A transgender woman was attacked and sexually assaulted at Goodspeed Family Pier in Madison, Wisconsin, in the early morning of August 29. Police arrested two men after the violence, with the department recording tentative allegations that include second-degree sexual assault with use of force, strangulation and suffocation, battery, and false imprisonment.
The police response began after a bystander reported a disturbance at approximately 4:10 a.m. University of Wisconsin–Madison officers arrived at the Lake Mendota pier and opened the investigation that became case 26-1336. The woman’s name has not been made public.
Police identified the arrested men as Yorfred H. Marcano Gutierrez, 31, and Arturo R. Santos Albujas, 27. Investigators said the woman had met the men at a bar earlier before they walked to the pier, where the violence occurred as she tried to leave.
Her control over her own body and movement was breached simultaneously, placing multiple forms of coercion within the same episode of violence.
Wisconsin law adds a separate accountability issue for trans people targeted because of who they are. The state’s hate-crime penalty enhancer allows increased punishment when someone intentionally selects a victim because of race, religion, color, disability, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry. Gender identity and gender expression are absent from that list.
For trans people deliberately targeted because they are trans, that omission means Wisconsin’s hate-crime law provides no explicit gender-identity basis for enhanced punishment.
For the woman who survived at Goodspeed Family Pier, the arrests begin rather than complete the question of accountability. The men accused of attacking her now face that demand because of what police documented against her that morning.
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