(Photo from Miami-Dade County Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Facebook)
Miami-Dade County Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation officers degraded, humiliated and abused three transgender people after being arrested at racial justice protests in 2020, a federal lawsuit accuses.
The complaint, filed in a U.S. District Court in Miami, claims correctional officers at Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center “abused and harassed” two trans women and a trans man based on their sex, disability and transgender status after they were arrested on “minor charges” during Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020. All charges against the three were later dropped.
The three were subjected to unlawful strip searches, repeated misgendering and intrusive questions about their genitalia from officers in the prison, according to the suit. Correctional staff also used derogatory and humiliating names such as “it,” ”hermaphrodite” and “woman … with a dick,” while removing gender-affirming accessories, like wigs, and isolating them in solitary confinement cells.
The plaintiffs – Gabriela Amaya Cruz, Christian Pallidine, and Ángel Jae Torres Bucci – named Miami-Dade County, MDCR director Daniel Junior and several jail employees in their complaint. The three plaintiffs are represented by attorneys from Transgender Legal Defense and Education Fund, the Harvard Law School LGBTQ+ Advocacy Clinic and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
A spokesperson for the Miami-Dade County Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation declined to comment on the case, citing pending litigation.
The lawsuit comes after nearly a year of unsuccessful attempts to resolve the case outside of litigation, according to the SPLC.
“I am still haunted by what happened to me at TGK,” said Pallidine, a trans man, in a press release. “I was strip searched by four officers. The only reason they did this to me is because I’m transgender. It’s important to me that what happened to me never happens to anyone else.”
Amaya Cruz added that she was “uncomfortable, embarrassed, dehumanized, and fully erased.”
Torres Bucci accused officers of trying to rip the hair out of their head “because they thought it was a wig.”
“Here, trans people were protesting violence against Black people, including Black trans people, when police and jail staff targeted them for anti-trans and ableist violence,” said Gabriel Arkles, Senior Counsel at TLDEF. “None of them should have been in jail at all. But once there, those charged with enforcing the law should have followed the law themselves and treated our clients decently.”
Lawyers argue that the county broke numerous other federal and state laws protecting the three trans people from discrimination and harm, including the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Prison Rape Elimination Act and Florida statutes on strip searches.
The suit seeks damages for injury suffered in custody and a declaration that the county’s actions violated the law.
