Brett Parson, gay D.C. p arrted Florida, divis LGBTQ muny - Washgton Post

Contents:

• PRI SAID GAY COPS AREN’T WELE. THEN CAME THE BACKLASH.
• THE COPS STANDG WH, AND FOR, THE GAY COMMUNI THEY SERVE
• COMG OUT AT WORK: WHAT 'S LIKE TO BE A GAY P NEW JERSEY
• GAY POLICE STOCK PHOTOS AND IMAG
• GAY POLICE OFFICER FIGHTS FOR FEELG PRI THE FORCE
• POLICE AT PRI? GAY PS, LGBTQ ACTIVISTS STGGLE TO SEE EYE-TO-EYE
• GAY OFFICER’S ACTN LEAGUE
• GAY POLICE GROUP BLASTS NYC PRI FOR BANNG OFFICERS OM EVENTS
• HE WAS ONE OF THE NATN’S MOST REVERED GAY PS. HIS ARRT CHANGED EVERYTHG.
• NYC PRI PARA BANS POLICE; GAY OFFICERS 'DISHEARTENED'

PRI SAID GAY COPS AREN’T WELE. THEN CAME THE BACKLASH.

The 1969 police raid of the Stonewall Inn, the famed gay bar New York Cy, was no different than many others before s, before and after the rts, some law enforcement officers and agenci targeted known LGBTQ-iendly tablishments an effort to shut them down, btalize patrons, and arrt people who vlated the homophobic and transphobic polici of the time, acrdg to the Natnal Park Foundatn, an anizatn that foc on U.

THE COPS STANDG WH, AND FOR, THE GAY COMMUNI THEY SERVE

History and Stonewall Uprisg of 1969, the culmatn of days of protts and clash wh police, was the talyst for the morn gay rights movement and is what NYC Pri memorat each year. Reported police misnduct, cludg unjtified arrt, e of excsive force and Samuel, of the Gay Officers Actn League, a nonprof LGBTQIA law enforcement advocy group, said that s members were upset by anizers’ cisn to remove law enforcement groups om the lp.

“That was the jtifitn for so much blackmailg and harassment of gay people and trans people by the police bee they uld still charge you wh sodomy and you would actually go to jail for havg nsensual sex wh another adult. Acrdg to the Prison Policy Iniative (PPI), a crimal jtice rearch and advocy group, LGBTQ people, of every age group, are overreprented the crimal jtice 2019, a PPI study found that gay, lbian, and bisexual dividuals were 2. The multiday prott — wily nsired a pivotal turng pot the morn gay rights movement — was triggered by a police raid on the popular Stonewall Inn gay bar.

COMG OUT AT WORK: WHAT 'S LIKE TO BE A GAY P NEW JERSEY

History, police officers were bound to enforce explicly anti-gay laws — om lol measur outlawg men om “impersonatg a female” to the wispread crimalizatn of same-sex sexual activy. She poted to a study published by the Williams Instute May that found lbian, gay, bisexual and queer people are six tim more likely than the general public to be stopped by police (data about transgenr dividuals were not available the datasets analyzed). Prr to the start of this trag, negative attus about the LGBTQ muny were reportedly pervasive wh the partment: In 1996, durg a retrag of veteran officers, a word associatn exercise asked for rpons to the word “gays.

Gtavo Alvarez, a gay rint of Palo Alto, California, settled his lawsu agast s police partment after accg of vlatg his civil rights, rultg a settlement that clud a $572, 500 payout and a one-off two hours of mandatory LGBTQ-awarens trag for all police officers the partment. “There was no secret that he was gay, and the officers fely ed that as a way to mean him their prr ntacts wh him and also durg this ntact. In New York Cy — where LGBTQ trag is provid by the Gay Officers Actn League (GOAL) for both new recs and veteran officers — Cummgs wants the police missner to be a civilian and lgs om the Civilian Complat Review Board, the NYPD’s oversight agency, be bdg.

GAY POLICE STOCK PHOTOS AND IMAG

” The monstrators left angry but clash between protters and police fillg social media, prsure rose on Herage of Pri to rce police volvement, cludg banng the Gay Officers Actn League, which routely receiv effive cheers durg the Pri march. ” The board did not tell members about the cisn or ask for a the Gay Officers Actn League learned about the g policy, pre-empted Herage of Pri wh s own statement llg the ban “shameful. In the past week, he told them, he had received onle msag of hate nsistently om whe gay men, to the extent that his fay feared for his safety.

Fisher, who had lled for the vote of no Downey, print of the gay officers group, said he felt “betrayed” by the ban, pecially bee the officers “put so much of themselv on the choppg block” by workg to change practic and attus wh their partments. But as the print of the force’s only LGBTQ aternal anizatn — the Gay Officers Actn League, or GOAL — his other role is to serve and support his brothers and sisters drsed blue … and rabows. “It’s an ongog procs, y, but ’s important for the [gay muny] — which has this mentaly based on history that you n’t be both gay and a police officer — to see that there are gay ps out there.

Before he joed the force 17 years ago, Locke was a social worker and director at the Gay and Lbian Anti-Vlence Project, where he vtigated s of police vlence agast the gay muny. On June 12, a few weeks before this year’s Pri Para, Downey stood at the ont of an dorium New York’s police headquarters for an annual event to honor the cy’s gay officers. Even as recently as a few years ago, GOAL wasn’t allowed to hold Pri Month events, like the one this month to regnize their gay lleagu, at police headquarters.

GAY POLICE OFFICER FIGHTS FOR FEELG PRI THE FORCE

Jam Tracy of the Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, police partment, the abily to be openly gay while the police force is important to make those meangful chang. That tersectn is as old as the morn fight for LGTBQ rights, and perhaps no moment illtrat that as well as the movement’s most famo turng pot: the 1969 Stonewall Rts, the uprisg sparked by a police raid at a gay bar New York Cy’s Greenwich Village neighborhood, and the tone to which Pri Month is pegged. As they are today, members of the LGBTQ muny were disproportnately targeted by police durg the 1950s and 1960s, “the most homophobic perd Amerin history, ” says historian Hugh Ryan, thor of When Brooklyn Was Queer: A History.

Donut shop that was a popular meetg place for transgenr and gay people, was the se of an uprisg agast the ntuo police harassment that the shop’s patrons endured. Trans women of lor played a key role the Augt 1966 Compton Cafeteria Rts San Francis, and a police raid on the Black Cat tavern Los Angel on New Years’ Day 1967 rulted anized public protts agast police harassment of gay, trans and genr non-nformg people. For historian Ryan, the Haven Rt 1970, which took place at the Haven gay bar Greenwich Village, was also a landmark event and monstrat that there was a nsistency to the ancy beyond the sgular moment of Stonewall.

The fact that several members of the Black Panther Party, cludg Angela Davis, Afeni Shakur and Joan Bird, had also spent time the prison speaks to the shared nnectns a broar stggle, Ryan says, as lks emerged between the Black Panther Party, the Gay Liberatn Front, radil lbians and the femist and women’s movements. It was after she saw the prison how the opprsn of gay people was nnected to the opprsn of mori that Afeni Shakur went on to anize a meetg between the Black Panther Party and the Gay Liberatn Front at Jane Fonda’s penthoe apartment on the Upper East si 1970. ”It's not always easy to be a p who is gay, but each step forward helps pave the way for a better future work environment, Tracy ntu below galleryWell before Tracy ever put on the police uniform, Wtwood police Officer Larry Schwartz helped pave the way for gay officers.

POLICE AT PRI? GAY PS, LGBTQ ACTIVISTS STGGLE TO SEE EYE-TO-EYE

Schwartz remends other gay ps get volved and take the time to fd peers and seek help if there are road for officers who e out as gay to lleagu has not always been smooth. The first gay pri para was held the followg year New York PopovaNow, after Pri anizers asked police officers to rea om marchg uniform as a group the New York para (as Pri anizatns have done other ci), there has been an outcry and plats that L. We don’t need them at Pri providg we need, what we’ve always wanted and served, is what Debbie and I found when we first marched at Pri: a welg space where we n be safe and Gay (@RGay) is a ntributg Opn wrer.

”The rabow-wrapped pri patch — the first of s kd for a police partment Orange County — was a bold step what was long a famoly red Orange County — where former Print Reagan said good Republins go to die and where John Wayne cly allud to gay people as “perverted” — homophobia has long been on display. “Back the early ’80s, was not an easy place to be an openly gay person, ” said Michael Losquadro, a gay man who serv as a rerve litenant the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

GAY OFFICER’S ACTN LEAGUE

“Maybe there n be some good thgs out of , but I thk ultimately the most vulnerable people the muni — like queer people of lor, and LGBT muni — are the on that don’t necsarily benef om stutns like policg, ” Brooks centuri, laws and police agenci have opprsed the gay muny, raidg gay bars and prohibg cross-drsg. In 1969, thoands marched agast such discrimatn and the police btaly that acpanied New York the Stonewall uprisg, which marked the begng of the morn LGBTQ rights, lbian, gay, bisexual and queer youth and adults are six tim more likely than the general populatn to be stopped by the police, acrdg to data published May by the UCLA Williams Instute. Losquadro, who once looked up the word “gay” a phone book and found the hotle for the Gay and Lbian Communy Servic Center of Orange County — the forenner to the LGBTQ Center — felt pecially shunned durg the 2019 event.

This story was origally published on May 3, Rodriguez remembers when, as a rookie police officer, he saw an olr lleague fly to a rage at the statn after enunterg gay men cisg a park. The bans have been hotly bated and rema Toronto members vote not to allow police to march annual paraPri Toronto -chair rigns amid fallout om police banMarchg the Pri para 'changed my life tremendoly'A few years after wnsg homophobia on the job, a lleague ved Rodriguez to march New York Cy's Pri para wh the Gay Officers Actn League (GOAL), a then-fledglg activist group wh the NYPD workg to curb homophobia the force.

Rodriguez and others om GOAL eventually took the NYPD to urt, succsfully sug for the abily to march the para uniform, celebrate Pri at police headquarters, and te g officers about the LGBT muny Seeg LGBT officers marchg uniform for the first time gave everyone the sense that, 'Wow this is a legimate human ndn to be gay. "I've seen ps at a time when HIV was ragg and still a ighteng thg, that would immediately put their hands – their bare hands – and stop a gay person om bleedg to ath.

GAY POLICE GROUP BLASTS NYC PRI FOR BANNG OFFICERS OM EVENTS

Jt before members of the Gay Officers Actn League (GOAL) marched past the Stonewall Inn, the fish le of last year’s New York Cy Pri March, a small group of activists slipped past the barriers and chaed their hands together to prevent the officers om passg, a prott technique lled a “lockdown. ”Dozens of ps workg secury at the march surround the protters, and, over shouts of “f--k the police” and “racist, sexist, anti-gay, NYPD, KKK, ” began to break through what appeared to be chas and bber tub the protters had ed to lock themselv together. Pacific Prs / LightRocket via Getty Imag fileThe irony of the cint was not lost on many the crowd — ps arrtg gay people ont of the Stonewall Inn, the very place where homophobic police btaly sparked the morn LGBTQ rights movement nearly five s years prr.

In fact, New York Cy’s first gay pri march, which was held on June 28, 1970, was anized to memorate the one-year anniversary of what has bee known as the Stonewall Rts — when 1969 patrons of the now-inic gay bar fally had enough after yet another police raid. Nohels, protters say they’re dog so to take a stand agast police btaly and harassment of margalized groups, namely people of lor and the transgenr DAYS OF GOALThe relatnship between the police and the lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer muny has long been ght, but for LGBTQ ps, the right to march pri is a hard-fought civil rights the after that first pri march on June 28, 1970, New York’s gay rights movement ma so much progrs that by 1981 the police force self was facg LGBTQ activism om wh.

Gay ps New York Cy, for example, led by Officer Charl Cochrane, sought to form their own employee rource group, like the on that existed for Hispanic, Irish-Amerin and Ain-Amerin Rodriguez, now a retired NYPD sergeant, was still the New York Cy Police Amy when Officer Cochrane entered his classroom 1982.

HE WAS ONE OF THE NATN’S MOST REVERED GAY PS. HIS ARRT CHANGED EVERYTHG.

A few months earlier, Cochrane had bee the first NYPD officer to publicly e out when he announced that he was gay at a cy uncil meetg November 1981. ”Rodriguez, who kept his sexualy to himself his early days as a p, relled overhearg on several ocsns racist, sexist and homophobic ments om his largely straight, whe and male lleagu back he was posted to New York Cy’s 6th Precct, which vers Greenwich Village, he relled a senr officer askg him, “So you work wh all the fags?

NYC PRI PARA BANS POLICE; GAY OFFICERS 'DISHEARTENED'

He relled a particularly dntg cint when a fellow officer who had been patrollg Mabs Dam Park, where the new Yankee Stadium now stands, enuntered a well-known gay cisg area. C., to Sacramento, a number of progrsive LGBTQ activists, some of them too young to remember the gay police activism of the ‘80s and ‘90s, view ps to be an unwele — and even threateng — prence at pri addn to gettg ps out of pri, many of the different activist groups also have an array of social jtice mands.

However, this year members of the Gay Officers Actn League will march, as they have every year sce 1996, uniform wh their guns FORWARDRodriguez said while he knows where the protters are g om, he disagre wh their tactics. Rodriguez said when he was policg the 6th Precct, which vers much of Manhattan’s gay neighborhoods, he once saw a transgenr woman wh blood streamg down her cheek nng away om a group of men.