$4.5m In Damages Awarded After Trany Death

by Sarah D. Fox, PhD., Q.U.I.L.L., Washington D.C. December 12, 1998

(The Gender Centre advise that this article may not be current and as such certain content, including but not limited to persons, contact details and dates may not apply. Where legal authority or medical related matters are cited, responsibility lies with the reader to obtain the most current relevant legal authority and/or medical publication.)

... at the 1995 accident scene, they discovered her male genitalia. One of them exclaimed. "This ain't no bitch. It's a nigger. He's got a [phallus] and balls." Treatment was immediately discontinued.

On August 7, 1995, Tyra Hunter, a pre-operative transsexual woman and highly successful hair stylist, was critically wounded in an automobile accident when a motorist ran a stop sign and broadsided her car. Finding today that she died in part because of negligence by the D.C. Fire Department and malpractice by the D.C. General Hospital, a jury awarded $2.8 million in damages to Margie Hunter, Tyra's mother.

When three D.C. Fire Department E.M.T.s, including Adrian Williams, removed Ms. Hunter's slacks to assess her bleeding at the 1995 accident scene, they discovered her male genitalia. One of them exclaimed. "This ain't no bitch. It's a nigger. He's got a [phallus] and balls." Treatment was immediately discontinued. The E.M.T.s ridiculed the still-conscious Ms. Hunter, allowing her to bleed profusely on the pavement while horrified onlookers begged them to render aid. Treatment was resumed only after Fire Chief Otis Latin arrived at the scene.

Tyra Hunter

Still conscious upon her arrival at D.C. General Hospital, Ms. Hunter was given a medication to paralyze her. She died about an hour later from blood loss. According to expert testimony, Ms. Hunter would have experienced "sheer terror" from feelings of intense suffocation. That, combined with drug-induced paralysis and the probable memory of the E.M.T.s hateful remarks, paints a macabre picture of Ms. Hunter's final moments.

A deposition by attending physician Joseph Bastian states that while Ms. Hunter lay dying in the E.R., the E.M.T.s continued ridiculing her in a nearby visiting area. They became so disruptive that the hospital staff reported them to the police.

The jury attributed Ms. Hunter's death in part to the E.M.T.s' refusal to administer critical first-response aid and in part to the malpractice of Dr. Bastian. According to expert testimony, Ms. Hunter would have had a 71-88% chance of survival with prompt, competent attention.

The trial was riddled with unlikely testimony and missing evidence: E.M.T. Adrian Williams testified he assumed Ms. Hunter was a man as he approached her and rendered aid, failing to notice that she had breasts, make-up, women's clothing, a woman's hairstyle, and white nail polish. One subpoenaed D.C. General employee disappeared to Africa until late December. Important patient records were physically altered. Blood gas results and X-ray films were all lost.

Ms. Hunter's treatment has so incensed the American transgender population that activists have discussed it prominently when lobbying the U.S. Congress for hate crimes protection. Tyra's story is surprisingly commonplace and speaks to the fears of most transsexuals, who sometimes feel pressured to undergo expensive sexual reassignment surgery and to alter their legal documents specifically to avoid such nightmares.

It is disappointing that criminal action was not taken and that the offending E.M.T.s were neither disciplined nor reprimanded, despite widespread complaint from Washington citizens. Still, the victory today is a milestone. Today a jury ruled that a transgendered person's life is worth protecting. Today the transgendered population became a bit more human in the eyes of the public.

In the words of transgender activist Jessica Xavier, "I think they came to see Tyra as an ordinary human being, just trying to make her life work, when it was taken from her by the proven negligence of city health care professionals whose duty it was to treat her. This is a victory for transpeople everywhere."

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