Brandon Teena (who was known simply as Brandon), born Teena Renae Brandon in Lincoln, Nebraska on December 12, 1972, is the subject of the Academy Award-winning 1999 film Boys Don't Cry, which was itself based on the documentary film The Brandon Teena Story .

In 1993 Brandon, being a transman, identified and lived as a man. He was dating a local woman named Lana Tisdale . On Christmas Day, two acquaintances - John Lotter and M. Thomas Nissen - discovered that Brandon had been born female and raped him in Falls City, Nebraska. Brandon reported the rape to the local sheriff, Charles B. Laux, who dismissed the allegations. When Lotter and Nissen discovered that Brandon had gone to the police they murdered him, the woman he was staying with, and another friend on December 31, 1993.

Laux was criticised after the murder for his lack of action and his attitude towards Brandon -- at one point Laux referred to Brandon as "it" (see Trial details link). Nissen testified against Lotter and was given a life sentence; Lotter was sentenced to death and is currently on Death Row.

At the time of his death Brandon had neither commenced hormone therapy nor had sex reassignment surgery. However, some note that Brandon had planned to have sex reassignment surgery. As with many other female bodied persons who live as men, it has occasionally been claimed that Brandon was a lesbian. There are, however, no indications that this was true in Brandon's case (compare homosexuality and transgender).

See also

• List of transgender-related topics
• Transphobia
• Gwen Araujo, another murder victim related to transphobia

External links

• Remembering Our Dead
• Trial details