A Euclid woman says she was threatened by a woman and an armed man to expose herself to prove she’s not a man. Then, when she refused, they shattered her windshield.
It all happened in a parking lot near East 93rd Street and Kinsman Road early Sunday morning.
It started as a casual night out at a local after hour spot. The woman, who does not want us to use her name, says she began engaging in a friendly conversation with the stranger.
“She was like, ‘oh my leg hurts so I took [my shoes] off.’ So I said ‘oh you poor thing, you want me to rub them for you?’”
But then the conversation quickly turned personal.
“She says ‘No, I am not sure. They say you are a man.”
The woman says the stranger didn't let it go and asked her to reveal herself.
“She was just adamant, adamant about it, ‘You're a man, show me your vagina.”
The young lady was eventually escorted out. The woman says when she tried to leave 45 minutes later, she was blocked in by two cars.
Once again, she was confronted by the lady from the lounge and an armed man she brought with her.
“I talked to her and said ‘look babe I was just upstairs rubbing your leg I thought we were cool. I don’t understand what this is about.’”
And once again, she says, the lady demanded she expose herself.
“In my mind is I have a 15-year-old son and my 7-year-old baby. And are you all really on this because you want to humiliate me?”
She says she got out of the car pretending to do what the lady asked, “and I close the door and run across the street and hit the chirp to lock it.”
The woman was able to get images of the black Chevy Cobalt and a green Honda involved, hoping it may lead to an arrest.
“You wanted to take my life or hurt me because you wanted to see my vagina. You wanted to make sure I was a woman because I was in a bar you were in.”
The Greater Cleveland LGBT center has also spoken out on this woman’s behalf.
“Just because this person isn’t trans doesn’t negate the fact that this person still demanded to see someone else's body,” said Community Relations manager Ryan Clopton-Zymler.
Clopton-Zymler says in recent years, hate crimes targeting transgender people have been on the rise. Here in Cleveland, four transgender women were murdered in just the last five years. Clopton-Zymler says particularly transgender women of color are being targeted.
“This comes down to sexual assault. This was someone being publicly discriminated against, publicly attacked based on the assumption of their gender identity" said Clopton Zymler.
Police have filed this case as a kidnapping and criminal damaging offense.
The woman hopes Cleveland's fourth district will pursue her case until an arrest is made.
If you have any information on this case, please contact the Cleveland police department.
Clopton-Zymler says the center is also putting on its first conference called “Trans in the CLE” on October 14. They will address crimes targeting the transgender community and inform attendees of the resources available.
