authorities often do not know how to deal with transgender individuals they detain
or arrest. Haima says, “The first time I was arrested, at the police station they were
thinking, how do we jail a man dressed as a woman? Then they bought pajamas for
each of us and made us put them on, and they stripped
off the women’s clothes and wigs we’d been wearing.
Although I have breast implants, I’m male on my ID card,
so they locked me up with men, more than 20 of them at
one point.”157
“Ultimately, lack of
training on gender
issues and a lack of
appropriate facilities,
Yanyan says that when she was detained with men, she
mean that authorities
was subjected to verbal insults: “Those men berated me,
often do not know
saying, are you a man? Why don’t you look like a man or
how to deal with
a woman? You’re too big and tall to be a girl. They said I
transgender individuals
was a pervert. It was very insulting.”158 Not only that, but
they detain or arrest.”
the detention center workers all ran over to look: “It was
like looking at a monkey. The cops, guards, joint defense
officers, even the cleaning lady, all came over to look and said I wasn’t a man or a
woman, I was a pervert and disgusting.”159
Anna said that while she was in the park, three police officers blocked her way. When
they found condoms and lubricant in her handbag, they threatened to tell her family
that she was engag Y[