Nepal has introduced a third gender category in its census for the first time, a move the Himalayan nation’s LGBTQ community hopes will bring them greater rights.
Officials from the Central Bureau of Statistics have been visiting homes across the country of 30 million people since Saturday, giving respondents the option of choosing “others” as their gender, alongside male and female.
Nepal already has some of South Asia’s most progressive laws on homosexuality and transgender rights, with landmark reforms passed in 2007 prohibiting gender or sexual orientation discrimination.
A third gender category for citizenship documents was introduced in 2013 and Nepal began issuing passports with the “others” category two years later.
But gay and transgender Nepalis and rights activists say the LGTBQ community — estimated at 900,000-strong — still faces discrimination, particularly for jobs, health and education.
LGBTQ activists say a lack of data has hampered access to benefits they are entitled to.
“When there is data after the census, we can use it as evidence to lobby for our rights. We can make demands in proportion to our size of the population,” said Pinky Gurung, President of LGBTQ rights group Blue Diamond Society.
However, in more than 70 census questions there is only one linked to gender and critics say the results will still be limited.
Rukshana Kapali, a transgender woman and activist, who has filed a Supreme Court writ against the methodology, said the census was “problematic” and “cannot capture the real data of the LGBTQ community in Nepal”.
Rights groups say LGBTQ people have also been scared to identify themselves in the past but they are encouraging them to be more open this time.
The Sonoma County Library is offering virtual events throughout the month of October for all ages, including events for Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month and LGBTQ+ History Month. Registration is required for all events. See a sampling of October’s events below!
ChildrenDon’t miss Family Storytime, live on Zoom on Wednesdays! We model the practices of talking, singing, reading, writing, and playing that will help your child get ready to read. Join us on October 6, 13, and 20 at 10:30 am. See the schedule. There will be a Dia de los Muertos storytime on Wednesday, October 27, at 10:30 am. Meet the Author: Raúl the Third on Saturday, October 9, at 11:00 am. Raúl the Third is the Pura Belpré Honor-winning illustrator and author of ¡Vamos! Let’s Go to the Market and ¡Vamos! Let’s Go Eat.
Tweens/TeensChoose from a selection of teen programming this month (and every month!) Join other teens in beginner’s yoga practice, featuring mindful movement and breath work. Don’t miss Mindful Mondays Yoga with Ozlem on October 4 , 18, and 25 at 4:00 pm. See the schedule. Author of thrillers and fantasy Jennifer Lynn Alvarez will lead writers age nine to 13 through interactive prompts and teach fiction techniques at the Tween Writing Workshop via Zoom on Wednesday, October 20, at 4:00 pm. AdultsJoin us on Tuesday, October 5, at 6:00 pm for a film screening of award-winning documentary film El Cacao then join the conversation with film director Michelle Aguilar. The film threads together the themes of neoliberal ideology, human rights, and the economics of the chocolate industry. Register for Revisiting Coming Out Day in Sonoma County with Magi Fedorka and Adam Richmond on Tuesday, October 19, at 5:30 pm. Fedorka and Richmond, two activists from the 1980s and early 1990s, discuss the explosion of political and community organizing efforts during that period.Learn about the wild early LGBTQ history of San Francisco. Shad Reinstein and Tina Dungan will discuss Before Castro: LGBTQ San Francisco from the 1930s to 1970 on Tuesday, October 26, at 5:30 pm. This month’s Documentary Film Discussion event is on Thursday, October 28, at 6:00 pm and centers around The Gateway Bug: Feeding Humanity in an Uncertain Age. The film explores how changing eating habits can feed humanity. Use a streaming service (Kanopy, Hoopla) to view the film and talk about it via Zoom!Looking for more?
Eventos virtuales de octubre La Biblioteca del Condado de Sonoma está ofreciendo eventos virtuales durante todo el mes de octubre para todas las edades, incluyendo eventos para el Mes de la Herencia Hispana/Latinx y el Mes de la Historia LGBTQ.
Es necesario registrarse para todos los eventos. Vea una muestra de los eventos de octubre a continuación.
NiñosNo te pierdas la hora de cuentos, en vivo por Zoom los miércoles por la mañana! Modelamos las prácticas de hablar, cantar, leer, escribir y jugar que ayudarán a su hijo a prepararse para leer. Únase a nosotros los días 6, 13 y 20 de octubre a las 10:30am. Consulta el horario. Habrá una hora de cuentos del Día de los Muertos el miércoles 27 de octubre a las 10:30am.Conoce al autor: Raúl the Third el sábado 9 de octubre a las 11:00 am. Raúl the Third es el ilustrador ganador del Pura Belpré Honor y autor de ¡Vamos! Vamos al Mercado y ¡Vamos! Vamos a comer.
Preadolescentes / Adolescentes Elije una selección de programación para adolescentes este mes (¡y todos los meses!) Únate a otros adolescentes en la práctica de yoga para principiantes, con movimiento consciente y trabajo de respiración. No te pierdas los talleres de yoga con Ozlem los días 4, 18 y 25 de octubre a las 4:00 pm. Consulta el horario.Jennifer Lynn Alvarez, la autora de novelas de suspenso y fantasía, enseñará técnicas de ficción a escritores de 9 a 13 años a través de mensajes interactivos en el Taller de Escritura Tween vía Zoom el miércoles, 20 de octubre, a las 4:00 pm. AdultosAcompáñenos el
LGBTQI History: A Sonoma County Timeline 1947-2000.Wednesdays 1:30-3pm. Online via Zoom. Wednesday, 10/6 Shad Reinstein will be presenting on the Russian River Gay Mecca 1960s-1986. Please contact me to enroll in this free class and get a Zoom invite: [email protected]
Rwandan authorities rounded up and arbitrarily detained over a dozen gay and transgender people, sex workers, street children, and others in the months before a planned June 2021 high-profile international conference, Human Rights Watch said.
They were held in a transit center in Gikondo neighborhood of the capital Kigali, unofficially called “Kwa Kabuga,” known for its harsh and inhuman conditions, which appear to have deteriorated further due to the increase in the number of detainees held there and the pandemic. The Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), first scheduled for June 2020 and rescheduled for June 2021, was eventually postponed indefinitely in May.
“Rwanda’s strategy to promote Kigali as a hub for meetings and conferences often means continued abuse of the capital’s poorest and most marginalized residents,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “As the meeting is rescheduled, Rwanda’s Commonwealth partners have a choice: either speak up for the rights of the victims or be silent as the crackdown is carried out in their name.”
Following reports on abuses at the Gikondo transit center in 2015, 2016, and 2020, this practice was condemned during Rwanda’s review by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, a Geneva-based treaty body, in February 2020. Between April and June 2021, Human Rights Watch interviewed via telephone 17 former detainees from Gikondo. Interviews with nine people who identified as transgender or homosexual, three women who were detained with their babies, four men who worked as street vendors at local markets, and a 13-year-old boy living on the streets in Kigali, confirmed that patterns of abuse that Human Rights Watch documented previously are ongoing. Due to fear of reprisals against interviewees, Human Rights Watch has withheld all identifying information.
At Gikondo, detainees are held in overcrowded rooms in conditions well below standards required by Rwandan and international law. The former detainees said they have inadequate food, water, and health care; suffer frequent beatings; and are rarely allowed to leave filthy, overcrowded rooms. People were detained there without basic due process standards. None of the former detainees interviewed were formally charged with any criminal offense and none saw a prosecutor, judge, or lawyer before or during their detention. There were no measures to protect people from Covid-19, and former detainees said they did not have access to testing, soap, masks, or basic hygiene and sanitation amenities.
People interviewed who identified as gay or transgender said that security officials accused them of “not representing Rwandan values.” They said that other detainees beat them because of their clothes and identity. Three other detainees, who were held in the “delinquents’” room at Gikondo, confirmed that fellow detainees and guards more frequently and violently beat people they knew were gay or transgender than others.
In the past, round-ups have been connected to high-profile government events, ahead of which security forces may ramp up efforts to “clear up” Kigali’s streets. Human Rights Watch documented a similar round-up in 2016 before an African Union Summit held in Kigali. Ahead of the now postponed 2021 Commonwealth meeting, several former detainees said the police told them they did not want them on the streets during the event.
A civil society activist in Kigali said: “The streets were empty before the meeting. You couldn’t see any street children in town. Even the fruit vendors were taken [to Gikondo]. But now you can see them in the streets again.” Sources in Kigali confirmed that fewer people were living or working on the streets in the month preceding the date for the meeting. Several former detainees said the conditions at Gikondo had worsened in the lead-up to the meeting due to severe overcrowding.
An 18-year-old woman, a street vendor arbitrarily detained for two weeks with her 9-month-old baby, said: “[The police] said the government wanted to clear the city because of CHOGM. They said they would detain us until CHOGM has happened without our filth on display.”
Rwanda is one of a few countries in East Africa that does not criminalize consensual same-sex relations. Vagrancy, begging, and sex work are not criminalized either. Yet the authorities continue to use Gikondo Transit Center to imprison people accused of “deviant behavior that is harmful to the public,” including street vending and homelessness.
Rwanda should urgently close the transit center in Gikondo and amend the legal framework governing the National Rehabilitation Service. The authorities should promptly investigate all reported cases of ill-treatment and beatings of detainees by police and transit center personnel – including reports of detainees dying in detention – and prosecute the suspected abusers, Human Rights Watch said.
“Based on past experience, there is every likelihood that similar patterns of abuse will occur ahead of whatever new date is set for the Commonwealth meeting,” Mudge said. “Locking up marginalized people and abusing them simply because the authorities believe they tarnish their country’s image violates human dignity, and Commonwealth leaders should not tolerate this.”
Gikondo Transit Center
Since 2017, legislation and policies under the government’s strategy to “eradicate delinquency” have sought to legitimize and regulate so-called transit centers, presenting them as part of a “rehabilitation” process aimed at supporting poor and marginalized people. The authorities acknowledge that there are 28 “transit centers” in Rwanda, including “Kwa Kabuga,” the unofficial name of Kigali’s transit center situated in the Gikondo residential suburb of Kigali.
A January 2020 Human Rights Watch report found that the 2017 legislation provides cover for the police to round up and arbitrarily detain people accused of so-called “deviant behaviors” at Gikondo in deplorable and degrading conditions, and without due process or judicial oversight. Detainees are released with very little formal procedure, reflecting the arbitrary manner in which they were initially arrested.
Based on the 2017 legal framework and statements by Rwandan authorities, the broader objective of Gikondo is to serve as a short-term screening center to allow authorities to process detainees to send on to rehabilitation centers. However, in practice, there is no judicial process to determine the length of time people spend at the center or whether they are released or transferred. Some people interviewed said they were released when the center was overcrowded. Two said they were released in June 2021, after the decision to postpone the Commonwealth meeting was announced.
The 13-year-old boy said he was held for two weeks in late April and May, in a room with over 200 other street children, and was released after the announcement: “The police told us: ‘Don’t be afraid, children. The meeting isn’t happening; you’ll be released tomorrow.’” He said that district authorities collected all children detained at Gikondo and returned them to the streets of Kigali. He was not offered support to rejoin his family or return to school.
The civil society activist confirmed that, “Children were detained, moto-taxis had to stop working, street vendors were harassed – all because of the Commonwealth meeting. Since it’s been postponed, the abuse has calmed down.”
Former detainees said police told them that they were “trash,” and that they would be detained during the meeting and released in August. “Before the [Commonwealth] meeting, they would arrest us and seize our goods,” said a 20-year-old street vendor, who was detained for two weeks in April with her 9-month-old baby. “With this meeting coming up … Gikondo [was] very overcrowded.”
Arrest and Transfer to Gikondo
Round-ups by police or officers from the District Administration Security Support Organ (DASSO), a local state security body, are often the first step toward arbitrary detention at Gikondo. The arbitrary nature of the detention is reflected in the complete absence of due process once people are taken to Gikondo. In most cases, detainees are held in various police stations or sector (local government) offices across Kigali before being transferred to Gikondo. None of the interviewees were taken before a judge or given access to a lawyer before being transferred to Gikondo.
Detention of Gay and Transgender People
The detention of transgender people at Gikondo was reported in the media in November 2020. The nine transgender or gay people interviewed by Human Rights Watch were detained at Gikondo between December 2020 and April 2021. They said they had been targeted due to their sexual orientation or gender identity and treated worse than other detainees.
Several said the police or local security officers detained them after members of the public reported seeing them with their partners and other lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people, or wearing women’s clothing if they were perceived not to be female. At Gikondo, police officers or guards accused them of being homeless, thieves, or delinquents and held them in a room reserved for “delinquent” men. One 27-year-old transgender woman said:
They took me at Kabuga and said I was causing problems in Rwanda…. When I arrived, police asked why am I looking like this? Why am I looking like a girl? They asked: ‘Are you a prostitute?’ I said, ‘No, I am a Rwandan.’ They jailed me with other people who were [accused of being] thieves.
One said he was arrested in late December 2020, after leaving a bar in Nyamirambo neighborhood in Kigali: “When we were about to get on motorbikes, local patrol men came and asked us who we are and what we are doing here … they said we don’t represent Rwandan customs. My friend [a transgender woman] has long hair and was wearing a skirt.” Another former detainee was arrested by local security officials in February 2021 after kissing his same-sex partner in a bar. He said customers from the bar insulted them and called the security patrol, who took them straight to Gikondo transit center.
Transgender and gay people interviewed described being harassed, insulted, and beaten by security officials during their arrest and detention. A former detainee who was arrested by DASSO officials in December 2020 said she was taken to the Nyabugogo police station. “They asked me what I was doing … if I am a girl or a boy,” she said. “I said I am a girl and that’s when the problems started … At Kabuga, we were beaten by the leaders. They asked if we were boys or girls.”
A transgender woman detained at Gikondo in February 2021 said: “Police said we were cursed, and asked how we could behave in this way, having sex with people of the same sex as us. They said we’re delinquents and put us in that room. But in the room, we were badly beaten by other detainees and police did nothing despite our cries.” Another gay former detainee who was arrested with a group of transgender people said a policeman beat his feet and told him he should be “rehabilitated.”
Several other former detainees confirmed these patterns of abuse. An 18-year-old street vendor accused of “delinquency” was detained with about 1,000 other men, where he said “men who dressed as women” – referring to transgender people – “were beaten more than the others. We were all beaten but they were really badly beaten.” All transgender women interviewed were housed in male facilities.
Beatings
Beatings often begin as soon as people are rounded up and taken to a nearby police station or post. A 30-year-old woman with a 3-year-old child said:
I was taken to the police, where they kept us in a room with others who had been arrested. At that point we were violently beaten. I had a baby with me, but they still beat me, although they didn’t beat him. At 2 a.m. they transferred us to “Kwa Kabuga.” They told me: “Your baby is none of our business. Get in with the others.” I insulted them, so they beat me badly. They said they don’t want me to do this kind of business [on the streets].
Once detainees arrive at Gikondo, they are registered and often beaten by other detainees. Long-term detainees at Gikondo, known as “counsellors,” are often in charge of daily life in the rooms and beat other detainees. The 30-year-old street vendor said that other detainees in the women’s room beat her and her child: “An adult woman is hit twenty times, whereas her child will be beaten four times. It’s only babies under one year old that are not beaten.”
Interviewees detained in the women’s room also said they were beaten when their child defecated or cried: “We were beaten every day. We were also beaten when we asked for permission to use the toilet. If a baby cried, or urinated, its mother would pay the price,” said the 23-year-old mother of a 2-year-old child, who was detained at Gikondo for three weeks in April.
Guards or “counselors” also regularly beat detainees in the children’s room or rooms for adult men. Children are often beaten when they make noise or play together. “We were beaten a lot…. If you fight, if you make a mistake, or if you shout, they beat you with sticks,” the 13-year-old boy said. A 21-year-old street vendor held in the room for “delinquents” said that detainees are beaten for spending too long in the bathroom, for talking too loudly, or “for any fault you commit.”
Conditions at Gikondo
Conditions in Gikondo Transit Center, as Human Rights Watch has extensively documented since 2006, fall well below international standards and violate Rwandan law.
In March 2020, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture called on governments to “reduce prison populations … wherever possible by implementing schemes of early, provisional or temporary release.” Yet Rwandan authorities continued to detain people in Gikondo transit center, without due process or judicial oversight. Overcrowding and poor hygienic and sanitary conditions at Gikondo put people at greater risk of contracting Covid-19 due to close proximity, inability to practice “social distancing,” a lack of adequate sanitation and hygiene, and lack of adequate medical care, including a lack of Covid-19 testing.
During their arrest and transfer to Gikondo, people interviewed said, they were not tested for Covid-19, were not given masks to wear, and were not given the space to maintain distances from other detainees. Many were taken to Gikondo in an overcrowded truck with windows closed. Some said that upon arrival, they washed their hands with water, but were not given soap. One former detainee said hand sanitizer was confiscated by the authorities upon arrival.
Former detainees who were held at Gikondo between 2019 and 2021 estimate that between 50 and 200 girls and boys detained together at a time in the “children’s room,” in deplorable and degrading conditions. But they described conditions in the room for male “delinquents” – which also holds teenage boys – and facilities for adult women with their infants as far worse.
In those two rooms, some children were held together with adults in severely overcrowded conditions and many detainees were forced to sleep on the concrete floor. Former detainees held in the room for “delinquents” estimated that over 1,000 people were held together. One person interviewed said it was not possible to see the floor at night when the detainees attempted to lay down to sleep on the concrete floor.
Most former detainees said they were given food once a day, in insufficient quantities and with poor nutritional value. Food is particularly insufficient for young children and babies, who regularly get sick. One woman said she was released after her baby got so ill he had blood in his stool, while another said her baby had to be transferred directly to a hospital due to malnutrition.
Detainees in the rooms for women and “delinquents” had irregular access to drinking water, sometimes only once a day. “Sometimes we go an entire day without drinking water, and then they give a tiny amount that we all have to share,” said one interviewee who was held at Gikondo for almost all of April.
Sanitation and hygiene conditions are very poor, and many interviewees reported being allowed to wash at most once a week. One former detainee said: “When it’s time to wash, they take a 20-liter basin and around 20 to 30 people wash at the same time.” Former detainees said they were rarely given soap. The mother of a 3-year-old said: “We only washed once a day with filthy water that had worms in it, mostly without soap … we didn’t change our clothes.”
Three interviewees said that during their time at Gikondo, they saw or heard of detainees who had died due to the poor conditions and lack of appropriate medical care. “In the two weeks I spent [at Gikondo] there were three nights where we couldn’t sleep because there were too many people in the room,” said a 40-year-old street vendor detained at the transit center in April. “Two people died because of this treatment and illnesses…. They were ill and had diarrhea and skin rashes. They were refused permission to see a doctor, and one morning they were found dead. I don’t know what caused their death or what their names are.”
Human Rights Watch requested information on these allegations from the Justice Ministry and the National Rehabilitation Service but received no response and was not able to independently verify them.
Lack of Government Response; Criticism by Regional and International Entities
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which reviewed Rwanda’s record on January 27 and 28, 2020, said it was concerned that the reference to “deviant behaviors” in Rwanda’s legislation was leading to “the deprivation of liberty of children in need of protection.” The committee said the abusive detention should end and that the government should change the law.
During the committee’s review, the Rwandan government denied that the detention of street children in transit centers is arbitrary. The government also claimed that children in transit centers are either placed with a family or transferred to a “rehabilitation center” within 72 hours. These claims contradict reports by the National Commission for Children and the National Commission for Human Rights, as well as Human Rights Watch findings.
In response to the Human Rights Watch January 2020 report, then-Justice Minister Johnston Busingye was quoted in KT Press saying: “These children have been redeemed…. We believe they can become useful citizens…. HRW [Human Rights Watch] can come and interview them if they wish.” During Rwanda’s review by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the gender and family promotion minister, Soline Nyirahabimana, also said that independent observers should visit the center.
On December 4, 2020, the African Court on Human and People’s Rights held that states’ laws enabling the detention of people who, often because of poverty, are forced to live on the street, violate human rights law. The opinion issued in response to a request by the Pan African Lawyers Union, upheld the rights of people deemed “vagrants” by the state. The opinion concluded that laws permitting the forcible removal or warrantless arrest of a person declared to be a “vagrant,” violate the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and other human rights instruments.
On February 6, 2020, December 14, 2020, and August 23, 2021, Human Rights Watch wrote letters to then-Justice Minister Busingye following up on these statements, requesting access to Gikondo and other transit centers in Rwanda, and asking about steps taken by the Rwanda authorities to remedy the abusive legal framework governing its National Rehabilitation Service. He has not responded.
South Africa’s LGBT+ community are demanding justice for a lesbian whose alleged murderer gloated about removing a “curse” from her family.
Sisanda Gumede, 28, was stabbed in the Umbumbulu area, south of Durban, on Sunday evening (26 September). She was rushed to a hospital but tragically died en route.
Police spokesperson colonel Thembeka Mbele said the killer’s motivation is still unknown. According to Nonhlanhla Khoza, a politician serving in the Department of Social Development, the suspect is thought to be one of the young lesbian woman’s own relatives.
“Although the information regarding the incident violently is still sketchy, it appears that the deceased and [the suspect] had an altercation while at home,” she said in a statement reported by The South African.
“Gumede’s murder is understood to be motivated by homophobia, as [the suspect] allegedly gloated after the incident that he had removed the curse from the family.
“Police should spare no time while the alleged perpetrator is not arrested. We must ensure he is arrested to answer for his sin, as he attacked a defenceless woman.”
Khoza sent her condolences to Gumede’s loved ones and said such murders go against the ethos of the country’s constitution.
“We are deeply ashamed that, in our nation, we still have people facing discrimination based on their sexual orientation,” she said. “This is a gross violation of basic human rights and we should unite to end such crimes.”
She urged communities in the province not to tolerate homophobic hate crimes and to work with the police to expose those involved.
“It must sink in the minds of all those involved in such crimes that no one has a right to take a life and abuse someone else because of their sexuality. Our government has made giant strides towards safeguarding LGBTQ+ rights. However, incidents similar to this one water down all efforts that have been made.
“We have committed ourselves to fighting for justice and we want our society to work together to end these crimes. We warn communities to work together to end hate crimes, homophobia and other forms of unfair discrimination against LGBTQI + communities.”
It was a typical day for Juniper Simonis. The freelance ecologist decided to break from work for lunch at about 3 p.m. to take their service dog, Wallace, to the local dog park and grab a bite to eat.
But a planned peaceful afternoon quickly turned ugly. Simonis says they survived a gang assault of about 30 perpetrators in Gresham, Ore., a suburb outside of Portland. The Oregon resident encountered the group for only minutes but suffered a concussion, sprained jaw, extensive car damage and verbal assaults, they said.
“They nearly killed me,” they said.
Simonis said they turned into a parking lot to pick up lunch in Gresham, Ore., and stumbled upon a rally that included several members of the Proud Boys — a far-right, ultra-nationalist organization known for its anti-LGBTQ, anti-feminism and neo-fascist ideologies.
There was a “Flag Ride” right-wing rally in a parking lot earlier that day. Simonis was under the impression the event had ended after checking reports on Twitter. After pulling into the lot, originally to look for lunch options, Simonis saw a large gathering still in the lot.
Simonis decided to take pictures of what was happening to post online to warn others and was intentional in keeping their distance, they said. As Simonis was preparing to leave the area, they yelled from inside the car, “Fuck you, fascists, go home.”
“I did not expect this to escalate into violence,” they said.
The attack itself only lasted about three minutes, Simonis said. Simonis was quickly surrounded by several people and physically blocked from leaving the lot. People stepped in front of the parking lot exit, then a car was moved to barricade Simonis. People began to shout homophobic slurs at Simonis, they said.
“I’m in serious trouble now and I know it,” they said.
Simonis was then punched while inside their vehicle and was briefly knocked out. They regained consciousness a few seconds later, and a cinder block was thrown at the car and shattered the back window of their car inches away from their service dog, Wallace.
Simonis got out of the car to assess the damage and make sure their service dog was safe. They quickly got back in their car and was able to leave the lot by maneuvering around the blocked exit, Simonis said.
Looking back at the photos and videos Simonis took before the assault, Simonis said they saw people looking into the camera and acknowledging them taking photos.
“I honestly don’t know if I hadn’t said anything, that … things would have gone any different,” they said.
Last year, Simonis was targeted and arrested by federal police in Portland during the tumultuous Black Lives Matter protests in the city. They were denied medical attention, misgendered, jumped and aggressively handcuffed while taken into custody.
Simonis is still working through legal proceedings in a multi-plaintiff lawsuit.
A witness to the event called the Gresham Police Department, which was only a few blocks away from the incident. But the call went to voicemail and the witness did not leave a message, Simonis said.
Another witness called 911, Simonis said, which led to an officer calling Simonis about 45 minutes after the accident to take a report.
In the police report obtained by the Blade, Simonis is consistently misgendered. Simonis’ sex is also listed as “unknown” in the report. The incident was labeled as vehicle vandalism.
Simonis said the conversation with the officer was filled with victim-blaming and the officer wrote in the report that Simonis should avoid “approaching groups of this nature.”
“At no point in this conversation does he treat me as an actual victim of a crime,” Simonis said.
The Gresham Police Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Weeks after the assault, Simonis is struggling mentally and physically, they said.
The concussion makes working on a computer virtually impossible because of light sensitivity and trouble focusing, Simonis said. The pain caused by the sprained jaw makes it difficult to focus, as well.
Simonis is not able to begin physical therapy for their jaw until November because of long medical wait times, they said. The cost to repair the car damages will be about $8,000, as well, they said.
The times where Simonis is able to focus are usually taken up by piecing together what happened that day, they said.
“The part of my brain that I use for work has been hijacked functionally by the part of the brain that needed to know what happened to me,” they said. “There is such a painful need to understand what happened to me.”
Because of past traumatic events, like the experience of being in federal custody last year, Simonis said processing and living with the trauma is a bit easier to handle. But their ability to work will be forever changed yet again, they said.
“I’m not able to work at the pace that I used to work at before I was assaulted by DHS. I’ll never be,” they said. “And this is just a further knockdown.”
The trauma of the event has increased Simonis’ hyper-vigilance, as well.
“Every time I hear a car go by, I’m double-checking,” they said.
Even though Simonis has the tools to process and live with the immense trauma, they will never be the same person, they said.
“They fucking changed my life forever. Point blank,” they said. “Not just mentally, but physically and physiologically. I can’t go back to where I was before. I’m lucky that I survived.”
Simonis has reported the attack to the FBI and is pursuing legal action with two specific goals in mind: to heal and to prevent similar crimes from happening.
“I am somebody who believes in abolishing the carceral system and the justice system as it exists and policing,” Simonis said. “But also a 37-year-old trans and disabled person who somehow managed to survive this long. And so naturally has become pragmatic about the world.”
Because of the reaction of the Gresham Police Department, Simonis did not want to work with local officers and instead went to the federal level. But because of the alleged assault by agents in Portland last year, this decision wasn’t easy for them.
Perpetrators in the assault threatened to call the police on Simonis, even though Simonis did not commit a crime. Reporting the crime to the federal level is also a layer of protection, they said.
“All of this is forcing my hand,” they said. There is no easy decision in the situation, they added.
“We all know that crimes are underreported. We hear about it all the time,” they said. And there are reasons why people don’t report crimes and they’re totally understandable. A lot of victims are very concerned about what will happen if they break anonymity. In my situation, I’ve already broken anonymity.”
With recent arrests and crackdowns on the Proud Boys and other hate groups in the United States, Simonis is bracing for a long process.
“This isn’t just going to go on a shelf,” they said.
All LGBTQIA+ youth, families, adults, and elders are welcome at this gathering, which is part of a recurring series of monthly events taking place throughout Sonoma County where we are seeking to bring together members of our community across generations, particularly gender expansive youth, teens, and adults.
At our October gathering we will be led in a series of all-ages yoga activities by local yoga instructor Xochi Lubin-Amaya. Yoga activities will begin at approximately 11:30 and will continue throughout the gathering, and will include offerings for kids depending on attendance and interest.
Please bring your own yoga mat or towel if possible (not required); we anticipate having a few extra mats on hand that you can borrow if needed. Feel free to bring your lunch or snacks, along with any chairs or blankets you would like. We will have water and a small selection of pre-packaged snacks available. We encourage you to bring sunscreen and hand sanitizer as well.
Parking at Riverfront Regional Park costs $7 (or free for folks with a Sonoma County Regional Parks Pass!) and we are happy to reimburse you the day of!
We will have $50 gift cards available at the picnic to families for whom financial barriers such as the cost of gas, a meal, or missed work would otherwise prevent them from attending. If you feel your family could benefit from this support, please fill out the form at the following link:
We at Positive Images and North Bay LGBTQI Families are still very aware of and concerned about the spread of COVID-19. If you are feeling sick in any way, please stay home and take care of yourself. Masks will be mandatory with no exceptions. We will have masks on hand for those who may need them. We will maintain a distance of six feet from one another at all times.
Please check out our Facebook event here for updated information regarding this gathering, and we’re excited to see you then!
This past July, the LGBTQ community lost one of its most stalwart and influential leaders: Sally Gearhart (1931–2021). A multifaceted, multitalented woman, Gearhart wore more hats in her lifetime than many of us could in several: she was a teacher, feminist, science-fiction writer, and political activist. She became the first open lesbian to obtain a tenure-track faculty position at the university level when she was hired in 1973 by San Francisco State University, where she established one of the first women’s and gender studies programs in the country. Among her contributions to the struggle for LGBTQ rights was her fight against Proposition 6, also known as the Briggs Initiative, a 1978 California ballot measure that would have prevented LGBTQ people from teaching in the state’s public schools.
In honor of Gearhart’s life, the GLBT Historical Society is hosting a special program on October 29 featuring as panelists four women who worked with Gearhart at various times in her life in different capacities. The program is designed not only to introduce those unfamiliar with Gearhart’s life and work to her remarkable academic, community-building and literary achievements, but to share a sense of Gearhart’s unique, humorously infectious personality. Here, two of the panelists have contributed short reflections about Gearhart: Deborah Craig, a documentary filmmaker and producer; and Dorothy Haecker, a scholar of women’s studies and feminist philosophy.
Deborah Craig: I first met Sally in the summer of 2014, while I was making a short documentary about lesbians and aging, A Great Ride. I had heard about an octogenarian living on women’s land in Northern California, still cutting her own firewood with a chainsaw. I couldn’t wait to see this! Although we didn’t witness any chainsawing, my camerawoman Silvia Turchin and I spent the weekend trying to keep up with Sally. She strode down wooded paths, rolled under barbed wire fences, and drove her battered Jeep down “roads” through the woods we weren’t sure were there.
But besides being an excitement-filled adventure that we dubbed the “lesbian safari,” this first visit with Sally was the beginning of a longer journey: More and more I understood that she was a towering figure for lesbian feminism and gay rights from the 1970s through the 1990s. She had an astonishing breadth of interests and talents: women’s studies, communication, religion and spirituality, speculative fiction and much more. With her death we’ve all lost a powerful spokeswoman and an amazing intellect. I hope the film we’re making about her life can celebrate her accomplishments, highlight her sense of fun and adventure, and underscore her important legacy of working for justice for women, for gay people, for animals and for the Earth itself.
Dorothy Haecker: Sally Gearhart spent her life obsessed with the causes and cures of violence among humans and between humans and everybody and everything else. She defined the suffering we cause one another in a broad way that included physical, sexual, psychological, political, economic and even rhetorical dimensions. Sally believed feminist consciousness and activism were paths to a less violent world. She wrote fantasy novels—The Wanderground, The Kanshou, The Magister—that envisioned (she would have said “pre-visioned”) such a world. She created a new theory of communication as a solution to what she considered the violence of persuasive speech.
In the late 1970s, she joined forces with Harvey Milk to change the minds of Californians about the Briggs Amendment that, if passed, would have deeply violated LGBTQ rights. She believed in the power of imagination, conversation, wild women and gentle men. She was a prophetic woman, full of radiant contradictions, whose ideas did and can make a difference. She is worth knowing.
Sixteen transgender and intersex activists from around the world on Tuesday participated in a White House listening session.
A State Department spokesperson told the Washington Blade the meeting was one of “a series of listening sessions that State is organizing on the human rights of transgender individuals” through the Interagency Working Group on Safety, Inclusion and Opportunity for Transgender Americans, which the White House Domestic Policy and Gender Policy
The Departments of Justice, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Education, Homeland Security, Labor, Interior and Veterans Affairs participate in the working group. The State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development are, according to the State Department spokesperson, “also participating to strengthen efforts to protect transgender individuals from violence and discrimination around the world.”
“These listening sessions will inform the working group’s review of policies that drive violence and poverty for transgender individuals at home and around the world, including homelessness, employment discrimination, violence and abuse, and bullying and rejection at school,” said the State Department spokesperson.
“She looks forward to learning from transgender and intersex human rights defenders what their most pressing priorities are for continued U.S. engagement,” said the State Department spokesperson.
Alexus D’Marco, executive director of the D’Marco Organization in the Bahamas, is among those who the White House invited to participate in one of Tuesday’s sessions.
“It is timely and important that the Caribbean region is included in this discussion,” D’Marco told the Blade. “As a region, we are often left behind. LGB and trans citizens in the Caribbean are becoming more visible; their access to healthcare, housing, justice, education and a decent quality of life are often impeded and fuel by stigma and discriminations.”
“I am grateful to be apart of theses discussion to move the Caribbean region forward,” added D’Marco.
Following a string of violence against Black trans women, LGBTQ activists in New York took to the streets in summer 2020 to draw attention to the deadly issue.
Jason Rosenberg and Marti Gould Cummings were among those who joined the June 2 demonstration in front of the iconic Stonewall Inn.
City officials set a curfew that night, and shortly after the 8 p.m. deadline, a number of the protesters — who were walking arm-in- arm — were arrested and violently attacked, according to Rosenberg, a member of the activist group AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP.
“I felt excessive and violent force on all sides of my body and was knocked unconscious and woke up maybe a minute or two later,” he told NBC News. “My glasses were on the floor, my mask was off and my head was bloody.”
Despite the injuries he allegedly endured at the hands of police, Rosenberg said, he was denied medical treatment while in custody and ended up with a broken arm and 11 staples in his head after seeking treatment following his release.
“There was even a point where we were all sitting waiting to be transported to whatever detention center we were going to be processed at and people were chanting ‘Medic! Medic! He needs medical attention here,’” he added.
Cummings, a former New York City Council candidate who uses gender-neutral pronouns, said police officers were “really targeting protesters.” Cummings, who was arrested and spent more than 10 hours in police custody before being released, said they were unable to make a phone call and did not hear their Miranda rights.
“This is not an isolated incident, especially from the NYPD,” Rosenberg said. According to the New York City-based Legal Aid Society, 295 people in Manhattan alone had been “languishing in detention for 24+ hours” as of the morning of June 3, 2020, in the aftermath of widespread protests.
The NYPD did not respond to a request for comment on Rosenberg’s and Cummings’ specific allegations, but the New York City Law Department did issue a statement at the time.
“The accusation that officers are retaliating against New Yorkers who are protesting is disingenuous, exceptionally unfair, and perhaps deliberately ignoring the fact that the Police Department is dealing with a crisis within a crisis,” the department said, according to a report published by the nonprofit news site The Marshall Project.
Treatment like the one Rosenberg and Cummings said they were subjected to are not unique to New York City. Reports can be found across the United States of police allegedly using excessive force against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people. There have also been numerous incidents in which LGBTQ individuals said members of law enforcement made disparaging remarks about their sexual orientation or gender identity, according to news reports, lawsuits and academic studies.
These incidents — along with the historically fraught relationship between law enforcement and the LGBTQ community — have led a growing number of police departments across the country to introduce LGBTQ awareness and cultural competency training for their officers. With trainings found from Washington, D.C., to Palo Alto, California, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach; rather, departments are crafting programs that take into consideration their specific communities.
‘Lingering effects’
The relationship between law enforcement and the LGBTQ community has long been strained. Perhaps one of the most well-known examples of this rocky relationship is the iconic 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York City’s Greenwich Village neighborhood. The multiday protest — widely considered a pivotal turning point in the modern gay rights movement — was triggered by a police raid on the popular Stonewall Inn gay bar.
Throughout much of modern U.S. history, police officers were bound to enforce explicitly anti-gay laws — fromlocal measures outlawing men from “impersonating a female” to the widespread criminalization of same-sex sexual activity. In fact, it wasn’t until the landmark 2003 Supreme Court case Lawrence v. Texas that gay sex was decriminalized throughout the country.
“These laws do have lingering effects,” said Christy Mallory, legal director at the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, an LGBTQ think tank. “It can happen in subtle ways from being ingrained in some people’s heads that somehow same-sex relationships are inferior or should still be criminalized.”
“Given that this history is not so long ago, there are people who remember being wrapped up in that, which can come both on the law enforcement side and within the LGBTQ communities,” she added.
A 2015 report, co-authored by Mallory, highlights the numerous surveys, court cases and academic studies that document the alleged discrimination and harassment of LGBTQ people by law enforcement. Most notably, the report points to a 2013 survey of anti-LGBTQ violence survivors who interacted with police that found almost half (48 percent) reported they had experienced police misconduct in the previous year, including use of excessive force and entrapment.
Within the broader LGBTQ community, transgender individuals and queer people of color are at a particularly high risk of encountering police misconduct, according to other recent reports.
The National Center for Transgender Equality’s 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey found 58 percent of trans respondents who said they interacted with police in the previous year alleged they had been harassed by law enforcement. The survey also found 57 percent of respondents said they were uncomfortable contacting police for help.
In response to allegations such as these, New York recently repealedan anti-loitering code — dubbed the “walking while trans” law — that transgender advocates said was penalizing trans women for simply walking down the street. A similar anti-loitering code has been on the books since 1995 in California, with state Sen. Scott Wiener recently introducing a bill that would overturn this law.
Black LGBTQ people, too, report more harassment from police.
A study published in June in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine by Devin English, a public health professor at Rutgers University, found 43 percent of Black sexual minority men experienced police discrimination in the past year. This unequal treatment had a range of negative effects on this community, including high levels of depression and anxiety, according to him.
While many explicitly discriminatory laws and policies targeting LGBTQ people have been repealed, there remains an issue with overpolicing of queer people, according to Mallory. She pointed to a study published by the Williams Institute in May that found lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer people are six times more likely than the general public to be stopped by police (data about transgender individuals were not available in the datasets analyzed).
One way this historically fraught relationship between law enforcement and the LGBTQ community has manifested over the past several years is in the decision to ban uniformed police officersfrom participating in Pride marches. The bans have been divisive, even within the LGBTQ community — and particularly among openly gay police officers.
One of the Williams Institute’s key recommendations to help bridge the divide, according to Mallory, is the implementation of LGBTQ sensitivity, diversity and specialization trainings within law enforcement departments.
Mallory said there are currently no federal laws that mandate LGBTQ training for law enforcement offers, but two states — California and New Jersey — recently mandated such training. More common, however, are individual police departments instituting these measures, though Malory said there’s no reliable data on how many have such training in place.
‘We can continue to build trust’
A number of law enforcement departments have proactively decided to add LGBTQ programs to their arsenal of training courses. In fact, the largest local police departments in the U.S. — New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Houston and Washington, D.C. — all offer some form of LGBTQ training.
The Metropolitan Police Department in Washington — the sixth largest local police department in the U.S. — has been offering LGBTQ training since 2000, though it expanded its curriculum in 2015. Sgt. Nicole Brown, who has been a supervisor for the department’s LGBT liaison unit for the past three years, said her department was the first in the nation to offer such training.
Prior to the start of this training, negative attitudes about the LGBTQ community were reportedly pervasive within the department: In 1996, during a retraining of veteran officers, a word association exercise asked for responses to the word “gays.” The officers’ answers — which elicited no positive or even neutral responses — included “wrong,” “weird,” “faggots,” “AIDS,” “ungodly,” “don’t like ‘em” and “immoral,” according to a reporter for The Washington Post, who was present during the training.
Brown, who has worked as a D.C. police officer for 14 years, said she has seen first-hand the value of effective LGBTQ training for law enforcement. She regularly trains officers across the district in intensive courses ranging from how to approach investigating suspected anti-LGBTQ hate crimes to the importance of using the correct pronouns for transgender people.
But for Brown, there’s no substitute for on-the-beat training in the community, a community she herself is a part of.
“When officers come over to our unit, they get a chance to meet members of the LGBT community and hear their stories. They meet different community leaders that we interact with daily, then they go back to their respective districts and share what they’ve learned with their colleagues,” she said.
Informal, face-to-face meetings, she added, can go a long way to break down preconceived ideas police and LGBTQ community members may have of each other and help foster solid relationships. Brown said she often hears from fellow officers, as well as the people they police, that quick check-ins can open up conversations around similar experiences and make common ground easier to find.
Without building a rapport with LGBTQ residents, trust is hard to build, and awkward encounters are more likely, she said. Once officers get the cultural competency portion of training, they better understand some of the unique issues LGBTQ individuals face in the city and how the department can better support them, according to Brown.
“I think a lot of officers can become a little hung up on the fact that they don’t want to step on any toes and want to be as politically correct as possible,” she said. Following the training, she added, “their approach moves to: “I shouldn’t be nervous that I’m going to say the wrong thing, because I am treating this person like a human being, how I would like to be treated.”
While efforts are being made by the D.C. police to improve the relationship between members of the LGBTQ community and law enforcement, some local activists still have reservations about engaging with police.
Sultan Shakir, executive director of D.C.-based SMYAL, an organization that supports and empowers LGBTQ youths, said that while the training has some benefits, it fails to address the root causes of police misconduct.
“A training will help someone learn how to understand the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity, but it’s unlikely to really change someone’s attitude towards an entire group of people, particularly when that attitude is probably based on centuries of what society has told them to think about someone,” he said. “You can’t change that mentality in a two-hour training.”
Shakir said he would prefer a system where first responders are social workers trained on “supporting you from a trauma-informed approach” and “de-escalation.”
“We do our absolute best to try not to engage with the police department,” he said. “When it comes to our work, there’s a lot of very understandable fear, trauma, frustration and anger with a lot of the youth we work with around past engagements with the police.”
While the district has provided some form of LGBTQ-specific training for law enforcement officers for more than two decades, some localities — including Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Grand Forks, North Dakota — have only recently started to incorporate this type of training.
City officials in Grand Rapids approved LGBTQ training for police officers and firefighters in April, at a maximum cost of $20,000 for both departments as part of the one-off scheme. This pilot program includes learning about best practices in de-escalation for LGBTQ individuals, microaggressions, misgendering and the historical relationship between law enforcement and the LGBTQ community.
“We know that historically, the LGBTQ community has been arrested and incarcerated more [than the general public],” said Christin M. Johnson, lead oversight specialist at the Grand Rapids Office of Oversight and Public Accountability. “The point of these training sessions is to make sure that everybody feels welcome and that police are treating people fairly across the board.”
The Grand Forks Police Department recently announced it would launch a Safe Places initiative, which aims to train officers and local businesses to better support LGBTQ victims of hate crimes and harassment. First introduced by the Seattle Police Department in May 2015, Safe Places offers LGBTQ people the ability to report crimes to local businesses and organizations familiar to them that have signed up for the program.
“Some people aren’t comfortable with police coming to them, or them going to a police department,” Officer Brian Samson, the Grand Forks Police Department’s LGBTQ liaison, told the Grand Forks Herald in July. “Seattle found that when people go to a place they’re familiar with, or a local business, the people filing a complaint, or whatever’s going on — it’s easier to communicate with the police better, because it’s a neutral place for both parties.”
After introducing its version of the Safe Places initiative, the Seattle Police Department saw a major increase in the number of reports about harassment and hate crimes in the community. In 2014, 26 anti-LGBTQ crimes were reported to the department, and in 2015, when the Safe Place program had been in place for the last eight months of that year, the department saw 71 anti-LGBTQ hate crimes reported.
“We hope that the LGBTQ and minority communities see that reporting these crimes is important, and that they will be investigated and prosecuted, and that they know they can work with the police department and feel safe in doing so,” Seattle Police Department spokesman Sgt. Randy Huserik said.
‘Institutional hatred’
While some police forces are voluntarily choosing to launch LGBTQ-focused initiatives, others are doing so after being sued by alleged victims of police brutality.
Gustavo Alvarez, a gay resident of Palo Alto, California, settled his lawsuit against its police department after accusing it of violating his civil rights, resulting in a settlement that included a $572,500 payout and a one-off two hours of mandatory LGBTQ-awareness training for all police officers in the department.
Alvarez alleged in his complaint that multiple officers used excessive force and specifically targeted him because of his sexual orientation. A surveillance video recorded Feb. 17, 2018, from Alvarez’s security camera at his home in the Buena Vista Mobile Home Park showed officers slamming him against a car, and one officer, Sgt. Wayne Benitez, pushing Alvarez’s head into the car’s windshield.The complaint says the officers initiated contact with Alvarez because one of them believed he was driving with a suspended license.It also alleges Alvarez was “mocked, made fun of and humiliated because of his sexual orientation” while in police custody.
The microphone worn by Benitez recorded him mocking Alvarez by talking in a “very flamboyant, high-pitched tone when he was pretending to be Mr. Alvarez,” according to Alvarez’s attorney, Cody Salfen.
Following the incident, Benitez was placed on administrative leave and retired from the department in September 2019. As part of the settlement, Benitez was required to make an apology to Alvarez, which reads in full: “I am sorry for my actions during the arrest of Mr. Alvarez. Regrettably I lost my composure, and hope the settlement allows Mr. Alvarez to move forward with his life. Sincerely, Wayne Benitez.”
“Alvarez was very traumatized by their bigotry,” Salfen said. “There was no secret that he was gay, and the officers definitely used that as a way to demean him in their prior contacts with him and also during this contact.”
Introducing LGBTQ awareness training is a starting point, according to Salfen, but it’s not enough to put an end to discriminatory police attitudes.
“When you have a culture that breeds and perpetuates hatred toward the LGBT community, there’s no way that a two-hour class can eradicate that institutional hatred. These institutional norms have existed and persisted for decades, perhaps even longer. You can’t just flip the switch and have that go away,” he said.
In October 2020, Benitez was charged with assault under color of authority and lying on a police report for his alleged actions during the arrest of Alvarez; he pleaded not guilty. The Palo Alto Police Department said it is not able to discuss the specifics of the civil case due to the ongoing prosecution in the related criminal case, according to James Reifschneider, acting captain of the department’s field services division.
Reifschneider, however, affirmed the importance of police officer training and said the department is going beyond the requirements of California’s Assembly Bill 2504, which mandates all new police officers in the state to receive training about the LGBTQ community.
“Our Department proactively chose to expand this training to include all of our sworn personnel (i.e. veteran officers as well) beginning in January 2020,” he said in an email. “We’ll be continuing to do it on an ongoing basis moving forward.”
State mandates
California became the first state to introduce mandatory training on sexual orientation and gender identity for incoming police officers, after former California Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 2504into law in late 2018. The bill requires new recruits to undertake training in five unique areas, including understanding the differences between sexual orientation and gender identity and how these aspects of identity intersect with race, culture and religion, as well as learning appropriate terminology around sexual orientation and gender identity.
How best to respond effectively to hate crimes and domestic violence with LGBTQ victims and ways to create an inclusive workplace for LGBTQ coworkers are also included in the statewide training. While this law came into force on Jan. 1, 2019, it will be some time before all police officers across the state complete LGBTQ awareness education (and there’s currently no deadline for when officers must complete the training).
“Agencies really are just beginning to offer training now — it just got embedded into the basic training academies last October,” said Greg Miraglia, a former deputy police chief who helped draft the bill. Miraglia also serves as president of Out to Protect, a California-based nonprofit that supports LGBTQ officers.
The combination of Covid-19 restrictions and the logistical difficulty of some police agencies to send their agents away to train are driving an increase in online training. Miraglia estimated that about 1,000 officers have participated in the online training so far and approximately 2,000 have taken part in in-person training.
“In-person training is really the best way to go, because you give people a live chance to interact and to get answers to their questions immediately,” he said. “The online course is somewhat interactive with scenarios to respond to and, of course, it has the same components that a face-to-face class has. It’s definitely better than nothing.”
The State of California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training will not certify anything less than two hours on the topic, with Miraglia recommending at least four hours of LGBTQ awareness training.
“We can get the basics done well in four hours. But, in my view, cultural competence training is a perishable skill, and doing refresher training on issues like how to respond to domestic violence and the nuances of dealing with a hate crime victim who happens to be part of the LGBT community, is important moving forward,” he said.
Across the country in New Jersey, on Nov. 20, 2019, Transgender Day of Remembrance, the state’s then-Attorney General Gurbir Grewal issued a directive announcing all law enforcement professionals in the state would receive mandated training on how to best interact with transgender, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming individuals. As part of these new rules, officers are directed to address all people by their chosen names and pronouns, even if these don’t match official records. Elements of the directive include the entire LGBTQ community with, for example, police officers required to “not delay responding to, fail to respond to, or treat as less important, any call or request for service or assistance because of the individual’s actual or perceived gender identity or expression and/or sexual orientation.”
Law enforcement officers must also not disclose an individual’s sex assigned at birth unless there is a proper law enforcement purpose. The rise in hate crimes against transgender people was one of the reasons Grewal gave for issuing the directive.
“Building on the extraordinary work of law enforcement agencies across this country and right here in New Jersey, we’re ensuring that our officers will act in ways that promote the dignity and safety of LGBTQ individuals, whether they are victims, witnesses, suspects, arrestees, or other members of the public,” Grewal said in a statement. “Only by having the trust of our diverse communities can we fulfill our mission of protecting all New Jersey residents.”
Mixed reviews
Some experts, like Mallory at the Williams Institute, say the increase in LGBTQ-specific police training is a positive step forward.
“Not only can training help the LGBTQ community, but it can help police departments do their job better, especially those that are really invested in community policing,” she said. “These trainings can really help get to a place where LGBTQ communities feel comfortable working with law enforcement, and actually enable police to do their jobs better and more safely.”
Tailored LGBTQ training is an important development, according to Mallory, but it’s not the final step. She said it’s critical for these initiatives to incorporate the idea that people with multiple marginalized identities can be put at an increased risk of over-policing, resulting in negative outcomes.
“Those LGBTQ people who are in communities of color can see the issues relating to over policing being amplified,” Mallory added. “These issues need to be at the forefront of any kind of reform and training.”
Others, like Rosenberg and Cummings, are less optimistic.
“I don’t think any type of sensitivity training could work,” Rosenberg said. “A lot of us are past the point of any attempt to reform a very corrupt and broken system.”
For Cummings, a ground-up transformation of policing in the U.S. is the only way forward for law enforcement. In New York City — where LGBTQ training is provided by the Gay Officers Action League (GOAL) for both new recruits and veteran officers — Cummings wants the police commissioner to be a civilian and rulings from the Civilian Complaint Review Board, the NYPD’s oversight agency, be binding.
“We need to take from the inflated police budget and put funding back into violence interrupters and harm reduction efforts in the community,” they said. “Across the board systemic racism and homophobia is in play within policing, so it goes beyond training and budget. This has been going on since the beginning of our country.”