Lecture by Dr. Amy Marvin: “The Erasure of Transphobia in the Murder of Brianna Ghey”

Abstract: On February 11, 2023, sixteen-year-old trans girl Brianna Ghey was violently murdered at Culcheth Linear Park in Warrington, England. The murder was followed by widespread vigils against transphobia and global media attention. Despite the transphobic messages exchanged between the two defendants over messaging apps and social media, the influence of transphobia on the non-trans defendants was deemphasized by the police involved with the case. Transphobia was then widely dismissed as a cause by UK media once the defendants were both convicted of murder in favor of other explanations such as the corruption of youth through the Internet or society’s obsession with violent media. Despite the Judge in the case ruling that transphobia was a significant factor, UK media continues to turn away from addressing the problem. In this lecture I unpack and refute these positions to argue that transphobia remains a compelling causal factor in the murder that is worthy of consideration, especially in the context of rising global anti-trans politics. In particular, I call attention to the connection between transphobia and fascination, which is the subject of my current book project.

Bio: Dr. Amy Marvin is the current Louise M. Olmsted Fellow in Ethics at Lafayette College, where she teaches courses such as Philosophy of Love and is working on a book about transphobia during her stay here. She publishes on topics as varied as laughter, violence, hope, oppression, curiosity, care, community, and subversive humor. She has published in Philosophy Compass, Transgender Studies Quarterly, Hypatia, Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, APA Studies on LGBTQ Philosophy, Contingent Magazine, Trans Philosophy: Meaning and Mattering, Curiosity Studies: A New Ecology of Knowledge, the Philosophy of Humour Handbook, and We Want it All: An Anthology of Radical Trans Poetics. She is a leading figure in the subdiscipline of trans philosophy and is also influential in the development of research on philosophy of humor.