Transgender cop files complaint against Middletown Police for “hostile environment”

Middletown Police Officer Francesca Quaranta in her Newington home. Quaranta, who began working with the MPD in 2004 as Frank Quaranta, has filed a complaint against the Middletown Police Department to the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. less Middletown Police Officer Francesca Quaranta in her Newington home. Quaranta, who began working with the MPD in 2004 as Frank Quaranta, has filed a complaint against the Middletown Police Department to the ... more Photo: Catherine Avalone - The Middletown Press Photo: Catherine Avalone - The Middletown Press Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Transgender cop files complaint against Middletown Police for “hostile environment” 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

MIDDLETOWN >> It’s been almost two years since Francesca Quaranta came out as transgender. For the Middletown police officer, telling her son her secret turned out to be a lot easier than telling her colleagues — cops who’d known her for seven years as Frank.

Quaranta, 46, said she faced hostility after she came out and began to gradually appear as a woman at work. She has filed a human rights complaint against the department for creating a hostile work environment.

For Quaranta, gender identity has been a struggle since she was 13, when her mother would take her shopping for boys’ clothes and all she wanted was to shop in the girls’ section.

“Back in the 1980s, it wasn’t popular in Bridgeport,” Quaranta said of being different.

“I secretly dated at 16,” she said. “I was living a secret life, two worlds.”

Eventually, she said, she married and had a son in her mid-20s because “that’s what you were supposed to do.”

Even so, she continued dressing as a woman in private until just two years ago, when feeling her son was finally old enough, she told him. With his support and encouragement, she said, she began hormone therapy and a transition. Of her wife, Quaranta says she is her “ultimate best friend.”

Six months later, she came out to some of her closest friends and colleagues at the Middletown Police Department by texting them a picture of herself dressed as a woman.

“I told them ‘This is me,’” she said. “Their first response was ‘No, you’re not. You’re kidding,’ but the general response was ‘OK, we’re friends. We’ll figure this out.’”

Quaranta people don’t usually react negatively when there is no visual reminder of her change, but once they can see what she’s doing, things start to get “hectic.” At first the police department was supportive, she said. “I voluntarily removed myself from the men’s locker room,” Quaranta said. “I changed at home or even in the trunk of my car.”

Eventually, she said, people started distancing themselves from her and, she said, talking behind her back.

“I gave them an adjustment period, said they’ll come around,” Quaranta said. “I told supervisors ‘Let me handle it. If I have anything major, I’ll come to you.’”

Police Chief William McKenna even arranged for a guest speaker to come in and talk to senior officers on the topic of gender identity, Mayor Dan Drew said.

Over the next couple of months, Quaranta pierced her ears and began wearing a wig and making other “gradual changes,” she said. Like other female officers she sometimes wore earrings — small studs or tiny hoops. But soon, she was asked to remove them.

“I was called in and told to take out the earrings immediately or I would get written up,” Quaranta said.

After that, Quaranta said supervisors dug up an old policy that said officers were not allowed to wear earrings.

“The former chief wore earrings,” Quaranta said of former Police Chief Lynn Baldoni, a female. “I just stopped wearing them once the holes weren’t going to close, but they had to search for that policy” and Quaranta filed a grievance.

Then it was her hair, she said. She met repeatedly with supervisors regarding hairstyles that would be appropriate, settling on a short bob even though many of the other female officers wore long ponytails.

After the meetings, Quaranta said she was singled out when McKenna announced the department’s hair policies needed to be changed “thanks to Officer Quaranta.”

For four months, Quaranta wore the bob style wig with no problems. She had another which she sometimes wore in a long ponytail, but it got messy because wigs loosen.

“The chief had said it was all good and that I looked amazing,” Quaranta said. “Two weeks later I got called in to change it ‘or we’ll write you up.’ The chief had already approved, I didn’t get it.”

Even the mayor had told Quaranta she looked great, the officer claimed. “Then I was pulled from roll call and told my hair was not in compliance.”

The department had dug up an old policy that referenced only male officers.

“Everything magnified when it came to me,” Quaranta said. “My response times were questioned. I was screamed at over the radio.” The sensitivity training only made things worse, she said. One officer, Sgt. Nicholas Baboolal, was suspended for referring to Quaranta as a “cave man.”

Finally in October, Quaranta reached a breaking point and filed a complaint with the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities. According to Quaranta’s attorney, Josephine Miller, they await the city’s response.

The city, Mayor Drew said, has to investigate the allegations “thoroughly and that takes time.”

Quaranta, meantime, is “welcome to come back to work at any time,” Drew said. “She is a great officer.”

Quaranta agrees, on one condition.

“I would love to see myself return to work with solid agreements,” Quaranta said, asking, “Can that be done and have them hold to their words?”