Transgender Women Targeted by D.C. Police

What's life like for a transgender woman in Washington, D.C.? It leaves quite a bit to be desired.

Police are charged with routinely harassing transgender women under the "assumption that everyone is a sex worker" who is simply outside or in possession of condoms, according to Sadie-Ryanne Baker of the D.C. Trans Coalition. Amanda Hess reports that a recent sting operation netted six women on prostitution charges, but there are questions about whether the one transgender woman in the group was picked up for her gender identity rather than any evidence of selling sex. This isn't the first time we've faced transphobia in police work and use of condoms to charge women with crimes, an issue 18,000 of you have spoken out against.

Worse, the transgender woman arrested in this operation was not locked up with the other women, but was instead put in a cell with men. Though this is against police regulations, the presence of transphobia amongst law enforcement means that it does happen; while it's unclear how much of this arrest was premised on discriminatory targeting, the fact that this woman was entered into the police report as "male" demonstrates an obvious problem in their treatment of a transgender woman. As Michael A. Jones has written on the Gay Rights blog before, transgender persons also face outright harassment and brutality at the hands of the law enforcement that should be protecting them. These abuses were chronicled in the report Moving Along: Policing Sex Work in Washington, D.C.

Transgender women in D.C. have the right to be treated like other women when arrested. They have the right not to be unfairly targeted as potential sex workers, and they certainly have as much right as anyone else to carry condoms without fearing that being used as evidence against them. And they have the right not to fear police.

Photo credit: Beechwood Photography