A lawsuit filed this week in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleges that a D.C. police officer and a U.S. Marshal groped a transgender man, fondled his genitals to “determine his anatomical gender,” and held him in lockup instead of releasing him with a citation because he was trans.

The lawsuit stems from an incident that took place on August 9, 2017, when the plaintiff was driving to McDonald’s to pick up an Uber Eats order. A Metropolitan Police Department officer pulled the plaintiff over and arrested him for possession of an open container of alcohol, a misdemeanor, per court documents.

In D.C., adults arrested for misdemeanor offenses can be released with a citation rather than held before trial if they have no outstanding warrants. But when the plaintiff was taken to the Sixth District Station, he was processed for lockup, according to the lawsuit, which quotes an unnamed MPD officer telling the man’s girlfriend that his identity as a trans man was holding up his release. “I’ll tell you why it’s taking so long,” the officer says, per the suit. “It used to be a she and now it’s a he. We are trying to figure out who he or she is.” The plaintiff legally changed his gender to conform to his identity in 2012, according to court documents.

According to the lawsuit, when the plaintiff was detained, he was groped twice: once by a D.C. police officer and once by a U.S. Marshal, both men who sought to “determine his gender.” He was then zip-tied to another male arrestee, who allegedly was not groped. In D.C., if arrestees identify themselves as transgender, they cannot be frisked to determine gender, and they can ask to be searched by either male or female officers.

The plaintiff saw that his paperwork had “LGBTQ” written in “prominent, highlighted letters,” according to court documents, and he feared that the man he was zip-tied to could also see the paperwork, and might hurt him.

The following afternoon, the plaintiff was arraigned and released, per the lawsuit. The following month, the U.S. Attorney’s Office decided not to prosecute him for possession of an open container of alcohol, court documents say. The plaintiff “suffered emotional distress and humiliation” and now distrusts the police, per the suit.

He is suing the city, D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham, MPD employees, and the unnamed U.S. Marshal who allegedly groped him for violating the Fifth Amendment by discriminating on the basis of gender identity and violating the Fourth Amendment with an unlawful body search. He is seeking a trial by jury.

The plaintiff is represented by the Clark Law Group, which declined to comment on the case. MPD also declined to comment, because the department does not comment on pending litigation.