[News] [MI, USA] ACLU questions Genesee County sheriff over treatment of transgender jail inmate
Stephanie Stevens
ACLU questions Genesee County sheriff over treatment of transgender jail inmate
Published: Thursday, August 19, 2010, 5:32 PM
Updated: Thursday, August 19, 2010, 9:15 PM
Ron Fonger | Flint Journal
GENESEE COUNTY -- A transgender Flint woman says she was mistreated
during a six-day stay at the county jail and the American Civil
Liberties Union is coming to her aid.
Rochelle A. Mead, 38, who lives as a woman but remains a male
anatomically, said she was insulted by jail workers, denied medication
and not permitted to leave the holding cell where she was kept.
[Photo: The American Civil Liberties Union is standing up for Rochelle
Mead, of Flint, a transgender 38-year-old, who claims she was
mistreated and denied female hormones while in the Genesee County
jail.]
The ACLU has told county Sheriff Robert Pickell that the group has
concerns about how Mead, who was jailed on a warrant for driving with
an expired license, was treated in jail.
Pickell said his office did "everything right" in dealing with Mead by
keeping her separated from other inmates. He declined to talk about
some issues tied to the case because of privacy concerns.
The sheriff said he will discuss details of Mead's case with the ACLU,
providing it with a day-to-day breakdown of her time in jail but would
not give in to Mead's request to be housed with female inmates.
"I think the ACLU has a right to question (and) I will respond," Pickell said.
Mead, who moved to Flint from Arizona six years ago, is a registered
sex offender, having been convicted of immoral and indecent acts in
Wyoming in 1995. She said Thursday that the conviction was related
exposing herself to a minor.
She had gone to the Michigan State Police post in Flint Township to
re-register as a sex offender when she was arrested for the
outstanding traffic warrant.
Born male, Mead said she has been unable to work because she is disabled.
She has been diagnosed with "gender sysphoria," according to Jay
Kaplan, staff attorney for the ACLU of Michigan's Lesbian Gay Bisexual
and Transgender Project. The condition means Mead identifies with a
gender different than her biological one.
Mead is undergoing female hormone therapy and presenting herself as a
female 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Kaplan said in a letter to
Pickell.
"She has obtained a legal name change and her driver's license
reflects her female gender," the letter says. The state sex registry
also lists Mead as a female.
<http://www.mipsor.state.mi.us/PSORSearchDetails.aspx?oid=16014341>
Kaplan said he wasnts to talk to Pickell about the jail's policies on
transgender inmates, incuding where they are housed, their access to
medication and how they are "treated by jail staff concerning gender
pronouns and their ability to express themselves in accordance with
their gender identity."
Mead said her problems in the county jail started almost immediately
after she was booked on July 14. She was not given female hormones,
she and Pickell agree, although Kaplan said they were brought to the
jail and she had a prescription for them.
The sheriff said Mead wasn't in jail long enough for him to make
arrangements for her to receive hormone therapy.
Mead said she also did not receive seizure medications until she
experienced a seizure in the holding cell. After the seizure, she
claimed, a lieutenant told her, "You're a (expletive) man and you
always will be. You're not going nowhere."
Pickell disputed Mead's claim about that and other allegations but
agreed he keeps transgender inmates separate from others.
The question of how to house transgender people in jails and prisons
has been increasingly asked across the country, according to Julie
Nemecek, a former professor at Spring Arbor University.
The university fired Nemecek in 2007 after she came out as
transgender, saying she violated the Christian college's morals
agreement that all staffers must sign.
Nemecek said she doesn't fault Pickell for separating transgender
inmates from the rest of the jail population but said she is troubled
by Mead's claim that she was not allowed to continue taking hormones
while in jail.
"That needs to be treated as a serious medical condition," Nemecek said.
Mead said she's protesting the policy and talking about her experience
so that others will benefit and "more people will understand
transgender people."
"There's not just one or two of us," she said.
There's also the possibility that Mead will be back in jail soon.
She said she's facing a new charge of driving with a suspended license
and believes "I might be going back."
If she does, Pickell said Mead will not be housed with other women as she wants.
"What other woman wants to go into the shower with a person" in the
process of changing her gender?, he said. "Jails were not designed"
for that kind of situation.
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