Hello Human Family,

Keep scrolling to see a shocking letter just released by Disability Law Center (DLC) to the Commissioner with damning evidence that I was brutally and illegally restrained punitively.

You can help! Simply copy and paste the email located at the bottom of this page!

You can help regardless of location!

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Please help me! I feel totally and utterly hopelessly alone, scared and suicidal. Help me bring an end to relentless state violence, of being retaliated against, coerced, assaulted, violated, and abused in the most humiliating of ways by the Department of Mental Health in Massachusetts (DMH).   You can help protect me by taking the 3 action steps at the bottom of this page!

It’s been four years. I’ve filed over 300 DMH complaints. We’ve written hundreds of emails and made hundreds of phone calls. My story has been plastered on Mindfreedom’s website for years! https://mindfreedom.org/front-page/and-steiner/ Staff members have filed dozens of complaints with the Disable Persons Protection Commission (DPPC). There’s been involvement by a lawmaker and a city councilor. 

And it’s still going on!!

We’ve filed dozens of complaints with the Attorney General Cambell, whose office recently wrote me saying they are not interested in helping me, and not a peep about investigating the allegations in this petition. 

And now, finally, there’s damning evidence: This letter released by Disability Law Center: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18_0jjH0478GCxW1DJAFzryCjVjWSk6q3/view?usp=share_link

And if you haven’t yet seen a disturbing letter posted on MindFreedom.org by Ivy McCall, a social worker who’s been attending my team meetings for years read a copy here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FHoR2oUMlhKrhWfMgno_OsThCUy2VTMM/view?usp=sharing

For those of you who might be hearing about my story for the first time: 5 years ago I was transferred to Lemuel Shattuck Hospital (LSH) in a Massachusetts. After I reported the suspicious death of a transgender patient, Jean Busch, the Department of Mental Health called an ambulance, violently tied me to a gurney and tossed me into an acute, forensic ward (one of the most violent wards DMH runs) without a second thought, with no due process and while I was under no criminal investigation. 

You can link to the petition I started to get Jean’s death investigated at the top of this page.

I was left there for over 15 months, despite being assaulted many times with physical injuries, and experiencing daily verbal and frequent sexual harassment directly related to my gender-identity and sexual orientation.

After mounting pressure, including by DMH’s own staff members, DMH announced they were transferring me to Lemuel Shattuck Hospital. All I requested was be transferred to any floor but 10 North. In a moment of true sadistic retaliation, DMH still transferred me onto Floor 10 North. 

I have been on Floor 10 North for almost 2 years and have endured a string of abuses. Here’s just a few:

• The nurse manager tried to pull a chair out from underneath me and then the employee who corroborated the incident was fired
• Being constantly misgendered
• Told by the human rights officer (HRO) and the nurse manager I was not allowed to use the female bathroom because it was an “infectious disease issue”
• Was told by the HRO, cruelly and sarcastically in front of my medical team, that I could hang signs with “it” written on them on the bathrooms of my choice
• Was illegally and punitively restrained by the charge nurse Bibiana Aniagu
• Being threatened with restraint, while I was calm, by one of the people implicated in this petition, who had no clinical reason to be involved in my care
• Had all my electronics restricted to the unit punitively for helping a patient file a complaint about serious allegations of sexual assault.
• Continuing to allow the nurse Bibiana, implicated in DLC's letter, to continue working around me

Action Step:

Copy and paste THIS email to the contacts listed below. 

Suggested subject line: “And Steiner - Disability Law Center's Damning Evidence of Abuse”

You can highlight all the emails below at once and paste them in the “to” field.

kevin.donnelly-boylen@mass.gov, mili.priyanka@mass.gov, Katherine.gallant@mass.gov, beth.lucas@mass.gov, thomas.m.obrien@mass.gov, samantha.montano@mahouse.gov, kevin.higgins@masenate.gov, civilrights@mass.gov, media@theintercept.com, info@propublica.org, info@wbur.org, newstip@globe.com, matransgenderrights@proton.me, info@madinamerica.com, viewer@pbs.org, newsisout@localmedia.org, jack.lee@mass.gov,