FAQ About Anti-Transgender Violence
Your first step should be to get as much information as possible about the officer involved: badge number, precinct number, name, description, time of day and location. Police are required to provide their badge number and names—although make sure that you are not putting yourself in danger by collecting the information. If you are questioned by the police, ask if you are free to go. If they say you are, calmly walk away.
If you are harassed by police, it’s a good idea to contact a community-based organization that works on issues of police and institutional violence such as the New York City-based Anti-Violence Project (AVP) (avp.org or 212-714-1141) or another group under the umbrella of the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Projects (NCAVP) (ncavp.org or 212-714-1184 or info@ncavp.org). These groups can advise you on where to turn not just for legal advice but for support of other kinds.
You can also contact your local police department’s Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB) or Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB). Reporting the incident is very important for building an accurate measure of the problem overall.
Police harassment and outright brutality against transgender people are very common: Twenty-two percent of the 6,450 transgender and gender-nonconforming respondents in the 2011 National Transgender Discrimination Survey (NTDS) who had interacted with police reported being harassed by them (the rate was much higher for transgender people of color). And almost one out of two respondents said they were uncomfortable about seeking help from police. In 2012, a separate survey among 220 transgender Latinas in Los Angeles found that two out of three respondents reported verbal harassment by police and one out of four reported sexual assault.
Lawsuits in several U.S. cities have been resolved successfully in many incidents involving police strip-searching, groping, false arrests and chaining transgender people on handrails in “fish tank” fashion rather than placing them in cells. Meanwhile, advocates have been working with police to implement guidelines requiring respectful treatment of transgender people on patrol and in custody. Lambda Legal filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of Patti Hammond Shaw, a trans woman who was held in men’s detention areas while in the custody of the Washington, DC Metropolitan Police Department and United States Marshals Service. The MPD refused to recognize the “F” on her ID and instead went by her former database records. The case was resolved through an undisclosed monetary settlement and the MPD has agreed to change its classification policy so that transgender detainees will be classified based on the gender listed on their ID, if they so wish.
There have also been significant policy improvements in Atlanta, Georgia; Cicero, Illinois; Denver, Colorado; Los Angeles; New York City; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco; and Washington, DC. In June 2013, the New York City Council passed two important bills—the End of Discriminatory Profiling Bill and the NYPD Oversight Bill—by a veto-proof majority. The End of Discriminatory Profiling Bill enforces a strong ban on profiling based on gender identity or expression and sexual orientation, among many other factors. Similar laws exist in Illinois, West Virginia and Arkansas. The NYPD Oversight Bill establishes independent oversight of the NYPD to match oversight of the FBI, CIA and LAPD, in addition to every major New York City agency.
In April 2012, The Los Angeles Police Department issued a new policy on treatment of transgender incarcerated people intended to “prevent discrimination and conflict.” Among the guidelines is this instruction: “Treat transgender persons in a manner that reveals respect for the individual’s gender identity and gender expression, which includes addressing them by their preferred name and using gender pronouns appropriate to the individual’s gender self-identity and expression.”
In addition, the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act (implemented in 2012), is a federal law which states that consideration for someone’s gender identity and safety must be taken into account when the person is searched or housed in custody. (Please see our “Transgender Incarcerated People in Crisis” fact sheet, downloadable here: lambdalegal.org/publications/toolkits.)
A hate crime is a violent act motivated by bias. The idea behind hate crime law is that such acts don’t just affect the individual victim but also serve to intimidate an entire group of people—and therefore demand greater punishment than other crimes. Also, it takes much longer for victims to recover mentally from a hate crime, according to the American Psychological Association.
In 2009, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law. It expanded the 1969 Federal Hate Crimes Law to include crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation or gender identity.
The Hate Crimes Prevention Act was historic because it extended the first-ever explicit federal protections to transgender people. Also, by requiring the government to provide grants and assistance to state and local authorities investigating and prosecuting hate crimes, it is intended to have the most practical effects possible.
On March 13, 2013, President Obama signed the reauthorized Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) into law, which for the first time prohibited any program funded by VAWA from discriminating against people due to gender identity or sexual orientation. The VAWA also explicitly named LGBTQ communities as underserved populations.
Trans people face hostility and discrimination with such frequency and in so many aspects of life that it is easy to turn that hatred inward. Forty-one percent of NTSD respondents said they’d attempted suicide (compared to just 1.6% of the general population).
Health care failures contribute to this problem—whether that means being unable to see an accepting and knowledgeable doctor when ill; having no access to safe and affordable transition-related health care (such as hormone treatments or gender-affirming surgery); or despairing about these or other issues without basic psychological support. Research has shown a link between lack of health care coverage and the high suicide rate. The rate among subjects in a 2006 study dropped from 29.3 to 5.1 percent when they were given access to transition-related treatment. (Please see our “Transition-Related Health Care” fact sheet, downloadable here: lambdalegal.org/publications/toolkits.)
Discriminatory health care and insurance policies persist despite medical consensus of the “efficacy, benefit and medical necessity” of transition-related surgery and other treatment, as the American Psychological Association stated in a 2008 statement. (For a list of similar resolutions, see: lambdalegal.org/publications/fs_professional-org-statements-supporting-trans-health.)
Meanwhile, transgender people are very often poor and face double the rate of unemployment. This can make for considerable stress and contribute to suicide risk. Respondents to the NTDS were nearly four times more likely to have a total household income lower than $10,000 per year compared to the general population. (Please see our “Workplace Rights & Wrongs” fact sheet, downloadable here lambdalegal.org/publications/toolkits.)
If you or someone you know is at risk for suicide, there is support out there. The Trevor Project provides a suicide hotline for LGBT youth at 866-488-7386; or call 1-800-suicide, which serves the general population.
Unfortunately, even TGNC young people are the targets of harassment. Bullying is an especially widespread problem: Seventy-eight percent of NTDS respondents who had expressed a transgender identity or gender-nonconformity while in grades K-12 reported being harassed; 35% attacked; and 12% sexually assaulted.
Forty-nine states now require that schools have policies against discrimination and bullying, although only a third of those explicitly mention gender identity and/or expression. In October 2010, the Department of Education issued a guidance that explained educators’ legal obligations to protect students from student-on-student racial and national origin harassment, sexual and gender-based harassment, and disability harassment, including gender and sexual harassment of LGBT individuals. Additionally, in April 2012, the Obama Administration voiced its support for the proposed Student Non-Discrimination Act (SNDA) and the Safe Schools Improvement Act (SSIA), which would put some federal muscle into the fight against bullying.
If you are bullied at school, check out the Know Your Rights for Teens and Young Adults section of Lambda Legal’s website (http://www.lambdalegal.org/know-your-rights/youth) and Lambda Legal’s “What to Do if You’re Bullied,” in Out, Safe & Respected, which is available here: http://www.lambdalegal.org/publications/out-safe-respected. If you’re bullied in out-of-home care, also check out Know Your Rights for Teens and Young Adults: http://www.lambdalegal.org/know-your-rights/youth
Also see Lambda Legal’s Bending the Mold at lambdalegal.org/publications/bending-the-mold and “Survival Tips for Trans Youth” at lambdalegal.org/publications/toolkits. And see the Model District Policy for Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students created in 2011 by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and downloadable here: glsen.org/article/transgender-model-district-policy.
TRANSGENDER PRIDE
PUERTO RICO MURDERS
TRANS DAY OF REMEMBRANCE
FOR MORE INFORMATION: Contact Lambda Legal at 212-809-8585, 120 Wall Street, Suite 1900, New York, NY 10005-3919. If you feel you have experienced discrimination, call our Help Desk toll-free at 866-542-8336 or go to www.lambdalegal.org/help.