Evacuees arrested for SHOWERING.
Sep. 10th, 2005 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
buggery(I lifted this entire entry word-for-word from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
elekdragon's post. I wish I could be more surprised, but the Bush administration has been persecuting transfolk as alleged security risks for years now... and the bathroom issue is an even older one. My own personal rant about this news would not have been substantially different.)
A 20-year-old transgendered Hurricane Katrina evacuee remained in the Brazos County Jail on Thursday, five days after being arrested for showering inside a women's bathroom at Reed Arena.
Arpollo Vicks of New Orleans and her 16-year-old cousin were arrested Sunday night for criminal trespass after Texas A&M University Police noticed the two exiting a women's shower facility at the shelter. The two were born male but live as women and consider themselves female, Vicks said Thursday in an interview from the jail.
They are the only people who have been arrested at the local shelters since the first one opened Aug. 31, shelter officials said.
Yes, because with all that's going on, it's the transgendered individuals who are the troublemakers.
Sure, she should have told EVERYONE she was transgendered instead of just one worker and then asked for special accomodations and opened herself to more harrassment and embarassment in an already frightening experience. Maybe she could have pinned a sign on her chest, so no one would be fooled.
/snark.
I just... I don't get how SHE'S the one to get arrested, for simply wanting a shower in a safe place. Could you imagine looking female but showering in a men's shower? Could you imagine, as a woman, showering with a bunch of men? If you can't, then you can understand just how she felt. Add to that the danger being transgendered adds to her life, along with everything else...
"They had been warned and basically told not to do that," said Elmer Schneider, chief of the University Police Department. "Did we want to arrest them? No. We were almost forced into it because we had warned them. To me, in this case, it was something of their own choosing."
(yes, the mean ol' tranny held you at gunpoint until you had no choice but to arrest her.)
Vicks said she did not request special accommodations, but that she did speak to a female volunteer and explained her situation.
Police and shelter officials said they were unaware of any such conversation.
Okay, if they WARNED them not to go there, then they knew they were transgendered and required accomodation. If they were aware of what's going on, then why didn't they do something other than arrest her?
*merf* Just woke up, and I'm already highly annoyed.
EDIT: She's been released(after five days still), is at a trans-friendly shelter, and were charges dropped. I'm glad she got out of there, but that doesn't excuse that it happened. the stupidity of it...
Brazos County Attorney Jim Kuboviak said he first became aware of the situation Friday. Upon reviewing police reports, he ordered that Vicks be released.
"[Vicks] lacked criminal intent to violate the law," Kuboviak said. "If [Vicks] had been rummaging through stuff or doing any harm, that would have been different."
And some more info from 365gay.com. She was held in an isolation cell, which is a blessing in some ways that she wasn't forced to stay with male criminals.
One of those calls was made by David Smith, HRC's VP for Policy to Bill Perry, the Vice Provost of A&M.
Smith said that he told Perry: "What you've done is take two victims of one of the worst natural disasters in history and arrest them when all they wanted to do is take a shower."
"When the inhumanity of that was made crystal clear they immediately reversed course," Smith told 365Gay.com.
She was there for five/six days, expected to raise 6,000$ in bail money in order to get out (when all she owns now is the clothes on her back), and then it has to be pointed out to them by hundreds of calls before the inhumanity was realized and she was released? Un-fucking-believable.
I fear for every person down there. And I still can't talk about this without getting seriously pissed off.
elekdragon's post. I wish I could be more surprised, but the Bush administration has been persecuting transfolk as alleged security risks for years now... and the bathroom issue is an even older one. My own personal rant about this news would not have been substantially different.)A 20-year-old transgendered Hurricane Katrina evacuee remained in the Brazos County Jail on Thursday, five days after being arrested for showering inside a women's bathroom at Reed Arena.
Arpollo Vicks of New Orleans and her 16-year-old cousin were arrested Sunday night for criminal trespass after Texas A&M University Police noticed the two exiting a women's shower facility at the shelter. The two were born male but live as women and consider themselves female, Vicks said Thursday in an interview from the jail.
They are the only people who have been arrested at the local shelters since the first one opened Aug. 31, shelter officials said.
Yes, because with all that's going on, it's the transgendered individuals who are the troublemakers.
Sure, she should have told EVERYONE she was transgendered instead of just one worker and then asked for special accomodations and opened herself to more harrassment and embarassment in an already frightening experience. Maybe she could have pinned a sign on her chest, so no one would be fooled.
/snark.
I just... I don't get how SHE'S the one to get arrested, for simply wanting a shower in a safe place. Could you imagine looking female but showering in a men's shower? Could you imagine, as a woman, showering with a bunch of men? If you can't, then you can understand just how she felt. Add to that the danger being transgendered adds to her life, along with everything else...
"They had been warned and basically told not to do that," said Elmer Schneider, chief of the University Police Department. "Did we want to arrest them? No. We were almost forced into it because we had warned them. To me, in this case, it was something of their own choosing."
(yes, the mean ol' tranny held you at gunpoint until you had no choice but to arrest her.)
Vicks said she did not request special accommodations, but that she did speak to a female volunteer and explained her situation.
Police and shelter officials said they were unaware of any such conversation.
Okay, if they WARNED them not to go there, then they knew they were transgendered and required accomodation. If they were aware of what's going on, then why didn't they do something other than arrest her?
*merf* Just woke up, and I'm already highly annoyed.
EDIT: She's been released(after five days still), is at a trans-friendly shelter, and were charges dropped. I'm glad she got out of there, but that doesn't excuse that it happened. the stupidity of it...
Brazos County Attorney Jim Kuboviak said he first became aware of the situation Friday. Upon reviewing police reports, he ordered that Vicks be released.
"[Vicks] lacked criminal intent to violate the law," Kuboviak said. "If [Vicks] had been rummaging through stuff or doing any harm, that would have been different."
And some more info from 365gay.com. She was held in an isolation cell, which is a blessing in some ways that she wasn't forced to stay with male criminals.
One of those calls was made by David Smith, HRC's VP for Policy to Bill Perry, the Vice Provost of A&M.
Smith said that he told Perry: "What you've done is take two victims of one of the worst natural disasters in history and arrest them when all they wanted to do is take a shower."
"When the inhumanity of that was made crystal clear they immediately reversed course," Smith told 365Gay.com.
She was there for five/six days, expected to raise 6,000$ in bail money in order to get out (when all she owns now is the clothes on her back), and then it has to be pointed out to them by hundreds of calls before the inhumanity was realized and she was released? Un-fucking-believable.
I fear for every person down there. And I still can't talk about this without getting seriously pissed off.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-10 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-10 05:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-10 05:10 pm (UTC)This - this is DEEPLY fucked up. I don't even know what to SAY about it. I want to jump up & down and SCREAM. Like you don't have enough trouble in your life ALMOST DROWNING IN YOUR HOUSE, let's give you a hard time over GENDER ISSUES.
And... geez, who'd guess, a bunch of folks from NOLA and some of them are trans? Let me just fall over with surprise. I bet we ARE going to hear about more things like this, as various queer people turn up at shelters.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-10 06:28 pm (UTC)At least she's out and the DA refused to file charges against her.
*Joins in with the Dinah-esque fury-screams*
no subject
Date: 2005-09-10 08:43 pm (UTC)This time.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-10 10:30 pm (UTC)