Washington Blade - September 16, 2005

AFTER FIVE HARROWING days stuck on an Interstate 10 bridge and then at the completely lawless New Orleans Convention Center, with precious little food or water, all Sharli'e Dominique wanted was a shower.

But less than 24 hours after Dominque arrived at Texas A & M University in College Station, where she was housed at the campus' Reed Arena with other evacuees fleeing the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Dominique found herself in jail.

Simply for taking a shower.

THOUGH SHARLI'E DOMINIQUE lives her life as a woman, she was born male, as Arpollo Vicks.

As a pre-operative male-to-female transgendered person, Dominque appears female in the only clothes she escaped New Orleans with: a tight white shirt with the word "sexy" on it in silver glitter, a pair of jeans and flip flops.

But in the shower, it was clear Dominique was born male. The commander who runs the shelter at Texas A&M, John Van Alstyne, says he received a complaint from another shelter resident about Dominique using the women's rest room. He warned her not to use it again.

But Dominique says she felt unsafe using the men's rest room, particularly to take a shower. So, she says, she asked and got permission from a shelter volunteer to take a shower in the women's rest room.

After she came out of the women's facility, Dominique was arrested for criminal trespassing. Having endured the life-threatening perils of Hurricane Katrina, the 20-year-old African American, who hopes to someday be a journalist, thought being bused to Texas A&M was going to be a lifesaver.

She could have never guessed she would land in a county jail for five days for wanting to get clean.

DOMINIQUE'S CASE IS one of the more dramatic illustrations of how already potent discrimination against gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender citizens adds an extra layer of burden to those of us who are also victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Unfortunately, GLBT people are likely to face more hurdles, not fewer, as they struggle to get their lives back to some semblance of normal.

One of the big challenges is for people with HIV and AIDS, who have been stranded without their medicines or access to doctors. An estimated 8,000 people with HIV were left homeless after Katrina ripped through the Gulf States.

Many of those people are at temporary shelters, and fled without their medications. Others were trapped for days without electricity. Many of the HIV medicines require refrigeration.

Some patients now do not have access to their doctors, or to refilling prescriptions. Others may fear disclosing their HIV status to the shelters where they are staying, mindful of the prejudices that persist against the HIV-positive.

When a heterosexual person loses a spouse to Katrina, he or she would be entitled to surviving spouse Social Security benefits. Since the federal government does not recognize gay unions, surviving partners in a gay or lesbian relationship will not receive any such help to get their lives back in order.

Lawyers from Lambda Legal Defense & Education Fund, a national gay rights group based in New York City, have already expressed concern that the Federal Emergency Management Agency - which is bound by federal rules and regulations, including not recognizing gay relationships - excludes gay partners from family benefits offered to married couples.

But beyond the monetary benefits, some of the most simple, basic dignities remain in question: Will same-sex partners be housed together? Will separated partners get help to find each other, as other separated families do? Will people with injured partners be allowed to accompany them to hospitals and make important medical decisions with them, or for them, if needed?

Some of those questions are legal ones, and that does not fare well for gays in the states hardest hit by the hurricane: Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi. None of these states are exactly known for their groundbreaking gay rights laws. Neither is Texas, where many of the refugees have been evacuated.

But at least in the short term, the legal issues take a back seat to the more basic and immediate questions of how gay and trans people will be treated by their fellow refugees, and by the people on the front lines who are supposed to be helping them.

MAYBE SHARLI'E DOMINQUE'S CASE offers a glimmer of hope.

While it is almost unfathomable that Dominique was forced to spend five days in jail for taking a shower, particularly given the circumstances she endured before arriving at the university shelter, the good news is that the county attorney who reviewed her case refused to press charges on the "criminal trespassing" charge.

Brazos County Attorney Jim Kuboviak became aware of Dominique's case after she received local media attention. After reviewing her file, Kuboviak ordered Dominique to be released from jail. She "lacked criminal intent to violate the law," he said in published reports.

After Dominque was released from jail, Claudette Peterson, a former director of an HIV clinic in College Station, took Dominique into her home so she wouldn't have to face the dilemma of whether to use the men's shower or the women's shower at the shelter.

Peterson also connected Dominique with the Montrose Counseling Center, a Houston organization providing housing and support for GLBT evacuees of the hurricane. The Center's executive director said once word of Dominique's plight hit the news, offers to help her had been pouring into the Center from around the country.

Perhaps most importantly, the publicity from her case helped Dominique find her mother and other family members. Dominique had become separated from her family during the hurricane, and hadn't known where they were or even if they had survived. Luckily, Dominique's mother and family had been evacuated to the George Brown Convention Center in Houston.

Perhaps most amazingly, Dominique has come through this trying ordeal with her spirit in tact.

"I'm not angry," she told the Eagle, the university's student newspaper. "It's good to finally get a little support. Maybe this will make people more aware of transgendered and transsexual people."

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