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THE GUERRILLA ANGEL REPORT — [UPDATED – Aug. 7, 2012: The city of Cicero settles settles with trans woman who sued the city. See below.] Being harassed by cops who have an assumption that being transgender also means one is a prostitute is a nightmare fear by many in the trans community.

Bianca Feliciano, then a minor, experienced it first hand and has since filed a federal lawsuit against the town of Cicero, Illinois and two police officers for violating her civil rights. The officers also accused her of fraud for having a state-issued ID card in the “wrong” gender.

According to the lawsuit: “One of the defendant officers threatened to punch Ms. Feliciano, take her to jail and lock her up for fraud because her ID said she is female. . . . The officers “repeatedly ridiculed and denied Ms. Feliciano’s gender identity by stating that she was a man, referring to her with male pronouns and calling her by her former name.”

According to news reports, Feliciano and a transgender friend were on their way to a Chinese restaurant when they were stopped by an unmarked police car. Cicero town officials are not commenting on the case.

This unprovoked incident by law enforcement officers is exactly the kind of thing that should not be happening in our communities. A win here would help make law enforcement agencies elsewhere improve their interaction policies with trans citizens.

Phone number for the town of Cicero: (708) 656-3600

UPDATE – Aug. 7, 2012: “The Town of Cicero settled a civil rights lawsuit brought by Bianca Feliciano, a young Latina transgender woman, who alleged she was illegally stopped, searched and harassed by Cicero Police Officers. In settling Ms. Feliciano’s litigation, Cicero agreed to enact a new policy regarding the treatment of transgender people by Cicero Police Officers, becoming one of the first metropolitan police departments in the country to do so.Cicero also agreed to pay Feliciano $10,000.” — from The People’s Law Office

Read more: http://peopleslawoffice.com/town-of-cicero-reaches-historic-settlement-with-latina-transgender-woman/

More: Transgender woman sues Cicero, police – chicagotribune.com.

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Categories: Discrimination, Equality, Civil Rights, Everything else, Transgender, Transsexual, Trans