The New York police commissioner, James O’Neill, apologized this month for police harassment 50 years ago Friday at the Stonewall Inn, where trans women of color led the resistance that started the national L.G.B.T.Q.-rights movement.
But trans women don’t want empty apologies. We want to live and thrive.
That means the Police Department must stop aggressively going after members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community, and transgender women in particular, for minor offenses, a practice that has persisted in the decades since Stonewall.
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There are other police abuses that deserve apologies and should end as well.
The Police Department settled a lawsuit with the Legal Aid Society on June 5 for illegally profiling and arresting transgender women for loitering for the purposes of sex work. Officers made arrests based on how they dressed, whom they spoke to and where they socialized. The department will now have to change its patrol guide to prohibit officers from relying only on gender, gender identity, clothing and location to enforce the loitering law.
Source: Stonewall Hasn’t Ended
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