Cal Gaunt
A representative of transgender beauty influencer Nikita Dragun has slammed the ‘disturbing and dangerous’ decision to put her in a men’s jail.
The vlogger and makeup artist, 26, has 3.5 million subscribers on YouTube and a whopping 9 million followers on Instagram.
She shot to fame in 2014 after sharing beauty tips with her followers.
When she transitioned from male to female, she shared the journey with her fans.
But she is now making headlines for her arrest on November 7.
Watch as Nikita Dragun faces Judge Mindy Glazer and asks if she has to stay in a men’s jail…
According to The Daily Beast, Dragun, 26, was arrested at The Goodtime Hotel, Miami, on Monday.
Hotel security staff told officers that she had been ‘causing a disturbance for a long period of time and walking around the pool area unclothed’.
Officers are said to have heard the YouTuber – who was featured in Netflix’s reality show Hype House this year – ‘blasting music’ from her room.
When Dragun opened the door, she is believed to have been involved in a ‘brief verbal back-and-forth’ before she swung around an open water bottle that ‘hit a security guard and an officer’.
Dragun was charged with felony battery against an officer, misdemeanour battery and misdemeanour disorderly conduct.
The vlogger was released from jail on Wednesday, but Jack Ketsoyan, representing her, said Miami-Dade County putting her in a men’s jail unit was a ‘dangerous’ mistake.
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He said in a statement to The Daily Beast: “The situation with Nikita, who is legally female, being placed in a men’s unit of a Florida jail is extremely disturbing and dangerous.
“The decision made by the Miami-Dade County Corrections Department directly violates their protocol, which mandates that transgender inmates are classified and housed based on safety needs and gender identity.
“Nikita has been released and is now safe.”
The police report detailing the incident reportedly described Dragun as an ‘Asian female’ but incorrectly used he/him pronouns to refer to her.
According to documents seen by Rolling Stone, the influencer — who is legally female and has openly discussed her male-to-female gender reassignment surgery — was wrongly listed as a male on her booking paperwork.
On Wednesday, footage of Dragun appearing remotely before Miami-Dade’s Judge Mindy Glazer went viral online.
In the video, Dragun wears an orange jumpsuit and looks down at the camera as she asks: “Do I have to stay here in the men’s unit, still?”
Judge Glazer tells her that she doesn’t ‘make the rules up there’, before seemingly deflecting the issue onto the jail.
The judge did however say accommodations, like a separate area, could be made – though it is not clear if these were actioned prior to her release.
Many people have taken to social media to criticise the decision to place Dragun in a men’s jail, with one person calling it ‘infuriating’.
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They wrote on Twitter: “I’d never heard of Nikita Dragun before this week, but the fact that Florida would put someone whose legal documents say female in a men’s jail is unsurprising, scary, and infuriating.”
Another person said: “What happened to Nikita Dragun was awful.
“I don’t think that needs to be said with any disclaimer of ‘I do not support her or the things she’s done’, because if anyone else was wrongly jailed and put in a dangerous place you’d have sympathy for them regardless of what they’ve done.”
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