A transgender woman jailed in San Diego was placed in a cell with men, one of whom beat her and fractured her jaw before deputies intervened, the woman said in a lawsuit against San Diego County and its sheriff’s office.
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When Kristina Frost was detained on Nov. 25, 2020, she said, she was repeatedly misgendered by San Diego jail staffers despite her telling them that she was transgender and despite her driver’s license stating her gender, according to a lawsuit filed this week in a federal court in San Diego. After deputies escorted Frost to a “minimally monitored” cell with three men “against her wishes,” according to the lawsuit, one of the men waited until Frost fell asleep and then attacked her.
She woke to him punching her while deputies watched, she said in the lawsuit. Deputies eventually intervened, removing the man, but they detained Frost for 12 hours before she was released and could go to a hospital, her lawyers said in a court filing.
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“She was in excruciating pain from her injuries the entire time she waited,” they wrote, adding that she has undergone two surgeries and had her jaw wired shut. She now wears dentures, they said.
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A representative for the county deferred a request for comment to the sheriff’s office, which did not respond. Frost and her attorneys did not answer questions from The Washington Post.
One of her attorneys, Brody McBride, told ABC 10 News San Diego that he hopes good can come from the lawsuit, which lists five accusations against San Diego County and its sheriff’s office, including negligence.
“Hopefully the sheriff’s department takes this incident serious and makes the changes necessary to ensure people in their care are kept safe and treated with dignity,” McBride said, according to the outlet.
This is not the first instance of jails placing transgender people in cells for the opposite gender.
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A 2020 investigation by NBC News found that transgender people incarcerated in the United States are almost always housed in facilities based on the sex they were assigned at birth, putting them in danger of assault.
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This year, a transgender woman, Sunday Hinton, won her fight to be transferred from the men’s facility in Washington, D.C., after she sued, alleging discrimination.
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In addition to the lack of gender-affirming housing of detainees, transgender people can feel humiliated by staffers or fellow inmates.
Three transgender people in Miami who were arrested during Black Lives Matter protests this past summer said they were subjected to genital inspections while other detainees were not, the Miami New Times reported.
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After the NBC investigation — published months before Frost’s detention — California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed a law requiring the state to house transgender inmates based on their gender identity.
Online court records did not indicate what Frost was detained for.
Responding to the news of Frost’s case, San Diego Pride, an LGBTQ advocacy organization, issued a statement calling for further reform “in-service to the LGBT community” and accountability for those who break the law.
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“While many law-enforcement agencies have made significant progress towards better serving the LGBTQ community it is abundantly clear that disparities in service, treatment, and enforcement still exist,” the statement said.
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