TRANSGENDER AND THE POLICE A Brief Discussion paper for officers of the NZ Police on contact with members of the Trans gendered community Date : 24 December 1999 Objective: To provide the NZ Police with sufficient information to adequately deal with Transgendered persons in situations where close contact is required. Introduction: To most members of the NZ Police, dealing with Transgendered members of the public is somewhat difficult as there are no absolutes in how Transgendered people present themselves. Some Transgendered people can present as female, some as male, some as androgynous or indeterminate sex. In addition, some members of the Transgendered community can be somewhat boisterous, and not in keeping with their perceived gender, making a Police Officer's decisions on how to deal with the person very difficult. The following paper hopefully will clarify some of the confusion. Classifying Transgendered Persons Due to the somewhat wide range of types within the Transgendered community, it is difficult to allocate people to definite categories. However,in order to simplify the task of the Police somewhat there are a number of broad categories, which can be used to roughly identify Transgendered people, and therefore how to deal appropriately with them. The first point that must be made is that gender identity is quite different to sexual preference. There are people with homosexual, heterosexual,bisexual and neuter/neither sexual preference in the Transgendered community. However, these types as defined by the 'straight' community do have a different slant when used by Transgendered and other 'Queer' people. Therefore a Transgendered person can be for example a Male to Female Transexual who, postoperatively classifies herself as Heterosexual, that is, she prefers heterosexual men as her partners; similarly to a genetic woman. To the uninformed members of the 'straight' community she would probably be viewed as a homosexual in a skirt. Transgender Classifications a) Transexual: These people can best be described as those people born into one gender and being so uncomfortable with living as a member of that gender that they undergo gender reassignment into the gender they believe they should be. This does not always involve hormone therapy and surgery, as some Transexuals are extremely comfortable just living in their desired gender role, without going through the problems associated with full gender reassignment. Most Transexuals are aware for a long time that their birth gender is wrong, and many Transexuals go through many years of severe emotional stress before finding out they can do something about their situation. Due to the emotional stress built up over time, many Transexuals can be somewhat excessive in their use of recreational substances, whether legal or not. When the emotional floodgates are released by intoxication, somewhat bizarre, over the top behaviour can result. This behaviour often will bring Transexuals into contact with Police Officers as a result of either offending or assaulting a member of the public, or just by making a general nuisance of themselves. Transexuals are generally grouped into 3 groups: 1- Male to Female (MTF) 2- Female to Male (FTM) 3- Intersexed (IS). The majority of Transexuals are MTF, and the ratio is approximately 1 MTF to 150,000 of population. The ratio for FTM is less, at 1 in 165,000 approximately (these numbers are not confirmed). Intersexed figures are not available at time of writing. IS people are generally born with indeterminate gender, either with unformed or missing or indeterminate genitalia. In addition, some people born and classified as one gender can as they grow, be discovered to actually be of the opposite genden at which point the family and doctors usually make a decision to 'correct' any physical defects to allow the child to continue in the existing genden or in the opposite gender. Uninformed gender reassignment based on parental and doctoral views has caused a lot of suffering for many IS people in the past who view the 'corrective surgery' as mutilation. Many Intersexed people eventually go through a similar hormone and surgical process to other Transexuals and end up in the gender they perceive themselves to be. b) Transvestite: These people are quite often heterosexual men who enjoy wearing women's clothing from time to time, and generally have an erotic association with wearing women's clothing, though this is not always the case. Some transvestites just have a deep-seated need to wear women's clothing, though they do not wish to go through Gender Reassignment as they are quite happy with their gender and sexualiw. Most transvestites will cross-dress at homQ and most remain in their homQ where they can shock neighbours if spoiled through windows or in their gardens. This could cause an over-anxious neighbour to call police, resulting in a somewhat embarrassing situation for both the transvestite and the Police officers attending the scene. Some transvestites prefer going out to clubs that specialise in transvestitism, or to other generally 'queer' clubs, where they are usually not bothered by other people. In addition there are groups of transvestites who will book an entire restaurant for the members of the group, so that they can have a quiet evening out without having people pointing at them and making disparaging remarks, or trying to assault them etc... c) Drag Queen: The most flamboyant members of the queer community, and also the hardest group to classify, as Drag Queens can come from a number of sections of the queer community. Generally, Queens are often homosexual males who enjoy wearing women's clothing and who enjoy exaggerating female attire and mannerisms. Most Queens are over the top and parody women in their costumes, similarly to the Drag Queens in the movie "Priscilla, Queen of the Desert". There are a few Transvestites who also enjoy being Drag Queens, which can be quite confusing for the uninformed, as it is hard to draw a line between a transvestite, a Drag Queen or a Transexual. In addition, some Drag Queens are Transexuals, who view the Drag Queen image as a way to either make some money, or as a way to have a bit of fun. Determining Transgender When someone has been detained by Police, where the gender is not easily ascertained; the Police officers involved should ask in a straight forward manner (after asking the person not to take offence to the question) if the person is Pre-Op or Post-OpTransexual, Transvestite etc. If a body search is required, the officers should determine whether the person being searched would feel more comfortable having a male or a female officer perform the search. The officers involved need to also be aware that Pre-Op and Post-Op Transexuals will probably prefer a female officer to do the search, but the female officer will have to be understanding of the fact that the Pre-Op will have male genitalia. A similar situation may apply for a Drag Queen and Transvestite, though this should be looked at carefully on a case by case basis. If a Transgendered person is to be detained, then a similar situation exists for cell assignment. Some members of the public, especially if intoxicated can exhibit extremely hostile behaviour towards Transgendered people, and it may therefore be safer to assign Transgendered people to separate cell/s. However, it should be noted that some of the Transgendered community who work in the sex industry can hold some fairly serious grudges against others in the same line of work, and putting two Transgendered in one cell who can't stand the sight of each other could pose some difficulties for officers in trying to keep them under control.