(Daily Mail) A trans woman in New York has been paid a $160,000 settlement after she was ‘misgendered’ by staff at all-male jail and ordered to remove her acrylic nails without the correct equipment.
Makyyla Holland, a 25-year-old black transgender woman, accused correctional officers at the Broome County Jail of abuse and discrimination after being arrested on criminal contempt and assault charges.
She was held in an all-male jail during two stints totaling six weeks in 2021, and claims she was physically attacked during the intake process on January 22, suffering a broken tooth and painful lump on her head.
Holland says she was assigned to the men’s unit and put into an isolated cell with glass walls. She was denied access to a shower throughout her time which ended February 5, 2021, according to court documents.
Between June 1 and July 2, 2021, she says she was stripped searched by male officers, made to peel off her acrylic nails without the proper tools and ordered to remove her wig, which was glued to her head.
Despite disclosing her transgender status multiple times, she says she was placed within men’s housing units and misgendered – referred to as a man.
She alleged she was denied hormone replacement therapy medications for four weeks and wasn’t given her prescribed testosterone blockers or antidepressants.
‘I was harassed, mocked, misgendered and worse: jail staff strip-searched me, beat me up, placed me in the male section of the jail and withheld my hormones for a period of time, forcing me to go into agonizing withdrawal,’ said Holland via the New York Civil Liberties Union.
‘I just felt I was a laughing stock there I was being discriminated because of me being a trans woman. That put me at a high risk of harassment. I had to adapt to what the jail put me through.’
