A Trans Male Correctional Officer Was Told to Wear A Women’s Uniform and Use the Wrong Restroom

In July 2017, Kaden Vitellaro was hired as a correctional officer at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Tucson, hoping it was the start of a long career in law enforcement. Just a year later, however — after what he says was a persistent pattern of harassment because he is a transgender man — Vitellaro resigned.

Now, after seven years trying to hold the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Recovery responsible for how he was treated, Vitellaro is suing. On July 9, he filed a federal complaint against ADCRR, outlining the year’s worth of discrimination he says he suffered while working in the state prison system.

“I still have trust issues,” Vitellaro, 39, told Phoenix New Times and LOOKOUT in an interview. “I’m hoping to make sure no one else experiences this.”

An ADCRR spokesperson said the department “cannot comment on active litigation.”

Vitellaro says he began experiencing discrimination nearly from his first day as a cadet at the state’s Correctional Officer Training Academy, or COTA. At the time he applied for the job, Vitellaro had already transitioned and presented as male. He had also already changed his name and the sex on his birth certificate and driver’s license. He intended to keep his transgender status private, “sharing it only with close friends and family members,” the complaint says.

However, as a condition of employment, Vitellaro was required to submit documentation — “including his former name, court-ordered name change, and medical history,” the complaint says — that revealed his transgender status. As a result, he says, he was treated differently almost immediately after starting the job. 

Before he reported for training at COTA in September 2017, officials there told Vitellaro that he would need to follow dress code rules for female cadets. He objected and said following the female dress code “would be impossible for him.” Just before he started at COTA, the academy “notified incoming cadets that it had adopted a standard non-gendered dress code.”

COTA officers also told Vitellaro that he would be prohibited from using men’s restrooms. Notably, unlike other states, Arizona does not have any laws prohibiting transgender people from using bathrooms that align with their gender identities. The complaint says that Vitellaro “was concerned that compliance with these demeaning and humiliating directives would involuntarily disclose his transgender status.” 

As a result, COTA officials told him to use a private bathroom in the facility's dormitories, which was in a different building from his training classes. Vitellaro was barred from using any other bathroom facilities. He made that trek all throughout his time at COTA, which lasted roughly a month and a half. 

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That arrangement generated questions, Vitellaro said, but things got worse once he began on-the-job training at ASPC-Tucson. It was there that a correctional officer — identified in the complaint as Saul Miller — “repeatedly referred to Mr. Vitellaro as ‘she’ and ‘her’ to other cadets, officers, and inmates, intentionally demeaning Mr. Vitellaro and disclosing his private transgender status to others.”

Miller learned of Vitellaro’s status after asking cadets if they would be comfortable performing strip searches. Vitellaro had been told that department policy prevented him from strip searching male inmates due to his transgender status. He spoke to Miller privately to inform him that he is transgender, the complaint says, but Miller used that information to demean Vitellaro, persistently and purposefully misgendering him in ways that made him feel “uncomfortable, embarrassed and unsafe.”

“When that officer referred to me as she/her around inmates, that’s when I was really scared,” Vitellaro told New Times and LOOKOUT. “That was a real moment of fear. These people are in prison — not everyone is there for violent reasons, but some are. So misgendering … can be super harmful.”

New Times and LOOKOUT attempted to contact Miller but has not been successful. It is not clear if he still works for ADCRR.

Vitellaro’s complaint says he filed an “internal report” with the department’s Equal Opportunity Unit. According to internal correspondence referenced in the lawsuit, correctional department officials found they were “unable to conclude” that Vitellaro had been discriminated against. Miller was given only a one-page sheet outlining examples of “LGBT-Related Sex Discrimination Claims.”

‘Humiliated and deeply distressed’

Per the lawsuit, that sheet of paper had little effect. 

When Vitellaro graduated from COTA, he was “dismayed” to learn that he was assigned to the same residential unit as Miller. When Vitellaro expressed concerns about this and asked to be transferred to another residential unit, ADCRR instead assigned him to an administrative unit with minimal inmate contact, known as “Complex.” As a result, he says, he was “denied essential skills development” that other new officers receive by supervising inmates.

Vitellaro’s attorney, Joseph Wardenski, said Vitellaro did not want to be assigned to Complex, where he worked for more than half a year, and simply wanted to work in another residential unit. The differential treatment “sparked rumors about his gender identity” and led to staff and correctional officers “talking about him and discussing his transgender status behind his back,” the complaint says.

To work in a residential unit, ACDRR officials told Vitellaro, he would have to follow rules for female officers, including shouting “female on the run” whenever he entered a men’s residential unit — literally requiring him to shout his transgender status for all to hear. Additionally, ADCRR told him that department policy “classifies correctional officers based on their ‘genitalia and breasts,’” which meant Vitellaro had to be treated as a woman instead of a man. To justify that policy, ADCRR cited the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act.

PREA was passed in 2003 to deter the sexual assault of prisoners. During Vitellaro’s employment with ADCRR, an updated 2014 version of the law was in effect. Contrary to ADCRR policy, though, PREA guidelines state law enforcement facilities should treat transgender corrections officers according to their gender identity, not biological sex. Wardenski said ADCRR has incorrectly been citing PREA to explain its treatment of Vitellaro.

“They are blaming PREA, saying it requires them to treat trans employees this way,” Wardenski said. “It’s clear in PREA that identity should be the most important thing — yet for years, the Department of Corrections has been misreading that policy and using a law intended to protect inmates from sexual assault to discriminate against trans employees like Mr. Vitellaro.”

In May 2018 — after Vitellaro successfully obtained a waiver to maintain facial hair from then-warden Juli Roberts, which required discussing his trans status — Roberts abruptly reassigned him from Complex to the prison mail unit, which he took as a demotion. In at least one meeting with Roberts, the complaint says, she asked Vitellaro “invasive and embarrassing questions” about his genitalia and whether he planned to have genital surgery. Vitellaro was “humiliated and deeply distressed” by “being forced to discuss his genitalia with his warden.”

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In June of that year, Roberts reassigned Vitellaro to a residential unit but told him that he would still be required to announce himself as female every time he entered. Upon hearing the news, he “immediately experienced a panic attack, felt physically sick, and began to experience severe emotional distress.” Fearing for his safety, Vitellaro opted to use up all of his remaining leave time. When that time ran out in July, he resigned rather than “comply with directives that would put him in harm’s way.”

“To be told to do something that doesn’t align with who you are is pretty damaging,” he told New Times and LOOKOUT. “I’m very strong-willed and will handle a lot until I break — but that was my limit.”

The legal case

Before his resignation, Vitellaro retained an attorney — not Wardenski — to explore his options for protection at work. The attorney asked that ADCRR change its policy forcing him to announce himself as female or to reassign him to Complex or another unit with minimal inmate contact. The complaint says the department “failed to respond” to those entreaties.

In 2019, Vitellaro submitted a Charge of Discrimination against ADCRR to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. After an investigation that took five years, the EEOC wrote last September that “reasonable cause existed that ADCRR violated his rights.” On April 4 of this year, the EEOC sent Vitellaro a Right to Sue letter, clearing the way for the lawsuit.

Vitellaro is seeking compensatory damages in the suit. He’s also seeking “front pay” to compensate him for his lost earnings, as he has been forced to work lower-paying jobs since resigning as a correctional officer.

A lawsuit could take a year or more to resolve, and the current political environment under President Donald Trump makes the resolution even more uncertain. Shortly after Trump took office in January, he issued a series of executive orders that targeted trans people. Wardenski said that as soon as this happened, the EEOC dropped approximately seven employment discrimination lawsuits that they had already filed on behalf of transgender people.

Vitellaro’s case had not yet been filed when this took place, but Wardenski said it became immediately clear that the federal government would not be taking further action on his behalf. Wardenski hopes Arizona — led by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs, who has routinely vetoed anti-trans bills since entering office in 2023 — picks up the slack. ADCRR is run by one of Hobbs’ appointees.

“What I hope Arizona does is look at any discrimination policies that ‘require’ places like ADCRR to treat trans men as women and realize it’s at odds with civil rights laws,” Wardenski said. “But unfortunately, we’re not seeing that. We’re not seeing much change from when (Republican Gov. Doug) Ducey was in office. We have not seen any interest from the state in getting rid of these harmful policies. I hope the Hobbs administration, which has come out to denounce anti-trans legislation, will revisit this.” 

A spokesperson from Hobbs’ office did not respond to a request for comment.

In the meantime, Vitellaro is focused on moving forward. He now works for an LGBTQ+-owned company and is involved in local trans support groups. He hopes his case shines a light on issues that affect trans employees and spurs lawmakers and officials to put more protective policies in action.

“When you’re transitioning, you’re already going through a lot of changes,” he said. “You’re transitioning because you want to be seen for who you are, and when you’re in spaces that discourage that, it messes with your mental health. I have a really strong support system now and have gained a lot of confidence back.”