Well Melissa, in fairness, I’d have to say this. If you like the John Waters tour of Baltimore, you’ll love Cleveland. Twenty-ish years ago, there was a multiple murder in Kirtland, on the Lake/Geauga boundary. A guy from a Mormon splinter group killed 5 or so members of his group. (Kirtland was an early Mormon center on the trek west.) Jeffrey Dahmer grew up in Bath, between Cleveland and Akron; his first murder took place there. We have freaky murderers, a belt of white trash fully comparable to the Deep South, and a large Amish population (they’re one of the redeeming elements ’cause they don’t cause drama).

As for the “more civilized coastal states,” Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia clearly aren’t on that list. California? Hell, we already have a whole set of antigay laws here in Ohio, so why the hell do I want to pay three times as much for a place to live in a state where I’m more likely to be unemployed? No thanks, for the time being I’m staying put–and I watch out for the Amish buggies, unlike those who seem to think they’re scoring bonus points for taking out a dozen Yoders with one car.

If anybody reading this has seen “Trailer Park Boys,” you could see Ricky and Bubbles coming down for a visit.

Melissa, did you even read the article?

This is a he/she that took advantage of an elderly man and her abuse served to kill him. Elder abuse is as insidious as child abuse.

This sounds like a case involving a self centered queen. Any of us that have been around a while have seen they type in every bar around the country.

Wasn’t there this big broo-ha ha not too long ago that a person born a male couldn’t marry another male, even if they’d gone through a sex-change?
It opened up a whole can of worms about how, say, a male to female trans could legally marry a female, making it appear as if it were a same-sex wedding?
Just curious.

This link http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/03/christine_newtonjohn_sentenced.html

should take you to the lovely Christine (if it works). From Saturday Plain Dealer.

Melissa, if they started “dating” when the kid was 15, that kid was also a boy. You’re right, that’s inappropriate. Something about this whole thing really skeeves me out, even as the John-Waters-ness keeps me in some fascination.

I also note part of your post: “I can see the hatred of transsexuals in your community. I can understand why you would be so scared of someone like her and supportive of this man. All you fags are a bunch of NAMBLA mentalitied people that fear vengeance from your victims in your old age. Too damn bad! You will get what you have coming to you( not to be punful)!!”

Now, Trace can stand up for himself, but I note that you seem especially defensive over the fact that the defendant in this case is transgendered. I showed this story to my bf last night, and he immediately had a comment about “trannies.” And perhaps he was on to something, yes? I don’t think anybody here has posted anything with specific hostility to all transgendered people. Hostility to somebody with a lot of issues, who a jury found helped a man to an early grave? Hell yeah, because her status as damaged goods did/does not justify taking that old man’s life. True enough, there’s reason to think he was a creepy perv (if they had sex when s/he was 15, it was pre-op and pre-legal even for a str8 couple).

Then you go to slingin’ mud about “you fags” and “NAMBLA.” When you say, “you fags,” that seems to say you aren’t one, so either you’re trolling or you’re perhaps transgendered, which I already covered. Then the NAMBLA biz. Who endorsed the idea of this old dude gettin’ some tail that was one-third his age? Either your font settings are way different than mine, or you might want to try medication for visual hallucinations–or maybe don’t make groundless accusations because you’re pissed that people held a transgendered person to account.

In closing, I’m not putting you down, Melissa, and I’m not fighting anybody else’s battles. This is all Drewski, for Drewski. I will say that, as much time as I’ve spent in Cleveland fag bars, I know that there are a few TG people who are compelled to generate drama. They give a bad name to the many TG people who don’t cause drama. That’s one that Trace seems to have nailed, and he’s not in Cleveland so it’s more a personality type than a random manifestation. Attention-seekers who cause drama rather than fixing themselves. That’s not pretty in anybody. If Christine was victimized as a child/teen, then there comes a point where you either fix yourself or you victimize others. She didn’t fix herself, and she became enough of a victimizer that she committed a felony. Now she can go to Marysville–Ohio’s prison for women.

Drewski:

Wakeup had plenty of hostile things to say about transgender people.

Trace called a transsexual woman a “queen”.

You called her a boy at age 15 simply because she did not have her surgery.

True transsexuals do not have any sociosexual peer affiliation with the transvestite queens of your community that call themselves non-op transsexuals.

A true transsexual can only be aroused sexually by seeing themselves sexually behave as a member of the opposite sex of their birth genitalia. They will always be at least technically virgins!

This is very different than your queens who to parody a business slogan – crossdress for suckcess!!!

Your community’s transvestites dress up like women and sexually act like men.

If people like Trace, Wakeup, your boyfriend, an yourself want to go around calling psychosexual invert transsexuals “queens” or males than you can be certain we will call you “NAMBLA pervs” and everything else. Attack our ability to relate to people properly and we will attack yours!!!

Note: According to FBI statistics; 45% of all molested children are boys and 95% of all child molesters are male. This statistic of course doesn’t include pederasty (a very common form of gay sexual exploitation of youth)

Queers do not makeup 45% of the general population. They make up anywhere from 2-10% depending on who you believe with 6% being seen as the most likely.

That makes gay men 7.5 times more likely to be a pedophile than a straight man.

The organization NAMBLA is made up of a far higher percentage of gender conforming homosexuals than the gay general population is.

Gender conforming gays also makeup 100% of the White Power Gay Skinheads and most of the Gay White Supremacists. Google Search Ben Klassen and the largest Anti-Christian White Supremacist organization in the world that he founded: World Church of The Creator!!! He was found dead with head in the toilet bowl when the police were looking to arrest him on boy molestation charges.

I find it funny how the Ben Klassen’s, Jeffery Dahmer’s, and John Gacy’s of the gay community think they are superior to the Richard Simmons’ and Ru Paul’s of their community.

It is obnoxious and hostile to insist that transsexuals are sociosexually related to any type of homosexual of their birth sex.

Melissa, and in your studies you will find that virtually all of the individuals that perpetuate to molest children identify themselves as heterosexual.

I worked as as a social worker for many years. Many of those years I worked for Children’s Services investigating allegations of abuse, neglect and dependency. In all of my years, I did not have to investigate 1 sexual abuse case where the perpetrator identified as homosexual. Out of hundreds of investigations, not one that identified as homosexual. In fact, the majority of perpetrators were married and had children of their own.

I won’t add to drewski’s comments as they were absolutely masterful. Me attempting to add to them would only take away from what he has attempted to explain. (Though I doubt you’ve grasped any of it, Melissa.)

My final thought is that it’s very unfortunate that it’s only worth 5 years for killing someone.

Melissa, again you put words in someone’s mouth. I described the adolescent Christine–the 15-year-old–as male because there is no information telling me otherwise. Vallandingham didn’t become Christine until much later, in her 30s. Had such information been presented–that the biological male either identified as, or was diagnosed as, transgendered, then I would respect that. Such has not been presented–not on Cleveland.com, not in the print version of the Plain Dealer, not in the local media so far as I am aware. What has been presented is that Christine was definitely transitioning during her 30s, but there’s been no indication of it beginning earlier. FYI, and especially if you expect insurance to pay anything, you have to have a diagnosis of some type of gender dysmorphic disorder before a pharmacist hands over hormones which will alter your body. (Unless you’re one of those who buy them on the street.)

You mention “transvestites of (my) community.” The VAST majority of cross-dressers are het. You project what you wish to be my ignorance, and again you misstep. The few people I know who are male, have sex with men, and dress as women are a small minority of the group I mentioned. If you know Cleveland–which you seem to–then you may be aware that summer brings a loud gaggle of prostitutes to a short stretch of Detroit Avenue. Some tuck, some don’t–and of the ones who tuck, some plan for surgery, some don’t, just as some of the ones who don’t tuck have already had surgery. When you–meaning members of that group, which may or may not include you–occupy my neighborhood with your prostitution, and do so to a point of flagrancy where you stand in the middle of the street to pick up your “dates,” then yes, I make critical comments. Comments like effin’ tranny ho’s–which doesn’t seem far from an accurate descriptor. But I digress.

There are transgendered people who have surgery; there are those who have killed themselves because surgery was unavailable; there are those who were mutilated at an early age because a doctor wanted to make a child “normal,’ not realizing how destructive that gesture could be. There are those who see no need to identify as male or female, and most of those people do so with the knowledge that it will produce rough intersections with society at some point. And there is the difference–they take responsibility for that. I agreed with you, that there was something extremely unhealthy in this couple’s relationship. In fact, the posts on this thread on Cleveland.com include two people who have seen the case file and who allude to some non-traditional and possibly relevant sexual interests on his end even more than hers.

Melissa, as someone who works in mental health, I could probably be nosy and find more information on this case. And that would be a violation of Federal law, state law, and agency policy, for starts. If Christine had a forensic examination, I might have already seen it cross my path, since I see forensic exams. That doesn’t come close to giving me the right to divulge one damn thing. You speak as if you have at least fleeting acquaintance with Christine. If you do, and if you spoke to the police or anyone else in the way you speak here, it’s no wonder that any exculpatory information you might have had was ultimately useless. I wasn’t in Middlefield that night, I never met these two, and I have no knowledge of what did or did not happen to Christine in her formative years (note that in referring to her past, I use the feminine pronoun, since she is now a woman). Whatever exculpatory evidence the past held was overwhelmed by that video. She is going away for an F3, not a capital charge. To paraphrase k d lang, she was a big-boned girl from southern Geauga/ you just couldn’t call her small. And she had a habit of stomping around bars in Geauga County, before and after his death, typically making a spectacle of herself as attested by other customers. Perhaps I’ve managed to hurt your feelings, which was not my intent, but show me where the hell I lied or misrepresented. Show me where I was hostile or disrespectful toward anyone who hadn’t invited such an observation by their conduct. Show me where I erred in acknowledging the many points on the spectrum of gender (aside from those I left out). Christine broke the law. That’s not the product of anybody’s bigotry or misunderstanding, it’s what happens when she’s the one on videotape keeping somebody in a swimming pool, somebody who by personal and professional knowledge she knew couldn’t endure protracted strenuous exercise. The best defense I could see is if she argued that it was assisted suicide, since he was in on these games. I’m not ignorant or hateful, and neither are the posts you cited by other people. Collectively, we don’t want to live in a world where messed-up people with multiple Axis II diagnoses are allowed to do whatever damage they want and then blame their NON-ORGANIC disorder. No thanks. I have enough borderline cases at work, and I don’t need one here.