More information available at the San Francisco Gate web page.

MEDIA ADVISORY - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Editor: Clare Howell, clare@gpac.org

TRANSEXUAL WOMAN WINS COURT AWARD AFTER STRIP SEARCH
====================================================

[San Francisco, CA: 20 Apr 99] VICTORIA SCHNEIDER WAS
awarded $750,000 this week by the U.S. District Court
for emotional pain and suffering after she was strip
searched by sheriff's deputies in June 1996.

        The AP reports that she had been arrested for
prostitution, although she was never charged. She
maintained that the search was unnecessary as deputies
at the same jail had searched her after a 1993 arrest
to determine if she was a woman. She pleaded with them
to look at the old records, but they refused.

        Ms. Schneider maintained that the search was
done to humiliate her. City employees and detainees
laughed and jeered her during the search. The Court
also ordered a deputy who ordered the search to pay
her $5,000 in punitive damages.

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