In a truly awful case, Dana Rivers, a male killer, was sentenced to life without parole for brutally murdering a lesbian couple and their son. Despite the depravity of the crime, Rivers, who now identifies as a woman, was sent to a women’s prison. Jo Bartosch in Spiked points out that the silence from LGBTQ+ organisations and the media’s refusal to address this case is as dangerous as it is disturbing.
In 2016, Dana Rivers, a once-feted campaigner for ‘trans rights’, brutally murdered a middle-aged lesbian couple and their teenage son in Oakland, California. Last week, after years in custody and countless legal delays, Rivers (formerly known as David Chester Warfield) was finally sentenced to life without parole. And then came a particularly grim twist. This male killer of two women was sent to a women-only prison to live out his days.
If anything captures the dangerous grip gender ideology now has over American public life it is surely this: a man who murdered a lesbian couple being sent to a women-only jail. And what makes it worse is that the Rivers trial has almost been completely ignored by the wider media, activists and politicians.
This was a particularly gruesome case. Prosecutors say Rivers used a handgun, equipped with a silencer, to shoot Charlotte Reed, Patricia Wright and their son, Benny Diambu-Wright. He then stabbed Reed 47 times before setting the family’s garage on fire in an attempt to cover his tracks. The killings were said to be motivated by Reed’s departure from an ‘all-female’ biker gang. Rivers was reportedly the gang’s enforcer.
Reflecting on the evidence, the judge said: “This is the most depraved crime I ever handled in the criminal-justice system in 33 years.” And yet despite the sensational nature of the case, it has only been patchily covered by the media and largely ignored by politicians and activists.
In any other circumstances the brutal murder of a lesbian couple and their son would have provoked widespread outrage – and Reed, Wright and Diambu-Wright would have been tragic household names. But not here. The perpetrator’s trans identity has not only allowed him access to a women-only prison – it also seems to have insulated him from public scrutiny.
The silence from organisations that you’d normally expect to rally to the cause of gay and lesbian rights has been striking. Indeed, just two days after Rivers began his 150-year stretch inside, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) chose to tweet instead about the supposedly unfair treatment of Duane Owen – another trans murderer who had been denied ‘gender-affirming care’ by the state of Florida before his execution. And even the handful of American outlets willing to cover the Rivers trial have politely referred to the murderous man as ‘she’ and ‘her’.
Worth reading in full.
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