Transgender detainee's complaints of ill treatment remain in limbo

An attempt to challenge arrest and detention policies for transgender people in court has yet to get off the ground, a year after a woman said she suffered mistreatment during her arrest, detention and imprisonment.

The 20-year-old woman said she was strip-searched three times by male officers - once with eight other male officers ridiculing her - was refused the hormonal treatment that she had been on since age 12, and was thrown into solitary confinement for a week.

She is being held at the Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre, which is reserved for the mentally ill, while an application for legal aid to launch a judicial review challenging the detention of transgender people is still pending despite being filed in January.

Patricia Ho, a solicitor with Daly & Associates handling the case, said the wait was frustrating. The woman's experience presented a strong case illustrating problematic policies in procedures for arrest, detention and imprisonment, Ho said.

"It's been going on for so long … It is clearly inhumane treatment," she said.

The woman's ordeal began in the middle of last year when she was arrested and charged for trafficking a dangerous drug, possession of apparatus intended for the inhalation of a dangerous drug and breach of conditions of stay. She was later jailed for 24 months.

After her arrest, she allegedly suffered her first strip-search by two police officers, and then again at the Pik Uk Correctional Institution, where a male doctor conducted a check-up in an open room while eight officers allegedly made fun of her.