Virigina tech football player kills transgender Tinder date after finding out he was a man (acquitted)

[Creamu]

Isimemen David Etute was charged with second-degree murder for punching and stomping Jerry Paul Smith, who was found dead with missing teeth, several skull fractures, and every bone in his face broken. The VT player reportedly admitted to police that he punched Smith five times and stomped on him after learning that the person that he met on Tinder with whom he had a sexual encounter, was actually a man.

https://thesource.com/2021/06/10/vi...r-tinder-date-after-finding-out-he-was-a-man/

A former Virginia Tech football player accused of killing a man who gave him oral sex has been set free by a Virginia jury.

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/cr...0220528-hjlquw7ohzadtk3cbwbhqq7aii-story.html

 

[KennyAtom]

why does this feel like it's missing some context? people don't just up and kill people for finding out they're men after receiving oral sex from them.

Was it premeditated? Was it self defense?

 

[Deleted member 194275]

first of all, a male born transgender is not the same as "a man posing as a woman" like the journalist wrote, but whatever, this discussion is more flammable than it should be.

second, I do agree with south park dude up here in the comments. The motivation probably involve something else, and I bet that the news will not follow the case further to clarify if it is the case because the shocking headline already got the clicks they wanted.

 

[N7Kopper]

why does this feel like it's missing some context? people don't just up and kill people for finding out they're men after receiving oral sex from them.

Was it premeditated? Was it self defense?

Stop asking reasonable questions! You're supposed to stand on the victim/punished perpetrator's grave to support child predators in the school system, natch.

first of all, a male born transgender is not the same as "a man posing as a woman" like the journalist wrote, but whatever, this discussion is more flammable than it should be.

second, I do agree with south park dude up here in the comments. The motivation probably involve something else, and I bet that the news will not follow the case further to clarify if it is the case because the shocking headline already got the clicks they wanted.

Hey, don't tell that to the queer lobby. That's literally their definition of transsexuality. Do they still call people Truscum?

...these alphabet people make me want to just identify as straight. But I won't, because that isn't as good at spiting them. Bring back the good old GLBT lot.

 

[djpannda]

Stop asking reasonable questions! You're supposed to stand on the victim/punished perpetrator's grave to support child predators in the school system, natch.


Hey, don't tell that to the queer lobby. That's literally their definition of transsexuality. Do they still call people Truscum?

...these alphabet people make me want to just identify as straight. But I won't, because that isn't as good at spiting them. Bring back the good old GLBT lot.

...who hurt you? there has to be a reason youre so bitter in life?

 

[appleburger]

I just checked out ~15 or so articles, and literally the only one so far that even mentions Jerry Paul Smith being transgender is the one from thesource.com site in OP's post.

And then this article (https://www.oxygen.com/crime-news/isimemen-etute-testifies-trial-jerry-smith-murder) says:

Smith's family has identified the victim as a gay man, according to ABC affiliate WSET, and Smith is not listed on the Human Rights Campaign's compendium of transgender and non-conforming people killed in 2021.

When looking at pictures of Smith (I've only seen a handful so far), none of them seem to suggest a gender change.

So, is Smith's family, Etute, and every editorial I can find (minus thesource.com) attempting to deny Smith's gender identity? Sounds more to me like thesource.com took a logical leap and assumed Smith was identifying as a young woman, rather than catfishing on Tinder.

If anybody has a source to backup the trans comment from that article, feel free to share.

 

[Creamu]

why does this feel like it's missing some context? people don't just up and kill people for finding out they're men after receiving oral sex from them.

Was it premeditated?

Etute said that he went to Smith’s apartment on April 10, who he knew then as “Angie”, and had a sexual encounter under the impression that he was a woman. His lawyer, Jimmy Turk, contends that Smith solicited Etute for sex.

“Nobody deserves to die, but I don’t mind saying don’t pretend you are something that you are not,” Turk said. “Don’t target or lure anyone under that perception. That’s just wrong.”

Was it self defense?

missing teeth, several skull fractures, and every bone in his face broken.

 

[Creamu]

I just checked out ~15 or so articles, and literally the only one so far that even mentions Jerry Paul Smith being transgender is the one from thesource.com site in OP's post.

And then this article (https://www.oxygen.com/crime-news/isimemen-etute-testifies-trial-jerry-smith-murder) says:


When looking at pictures of Smith (I've only seen a handful so far), none of them seem to suggest a gender change.

So, is Smith's family, Etute, and every editorial I can find (minus thesource.com) attempting to deny Smith's gender identity? Sounds more to me like thesource.com took a logical leap and assumed Smith was identifying as a young woman, rather than catfishing on Tinder.

If anybody has a source to backup the trans comment from that article, feel free to share.

I don't undestand these distinctions to be honest. What is the difference between a transgender person and a gay person that poses as a woman on tinder? And how is this distinction relevant to this story?

Fox news frames it like this:

Ex-Virginia Tech football player acquitted of murder in beating of gay man who posed as woman during sex act

https://www.foxnews.com/us/virginia-tech-football-player-acquitted-murder-beating-gay-man-woman

Is this just semantics or is there more to it?

 

[yuyuyup]

edit-sorry, responded to wrong person.

 

[Veho]

Acquitted? So "catfishing" is now legitimate defense in murder trials. Precedent and everything.
Noted.

 

[yuyuyup]

Hey, don't tell that to the queer lobby. That's literally their definition of transsexuality. Do they still call people Truscum?

What is your opinion of "intersexed" people, who are assigned a gender at birth? How would you make the call?

 

[Marc_LFD]

I couldn't even get to chat to a person thru Tinder, but I guess he paid the premium sub.

Either way, that's something that needs to be clarified so dates don't go wrong (although it's Tinder so...). There are other cases like this:



Motive? Guy finds out it's a guy who's now a trans-woman and got pissed off. Of course, that doesn't give him the right to kill the person.

 

[appleburger]

I don't undestand these distinctions to be honest. What is the difference between a transgender person and a gay person that poses as a woman on tinder? And how is this distinction relevant to this story?

It's nothing but relevant to this discussion, because they mis-identified somebody in a murder case. Doesn't matter what the misinformation is, that's terrible reporting, and leads to people making assumptions.

Easy example - just replace "trans" with "asian, Biden supporter, Ukranian, blind man" or any other suggestive wording, and now you're introducing factors into somebody's murder that were fabricated or misunderstood.

There are actual cases where people are killed when somebody finds out they're trans, so now this article is adding this case to that talking point when it doesn't belong there. It's not relevant to the case itself, which is why this article is a bad source.

Inaccurate news is bad news.

Fox news frames it like this:


https://www.foxnews.com/us/virginia-tech-football-player-acquitted-murder-beating-gay-man-woman

Is this just semantics or is there more to it?

Fox news and any other outlet I looked up were consistent with their reporting. thesource's was not. All I'm saying is that people should avoid that article if they actually want accurate reporting on the subject. I'm not interested in having a discussion based on misinformation.

That being said, cases like this, where we have to go by one person's word over another are pretty tragic, because we have to accept that justice may or may not actually be served. We have no way of knowing if Etute's life was actually in imminent danger. He claims Smith reached for a weapon, and he thought it was a gun, but even so - I would think he'd realize at some point in the exchange that there wasn't a gun. We know there was a knife, but it was still tucked away when found by police - so to suggest he was in "imminent danger" is suspect to me. Seems like he could have thrown one punch and gotten away pretty easily, as a football player and looking at pictures of Smith.

Maybe I'm missing something, but after reading about this I'm surprised Etute didn't get a 2nd degree murder charge, at least on the lower end with parole or something. Seems to me like we can reason he took this too far. The knife being found doesn't sound like murdering Smith was justified, imo.

 

[Creamu]

It's nothing but relevant to this discussion, because they mis-identified somebody in a murder case. Doesn't matter what the misinformation is, that's terrible reporting, and leads to people making assumptions.

Easy example - just replace "trans" with "asian, Biden supporter, Ukranian, blind man" or any other suggestive wording, and now you're introducing factors into somebody's murder that were fabricated or misunderstood.

There are actual cases where people are killed when somebody finds out they're trans, so now this article is adding this case to that talking point when it doesn't belong there. It's not relevant to the case itself, which is why this article is a bad source.

Inaccurate news is bad news.



Fox news and any other outlet I looked up were consistent with their reporting. thesource's was not. All I'm saying is that people should avoid that article if they actually want accurate reporting on the subject. I'm not interested in having a discussion based on misinformation.

That being said, cases like this, where we have to go by one person's word over another are pretty tragic, because we have to accept that justice may or may not actually be served. We have no way of knowing if Etute's life was actually in imminent danger. He claims Smith reached for a weapon, and he thought it was a gun, but even so - I would think he'd realize at some point in the exchange that there wasn't a gun. We know there was a knife, but it was still tucked away when found by police - so to suggest he was in "imminent danger" is suspect to me. Seems like he could have thrown one punch and gotten away pretty easily, as a football player and looking at pictures of Smith.

Maybe I'm missing something, but after reading about this I'm surprised Etute didn't get a 2nd degree murder charge, at least on the lower end with parole or something. Seems to me like we can reason he took this too far. The knife being found doesn't sound like murdering Smith was justified, imo.

I see your point. What I am concerned about is that there is wiggle room here for media spin. Maybe if the person was clearly identified as transgender there would have been more awareness and this outcome could have been prevented.

The idea that a football player acts in selfdefense when he is beating a person that believably presents as a woman, so much that every bone in his/her/their face is broken strikes me as a little hard to believe.

What stops the media to choose to identfy a person as transgender or a woman presenting homosexual man however fits their aim at a given time?

I have heard of transgender movements, but I havent heard of homosexual man who present as women on tinder movement. I am concerned that this was done to cover this football player, and deprive the potential transgender victim of advocay.

The claim of selfdefense with every bone broken in the victims face and the framing of the very abstract/convoluted woman presenting homosexual man on tinder, both are very much in favour of this football player.

There is so much focus these days on not misgendering other, that I reject the claim of the media that this was not a transgender person, unless there is substantial evidence. This person presented as a woman, so it is reasonable to assert that it was a transgender person. Taking that away from that person without making a solid case deprives that person of advocacy.

 

[Valwinz]

From what i learned the Tinder man was tricking people into having sex by posing as a woman aka RAPE.
While i don't think murdering him was wrong is like when you play with fire eventually you are going to get burn

 

[Creamu]

From what i learned the Tinder man was tricking people into having sex by posing as a woman aka RAPE.
While i don't think murdering him was wrong is like when you play with fire eventually you are going to get burn

Thats a bold position, but we can have disagreements.

 

[yuyuyup]

From what i learned the Tinder man was tricking people into having sex by posing as a woman aka RAPE.
While i don't think murdering him was wrong is like when you play with fire eventually you are going to get burn

You should check out gay/trans "panic" laws, it's a legal defense and it's banned in various states https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/member-features/gay-trans-panic-defense/

https://www.lgbtmap.org/img/maps/citations-panic-defense-bans.pdf

EDIT: also I disagree with the conflation of rape and misleading based on gender, but I understand how you reach that conclusion, since there are definitely other examples of "tricking" people into what can be construed as rape (a classic example is the scene in "Revenge of the Nerds" where the person assumed the identity of someone else in costume before otherwise-consentual sex.)

 

[Creamu]

Look closely at the physique of that football player. How much trouble would it have been for a football player like that to handle someone who believably presents as a woman. Beating some to death with missing teeth, several skull fractures, and every bone in her/his/their face broken is waaaay beyond knockout range.

 

[Viri]

You probably should tell the person you wanna bang that you're trans. lol

 

[appleburger]

I see your point. What I am concerned about is that there is wiggle room here for media spin. Maybe if the person was clearly identified as transgender there would have been more awareness and this outcome could have been prevented.

The idea that a football player acts in selfdefense when he is beating a person that believably presents as a woman, so much that every bone in his/her/their face is broken strikes me as a little hard to believe.

What stops the media to choose to identfy a person as transgender or a woman presenting homosexual man however fits their aim at a given time?

I have heard of transgender movements, but I havent heard of homosexual man who present as women on tinder movement. I am concerned that this was done to cover this football player, and deprive the potential transgender victim of advocay.

The claim of selfdefense with every bone broken in the victims face and the framing of the very abstract/convoluted woman presenting homosexual man on tinder, both are very much in favour of this football player.

There is so much focus these days on not misgendering other, that I reject the claim of the media that this was not a transgender person, unless there is substantial evidence. This person presented as a woman, so it is reasonable to assert that it was a transgender person. Taking that away from that person without making a solid case deprives that person of advocacy.

Dear lord. No, @Creamu, that's not how burden of proof works. That article you posted is the only source making this claim - the burden of proof is on them. Every single other source I came across says he was openly male and gay, including from his family, and it wasn't recorded as a hate crime against that community.

I posted the source already, which has it's own sources. I suggest actually reading it before ignorantly assuming that one article must have their baseless claim correct.

He literally used the photo of another person entirely, not even near the same age. Did you read any of the articles? His family said he himself was an openly gay male - not female. There is zero evidence that he was actually a trans woman, that I can find. I asked for a counter example, and instead of providing that, this entire thread is running with the notion Smith was trans.

Like, I don't want to give you all a hard time, but this is just lazy, and it kills the whole discussion by throwing out hot takes based on a clearly poorly written article, with plenty of evidence to support that. Show me any evidence of Smith being trans and then we'll have something to discuss there. I'm not assuming that off of one poorly written article in a sea of others that seem to have a consistent story.