A transsexual man says he was strip-searched and forced to put on a woman’s undergarments and prisoner’s gown, and paraded in public by Toronto police and jail guards.

Now, a complaint by Boyd Kodak, 60, who was born Jan Joseph Waterman, against the Toronto Police Service and the Vanier Centre for Women, a Milton jail, has reached the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, with proceedings scheduled later this week.

The human rights claim, based on transphobic mistreatment, could set a precedent in the province. Similar complaints have been reported in Ontario, including that of British visitor Avery Edison, who was also “misgendered” and placed at the Maplehurst Correctional Complex for men. She, too, has filed a human rights complaint.

Both the Toronto police and Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services have declined to comment on Kodak’s complaint, saying they do not speak about matters currently before the courts or tribunals.

However, Community Safety Minister Yasir Naqvi said the province has already issued interim guidelines to better protect the rights of trans inmates while a final policy is expected to be released by the end of the year after a thorough consultation process.

“I am very keen to make sure our policies are updated and protect the rights of trans inmates in compliance with the Human Rights Code and the guidelines the Human Rights Commission released in April,” said Naqvi.

The interim guidelines require guards to ask trans people in custody to identify their own gender and about their preference to be searched by male or female guards.

According to Kodak, a prominent transsexual activist in Toronto, York Region police came to his house in Gormley in the early morning of Dec. 6, 2012, to execute a warrant issued by their counterparts in Toronto over harassment charges laid by his estranged business partner.

Those charges were dropped four months later. But Kodak said the nightmare that began that morning continued through the three days he was in detention, until he was finally bailed out by a cousin and released to the Toronto streets in the same green woman’s prison gown he had been given when he arrived.

After his initial arrest, Kodak said he was taken to Fairview Mall, where he was received by three Toronto police officers and taken to a local station. Later, he was transferred to two others. Kodak said he was placed in the women’s holding area even though he is identified as male in his personal documents, is long past surgery and continues to take hormones.

“They took my penile prosthesis, passed it around and then confiscated it. They made me put on women’s clothes, women’s underwear, and sent me to a women’s prison,” Kodak, still shaken, recalled in an interview.

“They told me those were the standard policies and procedures for trans people. It not only happened at one police station, but all the ones they took me to, and the women’s jail. There wasn’t one of them that treated me with dignity.”

Still in women’s clothes, Kodak said, he was taken to a Toronto court the same afternoon after his arrest, where he was surrounded by female detainees who looked at him as “a freak” and taunted him with insults.

“They just made a spectacle of me. They outed me. I look like a man and no one would think of me as a woman. There’s no reason for them to do that to me,” said Kodak, who started his transition in 1994 and completed it in 2000.

“I was set up to be harassed more when I was released into the streets of Toronto in those clothes. I was completely humiliated.”

His lawyer, Lisa Triano, said the case is “about the importance of allowing people to self-identify” their gender.

“We commenced the legal action because the treatment Boyd got was unlawful and discriminatory,” Triano said in an interview.

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In 2012, Ontario passed what’s known as Toby’s Law to amend the Human Rights Code to reaffirm the protection of trans people. It states that every person has a right to equal treatment without discrimination because of gender identity and gender expression.

Kodak, a former corporate executive at an insurance company, said Toby’s Law was clearly not followed by law enforcement officials in his case. The experience, he said, has caused him post-traumatic stress disorder and hindered his ability to function.

In additional to undisclosed monetary compensation, Kodak said he would like an apology from the police force and Vanier officials. He also demands future compliance with Toby’s Law by those two agencies and has asked the human rights tribunal to order police and prison staff to undergo mandatory training in trans awareness.