VANCOUVER -- Vancouver's police force has been ordered to pay a trans woman $15,000 for repeatedly referring to her as a man and refusing to provide her post-op treatment while she was in jail.

A B.C. Human Rights Tribunal decision posted Tuesday described how Angela Dawson had completed gender-reassignment surgery in March 2010 before several encounters with police officers in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

Dawson is well-known by the area's officers as someone who skates around on rollerblades on the road to direct traffic, often while wearing flashy clothes and big headphones.

Dawson was arrested 11 days after her surgery on an outstanding warrant. She told the officers that her recent surgery meant post-op medical attention was required -- specifically, the need to dilate her new genitalia -- but the on-duty male nurse didn't believe her story unless she took off her pants, which she refused to do.

The nurse decided to leave her without treatment.

The following morning, another male nurse checked on her and this time gave her a glove and vaseline to use as a dilator instead of sending her to the hospital for the treatment. According to the tribunal, long periods of time without dilation after gender-reassignment surgery would cause the surgery to fail to hold.

In June that year, Dawson was again arrested and referred to as a male by police. Again, she was not given dilation treatment.

The tribunal determined that police had discriminated against Dawson and ordered the force to pay $15,000 in damages "for injury to dignity, feelings and self-respect."

The tribunal also found police had "virtually no policies or training" on how to deal with trans people without discrimination.