I have mixed opinions on the subject there are multiple issues here:
When it comes to being a society of spectators, that's a problem with the laws in society more than anything. Whether it's viable for someone to be a good samaritan varies greatly from area to area, and of course on recent legal trends. For example after the famous stabbing of Kitty Genovese there was a lot of loosening of the laws allowing for random people to get involved to stop an act of violence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Genovese
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
What those links don't get into is the simple fact that even decades ago when this happened people were concerned that getting involve in a situation like that could get them in trouble. If you stay step in to protect someone, and injure the assailant, you can likely be held responsible for numerous criminal charges, and/or be used by the defendant as an excuse, by claiming you inflamed the incident futher through intervention and thus can be blamed for their action. People being concerned about witnesses, because those people can be called in to testify against you, whether they agree with you or not, simply saying they know you got involved and being able to confirm certain facts from a quick response can land you in a lot of trouble.
We've seen the applicable laws loosened when dealing with good Samaritans, but inevitably as you get further and further away from whatever incident caused that trend, the laws tighten up again.
Like it or not, there are some good reasons for this and a sort of "lesser of two evils" mentality because of how Good Samaritan laws can very much lead to acts of vigilantism, not to mention the valid concern that people WILL overreact to a situation, and committ crimes far worse than what they were stepping in to prevent. After all, if some good Samaritan steps in and stops a guy from hitting his girlfriend and paralyzes him for life in the course of administering a beating while the guy fights back against the intervention, it opens all kinds of questions, and in the end people wind up not wanting to get involved because there is no way of telling how the situation will turn out. Self sacrifice might be a heroic thing, but that's because it's not expected or required, and getting involved as a Good Samaritan might very well BE an act of self sacrifice with the person doing it being sent to jail.
Of course there are other issues involved as well here, such as in domestic abuse cases both of the people involved turning on an outsider who gets involved. A battered wife or girlfriend is not nessicarly going to be thankful towards their apparent savior right then and there. Police run into that problem all the time, and random citizens don't have anywhere near the lattitude that police officers do.
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The other side of this issue is of course responsibility for one's own behaviors. Someone who embraces an extreme lifestyle, needs to expect an extreme reaction in reaction to their behavior. Minorities of whatever sort need to understand that the majority of people have every right to disapprove of them, and when they do something, to understand their their own desicians can cause a backlash.
Let's change the situation here, by going with another minority group: White Supremicists. Now imagine for a second that some White Supremacist walks into a burger joint and starts insulting minorities. A couple of big black or hispanic guys who had been insulted jump him coming out of the bathroom, and the guy behind the counter records it and puts it up on Youtube.
A lot of the people defending the transgendered person here, would view that situation very differantly, the reason being that they like or support one minority group, but not the other. Both have the right to do what they are doing, but are embracing extreme lifestyles which provoke a substantial number of people, and when they choose to be aggressive in promoting whatever they are into this is a risk they take.
This is not to say that in cases of assault the people attacking them should be absolved of responsibility, however there is such a thing as mitigating factors, and being provoked.
The thing is that given the left wing, politically correct bias in that article, not a lot of attention is being spent on the accusations of the people making the attack. Did this transgender person make unwelcome advances towards a boyfriend? How much did they persist? Was there any words exchanged between the transvestite and the girls BEFORE the ambush that provoked the situation?
All of these things can contribute to the situation, and really for all comments about being a good samaritan they would sure as heck influance whether I'd get involved or just call the police/ambulance to sort out the aftermath. I for example would likely not jump in to defend a white supremacist who provoked a beating after lipping off to minorities. Sure it might be against the law for him to be assaulted, but when you take an extreme position, one has to understand that there is going to be a response when you push it to that kind of degree.
There is also no law saying you have to like a group of people. A fairly prevelant attitude among many people is they don't care about homosexuals and "transgenders" as long as they leave them alone. They might not approve, but feel that it's a lesser of evils compared to what would need to be done to get rid of them so to speak. On the other hand someone flamboyant enough to advertise it openly, and make passes, and scenes about the factor, isn't being "left alone". Like it or not, having limits on tolerance, does not make someone intolerant, anyone can be pushed.
In short, I think minorities with extreme behaviors need to take responsibility for those behaviors and watching themselves. Nobody is going to prevent you from a mode of dress, or speaking your mind, but take responsibility for it, and understand if your a walking aggravating factor, you should be prepared to deal with it. Whether you dress in cross gender clothing, insist on wearing a turban or religions/cultural dress, or tattoo an inverted pentagram with a swatstika in the middle on your forehead, you should expect a reaction when you interact with other people, and should not expect to be able to push their buttons and be absolved from responsibility for provoking them.
