Q Policing: LGBTQ+ Experiences, Perspectives, and Passions: Perspectives on Crime and Justice
Editat de Roddrick Colvin, Angela Dwyer, Sulaimon Giwa Contribuţii de Dhanya Babu, Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill, Julio A. Martin, Koree S. Badio, Tyson Marlow, Roberto L. Abreu, Alexa DeGagne, Max Osborn, Sean A. McCandless, Mitchell D. Sellers, Emma L. Turley, Heather Panter, Lauren Moton, Nick Rumens, Seth J. Meyer, Nicole Elias, Paige L. Moore, Leah M. Rouseen Limba Engleză Paperback – 23 dec 2024
Relationships between law enforcement and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) communities have always been varied and complex. On one hand, history is filled with incidents of police harassment: raids that sparked famous uprisings and rebellions; shoddy police investigations into the murders of LGBTQ+ community members; a corrosive organizational culture marked by heteronormativity and misogyny. Yet positive changes are being made, such as the creation of LGBTQ+ police associations, participation by police officers in Pride Parades around the world, and formal apologies for past actions. To some LGBTQ+ community members, police are the physical manifestations of state-sanctioned oppression and abuse. To others, they are guardians who have become partners in public safety.
Q Policing features eighteen contributors from around the world who explore the nature of the relationship between LGBTQ+ communities and the police. Part 1 of the book offers insights on policing and racial and ethnic constructions, including efforts to build collaborative models of community-building within groups and with law enforcement. Part 2 highlights the experiences of individuals who may be marginalized due to various social constructions such as transgender, unhoused, southern, or kink-involved. Finally, Part 3 shares perspectives of queer folks inside policing.
The contributors—scholars, social workers, police officers, and other community leaders—cover diverse topics, including queer experiences of policing in southern India, clinical implications for mental health professionals working with Latinx LGBTQ+ people, transgender and nonbinary peoples’ presentation management during encounters with law enforcement, discriminatory policies in place in the southern United States, the pathologization of kink, and more. Essays analyze interviews with the “Pride Defenders” in Hamilton, Canada, as well as British and American police officers transitioning while in uniform. They explore the experiences of gay, lesbian, and genderqueer police officers, map principal findings and central concerns that structure extant scholarship on gay police officers in the UK, use queer theory to explore the effectiveness of LGBTQ+ liaisons, and more.
The volume editors adopt an inclusive global perspective to account for contextually located experiences of queer people within and outside of the United States. The book incorporates a variety of voices, data sources, and methodologies, but contributors share an intentional focus on race, age, sex, gender, and other identities that helps explain and contextualize queer people’s experiences around and in policing. The diverse, international group of contributors—whose voices are not often heard in traditional outlets and mainstream media—demonstrates that despite discrimination, harassment, and violence, LGBTQ+ communities continue to thrive.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9780809339563
ISBN-10: 0809339560
Pagini: 276
Ilustrații: 2
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 20 mm
Greutate: 0.45 kg
Ediția:First Edition
Editura: Southern Illinois University Press
Colecția Southern Illinois University Press
Seria Perspectives on Crime and Justice
ISBN-10: 0809339560
Pagini: 276
Ilustrații: 2
Dimensiuni: 152 x 229 x 20 mm
Greutate: 0.45 kg
Ediția:First Edition
Editura: Southern Illinois University Press
Colecția Southern Illinois University Press
Seria Perspectives on Crime and Justice
Notă biografică
Roddrick Colvin is professor of public administration and director of the School of Public Affairs at San Diego State University. His research has appeared in the Review of Public Personnel Administration, Police Quarterly, and Women and Criminal Justice. He is the author of Gay and Lesbian Cops: Diversity and Effective Policing.
Angela Dwyer is associate professor in policing and emergency management at the University of Tasmania. Her research on LGBTQ-police relations helped found the queer criminology discipline and she was awarded the Richard Tewksbury Award by the Western Society of Criminology 2022-2023 for this work. She is the lead editor of Queering Criminology.
Sulaimon Giwa is associate professor of social work and police studies, as well as the interim dean of the School of Social Work at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. He is the coauthor of the second edition of Transforming Community Policing: Mobilization, Engagement, and Collaboration.
Contributions by Roberto L. Abreu, Dhanya Babu, Koree S. Badio, Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill, Alexa DeGagne, Nicole Elias, Tyson Marlow, Julio A. Martin, Sean A. McCandless, Seth J. Meyer, Paige L. Moore, Lauren Moton, Max Osborn, Heather Panter, Leah Rouse, Nick Rumens, Mitchell D. Sellers, and Emma L. Turley.
Angela Dwyer is associate professor in policing and emergency management at the University of Tasmania. Her research on LGBTQ-police relations helped found the queer criminology discipline and she was awarded the Richard Tewksbury Award by the Western Society of Criminology 2022-2023 for this work. She is the lead editor of Queering Criminology.
Sulaimon Giwa is associate professor of social work and police studies, as well as the interim dean of the School of Social Work at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. He is the coauthor of the second edition of Transforming Community Policing: Mobilization, Engagement, and Collaboration.
Contributions by Roberto L. Abreu, Dhanya Babu, Koree S. Badio, Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill, Alexa DeGagne, Nicole Elias, Tyson Marlow, Julio A. Martin, Sean A. McCandless, Seth J. Meyer, Paige L. Moore, Lauren Moton, Max Osborn, Heather Panter, Leah Rouse, Nick Rumens, Mitchell D. Sellers, and Emma L. Turley.
Extras
Introduction
Many communities can claim fraught relations with the police, while others can claim easier relations, yet few communities have experienced such a complex and confusing relationship as the one between the police and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) communities. Recent history is replete with contradictory interactions, approaches, and policies, often resulting in targeted discrimination, harassment, and violence against LGBTQ+ community members and spaces. On one side of the ledger, we see incidents of police harassment via raids that sparked famous riots and rebellions like the Compton Cafeteria riot in San Francisco in 1966; the Toronto bathhouse raids, “Operation Soap” in 1981; the 21 Club raid in Belfast in 1982; and the Puppy Palace raids in Melbourne in 1994. We see shoddy police investigations like the investigations into the still unresolved death of Masha P. Johnson in 1992 in New York; the murder investigation of transgender man Brandon Teena in 1993; or the response and investigation into the Pulse Nightclub shooting in 2016.
On the other side of the ledger, more positive actions and interactions are documented, including the creation of LGBTQ+-focused police associations like the Gay Officers’ Action League (GOAL) in 1993; the creation of community-based LGBTQ+ policing units like the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit (GLLU) in Washington, DC in 2000; the recruitment and selection of India’s first transgender police officer, Prithika Yashini in 2017; participation by police officers in Pride Parades around the world, police services developing and implementing LGBTQ+ recruitment efforts for new officers (for example in the UK, New Zealand, and Los Angeles), and formal apologies for past actions (for example, the New York Police Department’s 2019 apology for the Stonewall raid, and New South Wales Police Force’s 2016 apology for its actions during the first Sydney Mardi Gras in 1978, where 53 people were arrested).
Recently, some LGBTQ+ communities have accused police services of “pink-washing.” In this context, pink-washing is the strategy of supporting and promoting LGBTQ+ rights and protections as evidence of openness, legitimacy, and accountability while continuing to discriminate, harass, and exert violence on and inside communities (Blackmer, 2019). LGBTQ+ community members point to the higher disappearance and murder rate for transgender people, disparate traffic stops, the use of force and excessive force against people of color, and a persistent and corrosive organizational culture marked by heteronormativity and misogyny as evidence of continued police malady. As a result, police officers and police departments are being disinvited to participate in community-based events, like Pride Parades. In some cases, officers have been banned from recruiting at universities due to their discriminatory practices.
From police raids to professional associations to social isolation, police officers and services evoke strong emotions and differing perspectives within LGBTQ+ communities. To some, they remain guardians who have become partners in community and public safety. To others, they are the physical manifestation of state-sanctioned oppression and abuse.
It is within this context that we developed Q Policing. In this edited volume, we have brought together a diverse group of scholars and community leaders, including academics, former police officers, social workers, and community activists, to ponder the varied and complicated relationship that LGBTQ+ communities have with police and law enforcement. This edited volume expands the conversation using a variety of voices, sources of data, and methodologies. Central to this approach is an intentional focus on race, age, sex, gender, and other characteristics and identities that help explain and contextualize people’s lived experiences. As such, this book is one of the first to try to bring a more systematic study and understanding of these relationships and the experiences of those inside and outside of policing.
How This Book Is Organized
We divide the book into three major parts. Part one of the book contains chapters on the intersections of race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and policing. The chapters explore the differences and similarities between the lives of LGBTQ+ people. Their experiences are unique and strikingly similar, particularly regarding the police’s hostile treatment of community members.
In Chapter 1, Babu and Blount-Hill acknowledge that most previous literature on LGBTQ+ communities and police relations has focused on the Global North. Their focus on India reminds us of the importance of decentering the singular, Western narrative about LGBTQ+ people and experiences and invites us to seek knowledge through a more global approach.
In Chapter 2, Martin, Badio, Marlow, and Abreu ask us to consider the intersection of ethnicity and sexual orientation/gender expression and law enforcement. The authors highlight immigration policy as an additional consideration when considering the experiences of some Latinx LGBTQ+ individuals and communities. The authors make a case for law enforcement-free spaces. These spaces could help promote collective healing and well-being in communities exposed to police violence and abuse.
In Chapter 3, author DeGagne explains how white supremacy and poor cultural competencies can put Two-Spirit(a third or different gender identity for LGBTQ+ Native American/Indigenous persons who eschew the Western notion of binary categories for sex and gender) and other LGBTQ+ community members at additional and unnecessary risk for harassment and violence.
When taken as a whole, these chapters shed light on the multifaceted nature of encounters between police and members of the LGBTQ+ communities. They show how negative interactions with police exacerbate loss of trust in the criminal processing system. They also highlight the unique role that race and ethnicity play in shaping our understanding of community and policing.
Part two of the book intersects with marginalities, exploring the experiences and perspectives of LGBTQ+ people through lenses other than race and ethnicity. Here, the authors highlight the experiences of individuals who may be marginalized based on their social construction as transgender, unhoused, southern, or fetish-interested. The collection of chapters in Part two investigates the intersectionality of identities to understand better how these other factors or expressions change perceptions or experiences with police.
In Chapter 4, Osborn explores how being visibly transgender or nonbinary can make one more vulnerable to harassment, discrimination, or violence during police encounters. Osborn notes that many transgender and nonbinary people feel pressure to “perform” cisgender normativity and heteronormativity to avoid attracting negative attention from police and others. The data suggest that transgender people are less likely to call the police because they fear being mistreated by the police.
Along with being transgender and nonbinary, the organizational structure of policing can influence attitudes, as is the case for LGBTQ+ homeless youth. In Chapter 5, McCandless applies Bolman and Deal’s (2017) four-frame model of organizational dynamics to explain how structure, human resources, politics, and symbolism can affect LGBTQ+ homeless youth’s experiences and perceptions of police.
While the expansion of policy reforms aimed at reducing bias in police treatment of LGBTQ+ people is a positive recognition of the need for a new relationship between the police and members of the LGBTQ+ community, positive outcomes are not shared by everyone, particularly in many states in the US south where LGBTQ+ rights are still being fought for and where hate crime laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity are virtually non-existent. In Chapter 6, Seller explores how contradictions between state and local laws, such as hate crime laws or gender marker policies, can vary significantly across the Southern United States.
Arguably, the embodiment of a marginalized intersectional community is the queer kinkster community (those who engage in bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism or BDSM) within the larger LGBTQ+ community. Queer kinksters risk being labeled deviant because of their sexuality and unconventional sexual practices. In Chapter 7, Turley argues that police forces’ inability to distinguish between consent and abuse exposes consenting adults to unnecessary criminal interventions. When sexual violations occur in the context of consensual BDSM activities, the aggrieved party is unlikely to report it to the police for fear of being identified as a member of the BDSM community, having their case dismissed or blamed for the assault, or the police viewing them as sex objects because of their interest in BDSM.
Finally, part three, intersections in uniform, shares the perspectives of LGBTQ+ people inside police services. In addition to gay men and lesbian police officers, this section includes chapters on the experiences of often-overlooked genderqueer and transgender officers. The chapters in this part of the book focus on the experiences of police officers identifying as LGBTQ+ or sexual minorities. While police officers are generally thought to have many levels of privilege that other LGBTQ+ people might not have, they similarly experience harassment, discrimination, isolation, and even violence while working in police organizations. The chapters highlight how the power of the social and cultural components of policing perpetuates an environment that marginalizes and excludes non-heteronormative and non-cisgender normative identities.
Tensions are stretched between LGBTQ+ people subjected to police encounters and seeking to expunge police from their spaces of celebration and LGBTQ+ police officers trying to make policing safer for LGBTQ+ community members, yet being similarly marginalized and excluded by police colleagues. According to Panther, in chapter 8, nowhere is marginalization and exclusion more keenly demonstrated than in the experiences of transgender police officers. Whether affirming their gender in-service or being recruited as a transgender person, these officers appear to have some of the most challenging experiences with police colleagues. Hyper-masculine police culture plays a substantial role in ensuring negative experiences for transgender officers who do not align themselves with binary cisgender normative expectations of femininity and masculinity.
In recent decades, many police organizations have changed to support gay and lesbian police officers better. Evidence suggests that they are better supported in these workplaces, much more so than transgender police officers (Mennicke, Gromer, Oehme & MacConnie, 2018). However, as Moton discusses in Chapter 9, lesbian police officers continue to experience a range of discriminations related to their diverse sexuality, and these run alongside and collide with sexist discrimination emerging from being a woman. Although female police officers tend to use force less and make crime victims feel more supported when reporting crime, they continue to be denied promotion to higher-level leadership positions, leaving no doubt that hyper-masculinity heavily shapes their experiences.
Interestingly, while we might assume that gay male officers might share the dividends of other male officers in heteronormative masculine police organizations, this is not necessarily the case. Some recent evidence suggests that gay male officers are faring better than they have in the past – they are being recruited to policing more often and promoted and provided with training and development opportunities more than previously (Colvin, 2020). However, in Chapter 10, Rumens explains that gay male officers continue to navigate significant challenges in heteronormative masculine police culture that deems them overly feminine and unfit to do police work. They also continue to navigate the tenuous process of understanding who is safe to disclose their diverse sexuality to and engaging in behaviors that align them more closely with heteronormative masculinity. More importantly, Rumens shows us that we know little about how intersecting vulnerabilities of cultural diversity, age, and disability influence their experiences.
One strategy that police organizations use to address the vulnerabilities of LGBTQ+ communities better and to build better relationships with them is through police liaison programs, where often LGBTQ+ police officers, as well as heterosexual and cisgender allied officers, volunteer to be specially trained to support LGBTQ+ people when they are victims or perpetrators. However, as Meyer, Elias, and Moore in Chapter 11 explain, community members are still reluctant to engage with liaison officers because of past negative policing experiences. Even so, they have the potential to bend and queer the power differentials of police and policed, a much-needed shift in dynamics if vulnerable LGBTQ+ people are to be better supported by police.
Strategies like liaison officer programs would likely overlook the experiences of those officers and members of communities who identify as non-binary and genderqueer. These strategies often adopt ‘siloed’ approaches to addressing diversities like LGBTQ+ identities, meaning they focus on issues related to one specific community in ways that omit the emergent diversities in these communities. The sex-segregated characteristics of police organizations and the processes and structures suggest a similar approach: policing has always been sex-segregated, so officers who do not neatly fit within this sex segregation are marginalized. They can also be overlooked in criminological research simply because their experiences are subsumed under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, with too few genderqueer officers being interviewed to warrant analysis and discussion. As such, Dwyer and Rouse, in Chapter 12, explore the experiences of genderqueer police officers working in police organizations. While their experiences are mostly unknown, the authors use what is known about policing and other aspects of the LGBTQ+ communities to speculate and elaborate on the state of genderqueer persons in policing.
The chapters in part three of this book highlight the need for further research, specifically focused on the intersectional experiences of genderqueer, transgender, lesbian, and gay officers. For example, transgender officers are seemingly comfortable coming forward and speaking about their experiences with researchers, but most of these officers have been white and middle-class. Lesbian officers are still expected to align their presentation with heteronormative femininity, and we currently do not understand how race intersects with presentation. Gay male officers are doing better, but police culture is still holding them back, and we have little idea of how older gay male officers experience police service. These examples show that this area is ripe for further study. Such research can enhance our understanding of barriers and opportunities for LGBTQ+ people interested in careers in police services.
[end of excerpt]
Many communities can claim fraught relations with the police, while others can claim easier relations, yet few communities have experienced such a complex and confusing relationship as the one between the police and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) communities. Recent history is replete with contradictory interactions, approaches, and policies, often resulting in targeted discrimination, harassment, and violence against LGBTQ+ community members and spaces. On one side of the ledger, we see incidents of police harassment via raids that sparked famous riots and rebellions like the Compton Cafeteria riot in San Francisco in 1966; the Toronto bathhouse raids, “Operation Soap” in 1981; the 21 Club raid in Belfast in 1982; and the Puppy Palace raids in Melbourne in 1994. We see shoddy police investigations like the investigations into the still unresolved death of Masha P. Johnson in 1992 in New York; the murder investigation of transgender man Brandon Teena in 1993; or the response and investigation into the Pulse Nightclub shooting in 2016.
On the other side of the ledger, more positive actions and interactions are documented, including the creation of LGBTQ+-focused police associations like the Gay Officers’ Action League (GOAL) in 1993; the creation of community-based LGBTQ+ policing units like the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit (GLLU) in Washington, DC in 2000; the recruitment and selection of India’s first transgender police officer, Prithika Yashini in 2017; participation by police officers in Pride Parades around the world, police services developing and implementing LGBTQ+ recruitment efforts for new officers (for example in the UK, New Zealand, and Los Angeles), and formal apologies for past actions (for example, the New York Police Department’s 2019 apology for the Stonewall raid, and New South Wales Police Force’s 2016 apology for its actions during the first Sydney Mardi Gras in 1978, where 53 people were arrested).
Recently, some LGBTQ+ communities have accused police services of “pink-washing.” In this context, pink-washing is the strategy of supporting and promoting LGBTQ+ rights and protections as evidence of openness, legitimacy, and accountability while continuing to discriminate, harass, and exert violence on and inside communities (Blackmer, 2019). LGBTQ+ community members point to the higher disappearance and murder rate for transgender people, disparate traffic stops, the use of force and excessive force against people of color, and a persistent and corrosive organizational culture marked by heteronormativity and misogyny as evidence of continued police malady. As a result, police officers and police departments are being disinvited to participate in community-based events, like Pride Parades. In some cases, officers have been banned from recruiting at universities due to their discriminatory practices.
From police raids to professional associations to social isolation, police officers and services evoke strong emotions and differing perspectives within LGBTQ+ communities. To some, they remain guardians who have become partners in community and public safety. To others, they are the physical manifestation of state-sanctioned oppression and abuse.
It is within this context that we developed Q Policing. In this edited volume, we have brought together a diverse group of scholars and community leaders, including academics, former police officers, social workers, and community activists, to ponder the varied and complicated relationship that LGBTQ+ communities have with police and law enforcement. This edited volume expands the conversation using a variety of voices, sources of data, and methodologies. Central to this approach is an intentional focus on race, age, sex, gender, and other characteristics and identities that help explain and contextualize people’s lived experiences. As such, this book is one of the first to try to bring a more systematic study and understanding of these relationships and the experiences of those inside and outside of policing.
How This Book Is Organized
We divide the book into three major parts. Part one of the book contains chapters on the intersections of race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and policing. The chapters explore the differences and similarities between the lives of LGBTQ+ people. Their experiences are unique and strikingly similar, particularly regarding the police’s hostile treatment of community members.
In Chapter 1, Babu and Blount-Hill acknowledge that most previous literature on LGBTQ+ communities and police relations has focused on the Global North. Their focus on India reminds us of the importance of decentering the singular, Western narrative about LGBTQ+ people and experiences and invites us to seek knowledge through a more global approach.
In Chapter 2, Martin, Badio, Marlow, and Abreu ask us to consider the intersection of ethnicity and sexual orientation/gender expression and law enforcement. The authors highlight immigration policy as an additional consideration when considering the experiences of some Latinx LGBTQ+ individuals and communities. The authors make a case for law enforcement-free spaces. These spaces could help promote collective healing and well-being in communities exposed to police violence and abuse.
In Chapter 3, author DeGagne explains how white supremacy and poor cultural competencies can put Two-Spirit(a third or different gender identity for LGBTQ+ Native American/Indigenous persons who eschew the Western notion of binary categories for sex and gender) and other LGBTQ+ community members at additional and unnecessary risk for harassment and violence.
When taken as a whole, these chapters shed light on the multifaceted nature of encounters between police and members of the LGBTQ+ communities. They show how negative interactions with police exacerbate loss of trust in the criminal processing system. They also highlight the unique role that race and ethnicity play in shaping our understanding of community and policing.
Part two of the book intersects with marginalities, exploring the experiences and perspectives of LGBTQ+ people through lenses other than race and ethnicity. Here, the authors highlight the experiences of individuals who may be marginalized based on their social construction as transgender, unhoused, southern, or fetish-interested. The collection of chapters in Part two investigates the intersectionality of identities to understand better how these other factors or expressions change perceptions or experiences with police.
In Chapter 4, Osborn explores how being visibly transgender or nonbinary can make one more vulnerable to harassment, discrimination, or violence during police encounters. Osborn notes that many transgender and nonbinary people feel pressure to “perform” cisgender normativity and heteronormativity to avoid attracting negative attention from police and others. The data suggest that transgender people are less likely to call the police because they fear being mistreated by the police.
Along with being transgender and nonbinary, the organizational structure of policing can influence attitudes, as is the case for LGBTQ+ homeless youth. In Chapter 5, McCandless applies Bolman and Deal’s (2017) four-frame model of organizational dynamics to explain how structure, human resources, politics, and symbolism can affect LGBTQ+ homeless youth’s experiences and perceptions of police.
While the expansion of policy reforms aimed at reducing bias in police treatment of LGBTQ+ people is a positive recognition of the need for a new relationship between the police and members of the LGBTQ+ community, positive outcomes are not shared by everyone, particularly in many states in the US south where LGBTQ+ rights are still being fought for and where hate crime laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity are virtually non-existent. In Chapter 6, Seller explores how contradictions between state and local laws, such as hate crime laws or gender marker policies, can vary significantly across the Southern United States.
Arguably, the embodiment of a marginalized intersectional community is the queer kinkster community (those who engage in bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism or BDSM) within the larger LGBTQ+ community. Queer kinksters risk being labeled deviant because of their sexuality and unconventional sexual practices. In Chapter 7, Turley argues that police forces’ inability to distinguish between consent and abuse exposes consenting adults to unnecessary criminal interventions. When sexual violations occur in the context of consensual BDSM activities, the aggrieved party is unlikely to report it to the police for fear of being identified as a member of the BDSM community, having their case dismissed or blamed for the assault, or the police viewing them as sex objects because of their interest in BDSM.
Finally, part three, intersections in uniform, shares the perspectives of LGBTQ+ people inside police services. In addition to gay men and lesbian police officers, this section includes chapters on the experiences of often-overlooked genderqueer and transgender officers. The chapters in this part of the book focus on the experiences of police officers identifying as LGBTQ+ or sexual minorities. While police officers are generally thought to have many levels of privilege that other LGBTQ+ people might not have, they similarly experience harassment, discrimination, isolation, and even violence while working in police organizations. The chapters highlight how the power of the social and cultural components of policing perpetuates an environment that marginalizes and excludes non-heteronormative and non-cisgender normative identities.
Tensions are stretched between LGBTQ+ people subjected to police encounters and seeking to expunge police from their spaces of celebration and LGBTQ+ police officers trying to make policing safer for LGBTQ+ community members, yet being similarly marginalized and excluded by police colleagues. According to Panther, in chapter 8, nowhere is marginalization and exclusion more keenly demonstrated than in the experiences of transgender police officers. Whether affirming their gender in-service or being recruited as a transgender person, these officers appear to have some of the most challenging experiences with police colleagues. Hyper-masculine police culture plays a substantial role in ensuring negative experiences for transgender officers who do not align themselves with binary cisgender normative expectations of femininity and masculinity.
In recent decades, many police organizations have changed to support gay and lesbian police officers better. Evidence suggests that they are better supported in these workplaces, much more so than transgender police officers (Mennicke, Gromer, Oehme & MacConnie, 2018). However, as Moton discusses in Chapter 9, lesbian police officers continue to experience a range of discriminations related to their diverse sexuality, and these run alongside and collide with sexist discrimination emerging from being a woman. Although female police officers tend to use force less and make crime victims feel more supported when reporting crime, they continue to be denied promotion to higher-level leadership positions, leaving no doubt that hyper-masculinity heavily shapes their experiences.
Interestingly, while we might assume that gay male officers might share the dividends of other male officers in heteronormative masculine police organizations, this is not necessarily the case. Some recent evidence suggests that gay male officers are faring better than they have in the past – they are being recruited to policing more often and promoted and provided with training and development opportunities more than previously (Colvin, 2020). However, in Chapter 10, Rumens explains that gay male officers continue to navigate significant challenges in heteronormative masculine police culture that deems them overly feminine and unfit to do police work. They also continue to navigate the tenuous process of understanding who is safe to disclose their diverse sexuality to and engaging in behaviors that align them more closely with heteronormative masculinity. More importantly, Rumens shows us that we know little about how intersecting vulnerabilities of cultural diversity, age, and disability influence their experiences.
One strategy that police organizations use to address the vulnerabilities of LGBTQ+ communities better and to build better relationships with them is through police liaison programs, where often LGBTQ+ police officers, as well as heterosexual and cisgender allied officers, volunteer to be specially trained to support LGBTQ+ people when they are victims or perpetrators. However, as Meyer, Elias, and Moore in Chapter 11 explain, community members are still reluctant to engage with liaison officers because of past negative policing experiences. Even so, they have the potential to bend and queer the power differentials of police and policed, a much-needed shift in dynamics if vulnerable LGBTQ+ people are to be better supported by police.
Strategies like liaison officer programs would likely overlook the experiences of those officers and members of communities who identify as non-binary and genderqueer. These strategies often adopt ‘siloed’ approaches to addressing diversities like LGBTQ+ identities, meaning they focus on issues related to one specific community in ways that omit the emergent diversities in these communities. The sex-segregated characteristics of police organizations and the processes and structures suggest a similar approach: policing has always been sex-segregated, so officers who do not neatly fit within this sex segregation are marginalized. They can also be overlooked in criminological research simply because their experiences are subsumed under the LGBTQ+ umbrella, with too few genderqueer officers being interviewed to warrant analysis and discussion. As such, Dwyer and Rouse, in Chapter 12, explore the experiences of genderqueer police officers working in police organizations. While their experiences are mostly unknown, the authors use what is known about policing and other aspects of the LGBTQ+ communities to speculate and elaborate on the state of genderqueer persons in policing.
The chapters in part three of this book highlight the need for further research, specifically focused on the intersectional experiences of genderqueer, transgender, lesbian, and gay officers. For example, transgender officers are seemingly comfortable coming forward and speaking about their experiences with researchers, but most of these officers have been white and middle-class. Lesbian officers are still expected to align their presentation with heteronormative femininity, and we currently do not understand how race intersects with presentation. Gay male officers are doing better, but police culture is still holding them back, and we have little idea of how older gay male officers experience police service. These examples show that this area is ripe for further study. Such research can enhance our understanding of barriers and opportunities for LGBTQ+ people interested in careers in police services.
[end of excerpt]
Cuprins
Contents
Introduction—Roddrick Colvin, Angela Dwyer, and Sulaimon Giwa
Part 1: Intersections with Cultural Diversity
1. Inclusive criminology: A note on queer experiences of police in India—Dhanya Babu and Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill
2. Latinx LGBTQ+ communities and law enforcement personnel: Oppression, violence and reform—Julio A. Martin, Koree S. Badio, Tyson Marlow, and Roberto L. Abreu
3. Defending queer space against white supremacists and police in Hamilton—Alexa DeGagne
Part 2: Intersections with Marginality
4. Transgender and nonbinary people’s presentation management during encounters with police—Max Osborn
5. Inequities among LGBTQ+ young people: Organizational roles in police departments—Sean A. McCandless
6. LGBTQ policing in the South: A look at protections and police reforms—Mitchell D. Sellers
7. Policing queer kink: Misconceptions, preconceptions, and confusion—Emma L. Turley
Part 3: Intersections in Uniform
8. Transitioning in uniform: Identity and conflict within policing—Heather Panter
9. Existence as resistance: The case of lesbian police officers—Lauren Moton
10. Gay police officers in the United Kingdom: Current scholarly research—Nick Rumens
11. Applying Queer Theory to the Role of LGBTQ+ Police Liaisons—Seth J. Meyer, Nicole Elias and Paige L. Moore
12. Blurring the binaries: the experiences of genderqueer police officers—Angela Dwyer, Leah M. Rouse, and Heather Panter
Conclusion
References
Introduction—Roddrick Colvin, Angela Dwyer, and Sulaimon Giwa
Part 1: Intersections with Cultural Diversity
1. Inclusive criminology: A note on queer experiences of police in India—Dhanya Babu and Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill
2. Latinx LGBTQ+ communities and law enforcement personnel: Oppression, violence and reform—Julio A. Martin, Koree S. Badio, Tyson Marlow, and Roberto L. Abreu
3. Defending queer space against white supremacists and police in Hamilton—Alexa DeGagne
Part 2: Intersections with Marginality
4. Transgender and nonbinary people’s presentation management during encounters with police—Max Osborn
5. Inequities among LGBTQ+ young people: Organizational roles in police departments—Sean A. McCandless
6. LGBTQ policing in the South: A look at protections and police reforms—Mitchell D. Sellers
7. Policing queer kink: Misconceptions, preconceptions, and confusion—Emma L. Turley
Part 3: Intersections in Uniform
8. Transitioning in uniform: Identity and conflict within policing—Heather Panter
9. Existence as resistance: The case of lesbian police officers—Lauren Moton
10. Gay police officers in the United Kingdom: Current scholarly research—Nick Rumens
11. Applying Queer Theory to the Role of LGBTQ+ Police Liaisons—Seth J. Meyer, Nicole Elias and Paige L. Moore
12. Blurring the binaries: the experiences of genderqueer police officers—Angela Dwyer, Leah M. Rouse, and Heather Panter
Conclusion
References
Recenzii
“Q Policing is the first volume to fully explore the rich and complex intersections between sexuality, gender diversity, and policing. International in its scope and intersectional in its approach, the authors canvass a wide array of original topics spanning from the policing of queer lives, protest, and kink, to organizational analyses of police bodies, and even to the experiences of queer people serving as police officers. No volume to date has unpacked these threads in such detail or with such nuance. Q Policing is a very welcome addition to queer studies in criminology and criminal justice, and a necessary read.”—Matthew Ball, author of Criminology and Queer Theory: Dangerous Bedfellows?
“Q Policing covers the diverse LGBTQ+ experiences with law enforcement systems over the last five decades, from abolition to reform to employment. This interdisciplinary collection provides a contemporary analysis that highlights growing sexuality and gender identities. Their category ‘criminal processing system’ pushes criminology to acknowledge the limited role of ‘justice’ in these institutions across the world.”—Andrew R. Spieldenner, editor of A Pill for Promiscuity: Gay Sex in an Age of Pharmaceuticals
“Readers of this volume will come away with a clear understanding of the challenges, changes, and progress that are occurring between LGBTQ+ communities and law enforcement. The book is a must-read for all individuals trying to understand the complexities that have plagued the police community and LGBTQ+ community from working together over the decades.”—Richard Greggory Johnson III, coeditor of Unheard Voices: A Collection of Narratives by Black, Gay and Bisexual Men
“Q Policing is a welcome addition to queer criminological literature. Colvin, Dwyer, and Giwa have brought together an impressive cadre of scholars, offering a unique and global collection of essays that explore the intersectional experiences of queer people who have come into contact with law enforcement and/or who work as police officers themselves.”—Emily Lenning, coauthor of Queer Criminology
“Q Policing covers the diverse LGBTQ+ experiences with law enforcement systems over the last five decades, from abolition to reform to employment. This interdisciplinary collection provides a contemporary analysis that highlights growing sexuality and gender identities. Their category ‘criminal processing system’ pushes criminology to acknowledge the limited role of ‘justice’ in these institutions across the world.”—Andrew R. Spieldenner, editor of A Pill for Promiscuity: Gay Sex in an Age of Pharmaceuticals
“Readers of this volume will come away with a clear understanding of the challenges, changes, and progress that are occurring between LGBTQ+ communities and law enforcement. The book is a must-read for all individuals trying to understand the complexities that have plagued the police community and LGBTQ+ community from working together over the decades.”—Richard Greggory Johnson III, coeditor of Unheard Voices: A Collection of Narratives by Black, Gay and Bisexual Men
“Q Policing is a welcome addition to queer criminological literature. Colvin, Dwyer, and Giwa have brought together an impressive cadre of scholars, offering a unique and global collection of essays that explore the intersectional experiences of queer people who have come into contact with law enforcement and/or who work as police officers themselves.”—Emily Lenning, coauthor of Queer Criminology
Descriere
In this edited volume contributors from around the world ponder the complicated relationships between LGBTQ+ communities and police and law enforcement using intersectional analysis of innovative topics, contemporary issues, and individual experiences.