Trans woman tasered

A Californian trans woman has filed a lawsuit in the US federal court alleging that a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) ranger used a taser on her crotch because she used to be a man.

Brooke Fantelli told the US ABCNews program that she was pulled over by the ranger who asked her for identification. She said his demeanour changed when he saw the gender marker on her license – Fantelli had yet to change it to female despite living as a woman for two years.

“When he handed me back my ID, he said, ‘You used to be a boy.’ I said yeah,” Fantelli told ABCNews.

Fantelli said the ranger then told her he was arresting her for being drunk in public despite not conducting a sobriety test on her. The situation escalated when other law enforcement officials started arriving on the scene, she said. She put her hands up in the air to show she was not resisting, she said

Additional officers arrived and ordered Fantelli to lie face down in the dirt and put her hands behind her back. When she refused, she was tasered.

While the district attorney has declined to pursue the criminal charges, Fantelli is suing the US and the ranger himself.