Pathetic DC Corrections Department Needs Time In Woodshed

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Pathetic DC Corrections Department Needs Time In Woodshed

Opinion - Editorials

TS-Si

Saturday, 18 August 2007 20:30

Ms. Soto was mistreated; who is next?

TS-Si Opinion

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Springfield, VA, USA. We would be remiss if we did not address the latest fiasco involving the Washington, DC corrections system. The District's officers strip searched a female bodied person and then assigned her to facilities with male bodied persons.

This episode raises troubling questions — yet again — about the DC system and the safety of anyone ensnared by its incompetence.

The errors were system-wide and compounded from an initial mistaken report. The problem began on 28 April 2007. Police arrested Virginia Grace Soto, 47, on suspicion of prostitution. Although she told the two arresting officers she was a woman, officers thought her to be a man. Following an interview by a female officer from the city's Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit (GLLU), she was booked as a transgender man.

Soto then faced arrest on 14 July 2007. Police consulted her prior arrest record with the mistaken data and she was booked once again as a man.

Some observers say that Ms. Soto's appearance could be interpreted as that of a big boned woman. The basic problem was that officers could not distinguish between her anatomical sex and her appearance.

The D.C. correctional officers did the strip search when they were up close and personal. Must we provide them with target acquisition imagery and an elementary text on the physical differences between females and males?

After all, Ms. Soto was naked! She has a vagina and uterus, working ovaries, and breasts (size irrelevant) — aren't some of the officers themselves female? How hard could it have been to figure out that Ms. Soto is female?

Perhaps the problem is that for them, Ms. Soto was not a person, merely an object of curiosity.

It makes us wonder: were the boys having fun with a woman because she didn't meet their male expectations of what a woman should look like? If so, that would suggest a corollary: if a woman doesn't turn on a man's sexual expectations, is she then a target for male derision?

The inmates identified Ms. Soto as female as soon as they saw her naked but apparently the DC correctional officers are not as educated in these things as the inmates they supposedly guard.

We have long supported the efforts of DC's pioneering Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit (GLLU). Sadly, the unit got this situation very wrong at the outset and failed to follow up.

If a woman born and raised can be placed in the wrong detention cells, what hope is there for someone with Harry Benjamin Syndrome (HBS — aka Transsexuality)?

Both the GLLU and DC Corrections should wake up and smell the estrogen.

TS-Si.org Editorials convey the official positions of our organization, TS-Si. They do not necessarily reflect the opinion of TS-Si authors, partners, or affiliates. Signed articles by our contributing authors or referenced news sources do not constitute official policy. We welcome your comments. You can use the public form below or send private correspondence via the TS-Si Contact Page. We will not divulge any personal details or place you on a mailing list without your permission.

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Last Updated on Sunday, 11 November 2007 20:00

TS-Siis dedicated to the acceptance, legal protection, and medical treatment of individuals correcting the misalignment of their brains and their anatomical sex, while supporting their transition into society as hormonally reconstituted and surgically corrected citizens.

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