Diana’s Little Corner in the Nutmeg State: Trans Police

Friday, June 26, 2020

Trans Police

It must be really hard to be a trans person and to be a police officer.

NBC 5 Exclusive: Chicago Police Department's Only Out Transgender Officer Goes On Record

Officer Megan Woods is the only known out transgender officer within the Chicago Police Department

NBC Chicago

By Chris Hushd

June 25, 2020

As Chicago nears what was supposed to be the popular Pride parade this weekend, one of the city’s only known out transgender police officers is speaking out.

Officer Megan Woods, a 17-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department,says she hopes her story provides hope for others during uncertain times.

[…]

“People really respected being macho and masculine,” Officer Woods said, explaining why she didn’t tell her family or colleagues for years. “It literally led me down some very dark roads. I’ve struggled with alcoholism and suicide attempts.”

[…]

“You can see their attitude change right away, especially when I come out of vehicle and they realize there’s an LGBT person in an LGBT car,” Ofc. Woods said. “Their perceptions change, and they realize they have a voice.”

I have met a couple of trans officers here in Connecticut and to say the least they have had a bumpy road, I believe both have filed complaints with the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO), and I have met Hartford’s LGBTQ+ liaison officer, officer Kelly Baerga who is a lesbian and she has also had problems with other officers.

Hartford police release internal affairs report on harassment complaint

HARTFORD — The Hartford Police Department has released its report following an internal investigation into alleged inappropriate comments made by a superv…

Fox 61

Author: Samara Abramson

April 10, 2019

HARTFORD -- The Hartford Police Department has released its report following an internal investigation into alleged inappropriate comments made by a supervisor, toward a female officer.

Officer Kelly Baerga was the LGBTQ liaison for the Hartford Police Department. In May 2018, she alleged that her then supervisor, Sergeant Andrew Rodney, made repeated inappropriate comments to her over an eight-month period.

Baerga accused the department of having a culture that makes many female officers feel unsafe. In one instance, Baerga accused Rodney of making a comment that she said was meant to ‘out’ her to a colleague.

It has to be hard to be LGBTQ police officers working in such a macho environment.

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Quotes

Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

A right delayed is a right denied.Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.

Martin Luther King Jr.

No one is born hating another person… People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
Nelson Mandela

We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist
James Baldwin

There is a fine line between free speech and hate speech. Free speech encourages debate whereas hate speech incites violence.
Newton Lee

The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything.
Albert Einstein

"The point is that there are always obstacles, whether they seem insurmountable or merely bothersome. The question is not how difficult the path, but whether in your heart, you wish to undertake the journey."
Zandru's Forge

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.
Mahatma Gandhi

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time -- when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness...
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

You've Got To Be Carefully Taught
You've got to be taught
To hate
And fear
You've got to be taught
From year
To year
Its got to
Be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to
Be carefully
Taught
You've got to be taught
To be
Afraid
Of people
Who's eyes are oddly made
And people who's skin is a different shade

South Pacific
Songwriters: Oscar Hammerstein II / Richard Rogers

Friday, June 26, 2020

Trans Police

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