Benderella Rae
Age 3810 Jul 1977
Tacoma, Washington (USA)
Shot
TDoR list ref: tdor.info/10 Jul 1977/Benderella" (Benjamin Scott Rae)
Benderella was shot in the face three times with a small caliber handgun by Victor Lynn Velasquez.
“Benderella,” a.k.a. Ben Scott Rae, was a developmentally disabled transgender woman murdered in Tacoma, Washington, in 1977. This article demonstrates how oral testimony can help to extend the efforts of Transgender Day of Remembrance by filling out—and thereby increasing possibilities for empathy with—the complex lives of transgender individuals. Oral accounts—primarily from friends who frequented DJ’s bar — augment and challenge existing narratives about Benderella appearing in the contemporary press and public documents. As the competing narratives surrounding Benderella’s life and death multiply, so too does the indeterminate story of dis/empowerment embedded in transgender life and history.
In early 1977, I met Benderella for the first time. It was at her home, and I was brought there by friends of mine. During a tour of her home, to look at the antiques she had collected in her 38 years, she talked about wishing she could get SRS, but how she felt it was out of the question, as she could never pass. In July, she was dead, having been murdered by a 20 year old soldier who used the “She told me she was a real woman - Of course I freaked out when I found out it wasn’t true” defense to receive the lightest possible sentence. No one who knew her ever believed that he was telling the truth.
https://academic.oup.com/ohr/article-abstract/43/1/52/1752474
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/615534/pdf
http://students673.ucr.edu/docsserver/lgbt/trans_remembrance_display_posters.pdf
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/10_JeZ7LEIRhvewTCoL5mVkH6MQJzf7fSXl4-P6QJ0v0/edit#gid=0
