Who Gets To Determine A Hate Crime?

On Feb. 13, Sam Nordquist, a Black trans man from Minnesota, was found murdered in a field in upstate New York. He was 24 years old. The ongoing investigation suggests that Nordquist was subjected to prolonged physical and psychological torture for over a month before he was murdered. "No human being should have to endure what Sam endured," Major Kevin Sucher, commander of the state police troop in the region, said during a news conference. The New York State Police has charged seven people with murder.

The majority of the media appears to value Nordquist as a lurid true crime story rather than as a person. Nordquist's death has been widely reported on, with outlets tending to focus on the grisly details of his torture and death that have since emerged in court documents, all of which misgender Nordquist. Only a few queer outlets, such as Autostraddle, have attempted to paint a fuller picture of who Nordquist was as a person—how he spent his days (working at a group home for disabled adults), what he loved (nature, video games, TikTok, Puma sweatshirts, and cooking), and who loved him (his coworkers, his family, his friends, and his two adopted cats, Pumpkin and Storm).