Treatment of LGBTQ inmates questioned

Two transgender women who were among the five people arrested Saturday during Chattanooga’s women’s march say the way one of them was treated at the Hamilton County Jail raises concerns for other members of the LGBTQ community.

The activists were arrested after they blocked city streets without a permit and refused to move.

The Rev. Alaina Cobb and Maddie Boyd-Nix, identified by police as William Nix, said a lack of training or policy for people who are transgender led to Nix, who is a transgender woman, being treated unfairly.

The group was searched, booked and placed in a holding cell where they spent five hours.

But the same didn’t happen for Nix, Cobb said.

“I don’t know if they just didn’t want to touch her, or what, but she was not even searched,” Cobb said. “… She was just kept off to the side in a lobby, rather than being put with the women or the men.”

Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Matt Lea later clarified that Nix was not in a “lobby,” but “was brought to an open seated area, similar to a waiting room, that is located in a secure area within the jail next to the booking and fingerprinting area.”

That area serves as a temporary holding area where inmates are sometimes held that may not be in the jail for a long period of time, he said.

At any rate, Nix felt singled out.

“There was other prisoners, both on the male and the female side, just walking around and wondering about me because I was more or less getting ‘special privilege’ by not being put in a jail cell,” she said. “It singles people out, and it makes the other prisoners think ‘What is wrong with this person?’”

Nix began to worry about other transgender people who might find themselves in her position.

“What would happen to a transgender woman who was arrested by herself?” Nix said.

Policies need to be implemented for how to properly ascertain what gender someone identifies as, Cobb said.

“If they can’t outwardly identify their gender, that means that people are being punished for not looking female enough or looking male enough,” Cobb said. “Not even necessarily for being trans, but just not looking how they decide that you should look.”

In a statement, Lea said that transgender individuals are “typically housed with the gender that corresponds to the gender listed on their driver’s license.”

“With that said, the jail does make every attempt to be sensitive to the person’s gender to which they identify at the time of booking,” he said.

Lea said “a variety of criteria [is used] to determine what is the best classification for an inmate,” meaning where the inmate will be housed.

Some of that criteria includes arrest history, whether the inmate is a threat to themselves or others, flight risk and if the arrestee doesn’t get along with other inmates.

Hamilton County assistant attorney Dee Hobbs said Nix wasn’t singled out without a valid reason.

“That’s just not usually how we’re gonna roll here,” Hobbs said. “There would be a reason why this individual was classified different than everyone else … We don’t invite those headaches if we don’t have to.”

What that reason was, he did not know but noted that Cobb was placed in the women’s holding cell, so “it’s not that it’s a problem with transgenders,” he said. Lea also did not clarify why Nix was separated and referred all follow-up questions to Hobbs.