Gwen Araujo

Who was Gwen Araujo?

Gwen Araujo, was an American teenage pre-operative trans woman who was murdered in Newark, California. She was killed by four men, two of whom she had allegedly been sexually intimate with, who beat and strangled her after discovering she was transsexual. Two of the defendants were convicted of second-degree murder, but not convicted on the requested hate crime enhancements. The other two defendants pleaded guilty or no contest to voluntary manslaughter. In at least one of the trials, a trans panic defense–an extension of the gay panic defense–was employed.