Born This Way

popmatters.com – By Michael Abernethy

“Sex is between your legs; gender is between your ears.” – a common phrase in queer culture

Myra Chanel Ical was 51 when she was murdered on 18 January of this year. She was brutally beaten, but Houston police concluded from her defensive wounds that she put up a fight. However, most of Houston’s media didn’t report her death. Instead, it reported the murder of male Ruben Dario Ical, Myra’s given name and birth gender. KHOU-11, the CBS affiliate in Houston, was one of the few media outlets to report the story as a murder within the transgender community.