Alexis Giraldo, the recently paroled transgender prisoner who is suing the state for failing to protect her from sexual assault while she was incarcerated, took the stand last week in a San Francisco courtroom and described in detail the alleged rapes that she endured. Giraldo, 30, a Puerto Rican transgender woman, alleges in the lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation that two inmates with whom she shared cells between January and March 2006 repeatedly raped her. According to the lawsuit, which was filed earlier this year, Giraldo informed multiple prison officials during February and March 2006 that she was being raped daily, beaten, and held "hostage" by her second cellmate. Giraldo, according to the lawsuit, did not report the alleged sexual assaults perpetrated by her first cellmate.The lawsuit claims Giraldo suffered emotional distress and claims violation of the state constitution. Giraldo was paroled July 13, just before her trial started. She had been serving a sentence for shoplifting and a parole violation. Last week, the jury of nine men and three women in Superior Court heard her story. "I'm scared and frustrated this happened to me," Giraldo told the court as she huddled and slouched forward on the stand, answering questions about the events that took place during January and February 2006 while she was at Old Folsom State Prison. Several times during her testimony, Giraldo broke down in tears, halting the progress of the trial as she struggled to compose herself, said Alexander Lee, director of the Transgender, Gender Variant, and Intersexed Justice Project. Lee assisted with preserving evidence in Giraldo's case and is expected to take the stand later this week. On July 20, during cross-examination, Giraldo was more composed, yet dabbing at her eyes with a tissue as she answered the deputy attorneys's general questions about the box cutter used to cut her neck and the continued anal bleeding that finally led corrections officers to take her to the University of California, Davis for a medical examination and a rape kit two weeks after the final incident. SOURCE OF THIS STORY