Stacey Monroe, director of the Trans Empowerment Coalition and a member of the Dallas Anti-War Coalition, is arrested by Garland Police officers outside General Dynamics on March 7.

Dallas trans woman Stacey Monroe, director of Trans Empowerment Coalition, was one of 23 people arrested Thursday morning, March 7, outside the gates of General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems in Garland, during a protest in support of Palestine.

“The Garland 23,” as supporters have dubbed them, were charged with criminal trespass and held overnight at the Dallas County Jail. Monroe said they were bailed out Friday afternoon on $1,000 bond each.

Protest organizers — including Dallas Anti-War Committee and Palestinian Youth Movement — said they were protesting at the Garland plant because that is where General Dynamics is manufacturing MK-80 and BLU-109 bombs that Israel has been dropping on Gaza, “all financed by U.S. tax dollars,” according to a press release from organizers.

According to reports, about 100 anti-war protesters gathered outside the General Dynamics gates before sunrise and kept the entrance blocked for about five hours. Monroe said she was arrested “around 9 or 10 a.m.”

Monroe said she and the other protesters were arrested by officers with the Garland Police Department. “Garland kept us for arraignment and set bond, then they sent us to Dallas County for arraignment, and Dallas County kept the same bond,” she said.

The experience, she added, “was basically torture.” Monroe, who uses a walker and suffers from costochondritis, said that after she was arrested, officials “withheld my medication, and they segregated me but claimed it was because I am handicapped.”

She said that when she was first arrested, she told Garland police that she needed her medications, “but they told me I would get them after they booked me. It ended up being almost two hours later, after I had repeatedly asked for them via the intercom in the solitary cell.

“Once I told them I needed my medication because my chest was hurting, and they asked if they should call paramedics,” Monroe continued, explaining that costochondritis causes chest pain. “They finally took me out of my cell and gave me my medications.”

Then, Monroe said, “they couldn’t meet my dietary needs,” offering a choice between a honey bun or a beef cheeseburger. “I don’t eat honey buns because of all the sugar, and I don’t eat beef for health reasons. They told me someone would have to bring me pre-packaged, sealed food. But I ended up having to eat the cheeseburger.”

Monroe said she asked for her medications again around 5:30 p.m. “But I was ignored, and then I was taken out of the cell to be arraigned and transferred. I asked for my meds again and I was refused because, the officer said, I was in transport.”
Then, she said, the officer told her they did not give out medications even though she told him she had been given her meds earlier.

“At that point,” Monroe said, “I told the supervisor at the Garland jail, ‘Are you hearing this? You will be a witness if something happens to me and y’all are refusing to give me my meds.’”

Monroe said she was at Dallas County’s Lew Sterrett jail by 8 p.m., and at that time, she asked for her medications and was once again refused. She said her next dosage was scheduled for 10 p.m., but her request was refused until around midnight when a nurse finally administered her medications.

“I accepted the meds, but I didn’t agree with what she said or how she went about it. She told me, ‘You’re a protester, not one of these criminals that be sneaking in drugs and stuff,’” Monroe recalled.

“I was bothered by that. She essentially was saying that she could pick and choose who could and who couldn’t get healthcare which is a basic human right everyone should be afforded,” she added. “I didn’t like it. But I needed my meds, so I stayed quiet.”

Monroe said she remained in custody for more than 24 hours, having been arrested Thursday morning and not released until Friday afternoon. Another protester who was arrested said their medications went missing while they were in custody and were not returned.

A statement on the Dallas Anti-War Committee’s Instagram, the arrested protesters “faced violent racism, Islamophobia and transphobia” from both Garland and Dallas County officers.
According to a press release from the Council on American-Islamic Relations Dallas-Fort Worth chapter, some of the women arrested at the protest had their hijabs “forcibly removed for mugshots.”

“By allegedly forcibly removing the hijabs of the female protesters, Garland police violated their fundamental right to religious liberty,” the press release said. “We call on law enforcement authorities to allow the protesters to retake their photos with their hijabs and to delete the photos without them. No American should have their First Amendment rights violated while seeking to end support for genocide.”

Other organizations involved in the protest included the Party for Socialism and Liberation and Free Palestine Tarrant.

— Tammye Nash