Only in Jersey: Attention seeking trannie seeks drama after being called 'sir"

04/01/2014

When Amira Gray, a 26-year-old transgender woman from Maryland, was pulled over while driving through North Bergen six months ago, she was humiliated, she said, by the police officer calling her "Mr." And "sir."

Amira Gray is suing the North Bergen Police Department for discrimination, alleging that she endured verbal abuse from officers.

Almost three weeks ago, Gray sued the North Bergen Police Department, saying she was a victim of discrimination, targeted because of her sexual orientation, and accused of driving on a suspended license despite proof that it was not suspended. Police impounded her car.
The encounter, Gray said in a recent interview, left her "more saddened than angry."
"I think it came from misunderstanding rather than bigotry," she said.
Phil Swibinski, a spokesman for North Bergen, said in a statement that the township's Police Department follows a strict policy of non-discrimination. He said township attorneys are reviewing Gray's lawsuit, but declined to comment further.
Cases like Gray's have raised questions about how transgender suspects are treated in New Jersey by arresting officers and in police holding cells, county jails and state prisons. Police and corrections agencies say they've been making adjustments for years to accommodate transgender suspects at the time of arrest and during processing for incarceration. Advocates, however, say transgender people continue to be routinely harassed and mistreated by law enforcement, and some are taking their fight to the courts.
Gray's attorney also is representing a transgender man who is suing Jersey City over having been placed in a holding cell with women despite identifying himself as male.
Transgender is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth, and may include persons undergoing sex changes or cross-dressers, according to GLAAD, an advocacy group formerly known as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.
But it is hardly clear cut since not everyone agrees on the definition of transgender.
Those who have undergone surgery or hormone therapy may easily be identified as transgender, but not undergoing those procedures does not preclude someone from being transgender, advocates said.
"A lot of transgender people might never have surgery," said Robin Maril, legislative counsel at Human Rights Campaign, a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender rights group based in Washington. "They don't see it as necessary, and it doesn't necessarily impact their identity."
A combination of self-identification, appearance and manner is what determines whether someone is transgender, Maril said, adding that a person who identifies herself as a woman should be treated as a woman, or as a man if that's how he identifies himself.
Transgender inmates constitute a small fraction of the inmate population in jails and prisons. The Bergen County Jail, for instance, admits two to three transgender inmates a year, said Patrick Hughes, director of behavioral health at the jail.
State prisons in New Jersey, which house a total of about 22,000 inmates, currently have 16 transgender inmates, said Matthew Schuman, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections.
But the legal and safety dilemmas they pose for correctional facilities far outstrip their relatively small number.
"One complaint that we often hear is that jails do not respect the gender identity of the people they deal with," said Jeanne LoCicero, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey.
That often results in transgender inmates ending up with the male population despite identifying themselves as women, or vice versa, she said.
Corrections officials say they give a lot of weight to an inmate's self-identification, but an inmate will also be medically evaluated and interviewed by a psychiatrist before a placement decision is made.
The state Department of Corrections follows a similar protocol, but the process there involves long-term concerns because inmates stay longer in state prisons.
Schuman, the department spokesman, said an inmate will be housed with other inmates of the same sex until a sex change occurs. If a transgender inmate - like any other inmate - requires some form of protective custody, appropriate arrangements can be made, he said.
Maril said that transgender inmates often wind up in protective custody - also known as solitary confinement - because of the problems in classifying them as male or female.
"And that is usually a more punitive setting," she said.
Bill Maer, spokesman for the Passaic County Sheriff's Department, said housing assignments for transgender inmates are done on a case-by-case basis to ensure the inmate's safety, and whether the placement would present management or security problems. Transgender inmates at the jail are allowed to shower separately from other inmates, and no cross-gender strip searches are permitted, he said.
The problems for some transgender suspects begin before they are sent to jail or prison, however, with accusations they are lying to officers or trying to conceal their identity.
Another client
Gray's attorney, Kevin Costello, said he represented another transgender client who sued the Jersey City Police Department in February, alleging that he was placed with women in a holding cell after being arrested in February for shoplifting, despite identifying himself as a man.
The client, Shakeem Malik Holmes, is a female-to-male transgender who dresses as a man, Costello said.
According to a lawsuit that Costello filed in Hudson County Superior Court, the police fingerprinted Holmes and found that the fingerprints were linked to the name Malika Holmes, which was Holmes' birth name.
The officers assumed that Holmes was giving them false information and began screaming at him, the lawsuit alleges. Holmes eventually explained to the officer that he had legally changed his name.
"After learning this, the officer said, 'So what are you?' To which plaintiff responded, 'I am a male,' " the lawsuit states.
The officer then asked whether Holmes had had surgery, and Holmes said he had not. "So you're actually a woman? I have to put you with females then because that's what you are," the lawsuit said the officer replied.
Costello said the police officer had no legal authority to do that.
"Who is that officer to tell a person that they are male or female?" he said. "Once my client said he was male, the officer doesn't need to ask any other questions."
The police, however, say that they need to ask those questions because criminals often change their names and appearances to conceal their identities. Officers are trained to see it as a red flag when they come across someone with multiple names, they say.
"It could be a problem for the police if the information on someone's driver's license doesn't match what they are seeing in person," said Robert Galantucci, a Hackensack attorney who often represents police officers.
Jersey City officials did not respond to a request for comment.

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