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Laura Yuen
St. Paul, Minn.

Transgender woman released from prison after serving manslaughter sentence

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Chrishaun McDonald
CeCe McDonald
Courtesy of CeCe McDonald

A Minneapolis transgender woman who was imprisoned for killing a man who picked a fight with her was released Monday from a St. Cloud correctional facility.

In 2012, CeCe McDonald was sentenced to 41 months in prison after pleading guilty to fatally stabbing Dean Schmitz. Schmitz and his friends taunted McDonald with racist and anti-gay slurs.

McDonald served two-thirds of that time and will spend the remaining time under supervised release, which is standard practice.

McDonald's case galvanized LGBT community members who have faced harassment and hostility, said Michael Friedman, director of the Legal Rights Center in Minneapolis, which represented McDonald.

"The fact that there are horror stories around the country of people who ended up victimized and killed in those hate scenarios makes them feel very strongly about CeCe McDonald's right to protect herself in the situation she found herself," he said.

Friedman said transgender people routinely face life-threatening rage from outsiders.

"Self-defense can mean something different inside the mind of somebody who is trans and who is well aware of people who have been murdered simply for being trans," he said.

McDonald's story will be the subject of a documentary produced by Laverne Cox, a transgender actress in the show "Orange is the New Black."