After 19 months in a St. Cloud, Minn., men’s prison, transgender woman CeCe McDonald was released last week. McDonald’s story, one that is all too common for transgender Americans, made national headlines.
In 2011, a bar patron yelled racial, homophobic and transphobic slurs at McDonald and hit her in the face with a beer glass. When Dean Schmitz pulled McDonald away from the ensuing brawl, McDonald stabbed him. Schmitz later died in an ambulance. McDonald pleaded guilty to manslaughter charges.