The End Of Pride Month

How did the rising at Coopers Donuts (1959), Dewey Lunch (1965), Compton’s Cafeteria (1966), and Stonewall Inn (1969) start?

With polices raids on “homosexuals” where they were checking for three items of male clothing. In other words they were looking for trans people.

Panel in New Haven explores relationships between LGBTQ and law enforcement
New Haven Register
By Esteban L. Hernandez
June 28, 2017

NEW HAVEN >> Officer David Hartman remembers how bar owners responded to his pitch to provide more uniformed officers in bars popular with the LGBTQ community.

 “It wasn’t well-received,” Hartman said. “But we did it anyway. Not with the uniforms and not with marked cars, but we put detectives and officers in soft cars.”

Hartman serves as the department spokesperson and its LGBTQ liaison, a position that’s become commonplace among departments across the country and in other countries. He joined four other panelists during a discussion Wednesday at Gateway Community College focusing on how law enforcement and this growing community interact. The meeting was convened by Connecticut’s U.S. Attorney’s Office.
[…]
Perhaps no one illustrated potential issues between police and LGBTQ communities more than Nadine Ruff. A transgender woman, Ruff said she had reported a sexual assault to New Haven police but was ridiculed. Ruff said the police response re-victimized her, which she said is an experience that’s too common.

“You need to know about this community,” Ruff said. “We fear police.”

The 2015 U.S.Transgender Survey found that,

• Respondents experienced high levels of mistreatment and harassment by police. In the past year, of respondents who interacted with police or law enforcement officers who thought or knew they were transgender, more than half (58%) experienced some form of mistreatment. This included being verbally harassed, repeatedly referred to as the wrong gender, physically assaulted, or sexually assaulted, including being forced by officers to engage in sexual activity to avoid arrest.
• Police frequently assumed that respondents—particularly transgender women of color—were sex workers. In the past year, of those who interacted with law enforcement officers who thought or knew they were transgender, one-third (33%) of Black transgender women and 30% of multiracial women said that an officer assumed they were sex workers.
• More than half (57%) of respondents said they would feel uncomfortable asking the police for help if they needed it.
• Of those who were arrested in the past year (2%), nearly one-quarter (22%) believed they were arrested because they were transgender.

So there are good reasons why we fear the police.