Update: In stunning twist, leniency requested for Chad Ferreira's attacker who is now transgender

In a December 7th sentencing hearing following a felony assault conviction for Kyle Adams over a 2006 street fight that ended with the death of Chad Ferreira, Adam's attorney is asking the judge to consider probation instead of a jail term for his client.

The reason? In a shocking turn of events, San Francisco Deputy Public Defender Phong Wang - Adam's attorney - has told the judge that his client, who had previously identified himself as a gay man is now a transgender woman who calls herself London who would be placed at great risk if sent to federal prison. Representatives of San Francisco's Transgender, Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project also appeared before the judge to support Adams.

Adams had been sentenced to six years in prison but might face additional charges if manslaughter charges are refiled against her (the jury deadlocked on similar charges during the first trial).

Full details over at the Bay Area Reporter.

Previously:

• Man charged with felony assault in Ferreira trial, jury deadlocks on other charges (may 23, 2007)
• Chad, Again (August 24, 2007)
• Latino gay man killed in San Francisco (February 9, 2006)

Update: Man charged with felony assault in Ferreira trial, jury deadlocks on other charges

In a case that we have followed for a while, a San Francisco Superior Court jury has found 25 year old Kyle Adams guilty of "felony assault" in the beating death of 24 year old Chad Ferreira (pictured left) as a result of an altercation that happened last year a day before Halloween in San Francisco's Castro district.

The jury deadlocked on whether to charge Adams with and additional assault charge for hitting a friend of Ferreira's, Angel Zepeda, and on a more serious charge of manslaughter against Ferreira.

The Bay Area Reporter has full details.

Cathy Smith, Ferreira's mom, had previously expressed disappointment that the court did not seek murder charges and is said to be upset that the jury deadlocked on the other charges.

For now the San Francisco DA's Office is considering whether to retry Adams on the other charges.

Previously on this blog, Ferreira's mom wrote to thank us about following the developments in the case (her reply here). So did a friend of Adams (who posted a message on the same blog post that drew a response from Ferreira's mom).

Ferreira's boyfriend, Octavio Xtravaganza also contacted us a while back. His reaction to the ruling can be found here.

Updates: Chad Ferreira, circumcision, Alvaro Orozco, Colombian 'asylum tragedy'

Chad Ferreira: The Bay Area Reporter continues it's coverage of the altercation in San Francisco's Castro district that led to the death of Chad Ferreira (pictured) in January of 2006.

Last week reporter Ed Walsh described opening statements made at a trial that will determine whether 26 year old Kyle Adams committed manslaughter by beating Ferreira so hard that he caused Ferreira to fall and fracture his skull when his head hit a sidewalk curb or if he is, as he claims, innocent and just acting in self defense.

Today, the Reporter describes Adams turn on the stand and his side of the story, some of which differs with witness statements and includes details were not originally provided to the police department when he was first charged.

The paper says that closing arguments after the print edition of the Reporter went to press and that the case went to the jury at 3:10pm yesterday.

Circumcision as HIV prevention: The New York City department of Health and Mental Hygiene held it's community forum on the issue of male circumcision as a possible HIV prevention tool. I was not able to attend but both Gay City News and the New York Blade covered the arguments and the reaction.

Alvaro Orozco: In February we told you about a decision by Canada's Immigration and Refugee Board not to grant asylum to a young Nicaraguan gay man, Alvaro Orozco, partly because they argued that if Orozco wasn't sexually active when he left Nicaragua at the age of thirteen, he could not assert that he knew he was gay then. The Orozco case and his ongoing efforts to appeal that decision receives a coverline in the current issue of The Advocate. For more on the case and on how you can help, please visit his website.

In United States political asylum news, Arthur Leonard calls an April 25th ruling that turned down an asylum application by a Miami-based Colombian gay man "Another asylum tragedy." Leonard says that the court not only denied asylum but also outed him in the process and now is sending the man back to Colombia despite having arguably shown credible evidence of fear of persecution if sent back.

Bay Area Reporter: Disrespectful burial, gay radio jock, GLAAD goes to Mexico

Today's Bay Area Reporter has a number of stories that may be of interest to Blabbeando readers, some on which we have commented before. Among them:

Disrespectful burial: Mourners who went to pay their respects to murdered Latina transgender woman Ruby Rodriguez (also known as Ruby Ordeñana) in San Francisco were not happy to find that she had been dressed as a man for the viewing. Apparently the Nicaraguan Consulate had called the funeral home where the viewing took place to say that Ordeñana's father had requested that she be buried in men's clothing. Close friends expressed surprise at finding out that Ms. Ordeñana had any relatives living in the Bay Area.

Outed ex-Univision Radio employee now a radio show host: The Reporter also profiles 46 year old radio broadcaster Roberto Hernández (pictured), host of a weekly radio show targetting the Spanish language LGBT community in San Francisco (Roberto Al Medio Dia! on KIKI 1010AM).

In 2002, Mr. Hernández sued Univision Radio when, as an employee, he was outed as a gay man in a live prank call he received from two radio shock jocks that also worked for the radio network. He tells the Reporter that the case was settled for $270,000 which he has used to launch his own show and to launch a non-profit group somewhat awkwardly called Gay y Lesbianas Unidos Contra la Homophobia or GLUCH.

GLAAD crosses the border: Little noticed when it happened a few weeks ago, there was history of sorts made by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. On April 2nd Monica Taher, GLAAD's people of color strategy director, and Luis Perelman, President of the Mexican Federation of Sexual Education and Sexology met with producers and hosts of the Azteca America Network's "Ventaneando" gossip television show. At issue was homophobic language expressed by one of the hosts during one of the tapings which was later broadcast in the United States. The Reporter takes a look at the outcomes and has some local reaction.

Now, for some of us with an eye on Latino media, it seems more than appropriate that GLAAD target Spanish-language television production networks and production houses such as Azteca, Univision, Telemundo and others but the truth is that a great deal of their content is produced outside the United States. So it's worth noting that this particular meeting took place in Mexico City (full disclosure: Monica is one of my bestest friends in the world, but still pretty groovy). I might be wrong, but I believe it is the first time that GLAAD has targetted conglomerates airing programming in the United States even if they are based outside the United States.

Update: Chad, again

One of the most interesting things I've found about writing in a blog is that anyone can simply find their way here if they do a blog search on a topic that I've covered. When it gets thorny is when some of those topics touch on emotional issues and when people who are directly or indirectly related to the issue want to comment, sometimes anonymously.

More often than not, this has happened when I have written about people in the community that have been killed, whether in a hate crime or in an assault, in instances that are mostly under-reported elsewhere.

It happened when I wrote about Angel Melendez, it happened when I wrote about Adrian Alun Dennis Exley as well.

Though I've only just recently started moderating comments, when dissenting views pop up, I've done my best to allow the comments through although things get trickier when people start anonymously posting hearsay about a specific incident when some details have yet to be reported. The only time I removed a comment from this blog is when I found it to be patently offensive and homophobic though, in some circumstances, I've left those in as well if only to prove a point.

This is the case with the beating that left Chad Ferreira (pictured above) dead on the streets of the Castro in San Francisco back in February. His boyfriend wrote to me offline to see if I knew more about the case and his mother wrote to thank us for writing about him.

Now, even though the original confrontation and beating happened more than six months ago and the alleged assailant was actually taken into custody (Kyle Adams pleaded not guilty to the charges and says that he was acting out of self-defense), from the start the Bay Area Reporter stated the police saw this as a "problematic case." I still didn't know what to do when an anonymous posting popped up this week defending Kyle, followed within a day by another anonymous poster who said he was with Chad the night of the attack.

In today's issue of the Bay Area Reporter reporter Ed Walsh writes that, in a preliminary hearing, a San Francisco judge has found that "that there is enough evidence to try Kyle Adams with assault and voluntary manslaughter for his alleged attack on Ferreira," even though one of the witnesses called on Ferreira's behalf seems to have contradicted statements he made earlier to the police regarding the incident. So a trial is coming and hopefully some of the issues that are still pending will be resolved.

From San Francisco, more sad news

I haven't been able to confirm this through media reports but El Güero over at Razing Borders, who lives in San Francisco, tells me:

Today I was walking to the gym and I saw a flyer in a store window. I remembered your post on June 8th about Luis Peña, A Colombian gay man who lived in San Francisco and was missing. Sadly, his photo and name were on the flyer, with information about a mass and memorial service here in San Francisco [on Sunday, July 9th]. The flyer didn't mention cause of death, and I haven't seen anything about it in the local gay press yet, although I'm sure it will be when the gay weeklies come out this week

So unfortunately there is no good news to report here either. The original Bay Area Reporter article on his disappearance on the night of May 30th mentioned that Peña had been "kind of depressed," according to a close friend, so it's not clear that this is a criminal case. Nevertheless, it's sad to hear the news.

Update: Man in custody, details emerge in killing of Chad Ferreira in SF

In "Latino gay man killed in San Francisco" (Feb. 9, 2006), I linked to a Bay Area Reporter article that described the brutal beating and death of 27-year-old Chad Ferreira. Today, the B.A.R. reports that a 24-year-old man named Kyle Adams pleaded not guilty to one charge of manslaughter and two charges of assault in the San Francisco Superiour Court after claiming that he beat Ferreira in self-defense to police authorities. The B.A.R. says that several witness accounts contradict this assertion and that Ferreira's mother, who was in court for the plea, "criticized authorities for charging the case as manslaughter and not murder."

Latino gay man killed in San Francisco

The Bay Area Reporter is reporting in today's issue that Chad Ferriera, a former Club Papi staffer and gymn trainer, died on February 4th, six days after two men beat him up on Market Street, near the Castro Street intersection. According to a witness quoted in the article, the assault apparently stemmed from an angry exchange of words that one of Ferreira's friends had while standing in line for the bathroom inside the Castro gay establishment, The Bar.

A memorial service is planned for tonight at the Lima Family Erickson Memorial Chapel on 710 Willow Street (off Bird Avenue in San Jose). Club Papi will also be holding a benefit party in his memory on Saturday, February 11th. More details (and photos of Chad) here.

• UPDATE: Man in custody, details emerge in killing of Chad Ferreira in SF (March 16, 2006)