A judge sentenced 17-year-old Richard Thomas of Oakland to seven years in prison today for setting agender teen Sasha Fleischman's skirt on fire (inflicting second and third degree burns) while aboard an AC Transit bus last November, CBS San Francisco reports.
SFist spoke with Fleischman's father, Karl Fleischman, whose thoughtful open letter last year explained the incident and Sasha's gender identity:
Another aspect of this story that has gotten a lot of attention is the fact that Sasha was wearing a skirt, "even though" Sasha appears to be a boy. The fact is that Sasha self-identifies as "agender" and prefers the pronouns "they," "them," and "their" when people refer to Sasha in the third person. (English doesn't have commonly used gender-neutral third-person singular pronouns yet.) Being agender simply means that the person doesn't feel that they are "either a boy or a girl."
"We have very mixed emotions about today," Fleischman told SFist.
"My first response when Richard came into the courtroom was 'Oh my god, he’s just a kid:' it just really struck me how young this kid looked, and our feeling and our stand all along has been that we didn’t think he should be tried as an adult."
As CBS San Francisco reports, the judge said Thomas will stay in juvenile hall until he turns 18 next year, when he will be transferred to prison. As part of a plea agreement, Thomas pleaded no contest to charges of felony assault and inflicting great bodily injury. An aggravated mayhem charge with a hate-crime enhancement that carried a sentence of up to life in prison was dropped.
Fleischman said his child, now a student at MIT, is trying to put the incident behind them: "I don’t think they’re really following this that closely: I think it’s Sasha’s way of dealing with this, I mean, they’ve got other things, there are problem sets to do. Getting used to be a freshman is a full-time job."
Fortunately, it sounds like Sasha's doing quite well: "Sasha has definitely found their people," said Fleischman, "They seem really happy there, and honestly not that interested with the case."
Here's Sasha and Karl:
All previous SFist coverage of the Sasha Fleischman case.
Photo: Karl Fleischman via HuffPo
