I am absolutely appalled at the reasoning behind Mr. Calef’s statements in his column (“Double standard in reaction to rape,” Oct. 24). The points he tried to make here are absolutely absurd. What he is doing is trying to lay a groundwork for a defense of two people who committed murder. That is right — they committed murder and that is all there is to it. A hate crime? Most assuredly, gender identification and presentation is one of the highest rated hate crimes resulting in murder in the United States and for this individual to say that the two men were raped is ludicrous. No one forced them to have sex; that was a choice they made on their own. They freely had sex with this individual and then proceeded to kill her. I am equally as upset with the Iowa State Daily, first in allowing, this piece to be published at all and secondly for allowing the continued use of the improper pronouns in reference to this killing. This unfortunately will be one more name added to the National Day of Remembrance (Nov. 20) for transgendered individuals around the United States. It is a sad state of affairs when people who live in a “free” country do not have the availability to express who they are without fear of someone deciding they don’t like it, end result murder and some uneducated person trying to shift the blame to the victim rather than where it belongs — right square on the shoulders of the two people who did the killing.

Brenda Thomas

Transgender Activist

Houston, Texas