In Death Gwen Gets Her Name

Last week a mistrial was declared in the trial of three men charged in Araujo's slaying.

During the trial defense attorneys argued that the three panicked when after having sex with the teen they discovered that she had been born male. The tactic, similar to the so-called gay panic defense, was condemned by trans activists. The attorneys had argued that the men should have been charged with manslaughter not murder.

In the end, the stumbling block for the jury was whether to convict the trio of first or second degree murder.

No date has been set for a retrial.

Granting a posthumous name change is rarely done but Transgender Law Center Co-Director Christopher Daley, who represented the family was confident.

“Make no mistake, this court order is not a symbolic document. Due to last week’s mistrial, Gwen’s name and identity will once again be subject to unprincipled attacks from the same defense attorneys who have spent the last several months disrespecting her. It is my strong hope that as we move towards a retrial for their clients, each of these attorneys will give this order the respect it demands by referring to Gwen by her legal name.”

http://www.365gay.com/newscon04/07/070104araujo.htm

California superior court approves posthumous name change for Gwen Araujo
The California superior court approved a posthumous name change for slain transgendered teen Gwen Araujo on Thursday. The name change, which was ordered June 23, was announced as official on Wednesday.

Araujo died before getting the chance to make the name change official. At 17, she was beaten and strangled after the people she had thought were her friends found out she was biologically male. The case was recently declared a mistrial. Chris Daley, codirector of the Transgender Law Center, says the name change has particular importance for the future. "As we move back into a retrial, we'll be asking the defense attorneys to respect this court order by referring to Gwen as Gwen," he said.

"She's Gwen to me, and I'm her mother," Sylvia Guerrero had said upon requesting the name change in May. "This is who she was. She's transgendered, and she's Gwen." Superior court commissioner Thomas Surh had called the request "a novel situation" and told Guerrero that it would be about a month until a decision could be reached. Araujo had used the name Gwen for years, according to her family. From an early age she had been convinced that her gender and biological identities conflicted. Her name became famous in October 2002 when police found her body in a shallow grave 150 miles east of her home in the San Francisco suburb of Newark.

http://www.advocate.com/new_news.asp?ID=12985&sd=07/02/04

A court commissioner has granted a Newark mother's request to posthumously change the name of a slain transgender teen from Edward Araujo Jr. to Gwen Amber Rose Araujo, her family announced Thursday.

The order by Alameda County Superior Court Commissioner Thomas Surh was issued June 23 -- one day after the murder trial of three men accused of killing Araujo, 17, ended in a mistrial.

But Araujo's family did not learn of Surh's decision until this week when the order -- delivered without comment on a standard Change of Name form -- arrived in the mail.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/07/02/ARAUJO.TMP

Berkeley, California-AP -- In life, Edward Araujo (uh-ROW'-hoh) Junior just wanted to be known as Gwen. In death, Araujo got that wish.

Eighteen months after Araujo was beaten and strangled, a California judge has posthumously granted a name change.

The ruling came a day after a mistrial was declared in the case against three men accused of killing Araujo after discovering she was biologically male.

http://www.kait8.com/Global/story.asp?S=1990734