You don't get to be trans once you're under arrest.
I have never felt so dehumanized. I still can't stop crying.
I got into an argument at a bus stop after a long day of work and poured some of my drink on the other person. Fast forward an hour and I'm in a cop car drenched in tears because at the time I thought I'd been in the right. I'm still so full of regret and would never do that to someone again, but that's beside the point... I'm 28 and have never gotten in trouble before so I was so so scared.
What I somehow didn't expect was how absolutely pointless it would be to try and enforce my identity once I was being detained. For the first couple of hours I was correcting people, but the officers didn't care and just kept saying "he". My protests were polite and followed up with apologies even but it didn't matter. I tried to correct people during booking and eventually got the point where I was saying stuff like "I have boobs for Christ's sake".
But none of these statements ever got a response in one direction or another and the misgendering continued. I was "mister" last name, got sat in the male section, and had to be in a cell with a guy. I was only allowed to use the cell toilet because the private restroom was reserved for "female detainees". A male officer searched me including pulling the waistband of my shorts where he could see my panties. The cop driving me asked my pronouns but still went back to using the opposite ones so I really think he was just making fun of me. Two of the employees laughed at me and I thought it might be from my excessive weeping. But the second time I said "it's not that funny" and he responded "you got any pants?" Before walking off. I was wearing bike shorts. Eventually I bcame so broken and inundated with "he" and "sir" and "mister" that I just shut my brain off and pretended to be compliantly male, but this just made the tears stronger.
It took me 5 hours to pay my bond and leave and the only person who gendered me properly was the bond guy who said "ma'am" on the phone. That little nugget of validity carried me far since I have hated my voice in the past and believed it was getting better. But after 15 months of hrt and being arrested in makeup and a normal outfit I really thought I initially had a shot of being treated as a female or at least a trans inmate. But they don't care. Literally none of them cared. I've never felt so absolutely worthless and invalid.
I hate you, APD... if I had been sentenced to jail I would have missed a week of estrogen and who knows what that would do to my mental state. They said they would have my medications available but something tells me estradiol valerate was not on that list. I've always known this would be an uphill battle but I never realized how absolutely pointless it would be to enforce my pronouns in a jail. Now I know that I feel like I have so much to be terrified of if I act out and it makes me want to be isolated from the world and completely pacifistic. I just want to love everyone even people I seem evil. I just don't want to lose my freedom and my warm bed and my wife.
I was so scared and I'm definitely traumatized. Please be safe and kind and don't get into trouble like me. Nothing is worth it.
