Still The Same, “Walking While Trans”

Let’s appoint a commission or let’s study it some more!

It seems like whenever politicians have to do something they don’t like they pass it off to be studied some more or to a commission. Police harassment of trans people followed that path and the commission came up with a policy change.

Activists Say Police Abuse of Transgender People Persists Despite Reforms
By Noah Remmick
September 6, 2015

Although the New York Police Department amended its patrol guide in 2012 to require respectful treatment of transgender people, Ms. Diamond, who is a transgender woman, said she was subjected to a strip search by a male officer. Two other officers watched from a few feet away, gawking as she spread her legs. Officers then placed Ms. Diamond in a cell for men, she said, where she cowered in the corner as other inmates heckled her and used the exposed toilet in her presence. When she expressed her discomfort to an officer, he replied, “You know you like it in there with all the men.”

Officers snickered at Ms. Diamond throughout the process, she said, calling her a “he-she,” “tranny” and “it.”

“I felt totally voiceless,” Ms. Diamond, who is 37 and now divorced, said recently through tears. “Like I wasn’t even human. Like my safety didn’t even matter.”

When the patrol guide reforms were issued, advocates for transgender people lauded the changes as groundbreaking, if overdue. Officers now were required, among other provisions, to refer to people by their preferred names and gender pronouns, to allow people to be searched by an officer of their requested gender, and to refrain from “discourteous or disrespectful remarks” regarding sexual orientation or gender identity.

It is one thing to have policies in place and another thing to enforce those polices. Lots of times there is a wink and a nod from the top brass and when activists called for an audit of the policies they are hemming and hawing to stall any audits,

“It’s one thing to make a reform on paper, but it takes a greater commitment of resources to make the necessary cultural changes,” said Councilman Ritchie Torres, a Bronx Democrat who is formally requesting an audit.

“The N.Y.P.D. is a deeply intransigent, conservative institution,” Mr. Torres added. “It’s going to take extensive retraining for officers to fully live up to the spirit and letter of the 2012 changes.”

Until we see top down accountability we will not see any changes.

I meet with the LGBT community outreach officer for the Hartford police department and she is all gun hoe and says she has the support the top brass… time will tell. I hpe she does have the support she needs.