Infant Dies for Breaking Gender Roles

Okay, here’s something to get mad about.

The first headline I caught read, “Long Island Man Kills Infant Boy for Acting Like a Girl.” I’ll understand if you don’t want to read anymore, really.

Any news story out so far doesn’t have much more information than that. Apparently, this twenty-year-old guy was babysitting his girlfriend’s seventeen-month-old son (that’s about a year and a half for those of you keeping up) and decided he had to teach him a lesson about masculinity. It’s unclear just what the infant was doing that was so feminine, but it must have incited some kind of fury in Pedro Jones, who beat the child several times with his fists. The child was found alive, in cardiac arrest, and died later that night in the hospital. Jones reportedly explained, “I was trying to make him act like a boy instead of a little girl.” Here’s the kicker; the additional admission, “I never struck that kid that hard before.” I don’t even know what to say about that one. Jones will be tried for first-degree manslaughter, which apparently could equate to anything from five to twenty-five years in prison.

You’d think this kind of thing only happened in highly conservative states, right? You’d be wrong, though. Roy A. Jones lived and died on a reservation on Long Island.

Whether you add Roy to the list of people killed in the name of transphobia is probably a personal choice; it’s doubtful that we’ll ever know much more about what actually happened. Either way, though, the fact is clear that gender roles still play a huge role in our society. When gender roles are questioned or broken—even, apparently, by toddlers—it can and does provoke a strong, immediate, and sometimes violent and irrevocable reaction. I find this fascinating, given the fact that gender is an entirely socially constructed concept. Nevertheless— the danger is real. This is why we do what we do, folks. Keep your head above the water, and keep living with love—and keep the Jones family in your thoughts this week.