Story Archive

Playing Doctor

A federal court has ruled that a lawsuit filed by Fior Pichardo de Veloz, 55, against Florida’s Miami Dade County Corrections Department may proceed. Pichardo, an attorney, was arrested on an old warrant she didn’t know existed, and was not only strip-searched before she was jailed, a cavity search was done on her — which found no contraband. Jail doctor Fredesvindo Rodriguez Garcia classified Pichardo as a man because she was on hormone replacement therapy to help with menopause. When a jailer was told the obviously female Pichardo was a man, she asked jail nurse Fatu Harris several times to confirm that. “Nurse Harris simply replied, ‘She’s a man’ and walked away.” Before Pichardo was put into a men’s jail cell with multiple men, she tried one last time to convince that jailer she was a woman. “You are a woman,” he replied. “Good luck if you’re alive tomorrow.” (RC/Miami Herald) ...Imagine how bad it would be if not for us all being “presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.” —Universal Declaration of Human Rights