathy from me. There are times when you need to learn to keep your fu@king mouth shut.
Bad Ass Biker
Well, it is Atlanta and it is Georgia. I speak as one who lived there for many years. The anus of the country.
enfilmigult
@Tackle: Yeah, back when I was in high school and it was other gay guys I watched getting treated like this, I thought the same way: don’t say anything back, keep your head down, avoid a confrontation, and if you don’t, you’re stupid and what happens next is now your fault for “instigating.”
I managed to fool myself with that line of crap for a bit, but it couldn’t have been more obvious that I was (a) rationalizing my own cowardice, and (b) playing directly into the hands of the people who got their kicks by calling people “faggots,” who after all had CREATED the situation in which “keep your mouth shut” or “get beaten up” were the only two options. Whichever one you chose, it was what they wanted.
I regret few things in my life as much as falling for that, and actually criticizing other people for refusing to do the same. Let go of it soon, Tackle. The more you push this now, the more it really makes you feel like a piece of shit later.
Captain Obvious
@Bad Ass Biker: Oh please this happens everywhere, including Los Angeles, and San Diego… where the black populations are almost non-existent. Why be so hypercritical of a majority black city when this is literally just plain old city life in EVERY city?
Can’t handle it then don’t live in cities.
I watched a white guy punch a bus window with his bare fist and shatter part of it for absolutely no reason.
There’s no group of people who are magically immune to having idiots who look like them. It’s just white people seem to want the imagery of violent black and Hispanic people to be the overwhelming image that represents all black and Hispanic people. Hence why this garbage is always in the media.
You think they’re going to post the videos of white guys fighting or white girls fighting? They’re all over Youtube, few make it to the media, and when they do they’re labeled “trash” to segregate them from the rest of the white population.
It’s easy to dish it, a lot harder to take it. No group of humans is better than any other group of humans. That’s reality.
Tackle
@enfilmigult: Couple of things here.You are acting like she was at no fault. Just totally innocent. I obviously was not there. But from what If seen on video, she escalated a bad situation by being mouthy, bragging about all that she has. Don’t argue with fools. And you were in high school, dealing with fellow students.This on public transportation where the likelyhood of someone having a knife or gun was a feal possibility. No what she did was unnecessary and stupid. Putting herself and friend in a dangerous position. For what, pride? And she complains that no one came to their aide. Well why didn’t she come to her friends aide? After she got her ass kicked, she was just standing there in the corner with her mouth shut. Like she should have done in the first place.
Captain Obvious
@enfilmigult: In Atlanta it’s often the trans and drag queens who are the aggressors so please stop trying to victimize them. That big grown ass man was who was easily 2-3 times the weight of the guy who punched him didn’t have to keep pressing it.
Because of his size he feels he can confront any man as a man but then fall back on claiming to be a woman when it’s beneficial. You can see clearly he’s instigating and starting a fight because he thinks the other guy will back down.
I’m not about to call that guy a woman in any literal sense because he’s behaving every bit like a man up until the confrontation got physical and a much smaller man beat his ass.
In real life situations being quiet and walking away is always the best answer. Being an idiot and running your mouth will pretty much get violence going. I didn’t hear the other guy saying a word, all I heard was the very large very loud man with a bad wig on putting on a show. He got what he asked for.
You can’t be the aggressor and play the victim at the same time. A victim wouldn’t be shouting, running around in circles, trying to gain an audience. A victim would be passively minding their own business and would get attacked unprovoked. This was provoked and begged for.
I don’t believe in physical violence, especially when you’re not actually being physically attacked… but at the same time you can’t expect to run your mouth to just anybody without running the risk of writing a check your ass can’t cash. Bitch bounced checks all over the place, bitch got bitch slapped by the bank.
No gay/trans issue here. Just normal ignorance that’s on every public form of transportation.
Lvng1tor
There is only so many times you can have people say sh!t to you before you start defending yourself verbally. I don’t let any one call me a faggot with out stepping up. I don’t blame these ladies for filming it with all the violence that happens against the Trans community. And, don’t give me that because you stand up for yourself and your willing to tell someone to screw off and not letting them belittle you that you are asking to be hit. That’s ignorance of the highest level.
The one who touches the other first is the one who is wrong.
Sometimes it’s a bigot, sometimes it’s a trans person, sometimes it’s a gay person or straight person. Who ever thinks that they can’t take words anymore and throws the punch is the aggressor and the one who is wrong.
Of course, sometimes the one who throws the first punch can also be the hero. Like the DragQueens, Lesbians and Trans people who stood up to the cops/bigots who started stonewall and got all the people on here their rights to say how awful our Trans family is.
KDub
This is just a bunch of messiness. These TGs should’ve just walked to the other side of the train or maybe even switch to another car at the next stop. By arguing back and forth, they voluntarily became part of the problem.
ShowMeGuy
@Bad Ass Biker: The anus of the nation is Texas, honey.
enfilmigult
@Tackle: “You are acting like she was at no fault. Just totally innocent. I obviously was not there. But from what If seen on video, she escalated a bad situation…”
Her innocence is a matter of one (1) question: did she do anything that made kicking her justifiable?
And if “being mouthy” means the answer is “yes” in your mind, what about their mouthiness, does that count as “escalating” or not?
“And you were in high school, dealing with fellow students.This on public transportation where the likelyhood of someone having a knife or gun was a feal possibility.”
LOL for real. When I said “treated like this,” I assure you, I meant “treated like this.” My high school wasn’t a magical wonderland where anti-gay harassment followed the rules of street etiquette outlined in ‘Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo’ and everyone just dance-fighted without touching each other. The threat of violence was as real there as it was here.
“No what she did was unnecessary and stupid. Putting herself and her friend in a dangerous situation.”
THEY put her and her friend in a dangerous situation. She and her friend didn’t set out looking for idiots to ask them if they were “real,” idiots decided of their own volition to harass them. Nothing she said magically changed that guy from someone who’d never dare kick her into someone who would. He was already that guy, and he put her in the situation of having to decide how to respond to his harassment.
I get that you’re saying the wiser choice for immediate physical safety would be to ignore him while trying to will herself invisible. But that’s the only sense in which it’s the wiser choice and anything else is “stupid,” and it’s simply not the only factor. EVERYTHING that guy who kicked her did was wrong. None of it is defensible. That matters.
“@Captain Obvious: You say you didn’t hear the guy say a word, which I guess means you thought this woman just started saying this stuff to him out of nowhere on the bus, and him kicking her was his first contribution to the conversation…and if that’s what happened, the rest of your response is pretty reasonable. You don’t just start harassing strangers minding their own business and then complain if they eventually hit you. But I can’t imagine why you think that’s what happened. Her first words in that video are “stop it.” What do you think she meant by that, “stop standing there doing nothing”?
Jim
I believe more than one person was arrested today (5/30/2014) for this horrible crime.
ChgoReason
In the beginning of the video, why was the person to the left wearing only her underwear?! What if one of these individuals had a gun? I live/work in the Southside of Chicago and I know very well you do not go out looking for trouble. One has to just go about your business, because people can get real stupid, real fast.
Spike
As someone who rides public transportation (LA/Blueline) to work, when this shit goes down, unless you are a BIG GUY, the best thing you can do it start recording. Never a good idea to get in the middle of anything like this.
As I don’t speak Atlanta ghetto, I couldn’t really tell how this involved a trans nor what was being said that set it off.
jayj150
A couple of weeks a go when we saw a video of a transsexual woman assaulting an older, drunk man on a bus,commentators massively jumped in her defense because the man had been verbally harassing her and, her supporters claimed, ‘there’s only so much shit she could take’.
Now we have another transwoman, this time she’s the obvious verbal instigator(and I must say, a much more aggressive type than the man in the video weeks ago) and, when the object of her harassment decided to use physical force to attack her, then suddenly ‘nothing ever justifies violence’, ‘words are just words, they won’t kill you’, ‘he could have stood his ground without assaulting her’.
tonihoo
Goodness me, this video is terrible, it should not matter if ur gay, straight, black, purple or an alien,why can’t people be accepted for who they r, no one is ever gonna b the same, get to grips it’s 2014 people
Jeton Ademaj
there is no reason one must accept verbal abuse, and there is no reason one must accept physical abuse.
combining a cool head and a cool firearm is the answer, you can then rebuff insults, seek DE-escalation, but defend yourself with deadly force if you must.
losing your cool when you can’t withstand a crowd of bigots helps no one…but you can’t expect people to just take abuse indefinitely.
Jeton Ademaj
violence is never the answer until your life depends on it…and for queer people, and especially trans people, your life too often depends on it.
bigthickrich
I blame Rude Paul.
Mezaien
The USA have build on violence, and will fall by violence. HOMOS, tribal brothers and sisters! GET A GUN! THAT IS ONLY THE BEGINING.
michael mellor
Trans women need to dress more modestly in public. They need to dress according to the same level of modesty as men.
michael mellor
This is black-on-black violence, too.
tdx3fan
@michael mellor: Or the same level of modesty as women. Any girl that lets it all hang out is going to get some grief for it by someone (rather its to their face or behind their back). When you dress like a hooker, prepare to be treated that way.
tdx3fan
@bigthickrich: I blame Carmen. She has already started alienating the gay community thanks to her stupidity. I think this is only the beginning, and if the trans community really wants to go down this road, they will not come out ahead.
I think most of the actual trans activists greatly understand this and want to bitch slap her.
Tackle
@michael mellor:
Aka: Jason/Bruce/ Jimbryant/sportyguy1983: So what!!
Maozedong
I thought Americans are friendly
jayj150
But hey!!!. Carrera is right, the enemy is Rupaul!!!!. It’s not violent, homophobic straight men, the real problem is Drag Queens!!!
gskorich
@jayj150: carmen carrera will be seen for what she really is. a thankless fame seeking half man who will step over anyone to get what she wants.
WuzUpYall
Just another day at the zoo.
Maude
When the under educated have trouble communicating, and cant respond with a ‘rank’ that is at least as insulting as the ‘rank’ thrown at them, then they will, and always have resorted to violence.
We’ve all seen the ‘Carmens’ in this world (not just the USA) that carry an attitude about everything, everywhere that invites insulting remarks, because they
don’t like anything about themselves.
James Hart
DISGRACEFUL!!! I hope the culprits are brought to justice!
DonovanS28
Actually this is not even the hole video…… its was on worldstarhiphop like 2 weeks ago, and those girls beat all them dudes up lol
jayj150
@DonovanS28: What girls?
spencer87
Too me the transgender females,whooped ass LOL.This is the type of world we live in.We HAVE to defend ourselves.
doug105
http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2014/06/01/us-two-men-charged-with-disorderly-conduct-over-assault-of-trans-women/
JennyFromdabloc
Atlanta is a busted, hood rat city and the MARTA is ratchet ground zero.
You two are delusional @Captain Obvious: @gskorich: