2/9/13

Boston Shelter And Police Rule Breakers Humiliate Trans Woman Settle For $30G

Trans woman Brenda Wernikoff had been staying at the Boston Woods Mullen homeless shelter for a year when a employee called the police on her for using the ladies room.

According to the Lawsuit she was arrested and humiliated, made to strip and jump up and down for the officers who then called her by male pronouns.

The Woods Mullen homeless shelter policy regarding trans peoples access to public accommodations:


It's been my experience with Dallas Homeless Shelters they can be extremely reluctant to include transgender policies. Many claim its a simple lack of physical safe space but the reality is as we see here, it's more often than not a case of embedded transphobia.

Have shelters changed that much since 2004? Not really. Lesbians and Transgenders (still) Struggle for Shelter






2 comments:

Justine Valinotti said...

Eight years ago, under the name "Justine Nicholas", I wrote an article about the plight of homeless transgender women:

http://www2.womensenews.org/story/lesbian-transgender/041226/lesbians-and-transgenders-struggle-shelter

It's interesting that at the time I wrote the article, the Marian residence in San Francisco had been sheltering trans women alongside other women and never had an incident.

planet trans said...

Justine I included a link to your article. Really, after all the policy changes how much safer are the shelters?