The Town of Cicero has rolled out a new transgender police policy and a $10,000 settlement for a transgender woman alleging discrimination.
Bianca Feliciano, a Latina trans woman from Chicago, alleged that Cicero police illegally profiled her as a sex worker and taunted her because she is transgender. Feliciano filed suit against Cicero in February.
According to the complaint, officers stopped Feliciano and a "companion because they were in an area 'known for a high concentration of prostitution-related activity.'"
The complaint states that Feliciano did nothing to suggest she and her companion were involved in sex work. It goes on to say that officers and jail staff verbally abused her, threatened her with violence, refused to use her legal name or preferred pronouns and allowed male officers to search her. Feliciano was arrested for underage tobacco possession.
Cicero settled the case with a $10,000 award to Feliciano and the implementation of a transgender police policy.
"I'm glad to settle this case and I hope this policy will mean that what happened to me doesn't have to happen to anyone again," said Feliciano in a statement. "LGBTQ youth and others should never have to go through the abuse I suffered from the Cicero Police Department."
But Ray Hanania, a Cicero spokesperson, still refutes the allegations.
"None of that was true from our standpoint," said Hanania. "We settled but not because we did anything that we believe was discrimination."
Hanania said the town believes it would have won the suit but settled to save taxpayers money that would have been funneled into a trial.
Still, Hanania said that transgender issues were new to Cicero police. Consequently, the town has implemented a transgender policy.
The one-page document mandates that transgender arrestees be treated respectfully and be held in a cell by themselves, a common practice used to deter violence against trans people by other detainees. The policy also requires police to document their mileage when transporting trans people in custody. If a trans person is transferred to another jail or facility, Cicerco must also notify that facility of the detainee's gender identity.
"We're hoping that a lot of other communities do this and do the same thing," said Hanania.
Accusations that police wrongly assume transgender women to be sex workers are rampant, especially among transgender women of color. So common are such complaints that many mockingly call the supposed crime, "walking while trans."
Transgender people also report high incidence of gender-based harassment from police. Still, few cities have adopted policies to protect trans arrestees.
Chicago-based transgender advocates have been pushing for such a policy within the Chicago Police Department for two years now. This spring, Ald. Proco Joe Moreno introduced an ordinance to City Council that would mandate a policy, but a dispute among activists about how the policy would be enforced within CPD has stalled the ordinance.
The People's Law Office and the Transformative Justice Law Project of Illinois represented Feliciano.