I write this as I lay dying in the hospital
The morning of August 9th, i was having a panic attack, and soothing myself by throwing my old burned DVDs out the window (I suppose visually and physically stimming) so my mother called the police (The Kitsap County Sherriff). That made my panic so much worse, I was catatonic. When they arrived they started slapping me, pinching me, and whispering threats of further violence if I didnāt ācomplyā as they kept putting it. I remained catatonic, experiencing everything but helpless to do anything. when they said they were going to tase me to death (I have a heart problem, which they knew about, and they used this fear to hurt me), my internal screaming for help became external screams for help.
My wife in the next room did nothing.
I was tackled, and then beaten, with special focus on punching the vertebra I just broke after they found out about it. I leave out the reason for this until here, because even now I have trouble believing it happened. But it happens every day.
Because weāre trans women.
They were called on a possible suicide attempt, and decided I needed to be ātaught how to be a manā. All the time theyāre hurting me, thereās a constant stream of slurs. And nobody did anything to stop them. They cuffed me tight enough to turn my hand black. 48 hours later, it is still numb. They literally threw me in the back of a cruiser head-first, rather than the ambulance waiting for me. When I got to the hospital (Harrison Memorial Hospital in Bremerton, WA), the nurse, a bald tattooed white man named Nic, immediately berated me, despite knowing nothing of my case, for āmaking wrong choicesā which, he expounded as I cried for help, is my real problem. I need to grow up, and always comply, he said. He was real big on that word, just like the cops were. He also refused to refer to my wife as my wife. When I told security I didnāt trust Nic to use needles on me, Nic took away my phone and threatened to strap me down and do it anyway. Then he did it.
The doctor, when he eventually arrived, told me the stress had made my blood acidic (ketoacidosis), and made my blood sugars so high I had a non-insignificant chance of dying. Theyāre trying to fix it, but the sugars arenāt down even after two insulin shots and 3 bags of IV fluid. Itās taken me two days just to convince them to document my injuries, and by now, theyāre a lot less visible.
Iām not asking for money. Iām not asking for help. I know I am powerless, and if they ever want to do it again, nobody will stop them. I just need someone to hear me. To believe me. And I need to warn you never, ever to deal with the Kitsap County Sheriff, or Harrison Memorial Hospital if you are a trans woman.
So many other women here in Kitsap have been contacting me because of this post, telling me similar stories. And every time, it ends the same: they donāt think they could ever possibly win, and so they donāt even try to fight. Iām not going to suggest these women endanger their own lives by coming forward. But my life is already over. If the strokes donāt get me, the fact that Iām blind, mentally and physically disabled, and now functionally homeless probably will. I have nobody left to protect. So fuck it.
My name is Michel C. Tanuki. I live in Port Orchard, Washington. Members of the Kitsap County Sheriff and the local Fire Department were on-site (whether the Fire Department paramedics took part in the beating, I cannot tell you, as I couldnāt see their faces). If I had any names or badge numbers, I would provide them. Two of the officers, I can identify in-person. Please spread this like wildfire. If the supposed āauthoritiesā wonāt do anything to help us, then we can at least help each-other.
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