Transgender Student May Face Criminal Charges After Fighting Off Bullies

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/activism/transgender-student-may-face-criminal-charges-after-fighting-bullies



When 10th grader Jewlyes Gutierrez, a transgender student, stood up to three bullies at her high school in November, all four students were suspended.

The incident made some local news. Gutierrez, 16, said she had asked an assistant principal at Hercules High School for help with chronic bullying a few days earlier, and gotten none. A school board meeting on December 2 focused on the incident. As the semester wound down, it seemed the story would stay in Hercules, California.

But a few weeks later, Contra Costa County Deputy District Attorney Daniel Cabral charged Gutierrez with misdemeanor battery. The charge came just months after California governor Jerry Brown passed a law enacting transgender student rights, making California the first state to enshrine certain protections to transgender students.

Now, a petition—“Drop charges against transgender teen defending herself!”—has become one of the fastest growing petitions on Change.org, collecting more than 168,000 signatures since January 7.

[Feral Child]

1. K&R n/t

[Zorra]

2. Thanks. Nothing but st8h8 for LGBT happening there, from both the bullies and the cops. Sickening.

Petition signed, almost 175,000 signatures now.