Danielle Hunter is 48 years old. For the past 20 years she has done drag for a living, both hosting Sunday Morning Drag Gospel Brunch at Bananas Modern Diner in Orlando and performing as Dolly Parton at the Funky Monkey Wine Co.
Danielle unfortunately recently attempted suicide. After recovering in a hospital, she felt she wasn't ready to jump right back out on the streets, so she checked in to a mental-health facility run by Aspire Health Partners this past Tuesday, seeking supervision and support.
The treatment she got was horrendous considering the circumstances. She was removed from her room and first told to sleep on the floor in a common area, though she was eventually given a cot. When she complained, she was told there would be space for her in a room designated for men.
Here's Danielle at the Funky Monkey:
Being transgender comes along with its own psychological issues. It's not that we're special or any different than anyone else, but we should be able to be treated like any other human.
--Hunter, by phone to the Sentinel on Friday
Personally, I can't think of how anyone would think that would be valid treatment for a recently suicidal transgender woman...unless the idea was to speed her on her way.
Equality Florida's Gina Duncan is helping to move Hunter to another facility.
Hunter is focused on getting better now but said she wants people to know that she believes she was mistreated because of her gender identity.
A spokesman for Aspire, formerly Lakeside Behavioral Healthcare, said the private nonprofit is formally reviewing the incident and will provide training to its employees to ensure that procedures for room assignments are followed.
Todd Dixon of Aspire's media and government-relations department said he could not comment specifically on Hunter because of patient-confidentiality laws. Generally, he said, policy allows transgender patients to have their own room if space is available.
Dixon says, however, that the facility frequently reaches capacity (4 adult units with 116 beds), in which case policy deems it appropriate for transgender patients to either sleep in a common area, supervised by nurses, or be housed with their "biological gender."
Dixon says there were no empty rooms the night Hunter slept on a cot.
It's difficult accommodating transgender patients given capacity problems and patient liability, he said. For example, Aspire must accept patients to its crisis-stabilization units even if there are no beds available. Pending legislation in Tallahassee that would criminalize using the wrong bathroom could make things harder for Aspire, Dixon said.
We are all struggling with developing the appropriate process to handling situations like this, and we are more than open to working with our community partners.
--Dixon
The proposed bathroom bill complicates things further because patients at Aspire use the facilities they feel most comfortable with, Dixon said. Transgender activists and allies oppose the proposed measure, which they say unfairly targets their community. But Aspire would be bound to follow the law even if its top administrators don't agree with it.
Duncan says basing room-assignment policy on surgical status is misguided because many transgender people do not choose to have gender reassignment surgery for a variety of reasons.
Hunter, who has identified as a woman for more than 20 years, changed her legal name, dresses like a woman and has taken hormones, but she has not had genital surgery. At Aspire, she said she was at first told to sleep on the floor and then given the option of moving to a man's room the next night.
If somebody as high-profile as Danielle Hunter can be treated in such a miserable fashion, it reminds us there's still a lot work to be done.
--Duncan