Talk:Murder of Larry King

Possible sources

These may help:

• 14-year-old Brandon McInerney: Ventura County's Sacrificial Lamb by Michael Mehas, 3 August, 2008; Ventura County Star.
• McInerney's Lawyer: I Won't Gay-Bash - As the arraignment of Lawrence King's accused killer, Brandon McInerney, gets postponed again, both the prosecuting attorney and the public defender talk to The Advocate by Peter DelVecchio, The Advocate, 13 June, 2008.
• School blamed in killing of gay student: Attorney for youth facing arraignment on murder charges says officials failed to defuse tensions. by Catherine Saillant, 8 May, 2008; Los Angeles Times.
• Senseless Murders, Senseless Times
• Accused Treated as Adult in Gay Student's Killing by Gloria Hillard, National Public Radio.
• California Gay Boy, 15, Slain by Classmate, 14 by ANDY HUMM, 21 February 2008.

Some more: — Becksguy (talk) 11:51, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

• van de Mark, Brian (2008). "Coming out in adolescence". Gay & Lesbian Times. Retrieved 2008-10-13. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help) Published: October 9, 2008
• Saillant, Catherine (2008). "Teen accused of killing his gay classmate had white supremacist materials". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2008-10-13. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help) Published: October 2, 2008
• "Documents: SoCal murder suspect had racist items". The Mercury News (From AP). 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-13. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help) Published: October 2, 2008
• "County, school district reject King family claims". Ventura County Star. 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-13. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help); Text "last" ignored (help) Published: October 1, 2008
• Carlson, Cheri (August 9, 2009). "E.O. Green teacher says she suffers from seeing a student gun down a classmate". Ventura County Star. Retrieved 2009-08-10. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)

Transgender

I've added a citation to the HBO web site for the documentary that is cited as the one source for identifying King as transgender.

The film's synopsis includes this: Larry "had become increasingly open about exploring his gender identity, and had recently started wearing makeup and heeled boots to school." And later: the film "reveals polarized and potentially dangerous attitudes toward tolerance and gender expression in the United States. Even Larry’s teachers span the spectrum of perspectives on how to manage a student exploring gender identity."

An interview with the filmmakers includes no suggestion of transgender and refers to King consistently with male pronouns: http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/valentine-road#/documentaries/valentine-road/interview/marta-cunnigham-eddie-schmidt-and-sasha-alpert.html

The discussion guide that accompanies the film opens with: "Valentine Road tells the troubling story of the 2008 murder of a 15-year-old transgender student..." The first 2 questions posed to student viewers are about trans issues.

When taken all together, I'm uncertain whether this young person's exploration of gender identity merits identification as transgender. But without a doubt the issue of gender identity needs to be addressed. What we have now is just

"she began attending school wearing women's accessories and clothing, high heels and makeup in January 2008. Larry then also changed her name to Letisha, and sometimes Latoya, and according to her closest friends identified as transgender."

We could start with precision: high heels or heeled boots? The first says transgender, the latter says exploration....maybe.

I'd like to see the documentary before saying more. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 21:12, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

I'll post more here in case others want to comment. We shouldn't all need to go searching for this stuff.

According to Variety here, they were "stilettos". But also this from the Variety interviewer who wrote a Newsweek story on the murder: "After two teachers complained to the administration that Larry was disrupting instruction with his wardrobe, there was an email sent to the staff that said Larry was allowed to dress how he wanted."

NPR here: "a teen died for openly exploring his sexual identity." But it sounds like the name change was actually a way other kids had of teasing King: "Larry, I hear you're changing your name to Latisha".

And this from the filmmaker:

"And I just want to clarify that from what I found out about Larry, it was really a gender expression and gender identity kind of exploration that he was going through. Not so much his sexuality, which I didn't know until really much later when I started working with the center - the Gay and Lesbian Center in Los Angeles. ... The two weeks before his death, he was wearing the uniform still but wearing heels and wearing makeup, doing his hair in a feminine manner with a bow, sometimes earrings - you know, dangly, chandelier earrings, which were actually pretty cute. So I felt that that was even more shocking to me, that this was something that really was dealing with femininity and what was so wrong with being feminine."

The Newsweek story is interesting, too, here. I'm troubled by this: On the day of the murder..."He came to school dressed like any other boy: tennis shoes, baggy pants, a loose sweater over a collared shirt." So dressing in women's attire except for the day we have the most solid evidence about what clothes King wore. At best inconsistent. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 21:41, 10 October 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into this and commenting. Based on what you found and on what I've been able to find, I believe that changing the adjective in the lede from gay to transgender is unwarranted because it violates WP:V and WP:NOR. We have multiple reliable sources calling Larry gay, and we have none calling him trans. Of course, he may have been both, but we don't know that, and it is inappropriate to make such speculations in the article. I'm assuming good faith both on the part of the person who made the change, which flew in under the radar back in July, and of the person who more recently changed all the pronouns, but I do believe that changes of that sort shouldn't be made —or at least they shouldn't stick—without consensus. The article, which was a lightning rod on several occasions, became stable and stayed that way for a long time. I have restored the stable version. (Apologies for nuking two housekeeping edits, one from a bot, in the process. I couldn't determine from the diffs or the edit summaries what they actually changed.) Rivertorch's Evil Twin (talk) 20:00, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

I guess I agree. The bot properly reversed some vandalism that's gone now. But shouldn't you add the fact that the crime was the subject of an HBO documentary, with a citation to its website?

It's Valentine Road, cite web|title=Documentaries: Valentine Road|url=http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/valentine-road#/documentaries/valentine-road/index.html%7Cpublisher=HBO%7Caccessdate=October 10, 2014

The director has a (minimal) entry on WP, too. Bmclaughlin9 (talk) 20:37, 13 October 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, yes. The wording was a problem but the documentary should be mentioned. Sorry, am RL rushing but will try to get to it soon, if no one beats me to it (hint hint). Rivertorch's Evil Twin (talk) 14:02, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Article title/pronouns

It appears that there are several contributors concerned about the victim's name/pronouns used. It does appear from some sources King was transgender and used the name "Leticia." As I've observed with other trans victims, their preferred names have been used, such as Leelah Alcorn. I've reverted the changes for now until we can reach a consensus, but I do agree that if King was trans, the preferred name should be used.

• Washington Post article stating King's status as trans and preferred name.
• ACLU article claiming King used male pronouns at time of death.

Hope we can reach a decision.--GouramiWatcher^Talk 16:05, 17 April 2019 (UTC)

This is extremely important, and it should be changed out of respect to the trans community and to the victim. MickRide808 (talk) 19:59, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

Incorrect name and pronouns.

Why were my edits reversed? The article should correctly name and gender the subject who was clearly transgender. It's disrespectful to the dead not to do so. MickRide808 (talk) 19:52, 23 May 2021 (UTC)

You haven't made any edits to this page outside of the talk page. The name of the article is "Larry" and if the article should be changed to "Latisha" then it needs to be discussed here. It would need to be shown that this is was what the subject of the article desired with verifiable reliable sources. This Newsweek article says

Larry called his mom from Casa Pacifica to tell her that he wanted to get a sex-change operation. And he told a teacher that he wanted to be called Leticia, since no one at school knew he was half African-American. The teacher said firmly, "Larry, I'm not calling you Leticia." He dropped the idea without an argument.

That is all I am able to find at this time. Notfrompedro (talk) 02:03, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

All the editors of this article respect the dead (except the occasional vandal) and the current version is a product of consensus. The Wikipedia process of BOLD, revert, discuss cycle is at discuss. As you noted, at least two discussions have been started above but without continuing to reach a consensus. Newer scholarship that provides a fresh look at the events and can be incorporated in the article without being discussed first. Several citations already listed on the talk page could be added to the article with content on how reliable sources have dealt the issues in order to improve the article. Merely changing the pronouns and name has been reverted many times when there has been no discussion and consensus on the talk page. Fettlemap (talk) 03:48, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Notfrompedro, I've done some work on this article and I echo what Fettlemap says. The majority of sources I found refer to the child as Larry, even as they acknowledge his brief interest in being called Leticia. The problem is that there just isn't enough information for anyone to know for sure what he intended by that - was he joking? trying to irritate the teacher? being gender non-confirming? exploring something he might have not wanted to commit to? expressing a sincere desire to fully identify as a female? The horror of this murder is that he was killed before he could truly grow into himself, so we just don't know.

We can't extrapolate or make assumptions from his "girly" behavior - it's possible to be GNC but still identify as one's birth gender. It's possible the name thing was a whim and he would have discarded it in another week. It's equally possible that he would have transitioned at some point and lived a full life as a very happy woman. Ultimately, I think in this case where it is so ambiguous, we have to rely on what the sources say. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 20:44, 24 May 2021 (UTC)

Oh hell, I just realized I pinged the wrong person. Notfrompedro, if you're reading this - sorry. MickRide808 - I meant to ping you to read the above message. ♠PMC♠ (talk) 04:20, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

@Premeditated Chaos: I wondered why it was me you pinged but I still appreciated reading your view on the subject. No harm no foul. Notfrompedro (talk) 15:13, 25 May 2021 (UTC)

Failed Verification sources?

What's up with the significant number of times that there are sources listed as failing verification? From a quick look as well, most of them seem to apply to the same source(s) being reused over and over again, and in sections that specifically look to criticise King's conduct or otherwise defend his murderer. I feel like this is something that should be sorted promptly, so as not to spread misinformation/speculation or otherwise verify what actually happened to the best of our knowledge. TheShinji69 (talk) 02:42, 19 April 2024 (UTC)