SJPD updates conduct code with transgender people
SAN JOSE >> The San Jose Police Department this week has rolled out a new training bulletin and additions to its duty manual to be more inclusive and modernize officers’ conduct when they interact with transgender people.
Written with the counsel of local transgender and LGBTQ+ leaders, the new changes place specific emphasis on acknowledging and prioritizing one’s chosen name and gender identity, and making corresponding accommodations in search, detainment and report-writing policies.
Sera Fernando, a senior management analyst in the Santa Clara County Office of LGBTQ Affairs who identifies as a transgender queer woman, was one of several advisers for the policy updates and said the new provisions are an important milestone in combating mis-gendering that has bred distrust in law enforcement.
“I think it’s very pivotal and somewhat exciting for SJPD to take this step in ensuring that trans, nonbinary, and gender-diverse folks feel safe in their custody and care,” Fernando said in an interview. “Our hope is really for the greater South Bay and other municipalities to follow this.”
The duty manual change and plans for corresponding training build on existing LGBTQ+ sensitivity training in the department, notably at the police academies. Gabrielle Antolovich, board president of the Billy Defrank LGBTQ+ Community Center, said this will help ensure veteran officers also get up to speed, and that the formal policy change provides a new accountability touchstone.
“What this means is the department has made a commitment and therefore, transgender folks or other LGB’S who are not being treated correctly have a better chance to complain and have their complaint listened to,” she said. “It’s no longer a gray area, this is a very clear bulletin. Now you have a way to complain if people are not following through. That is empowering.”
The duty-manual changes give officers guidelines for how to recognize and acknowledge transgender and intersex people, and compels officers to defer to a person being detained or arrested in choosing what gender of officer conducts a physical search. In their interactions, officers must adhere to a person’s chosen gender pronouns, and are required to be discreet in asking about a person’s gender identity if it’s not made readily apparent.
One of the more significant shifts is creating space in the report-taking and writing processes to account for chosen names, which in the past had a been a paperwork limitation that led to transgender, non-binary, and gender-diverse people being referred to in records by their legal or birth names that don’t correspond to their current identities, a practice known as “dead naming.”
One of the duty-manual revisions mandates that officers make a singular reference to one’s legal or birth name for recordkeeping purposes, but that “throughout the remainder of the report, department members shall use the chosen name and/or gender identity when referring to the individual.”
That is a key provision to Officer James Gonzales, who serves as the department’s LGBTQ+ liaison.
“Respecting an individual’s identity or asking how they would like to be addressed is a simple concept and something we have to get right,” Gonzales said. “The training will help officers meet the communities’ expectations across all areas of an encounter, including giving new directions on conducting searches and completing police reports using the individual’s preferences, regardless of legal statuses.”
San Jose police have changed past practices addressing LGBTQ+ issues in some instances through internal initiatives like what’s happening now, but also to resolve discrimination lawsuits. A lawsuit alleging that undercover decoy stings at public restrooms unlawfully targeted gay men was settled in 2018 with a commitment to end such operations. The city is currently defending SJPD against a lawsuit from a woman who alleges police used her transgender status to deem her a sex worker.
South Bay Assemblyman Evan Low, who authored a 2019 bill compelling statewide police education and training in LGBTQ+ sensitivity — for which SJPD was the only state police agency to give official support — hopes that the new policies will be emulated widely.
“The decision to revise the policy on pronouns in police reports will also go a long way in making sure these individuals are not victimized throughout the legal process,” Low said in a statement.