The Loophole That Killed Brandon Teena

He Passed as a Man in Falls City Until the Local Newspaper Printed His Name

Brandon Teena moved to Falls City, Nebraska, in November 1993 with check forgery warrants trailing him out of Lincoln, and no one in Richardson County knowing his name. He was transgender and passing. Five weeks later, he was dead, killed by two men who learned his biological sex from a newspaper crime report the local sheriff's office handed to the press after his arrest.

He passed easily as a man, but in mid-December, he was arrested for check forgery and booked into jail as a woman. Law enforcement released information about the arrest, and the local newspaper, the Falls City Journal, published a crime report identifying Brandon as female. That disclosure reached John Lotter and Marvin Nissen before the month was out. Brandon reported his rape to Sheriff Charles Laux. Laux told Lotter and Nissen that Brandon had reported the rape.

Brandon Teena was 21 years old when John Lotter and Marvin Nissen drove to a farmhouse near Humboldt, Nebraska and killed him on December 31, 1993. They also shot Lisa Lambert and Philip DeVine, two witnesses to Brandon's rape seven days prior. Lotter was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Nissen received three consecutive life terms.

The murder produced a film before it produced a law. Kimberly Peirce had read about the case in college and spent the next five years building a screenplay around it. Before Boys Don't Cry reached theaters, the press had spent years mangling Brandon's story. The Associated Press called him a "cross-dressing rape accuser." Playboy ran a piece calling his murder the "death of a deceiver." Even LGBTQ-friendly newspapers like The Village Voice bungled the coverage, misgendering Teena and portraying him as a lesbian who hated her body. These were mainstream American publications with national readerships, printing those characterizations without apparent hesitation.

Sheriff Charles Laux, during his interview of Brandon, seemed more interested in Brandon's self-identification as a man than in the rape and assault, often getting off track during questioning to discuss Brandon's personal life and gender identity. Laux disclosed Brandon's rape complaint to Lotter and Nissen, took no protective action, and forbade a deputy from arresting the pair despite holding Brandon's signed statement naming them as his attackers. Brandon's mother, Joann Brandon, sued Laux for negligence. The trial court found negligence and awarded $23,520 in damages. On appeal, the Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed the negligence finding and held Richardson County responsible for $80,000 in non-economic damages.

Boys Don't Cry opened in limited release in 1999, and became a critical hit, offering an empathetic portrait of a young person seeking love and acceptance at a time when transgender characters essentially did not exist on screen. Hilary Swank's performance won the Academy Award for Best Actress. The film now sits in the National Film Registry. The film gave Brandon Teena back his humanity to an audience that had been told he forfeited it. Six years after the Associated Press called him a cross-dressing rape accuser, Swank played him as a person whose story was worth knowing.

What the film could not do was close the courtroom door that Brandon Teena's murderer had walked through. The gay and trans panic defense allows defendants to argue a victim's sexual orientation or gender identity justified their violent actions. As of the most recent data from the Movement Advancement Project, 15 states and Washington, D.C. have explicitly prohibited its use. The defense is available in 35 states and five territories, with no federal ban in place. It does not function as a standalone acquittal strategy. Defendants layer the tactic onto traditional claims like provocation, diminished capacity, or self-defense, and have used it successfully to reduce charges and sentences.

A criminal justice professor at St. Edward's University in Texas studied 99 cases between 2000 and 2019 in which defendants invoked an LGBTQ+ panic defense. Two decades after Brandon Teena's murder produced national headlines, enough cases existed to fill a peer-reviewed study. On June 27, 2025, Senator Markey reintroduced the LGBTQ+ Panic Defense Prohibition Act in the Senate, a bill prohibiting use of the defense in federal courts. Since 2018, Congress has introduced comparable legislation in every session and passed none of it.

Kimberly Peirce spent five years making sure Brandon Teena's story outlived him. Congress has spent thirty years avoiding the same obligation.

@Santitos

@salinasmariasantos

Copyright © 2026 Maria Santos Salinas for FRONTeras.

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