It’s easy for
police officers to become defensive when asked about the rules governing their
interactions with members of the public. That’s exactly the tack John Rogers
took. He’s the director of the Maine Criminal Justice Academy, which trains all
law-enforcement officers at the local, county, and state levels in Maine, and
when contacted by Out In Maine, was adamant that his organization trains
officers to interact with transgender individuals exactly as they do with all
other people.
“We train people to treat everybody
the way they would like to be treated . . . Everybody should be treated equally.”
He refused to even consider the idea that there should be any policies or
guidelines for handling any individuals differently or ensuring that a group’s
concerns be addressed. “It doesn’t matter to us.”
But another statement he made
suggested he might, in fact, be in need of sensitivity training, even if he doesn’t know
it: “I’m 57 years old and I don’t know if I’ve ever even seen a transgender person.”
That’s exactly the reasoning behind
the Boston Police Department’s transgender policy, which took effect in June
after years of development, research, and legal review.
“It’s trying to educate officers,”
says Javier Pagan, a BPD office who also serves as his department’s liaison
with the city’s LGBT communities. While all officers and policies strive to be
respectful of individuals and their rights, it’s not safe to assume that
everyone knows what respect looks like to certain people.
For example, Pagan says, the BPD has a
policy about dealing with prisoners — with rules that apply to all interactions
with people in police custody. But that policy also has a subsection about
dealing with female prisoners, and another about juvenile prisoners, to ensure
that the specific concerns of women and children — who represent a smaller
population within the criminal-justice system — are considered and addressed by
police.
Along the same lines, the BPD policy
on transgender people acknowledges that some Boston officers might have fewer opportunities to interact with this
demographic (while others might have many more, depending on where in the city
they work).
The policy codifies things like what
name to use for a transgender person, if their legal name differs from the one
they use in daily life. Similarly, it specifies that officers should use the
pronouns that refer to the person’s self-expressed gender identity, and even
goes so far as to allow for ambiguity: “If officers are uncertain about which
pronouns are appropriate, then officers will respectfully ask the individual.”
These practices are, of course, common
sense, and even second nature, within the LGBT and allied communities, but not
in law enforcement — yet.
“It’s not easy to change a culture,”
says Pagan. As society changes, and as laws change, Pagan notes, it’s important
for police practices to keep up. He notes that these practices and policies
also protect police officers and agencies against claims of discrimination or
prejudice.
Still early for Maine
Most
Maine police departments have yet to even look toward making changes to promote
transgender sensitivity. As Maine police academy head Rogers made clear, new
officers are not taught anything specific about transgender issues and
individuals.
The
Maine State Police does not have a policy either in force or even in
development, according to spokesman Steve McCausland.
The
Maine Chiefs of Police Association, which develops model policies often adopted
verbatim across the state, has no such policy regarding transgender people,
according to Robert Schwartz, the group’s executive director and a former South
Portland police chief.
“I
would not be surprised if at some point we were to develop a model policy . . . but nothing has brought it to the
forefront” to date, Schwartz says.
Portland
Police Chief Michael Sauschuck says that while his agency lacks a written
policy along the lines of Boston’s, “The rule has always been, if you refer to
yourself as a male or a female, then that’s what we do in response.” He notes
that the department does have an LGBT community liaison, Officer Alissa
Poisson, and recognizes that “the city of Portland is an incredibly diverse
place.”
Ian
Grady, a spokesman for EqualityMaine, says the city’s inclusive and sensitive
practices are “a great role model for other towns and cities in Maine,” and
says the LGBT-rights group hasn’t heard of any problems arising in Maine law
enforcement.
Starting in corrections
A
more significant concern than on-the-street police encounters with transgender
people is raised by Penobscot County Sheriff Glenn Ross, who notes that while
officers on patrol may have to question or search transgender people, bigger
challenges arise when incarcerating them.
At
the Penobscot County Jail, “it’s a policy that is developing.” Transgender
inmates are not common there, but they do arrive from time to time. “We involve
our medical department early on and appoint appropriate-sex officers to do pat-down
searches,” Ross says, noting that it may involve two different officers patting
down different areas of an inmate’s body.
“Not
all of the rules are clearly defined,” Ross notes. Litigation still occurs, and
much has not yet been decided either by policy or in court.
Where
to house an inmate is determined in part by the medical staff, who may evaluate
a person’s progress through a transition between genders, but also includes
considering the gender self-identification of the inmate in question.
Ross’s
staff works from a policy developed in Cumberland County, which has been in
effect since 2009, according to Cumberland County Sheriff Kevin Joyce.
Departments as far afield as Chicago, Denver, and San Francisco have used the county’s policy as a starting point for their own work.
Cumberland
County’s policy includes an evaluation of an individual’s case by medical and
security staff, who determine whether a transgender person will be housed with
men or with women.
“We
really pay particular attention to how they identify,” Joyce says. “It’s trying
to balance the rights of the individual and the rights of the individuals they
might be in a pod with.” While at any given time almost all inmates are in some
need of mental-health care, Joyce’s policy also dictates transgender inmates’
access to medications and other treatments: The jail will provide those only if
the person began those procedures before being incarcerated. If they decide to
start a transition after arriving at the jail, the policy is to make the person
wait until release to continue.
Joyce
says some of his staff were reluctant or unconvinced at first, and needed training before being comfortable dealing
with transgender inmates, but he knows it’s an important step. Observing that
transgender people are a vulnerable population even before encountering police,
he says, “We want to not make things worse.”
He says issues of transgender rights are
”becoming more and more prevalent” — recently Time magazine called him
to talk about the situation with incarcerating Chelsea Manning, the
male-to-female transgender person who, as US Army Private Bradley Manning, was
convicted of releasing classified documents to the public. “You can’t duck it,”
he says. So the question becomes, “How can you make it as respectable and
responsible as possible and respect security and everybody’s rights?”
Promising learning
opportunities
There’s
a very good starting point to answering that question, which has been developed
right here in Maine, though it’s available to police officers nationwide.
It’s
an online training class for law-enforcement officers entitled “Awareness of
Transgender Issues,” and it was put together by one of Maine’s top cops: Noel
March, the US Marshal for the District of Maine. He’s a former Cumberland County
Sheriff’s Office chief deputy and former UMaine-Orono police chief who
developed the online course while earning his master of arts degree in peace
and reconciliation from UMaine.
“Hate
crimes has been at the forefront of my interest for many years,” March says.
He’s also a family friend of the Maineses, the state’s — possibly even the
country’s — best-known family with a transgender member. They’ve been
highlighted in reporting in the Portland Phoenix, the Boston Globe,
and elsewhere.
When
considering what he could contribute to the law-enforcement community during
his studies, he thought about training possibilities. (Like many certified
professionals, police officers have to do a certain amount of continuing
education to keep their certifications current.) “I found that there was
nothing relating to people who identified as transgender as victims, or
witnesses, or complainants, or as coworkers,” March says.
In
collaboration with Wayne Maines and a Maine-based security-training company led
by Paul Plaisted, March put together the 40-minute course, even narrating it
himself. “It really educated me,” he admits.
“Many
members of the transgender community lack the comfort to interact with law
enforcement,” March says, often because of issues not shared by gay, lesbian,
or bisexual people. For example, if a driver is stopped for speeding, their
driver’s license may show a different name, gender, and appearance than the
person behind the wheel exhibits.
March
says officers should do their jobs, determining the correct identity of the
person in question, but shouldn’t “be so narrow-minded as to think that this
person is someone who’s wearing a disguise. This may be a genuine case of
someone in a transition.”
The
online course covers basics of transgender terminology and etiquette as well as
more specific issues of recognizing the potential for transgender people to be
targets of violence, and working to protect them. It makes regular reminders of
police officers’ sense of justice, equality, fair play, and duty to help people
in need or in danger.
And that’s what March sees in his efforts to encourage police to improve their sensitivity to transgender people: “We need to understand the people who we encounter in our role as police officers.”