LGBTQ people have a troubled relationship with police—survey shows harassment, abuse and distrust

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LGBTQ people have a troubled relationship with police—survey shows harassment, ****** and distrust

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Credit: The Conversation

The LGBTQ community’s long history with law enforcement is so troubled and violent that organizers at some recent Pride parades

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from marching in the parade.

Throughout the 20th century, the

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, rounding up patrons and taking them to jail. Sometimes, the names and photos of those arrested were published in newspapers—with potentially dire social and economic consequences.

Police departments across the country have taken steps in recent years to improve relations with the LGBTQ community,

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. Yet raids continue to occur sporadically. In January 2024,

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unannounced, allegedly taking pictures of customers and citing at least one bartender for having an exposed ******* in violation of city policy.

And that’s not the only reason the relationship between police and LGBTQ people ******** fraught.

Insulting language and ******

I am a

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. To understand LGBTQ people’s experience with and attitudes toward police, I recently conducted a

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alongside

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, my colleague at the University of California, Irvine.

This first-of-its-kind national survey of both LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ people drew on a nationally representative sample of 1,598 people—a gold standard for sociological survey research—followed by in-depth interviews with 59 LGBTQ survey participants.

The results, some of which were recently published in

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were eye-opening.

Our study found that LGBTQ people still face more police mistreatment than non-LGBTQ people and have less trust in the police. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they are also significantly more reluctant to call the police for help.

At the broadest level, we found that LGBTQ people are more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested and held in custody than non-LGBTQ people. Just under 15% of non-LGBTQ respondents had experienced this kind of police-initiated contact in the past year, compared with 21% of LGBTQ people and 33% of transgender respondents.

Those interactions with police are often uglier for LGBTQ people than non-LGBTQ people, especially *********, transgender,

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and ****** people—that is, those who identify outside of traditional “gay” and “********” labels. Approximately a quarter of all ********* and ****** survey respondents had experienced insulting language during a police interaction.

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Credit: The Conversation

These numbers were even higher for transgender and nonbinary people—45% and 33%, respectively. One transgender woman we interviewed described, for instance, how police officers purposefully used the wrong gender when referring to her, asked her “what” she was and used anti-LGBTQ slurs.

****** transgender people were the most likely to have experienced police *********. Fifty-three percent said they’d been hit, beaten, pushed or otherwise physically assaulted by police, compared with 25% of white transgender respondents. In contrast, only 8% of white cisgender men said that they had been the victims of police brutality.

This data powerfully demonstrate how gender, ******* identity and race all intersect to influence police treatment.

Afraid to call the cops

Given these findings, it is perhaps unsurprising that LGBTQ people, on average, rated the fairness of their police interactions approximately 12% lower than their non-LGBTQ peers.

Again, ********* and ****** people reported lower perceptions of fairness in their police interactions than gay and ******** people. Meanwhile, transgender and nonbinary people reported worse perceptions of fairness than cisgender LGBQ people.

Consequently, LGBTQ people also reported less trust in the police than their non-LGBTQ counterparts, though this varied significantly by race.

****** and Hispanic LGBTQ people, for example, rated their trust in the police at 2.9 on a 5-point scale; white LGBTQ people rated it at 3.3, a statistically significant difference. Asians reported the highest perceptions of police legitimacy among LGBTQ people, with a 3.6 rating.

Finally, when we asked survey respondents if they would call the police for help if they became victims of a ******, we found that LGBTQ people were less likely to say yes than non-LGBTQ people: 71% compared with 87%.

But again there were meaningful differences among LGBTQ people, too. About 80% of gay and ******** people said they would report their victimization to police, while only 69% of *********, 61% of transgender respondents and 60% of ****** people would.

Interestingly, among LGBTQ people, ****** respondents were the most likely to say they’d call the police for help, at 77%, followed by 74% of ******* and Asians. Hispanics were the least likely, at 58%.

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Credit: The Conversation

Police ‘more foe than friend’

Putting all of this together, LGBTQ people are significantly likelier to say

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than non-LGBTQ people.

But this top-level takeaway hides important subtle differences in the data. Some members of the LGBTQ community report having had roughly similar experiences with the police as their non-LGBTQ peers, and they have similarly positive perceptions of law enforcement.

White gay men and *********, for example, are almost as likely as non-LGBTQ people to call the police for help. Meanwhile, LGBTQ people who are ******, poor or otherwise marginalized have a more troubled relationship with law enforcement in almost every category than their more privileged peers.

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Credit: The Conversation

Similarly, LGBTQ people of all races fare worse by almost every measure than their non-LGBTQ peers of the same race. Even white ******** and gay people still face significant mistreatment by police.

Our study underscores that gender and sexuality are vitally important considerations in national conversations on policing.

The LGBTQ community has won important legal rights over the past 30 years, but official ********* and oppression have continued. And with

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, from laws banning gender-affirming care to those prohibiting teachers from discussing LGBTQ issues, it is little wonder that LGBTQ people remain leery of police.

“If the police are told to uphold a law, and that law goes against you fundamentally as a person,”

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, “you’re not going to support the police.”

Provided by
The Conversation

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under a Creative Commons license. Read the

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LGBTQ people have a troubled relationship with police—survey shows harassment, ****** and distrust (2024, August 13)
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