The First Trans Identified Male Has Been Executed By Lethal Injection In Missouri

Also, Missouri Says "Fuck Your Pronouns", But Only On A Technicality

Scott “Amber” McLaughlin

The media is calling him “the first transgender woman to be executed in the United States”.

I’m just going to call it what it really is: a man who murdered a woman then defiled her corpse by raping her was sentenced to death by lethal injection has been executed.

Justice has been done.

When Beverly Guenther got off work on Nov. 20, 2003, she was attacked on her employer’s parking lot in Earth City, a light industrial area across the Missouri River from St. Charles. Her assailant stabbed her, raped her, and took her body that night to a wooded area off South Broadway in St. Louis, near Bellerive Park.

Before her death, Guenther, 45, of Moscow Mills, Mo., had filed written statements of domestic violence in Lincoln County against a former boyfriend with whom she had broken up that summer. She wrote that she had been repeatedly harassed by phone and in person by Scott McLaughlin, and at one point, she said, he had jumped out of bushes at her on the Earth City lot. A hearing on her domestic violence allegations was set for Nov. 21, 2003, the morning after her disappearance.

On the night she disappeared, a worried neighbor at her mobile home park called her boss, who called police and they found Guenther’s pickup truck on the parking lot where she worked, along with a trail of blood. Guenther was already dead when her killer raped her, an autopsy showed.

McLaughlin, 33, of Wright City, admitted the murder in audiotaped and videotaped statements to police but never admitted the sexual assault on either an alive or dead victim. He led police to her corpse after his confessions.

What is particularly galling about this case is the way the media has reported it, with CNN leading the charge by saying “McLaughlin’s execution – the first in the US this year – is unusual: Executions of women in the United States are already rare.”

I’m going to go ahead and stop you right here, CNN: McLaughlin wasn’t a woman and Missouri didn’t execute one so the fact that a woman being executed on death row is rare, it still is because it wasn’t until three years ago that Scott decided that while he was sitting on death row that this would be the perfect opportunity to find his true gender identity after having committed a heinous crime.

This was also not the crime of a woman - only men commit rape and only because you have to have a penis to do it.

And only men have penises.

A statement from the office of Governor Michael L. Parson titled “State To Carry Out Sentence Of Scott McLaughlin” said "McLaughlin’s conviction and sentence remains after multiple, thorough examinations of Missouri law. McLaughlin stalked, raped, and murdered Ms. Guenther. McLaughlin is a violent criminal, Ms. Guenther's family and loved ones deserve peace. The State of Missouri will carry out McLaughlin’s sentence according to the Court's order and deliver justice."

At first blush I thought this statement was rather based for having called him by his supposed deadname but upon further examination I realize now that Missouri was just following the law as Scott never petitioned the courts to have his name legally changed to Amber.

Had it been up to me, I’d have denied such a petition.

One also wonders what would have been said if such a petition was granted. Would Missouri tout this as having executed a woman on death row?

I will say this again: Scott McLaughlin’s transition was the result of a lawyer advising a client his best options. Any lawyer that wouldn't advise a male murderer that his best bet if facing capital punishment is feigning trans would be remiss for the best outcome for client.

Scott McLaughlin was just another pathetic man trying to forestall his appointment with the hangman’s noose. Does anyone seriously believe that Scott - who has lived his entire life as a heterosexual man and dated women exclusively - suddenly came down with gender dysphoria?

I sure as hell don’t.