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Hilary swank won a Academy Award for her role as Teena Brandon in boys don't cry
hi, my name is mel, i guess in australia we are very sheltered from these sort of crimes. i have never seen or heard any murders of gay or lesbians here but that doesn't mean they don't happen. the people i know have no problem with gays or lesbians but many do..hopefully in the future we will never have to hear about hate crimes..lets work together to end hate crimes and remember those who have died by the hands of people who are uneducated and small minded...i never knew teena brandon but felt compelled to make a memorial page for her. i first heard of teena brandon a few years back when i hired a movie "boys don't cry" from my local video rental shop. after watching this movie which shocked me even through after finding out that the movie was loosely based on the actual events that happened that night i still was moved and upset that people could do this to another human being because she was different. i don't really want to stay on the negatives because then the killers win i wanna celebrate her life. i have researched her alot and have come up with a page package i will do daily blogs and update as much as i can lets never forget Teena R Brandon..enjoy... email me with suggestions....
Teena Renee Brandon was born in December 12, 1972. JoAnne Brandon’s husband, died in a car crash while JoAnne was pregnant with her. She had another daughter with her late husband, Tammy. It had been a very difficult pregnancy, at one point JoAnne had thought that termination of the pregnancy was the best option but her catholic upbringing kept her from doing it. She had very thick hormone shots while she was in the hospital, and on total bedrest. Teena was very late, well past JoAnn’s due date. The poor woman was exhausted, waiting and trying to find activities to help induce her labor. She would up having her labor induced and Teena was born. JoAnne adored Teena; she was the last part of her deceased husband’s love and Teena was a very sick baby. She was in the hospital for weeks before she was allowed to come home. JoAnne was sick herself, with a staph infection and couldn’t see or hold Teena for weeks, which bothered her deeply. She claimed that as she grew older, Teena was always sick with something and JoAnn was continually taking care of her for one childhood illness or another. Both daughters were at opposite ends of The scale: Tammy, the oldest was very feminine. She loved her dolls and dressed in anything with a cute ruffle and ankle socks with lace. Teena loved to get dirty and was mischievous, laughing at her sister scaring her with whatever she could find. As they grew up together, Teena was tomboyish and Tammy was very feminine. Teena wore pants and turned up her nose at dresses and JoAnne never understood why Teena was so adamant about it that it wasn’t worth arguing about. She did average work in school, but many teachers thought she was capable of doing much more. Teena didn’t care. In her teenage years,Teena had her share of problems. She stole, lied, and had several unhealthy relationships. The girls she hung around with didn’t help, and Teena decided that she would try and join the military. It seemed like something she would be good at, and she started making plans to leave. Unfortunately, she failed the entrance exam and was devastated. It was the only thing she wanted to do, and the rejection was a slap in the face. JoAnne was desperate to help Teena find her place in life, and Teena was slipping farther and farther from her every day. She went to stay with friends, and drifted in and out of JoAnn and Tammy’s lives. JoAnne found out that Teena was posing as a man and causing grief for the people in her life. The bad checks, stolen credit cards alienated Teena from her family, and she moved out of JoAnn’s house and in with her Grandmother, where her gay cousin lived. Teena made her decision for good:she was going to live as a man and began to tell people she was having a sex change operation.In rural Nebraska, transgender issues were non existent. Not many people knew anything other than boy, girl, and gay or straight. And gay wasn’t even an option. In the film,”Boys Don’t Cry” By Kimberly Pierce, Brandon’s story is told against a backdrop of bleak farm fields and intolerant undereducated people who had lived in the same town all their lives and had never seen a gay person, much less having any understanding of complex gender issues. And Teena herself was confused. She loved feeling like a man and the girls who paid attention to her as she made them believe she was a man. She dressed with a sock in her jeans, a pair of mens underwear and a swagger that unnerved JoAnn. He daughter was growing farther and farther away from her. Occasionally a young girl would see Teena, who was by this time calling herself Brandon, and JoAnn would carefully explain that Brandon was a girl, and try to explain that there was no Brandon, just her daughter. Brandon told his girlfriends that his mother was a crazy woman, a drunk who was sick and had wanted to have a daughter, when in reality she had a son named Brandon. He moved on to date several girls, one seriously enough for Brandon to buy a diamond ring Almost everyone knew of rumors about Brandon’s sexual identity crisis in Lincoln. But Brandon wasn’t happy. Confused by her gender disorder and the fact that she was wanted by the police, there wasn’t a lot of room for her to get around the local court, so Brandon moved around, crashing at different people’s homes. When she needed something she stole it, or found some way to get the money for whatever it was. Brandon had gone through a transformation and she was no longer Teena, her name was Brandon and her life was about to undergo a change that would eventually wind up costing Brandon her life.Brandon was staying with Lana and her mom when there came a day that she received word that she had been listed in the local newspaper. The local arrest log published that Teena Rae Brandon was being served with a failure to appear on a traffic citation. Lana knew this story already, and had been the one to bail out Brandon out of jail, but the paper printed Brandon’s gender, and as fate would have it, a stolen check Brandon had forged and cashed showed up in the hands of Lisa, one of the first people to help her in Falls City. Lisa went home and started going through her things, and found the proof she needed to see to realize that Brandon Teena was really a girl. She was stunned, completely stupefied and had no idea what To do. There were not a lot of options open in Falls City and everyone knew it. When Linda Gutierrez, Lana’s mother, realized that Brandon was actually a girl, she came totally unglued and ordered Brandon out , never to return. But Brandon and Lana had other plans. They wanted to be together, Lana seemingly In denial of Brandon’s gender, told her family that they were horrible people, and she and Brandon wouldn’t be separated by anyone, at any cost. John and Tom showed up during the fracas, but Brandon jumped out of the window and ran like hell. It didn’t matter. Both John and Tom felt they had to do something about Brandon’s betraying them by pretending to be a man when she was not. Both of them were ex cons and both had very violent lives and were known about town as the local Toxic Twins. Any booze, drugs, and sex were open season when they were together. John had been Lana’s first love and he was very angry, thinking Lana had been Deceived by a perverted freak of nature who was using everyone and deceiving them as well. When they finally found Brandon, they forced her into their car and drove to an abandoned meat packing plant in a rural area. Brandon begged, pleaded and cried as John and Tom both raped and sodomized her. The only sounds were the ones made by the fists beating her, and the cries of glee from John and Tom. Afterward, they went to Tom’s and demanded that Brandon take a shower and clean herself up. Once again, Brandon jumped out of the window. This time she was literally running for her life, as John and Tom had warned her that if she reported the rape and assault she would be dead. Brandon was petrified but she went to the police anyway. What had happened to her was wrong and she knew that above everything else.The Sheriff of Falls City, Charles Laux subjected Brandon to a long, humiliating interview. He asked her what her Problem was, that she went around with girls when she was a girl herself. Brandon tried to explain that she had a disorder, called gender identity crisis and that she was confused and hurting. Laux referred to her as “It” and the humiliation was horrific. Laux has said that he was just doing his job, asking the questions he asked because if the complaint went to court, then Brandon would have to answer them in front of a lot of people. The interrogation was partially witnessed by a deputy who later said that he was so deeply offended as well as disturbed by Laux’s questioning he had to leave the room. Laux kept this going for at least an hour, then released Brandon to the hospital to be treated for multiple injuries, not the least of which was that Brandon was a virgin and had been brutally raped. The sexual assault was worse than the beatings and the psychological ramifications of the crime itself were by far worse than the beatings, the most horrifying thing that could happen, did. Everyone knew Brandon Teena was really a girl. She was devastated.Brandon went to the farmhouse where Lisa Lambert lived, and a friend who had dated Lanai’s sister was there as well. It was a bitterly cold night and Lisa, from all accounts, was a lovely, kindhearted girl who never denied anyone in dire need. She saw the bruises and knew in a flash that John and Tom were responsible for all this. . She couldn’t turn Brandon away, especially after learning of the horrifying ordeal. Brandon was wracked with guilt, grief and the pain of losing Lana, after he was outed. It was New Years Eve, 1993 and almost the end of Brandon’s life. John and Tom were enraged by what they thought was the ultimate betrayal. John and Tom were both wasted, and had packed for a trip to Lincoln to see if they could find Brandon. They assumed that now everyone knew Brandon was a girl, that she would hightail back to Lincoln, in fear of repercussion for reporting the rape. Sheriff Laux called Tom and John and warned them that Brandon was filing charges against them for rape and assault and battery. The police were warning them they were going to be charged ?! Yes, that is exactly right, Laux called John at home and told him that Brandon was naming both John and Tom as her attackers. John was cool and collected while on the phone, but when he hung up, he exploded with bile tinged anger. He and Tom were going to go to prison if this thing played itself out. Brandon needed to be silenced once and for all.A full week had passed while John and Tom had time to plan to kill Brandon. Laux has since said he was “ Investigating” John and Tom as suspects in Brandon’s rape and assault case, but even his own deputy left the interview, so mortified by Laux’s interrogation of Brandon on her gender he couldn’t even listen. It would be a quiet New Years Eve with Lisa, Brandon and their friend, Phillip Devane. Too much had happened and the whole thing was out of control. Lisa just wanted to have a quiet night. It never occurred to her that John and Tom were out on the road preparing to kill Brandon. When they had no success finding Brandon in Lincoln, they came home to Falls City. First they went to Lana’s house to see if Brandon was there. Lana’s mother was very upset and told John and Tom where Brandon was. This one simple act on her part gave John and Tom the information they needed to hunt Brandon down. At Lisa’s, Phillip Devine was asleep on the front room couch, with Brandon and Lisa in Lisa’s room. Tanner, Lisa’s 8 month old baby was in his crib,sleeping. John and Tom busted the door down and pandemonium insued. Phillip was confused, not knowing what was going on. Lisa woke up immediately and recognized John and Tom, and knew that they were looking for Brandon. “John, please don’t hurt my baby!” Lisa cried as Tom dragged Phillip to the couch where he died from a double gunshot wound to the head. Tom went back to the bedroom and killed Lisa Lambert with two gunshot wounds, one to the abdomen and another in her left eye. Brandon had moved a little, and John realized that Brandon was hiding under a pile of blankets at the bottom of the waterbed. Brandon was shot twice and stabbed several times to make sure that she was dead. A dead witness can’t talk and out of the drunken rage of Tom Nissen and John Lotter, three people were dead, and a baby left crying for his Mommy, who lay dying in her bed, unable to console her son.Sheriff Charles Laux had to address the issue that three people had been killed under his jurisdiction. Had John Lotter and Tom Nissen, both convicted felons, been apprehended when they were accused of the assault and rape of Brandon Teena, Brandon might be alive today. Laux made the comment about Brandon “ You can call it “It” as far as I’m concerned,” and made several other statements that made it obvious that he thought Brandon was some kind of freak and that she deserved what she got because she had pretended she was a man when in reality, she was a female. In the insuing trials, Tom gave an interview to Playboy magazine, in which he admitted that he and John were responsible for what had happened to Brandon. John denied the whole thing, blaming Tom for the entire scene, both the rape and murders. The police Recovered two condoms from the scene where Brandon was raped and beaten and DNA evidence Proved that John was involved in the rape. There was also a pair of work gloves, and a knife found With the name, “Lotter” carved into the sheath on the frozen river that they drove past after the murders. Tom took a plea deal. In exchange for avoiding the death penalty, he would cooperate with the police And turn state’s witness against John. John claimed that he waited outside while Tom was in the house Killing the three occupants. Both John and Tom were found guilty. Tom got life in prison while John received the death sentence. The trial was only crowded the first day, after that, the citizens of Omaha, Where the trial was held, went about their business as though Brandon never lived, loved and died in The state they called their home. JoAnn Brandon filed suit against Sheriff Charles L:aux and the town of Falls City, claiming that Laux Was negligent in protecting her daughter. Her suit said that had Laux picked them up when Teena had reported the rape, she would be alive today. And she might.After a long and protracted civil trial, and an appeal, JoAnn was awarded a cash settlement of almost a million dollars. Little consolation to a mother who not only lost her daughter, but her son as well.