Random Tragic Story Of Brandon Teena, Whose Case Inspired 'Boys Don't Cry' (16 items)

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  (#1) Teena Grew Up In Poverty, And Was Allegedly Named After The Family Dog

  JoAnn Brandon was only 13 when she had her first child while living in a low-income trailer park near Lincoln, NE. In 1972, the then 16-year-old JoAnn was pregnant again when her 19-year-old husband died in a car accident, reportedly as a result of alcohol-related circumstances.

  A teenage widow, JoAnn dropped out of community college to collect disability and gave birth to a baby whom she named Teena Renae Brandon. Baby Teena was supposedly named after the family dog.
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  (#2) Teena Endured Assault As A Child

  Teena and his older sister Tammy were both allegedly molested by an uncle when they were young. Tammy reported it to their grandmother, but the woman ignored her. The same grandmother later used slurs to refer to Teena and pressed charges against him when he pilfered from her. At the same time, his mother described Teena as "the most lovable person" and later revealed that he was an outspoken person who, while growing up, wanted to be a commercial artist.

  In high school, Teena was allegedly assaulted by a classmate, but he dropped the charges after reporting the crime. His junior year, Brandon attempted suicide by antibiotic pills. He spent time in the Lincoln Crisis Program that diagnosed him with a personality disorder and as "transsexual" in 1992 - a word that is now considered incorrect and outdated.
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  (#3) He Began Living As A Man While In High School And Dated Multiple Girls

  During puberty, Teena started dressing as a man. He bound his chest with "Ace bandages and two baggy shirts" and stuffed his pants with a rolled pair of socks to give the illusion of having male genitalia. He cut his hair short, sometimes wore suits and ties to school, and started dating girls. He fully embraced a male identity and frequently used varients of his true moniker, including Billy Brinson, Billy Brandon, and Brandon Teena.

  After dropping out of high school in 1990, Teena started dating a 13-year-old named Liz whom he met when she called a wrong number and reached him instead. After a brief relationship, he moved on to a 14-year-old girl named Heather, to whom he even allegedly proposed. Heather was followed by a string of relationships with other girls, on whom Teena reportedly lavished gifts and affection.

  Teena told his girlfriends several different stories about himself, including that he was born intersex - a hermaphrodite, as it was termed at the time - that he'd had gender-reassignment surgery, or that he was at the beginning of the surgery process. Among all his girlfriends, Teena was reputable as an excellent kisser and lover; his popularity in rural Nebraska allegedly soared.
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  (#4) He Treated His Girlfriends Well

  Every girlfriend interviewed by the press had the same praise for Teena: he was a great kisser, a fantastic lover, charming, handsome, and treated them kindly. He proposed to several women during his brief dating career and lavished them with presents, meals, and movies. He ordered limousines to pick them up, sent love poems and cards, and, most importantly, "never pressured women for sex," according to the feature story about his life and death in The Village Voice.

  Teena started dating Lana Tisdel in 1992, and it seemed he may have finally found his match. "Brandon was nicer and looked better than any boy I'd ever been with," Tisdel later told journalist Donna Minkowitz in the original Village Voice article that launched mainstream awareness of Teena's story. "With a lot of guys around here, it [doesn't] matter what the woman wants, but Brandon wouldn't tell a woman to do anything - he asked. He knew how a girl liked to be treated."
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  (#5) He Was In And Out Of Trouble For Two Years Before His Death

  Teena began dating girls in 1990 and launched a string of relationships and brief engagements that continued over the next few years. In order to treat the women he dated in a way he felt they deserved, Teena turned to theft to secure the needed cash. He took ATM cards, forged checks, snagged credit cards, and allegedly even used the money of the women he was dating to buy them presents. Auto theft, forgery, and petty theft were among the 18 crimes with which Teena was charged by the time of his death.

  In October 1991, Teena was arrested for forgery; he received 18 months of probation in March 1992. He missed court dates and probation-related sessions with counselors, prompting the court to issue a warrant for his arrest in 1993. He moved to Falls City, NE, in November 1993 and was held under a false name soon after. While in court on December 15, 1993, for that charge, he was caught for another forgery of checks.
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  (#6) He Moved Into His Girlfriend Lisa Lambert's House

  Teena violated his probation in 1993 and subsequently moved out of the county and in with a new friend, Lisa Lambert, in an attempt to avoid another arrest and prison time. They lived in a dilapidated farmhouse in a rural area, along with Lambert's baby from a previous relationship.

  Teena's new group of friends in the area included 17-year-old Lana Tisdel, her older sister Leslie, Lana's ex-boyfriend (and former convict) John Lotter, and his pal Marvin Nissen. The new friend group spent a lot of time hanging out, with Teena reportedly taking an interest in the younger Tisdel sister. The men purportedly assumed Teena was a biological male. 
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  (#7) A Forgery Arrest In 1993 Outed Teena As Trans To The Whole Community

  Teena reportedly began engaging in illegal behavior around 1990 or 1991. Forgery was chief among his crimes, and Brandon often used the ill-gotten funds to purchase gifts for his many successive girlfriends. He was arrested for one forgery crime in October 1991, then again for another one two years later on December 15, 1993.

  Teena was taken into the county jail, but placed with the female inmates. News of Teena's identity quickly spread across the small Nebraska town. The story reached the friends with whom Teena had been palling around, John Lotter and Tom Nissen, who hadn't previously known Teena's story.
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  (#8) John Lotter And Tom Nissen Assaulted And Beat Teena

  Teena was released from jail and resumed his life at Lisa Lambert's home while carrying on a relationship with Lana Tisdel. But shortly after, at a party on Christmas Eve of 1993, Teena was indecently and involuntarily exposed and assaulted by John Lotter and Tom Nissen, according to a report he filed with the local police the week it happened. According to The Atlantic, "Upon discovering Brandon was a biological female, Lotter and Nissen became obsessed with proving his anatomy to Lana, forcibly disrobing him in a bathroom on Christmas Eve, and hours later, raping him."

  They'd heard about Teena's biological sex, and were enraged at the revelation. The bigoted duo threatened to execute Teena, but only left him greatly injured from their attack. He was treated in the hospital and tested positive for traces of semen.
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  (#9) The Sheriff Ignored Teena's Sexual Assault Report

  Instead of arresting John Lotter and Tom Nissen, Sheriff Charles Laux taunted Teena during an interrogation. According to a tape later released by documentary filmmakers and acquired from the Richardson County Sheriff's Department, Laux said:

  He didn't fondle you any, huh. Didn't that kind of amaze you? Doesn't that kind of, ah, get your attention somehow that he would've put his hands in your pants and play with you a little bit?

  According to a report in The Atlantic, "Despite ample evidence, Laux neglected to apprehend and charge Lotter and Nissen, giving them the opportunity to plan and execute Brandon's murder... [one week later] on December 31, 1993." 
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  (#10) Tom Nissen And John Lotter Killed Teena And Two Others A Week After The Assault

  The night of the homicide, Teena was staying at Lisa Lambert's farmhouse in Humboldt. Philip DeVine, a friend and Leslie Tisdel's ex-boyfriend, was staying there as well. Lambert's young son, Tanner, was also inside the home when Tom Nissen and John Lotter arrived that night. According to a later report by Tisdel, Lotter told her "I feel like killing someone," shortly before he did.

  Lambert's mother discovered the bodies the following day, all shot "execution style," as reported by the Village Voice. DeVine was slumped over the couch in the living room where he'd been sleeping, having sustained two gunshots to the head. Lambert sustained three shots to her chest and head. Teena was shot twice under the chin and then stabbed in his liver.
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  (#11) Tom Nissen Turned On John Lotter During Their Trials

  After Tom Nissen and John Lotter were arrested for the slayings of Teena, Lisa Lambert, and Philip DeVine, Nissen turned on his partner in crime and testified that Lotter was the mastermind in the Humboldt farmhouse that night. Lotter received the death penalty in Nebraska, while Nissen was given a sentence of life imprisonment.

  Nissen rescinded his testimony against Lotter in 2007, admitting he was the primary assailant and that Lotter was merely his accomplice. As of 2018, Lotter is on death row at Tecumseh State Correctional Institution; Nissen is at the Lincoln Correctional Center.
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  (#12) A Documentary About Teena Shed Light On The Sheriff's Negligence

  Filmmakers Gréta Olafsdóttir and Susan Muska produced The Brandon Teena Story in 1998. The film was well-received critically, nominated for a GLAAD award and winning honors at both the Berlin Film Festival and the Vancouver Film Festival. 

  The documentary uncovered and publicly broke Sheriff Laux's interrogation of Teena after he first reported the assault, highlighting a clear lapse in the sheriff's commitment to duty. The filmmakers used transcripts of calls and reports, previously unreleased footage, photos of Teena, and a few recreated scenes to frame the narrative. It also interviewed several of the key players in the events leading up to December 31, 1993.

  According to a review of the film in Variety magazine:

  One of the most disturbing segments of the film is the recording of an interview in which, after Brandon’s rape, he was quizzed by Falls City’s sheriff, whose prejudice against homosexuality and transsexuality is evident throughout the exchange. Dealing with a youth who has just undergone an extremely traumatic experience, the law officer shows scant sympathy or insight into Brandon’s plight.

  Teena's case turned out to be an important one for prosecuting crimes against LGBTQ+-identifying people.
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  (#13) 'Boys Don't Cry' Was Not Entirely Accurate - And Omitted A Victim

  Writer and director Kimberly Peirce penned Boys Don't Cry after reading the Village Voice piece about Teena. Peirce herself claimed she "fell in love with Brandon" and needed to tell his story. She did heavy research, including trips to his actual hometown and the place of his passing, and compiled thousands of pages of official court transcripts, trying to piece together what happened.

  In the process of telling his story for the big screen, however, Peirce admitted thinking "the story [grew] stronger as she deleted material and altered facts." In doing so, the filmmaker inadvertently angered both Lana Tisdel as well as her sister Leslie and reportedly left other people familiar with the true story upset and shocked.

  For example, Philip DeVine - the young man staying at the house where the slaughter took place, and who became the third shooting victim - was removed from the film completely. Peirce reportedly didn't want to introduce Leslie as another character in order to explain the presence of DeVine, Leslie's ex. Peirce's film also placed Lana herself at the scene, downplayed the hostile actions of Sheriff Laux, and left out the alleged breakup of Teena and Lana prior to the homicides.
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  (#14) The Movie Launched Some Lawsuits

  Despite her passion for the Teena story and her intensive research, Kimberly Peirce and her Oscar-winning film, Boys Don't Cry, came under scrutiny and lawsuits after it was released in 1999. Lana Tisdel (played in the film by Chloe Sevigny) sued the filmmakers and Fox Searchlight Pictures, "alleging that because of the film, friends and family members now scorn her as 'a lesbian who did nothing to stop a murder,'" according to a Los Angeles Times report.

  Author Aphrodite Jones also sued the film's producers, contending her nonfiction book on the case, All She Wanted, was supposed to have been made into a movie starring Drew Barrymore, but that Fox Searchlight illegally conjoined her work with Peirce's to result in Boys Don't Cry.
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  (#15) Teena's Mother Eventually Received Financial Compensation

  In April 2001, Teena's mother, JoAnn Brandon, was awarded $5,000 for the wrongful death of her son, $7,000 for infliction of emotional distress, $80,000 for mental suffering, and $6,223.20 to pay for his funeral.

  Sheriff Laux was found negligent in properly protecting Teena after he had agreed to testify against his attackers and was clearly in danger. 
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  (#16) In 2018, The 'Village Voice' Writer Apologized For Her Insensitive Language And Attitude Toward The Trans Community

  On June 20, 2018, The Village Voice ran an apology from journalist Donna Minkowitz that detailed and addressed issues with her original 1994 piece about Brandon Teena. Minkowitz revisited interactions with people during her reporting of the story, including Teena's mother, JoAnn Brandon, and acknowledged grief and confusion in the midst of what are now considered homophobic and vitriolic statements. Minkowitz's misinformation of trans people manifests in her occasional reference to Teena as "she" and "her" instead of his preferred, masculine pronouns.

  Over the course of the piece, Minkowitz also called Teena a "gender offender," "wonder-boychik," "a cross-dresser," and "butch." She admitted the article had "implicit anti-trans framing" surrounding the identity, preferences, and choices of the story's subject, though claimed part of the reason was the overarching lack of education and cultural stigma barely enabled proper dialogue at the time. 

  The article clarified Minkowitz's use of her own personal hardships, including sexual assault and her identity as a lesbian, which she admitted biased the characterization of Teena as a self-hating LGBTQ+ person. It could not, however, undo any damage done by the original article's significant mischaracterization and disrespectful tone where trans people were concerned. Though there is a long way yet to go in de-stigmatizing and creating legal protections for trans people, the dialogue of inclusivity and the civil rights movement overall is being optimistically, if slowly, elevated. 

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