Source: Women are Human
US — Minnesota. An individual diagnosed with gender dysphoria, whose offenses against his ex-girlfriend involved “possession, or threatened use, of a dangerous weapon” and “a pattern of activity involving stalking, threatening, harassing, or assaulting the same victim,” recently sought to have his conviction vacated on several grounds, including 134 incidents of misgendering during trial. Popular transgender activists magazine published a headline shaming the court for “refusing to use the non-binary defendant’s correct pronouns.”
According to court papers, Shawn Kelly Thomason traveled from his home in Hazel Park, Michigan to Mankato Minnesota in October 2018 after his girlfriend of two years, who is identified only as JNS, informed him she would not be resuming the relationship. After moving from Michigan to Minnesota, JNS had kept in correspondence with Mr Thomason for a period time before blocking his phone number and diverting his emails.
Between October and November, Mr Thomason put a tracking device on JNS’s car. In December, he was arrested on suspicion of stalking after he approached JNS as she sat outside the home in her car.
Authorities discovered in Mr Thomason’s rental car a loaded handgun, ammunition, taser, a Faraday bag designed to block cellular signals, electrical tape, women’s clothing, and writings including notes to JNS. One of the notes, which a court would later call “frightening,” said, “People get shot over things like this. … When you piss someone off, by defaulting on your promises and/or commitments you should be aware of the consequences.” A search of his home uncovered “lists and materials to prepare for his confrontation with JNS.” Investigation into Mr Thomason’s activities found he had “researched ways to track Facebook log-ins” and “tried to hack [JNS’s] Facebook account to learn, among other things, her IP location and account password.”
Mr Thomason pleaded guilty to Interstate Stalking.
Mr Thomason had no prior criminal history, but the district court found that he had engaged in “an armed abduction in the planning” and presented a danger to the victim and to the community.” The government was granted a request, which it made in a Presentence Report, for Mr Thomason’s Interstate Stalking offense to be increased by four levels and an upward variance on United States Sentencing Commission Guidelines to be added.
He was handed a 45-month prison sentence, followed by a three-year term of supervised release. He was additionally ordered to pay $8,606.44 in restitution to JNS.
In March 2021, Mr Thomason appealed his conviction, sentence and restitution order on six bases, two of which centered around misgendering. He claimed that the prosecution engaged in misconduct by referring to him with masculine pronouns and “stereotypes” like “gunman” and “boyfriend,” despite his non-binary identity and his request to be referred to with the gender-neutral pronoun “they.” The appeal further argued that the prosecution “ignored his diagnosis of gender dysphoria by claiming that the women’s clothing found in his car was for JNS when the record showed that Thomason sometimes wears women’s clothing.” He additionally claimed that the judge “showed bias by his ‘willingness to participate’ in alleged misgendering, and by making unfavorable rulings.’”
The Eighth Circuit Court found that Mr Thomason had signed a plea agreement referencing him with masculine pronouns, acknowledged that his sentencing letter would use masculine pronouns for the sake of clarity, and had himself used masculine pronouns through his counsel at the sentencing hearing. Mr Thomason did not object to the use of masculine pronouns until the end of a restitution hearing on November 12, 2019.
Furthermore, “Thomason cites no authority for the proposition that litigants and courts must refer to defendants by their preferred pronouns, and the only cited authority is to the contrary. Nor is there any showing that the use of pronouns affected the outcome of the proceeding.” The judge concluded that the prosecution had “presented evidence that the women’s clothing discovered in Thomason’s car was sized to fit the victim, not Thomason,” and the judge later sentenced “Thomason based on his conduct, not due to his gender or gender identity.”
On March 18, LGBTQ Nation published scathing sarcasm on the court’s refusal to use gender-identity based pronouns in the case “because it would be too hard” and “their writing would suffer.” Trans activist magazine Pink News following up with a May 23 article slamming the court for having “continuously misgendered them [Thomason] during hearings,” arguing it denied “trans and non-binary people […] equal treatment and respect in the courtroom.”
Mr Thomason’s projected released date is February 16, 2022.
