Transgender teen sues Cicero and 2 officers, alleging police harassed her about her gender identity
According to lawsuit, police wrongly assumed she was a prostitute because she is a transgender woman and refused to accept her state ID, which identified her as a woman.
By Erin Meyer, Chicago Tribune reporter
March 12, 2012
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-transgender-woman-sues-20120312,0,1471885,full.storyBianca Feliciano has learned as a transgender woman to brush off sideways glances at the grocery and ignore the crude comments strangers lob at her in the street.
But those experiences didn't prepare Feliciano for an encounter last year with two Cicero police officers who harassed her because of her gender identity as she walked to a restaurant with a friend, she said. The insults continued at the police station, where she was arrested for possessing tobacco as a minor, according to a lawsuit she filed against the department.
"It was the worst day of my life," said Feliciano, who is now 18. "I felt like I would have been better off not being born."
