Fifty five years after a police raid at a popular drag bar in Greenwich Village led to the Stonewall uprising, interactions between police and queer folks can certainly appear a lot different than they did in the 1960s. The laws banning crossdressing, obscenity, and same-sex sexual relations that enabled police to harass LGBTQ people have largely been overturned in court. The pride parades that commemorate the Stonewall uprising now often have a police escort. Many police departments have hired LGBTQ community liaisons, fly rainbow Pride flags in June, and issue proclamations honoring Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Far from signs of progress, however, these symbolic gestures obscure the many ways police harassment, profiling, and violence continue to target sexual and gender minorities, with poor, Black, and transgender people often facing the worst of it. In our new report, Policing Progress: Findings from a National Survey of LGBTQ+ People’s Experiences with Law Enforcement, we found that routine and widespread mistreatment by police continues to fuel mistrust between LGBTQ people and the very law enforcement that claims to protect and serve them.
Using survey data collected by NORC at the University of Chicago, the ACLU, in collaboration with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the University of California, Irvine, found disparities between LGBTQ people and non-LGBTQ people, and within the LGBTQ community in reported experiences with police. As a group, LGBTQ people reported more adverse treatment by police than non-LGBTQ people. This is particularly pronounced among bisexual, transgender, and nonbinary people, who more commonly experience insulting language and physical force from the police.
More than one in four (27 percent) transgender people report experiencing physical force by police. Black transgender people were the most likely to have experienced physical force by the police among all LGBTQ people. Transgender and nonbinary respondents (45 percent and 33 percent, respectively) were significantly more likely than LGBTQ cisgender men (15 percent) to have experienced insulting language by the police.
This kind of mistreatment can range from misgendering transgender people, profiling someone as a sex worker because of their gender expression, subjecting them to needless physical searches, and even physical and sexual violence. For example, earlier this month, a transgender man won a $275,000 settlement after being forced by New York prison officials to undergo four separate and illegal genital examinations. A 2021 survey of transgender people currently held in New York prisons found an astonishing three quarters reported at least one act of sexual violence by a corrections officer.
The ACLU has combated instances of police abuse in the LGBTQ community, including in 2019, when the New York Civil Liberties Union reached a settlement with the NYPD on behalf of Linda Dominguez, a 45-year-old transgender Latina, after they charged her with “false personation” for carrying an ID with her former name (or “deadname”) on it. Officers chained her to a pipe and verbally harassed her following her arrest. Two years prior, in 2017, the ACLU of the District of Columbia settled with the Metropolitan Police Department on behalf of Lourdes Ashley Hunter, executive director and co-founder of the Trans Women of Color Collective, after police entered her home without a warrant, physically assaulted her, and left her with multiple injuries.
It’s no wonder then that our report also found widespread mistrust among LGBTQ people towards law enforcement, with the very members of the LGBTQ community that face the highest rates of victimization reporting the least willingness to seek help from police.
Only 69 percent of bisexual and 60 percent of queer people indicated that they would call the police for help in the future, compared to 80 percent of gays and lesbians and 87 percent of straight, cisgender people. Less than two-thirds of Latine LGBTQ people surveyed said they would be likely to call the police for help in the future, compared to nearly three-fourths of white LGBTQ people. Less than two-thirds of transgender respondents were likely to call the police for help in the future, compared to 82 percent of cisgender LGBQ men. Approximately one-quarter of nonbinary people were willing to call the police for help.
At the ACLU, our advocacy recommendations have centered around the multiple, concrete steps communities and local governments can take to help ensure the safety of LGBTQ people from police harassment and violence, including:
Many states continue to advance laws that seek to further police LGBTQ life, including efforts to censor drag performers and criminalize transgender people who use public restrooms consistent with their gender identity. As outlined in our memo, Trump on LGBTQ Rights, former President Donald Trump and the extremists behind Project 2025 want to go even further, weaponizing the federal government to criminalize gender nonconformity and ordering the Department of Justice to repeal protections for incarcerated transgender people.
But many of these problems are perpetuated at the local level–often by the very same cities and municipalities who proudly host pride parades or fly rainbow flags on their police cruisers. LGBTQ people and our allies shouldn’t be fooled by flashy but shallow shows of support or lofty social media statements from police departments about “inclusion.” More than half a century after Stonewall, communities have a duty to move past symbolism and move us closer to a future built on safety, respect, and freedom.
Emily Greytak, ACLU; Jordan Grasso, University of California, Irvine; and Stefan Vogler, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign contributed to this article.
When it comes to immigration and public safety, Republican and Democratic platforms have become virtually indistinguishable. Both sides are espousing a narrative that calls for harsher policies, more enforcement, and increased incarceration. Candidates have bought into the idea that to win votes, they must lean into “toughness.”
So how did we get here? Extremist candidates currently control the narrative on both issues and are weaponizing Americans’ fears to win support. These extremist candidates paint a picture of communities under siege and insist the only way to keep families safe is by turning people away who seek safety at the border and putting more people behind bars. They label any candidate who disagrees with this approach as “soft,” “weak,” and “unfit” to address the issues facing our communities.
New ACLU polling shows, however, that despite all the fearmongering in American politics, voters want something completely different. Our survey showed that in battleground states, Congressional districts, and across the nation, when it comes to immigration and public safety voters want solutions that address the root causes of both issues – not calls for more punishment. Our research, coupled with recent surveys from other leading organizations, clearly shows taking a page out of the MAGA playbook is a liability – not a winning strategy.
Here’s what you need to know.
“Tough on crime” and “tough on immigration” policies don’t make us any safer, and instead, only exacerbate many of the underlying issues of both. For instance, inhumane policies that illegally limit who can ask for asylum force vulnerable people to wait in limbo in dangerous conditions for years, leading to further confusion and disorder at the border. Our nation’s overreliance on police and incarceration has disproportionately harmed Black and Brown people, those experiencing addiction and mental health issues, and people who are homeless. It has also perpetuated cycles of harm by saddling people with criminal records that only create additional barriers to success.
Voters understand that more of the same is not the answer, and that it’s past time to tackle the root causes of issues in both areas. Candidates would do well to listen to them, not just to capture votes, but because they’re sound policy solutions.
For more than 100 years, the ACLU has consistently fought for policies that advance justice and safeguard our rights. But this work isn’t easy. Even lawmakers who champion of LGBTQ+ rights, protect abortion access, and safeguard democracy can compromise their principles to support harmful immigration and criminal legal policy bills when they believe it’s the only way to win over voters. Here’s the good news: Our research shows that even though voters are concerned about public safety and immigration, they want real solutions that tackle the root causes of both. Conventional political wisdom that assumes when voters are afraid, candidates must lean into toughness, is wrong. Leading with humanity and justice is more than just the right thing to do – it’s politically advantageous.
Recent polling shows that immigration is a top concern for many voters. Yet more than 73 percent of Americans believe that we should not only provide access to the asylum system for people fleeing persecution and violence, but also a road to citizenship for long-term residents and Dreamers.
Rather than extreme partisan politics or cruelty, voters want candidates who champion real solutions. In surveying voters across six congressional battleground districts, 65 percent agreed that the country needs a balanced approach to immigration that both manages the border and provides a path to citizenship for long-term residents, over the idea that it’s either too dangerous or too costly to open up our country to immigrants. Sixty-eight percent of voters in seven key battleground states similarly favor a balanced approach.
Notably, our research shows that when candidates, regardless of party affiliation, adopt a balanced, solutions-focused approach, they outperform their opponents’ fear-based messages. In a national YouGov survey, voters presented with a Republican candidate using a “balanced approach” message against a Democratic candidate’s “tough-on-immigration” message, chose the Republican candidate by 16 points. Similarly, voters presented with a Democratic candidate using a “balanced approached” message against a Republican tough message, chose the balanced approach message by seven points, while the Democratic “tough-on-immigration” approach lost or tied.
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Although nationwide crime is at historic lows, voters across the political spectrum believe it’s going up — and not just in big cities, but in their own communities. Despite their concerns, voters overwhelmingly want prevention, not punishment. They believe investing in community-based services is the most effective way to foster safety. Nationally, improving access to mental health care as a public safety solution outperforms putting 100,000 more police on the streets by a staggering 26 points.
In some of the toughest Congressional districts across Arizona, California, New Jersey, and Ohio, 59 percent of voters don’t think we can arrest our way out of homelessness, unemployment, and poverty. Instead, they believe investing in services that will treat the root causes of these problems, like affordable housing and job training, is a more effective solution than relying on punishment and incarceration.
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Whether it’s a Republican or Democrat espousing a “tough on crime” narrative based on fear, they lose to the candidate offering a response focused on solutions. In two New York battleground congressional districts, both currently held by Republicans, we tested two different frames on crime and public safety against a “tough-on-crime” incumbent. The survey found that the challenger offering solutions like affordable housing, mental health, and addiction treatment performed five points better among all voters. Notably, this candidate won undecided voters by 19 points.
With sound proof that voters are eager for real solutions – like those that keep families together, ensure people have access to mental health and addiction treatment, and that invest in solving housing insecurity – there’s no excuse for candidates to fall back on fear.
Our research delivers a clear message for candidates: Voters are hungry for bold, new solutions, not the same old fear-driven tactics. The key to success in 2024’s electoral battlegrounds lies in presenting innovative, solution-focused approaches to immigration and public safety. This research should serve as a wake-up call for candidates who’ve fallen to the idea that to win their elections, they must lean into harsher rhetoric and policies. The opposite is true. Candidates should embrace the electorate’s desire for justice and humanity.
This piece was first published in Slate on 6/21/24.
The U.S. Supreme Court today broke from its recent embrace of gun rights, leaving in place a federal criminal law that makes it a felony for anyone subject to a civil domestic violence restraining order to possess a gun.
As an advocate for survivors of domestic violence, today’s outcome comes as a relief. Indeed, it is the result my organization, the ACLU, asked the court to reach.
Even so, liberals shouldn’t take the decision as cause for great celebration. That’s because, while there is no doubt in my mind that preventing perpetrators of domestic violence from obtaining guns will help prevent further violence, this case was not about whether the respondent should have been able to buy a gun. The question was whether he should be sent to prison for having one.
As a feminist, I care about both gender-based violence and the violence of imprisonment. Gun laws, in particular, have helped to fuel mass incarceration and contributed to disproportionate imprisonment of Black people and other people of color.
Funneling the problem of gender-based violence into the criminal legal system may not sound so bad if the alternative is no response at all. That’s the problem the court faced in United States v. Rahimi. But that’s a false choice, constructed via decades of reliance on criminal legal responses to violence in America’s legislatures, executive branches, and state and federal courts.
The Supreme Court itself has played a part in creating this dilemma. In 2000, for example, the court heard a case brought by a survivor against a college classmate whom she alleged had raped her repeatedly. She was able to sue her attacker because of a novel provision of the Violence Against Women Act that empowered survivors to seek a civil remedy from those who harmed them.
The court, however, made quick work of VAWA’s civil provision, finding that Congress lacked the power to create any such remedy at all. But it left in place criminal provisions carrying lengthy terms of imprisonment. Stripped of its civil provision, the original VAWA became known not as an innovative law but a regressive one—and part of the notorious 1994 crime bill.
A second decision in 2005 doubled down. After her estranged husband violated a restraining order and kidnapped her three kids from her yard, Jessica Lenahan (then Gonzales) contacted police multiple times over 10 hours asking them to help retrieve her children. Police refused, saying there was nothing they could do—until the father arrived at the police station and opened fire. Only then did the police act, killing Lenahan’s husband and finding the children already dead in his truck.
Lenahan sued the police, but she didn’t fare any better in the courts. Looking to history and tradition, the Supreme Court couldn’t find any right to have her restraining order enforced. What it did find was a “well established tradition of police discretion.” This history, the court noted without irony, meant that the state was free to both disregard survivors like Lenahan who asked police for help and bulldoze over survivors who asked the state not to interfere in cases of domestic assault.
Viewed in the context of the court’s history with domestic violence, survivors should think twice before embracing today’s decision as a victory for women. It can be understood not as a departure from the VAWA and Lenahan decisions, but a continuation of them: In all three cases, the only winner was the carceral system.
Our nation’s prioritization of the criminal legal system to the exclusion of all else is particularly troubling given that many people who experience domestic violence opt not to pursue criminal charges, knowing that they may encounter disbelief and hostility from law enforcement or find themselves subject to abuse charges when they report being victimized. Others worry that the criminal legal system will magnify the harms they are experiencing by jeopardizing their family’s economic security or inflicting further violence through incarceration. As feminist legal scholar Aya Gruber has written, hyperfocus on the criminal legal system has “diverted feminist energy and capital away from addressing the underlying conditions that make women, especially marginalized women, vulnerable to personal and state violence.”
But we can advocate for alternate pathways to meaningful safety.
There is not strong evidence to support the deterrent effect of after-the-fact criminal sanctions for gun possession, yet such punishments are where Congress has focused. The civil licensing regime that prohibits selling guns to people in Rahimi’s position, for example, exists only as a piggyback measure off of the underlying criminal law.
As the ACLU pointed out in a friend-of-the-court brief, that add-on has prevented more than 77,000 gun sales since 1998. Congress would be wise to decouple gun sales from criminal law and to focus more on prevention—particularly given the likelihood that the court may soon void other criminal gun laws, with staggering ripple effects on rules governing gun sales.
Other efforts may include imagining new civil remedies for harms once considered exclusively criminal. The civil process, unlike the criminal one, can offer survivors agency: the decision whether and when to seek relief and the option to discontinue the case if that best serves their needs. To ensure equitable access to courts, attorney’s fees and other incentives to represent survivors can be built in.
Reimagining safety is possible, but only if we reject the idea that prison is the best—or the only—way to address domestic violence. Survivors deserve better than what the carceral legal system has left us. We all do.
A freshly pressed tuxedo shirt. A black bowtie and a crisp black tuxedo jacket, topped off by my curly red afro. On that day last fall, I knew I looked good. I felt like myself. I was so excited to take my senior class portrait. It was a rite of passage I’d been looking forward to for a long time.
I think back fondly on the memories I made at Harrison Central High School in Mississippi. I loved playing basketball with the Red Rebelettes, volunteering with the honor societies, or having so much fun with my friends. I take pride in my accomplishments and experiences.
Most of all, I am immensely proud of who I am – a gay woman of color.
I was eager to take my senior portrait for the yearbook and create a keepsake for my friends, family, and high school community to remember me for years to come.
With my school’s approval, my mom and I scheduled my portrait appointment at the local photography studio. When I arrived, the photographer told me that if I wore my tuxedo then my senior portrait would not be included in the yearbook. I was told my school district required girls to wear a drape – a black off-the-shoulder top that mimics the look of a formal gown. Only boys could wear tuxedos.
I was devastated.
Throughout high school I consistently wore traditionally masculine clothing. Wearing masculine clothing is a central part of the way I express my gender and my sexual orientation. I could not believe that based on my sex, I would be forced to either wear a drape, or have my senior portrait excluded from the yearbook.
My mom and I decided that I would not accept this unfair and sexist rule. I held firm and took my senior portrait – a photograph meant to represent me – in my tuxedo.
When my mom contacted Harrison County Superintendent Mitchell King to ask for my portrait to be included in the yearbook, she got an outright rejection. Superintendent King insisted on enforcing the school district’s requirement that girls must wear drapes for their senior portraits.
My mom kept fighting for my rights. She bought a full-page senior ad and included my senior portrait in it. But in late March, a school staff member told my mom that the principal hadn’t approved the use of my portrait in the ad yet.
By this time, I’d attended my senior prom, wearing – you guessed it – a tuxedo. I received nothing but compliments. No one said that my attire violated the dress code. I was utterly confused at this point. What was so wrong about me wearing a tuxedo in my senior portrait?
When I received my yearbook, I discovered that the school district had deleted me from the graduating senior section of the yearbook entirely. Not only did they refuse to use my portrait, they also refused to print my name, academic honors, sports, or activities. They deleted my portrait from the ad my mom paid for in the yearbook. It was as if my time at Harrison Central never happened.
Not being recognized in the yearbook really hurt. When I look at the senior section today, I see all my peers, I see where my name and accomplishments should have been, and yet I am not there. It feels like the school district erased who I am and what I have achieved.
Despite what happened with the yearbook, I was so excited for my graduation ceremony. I was going to graduate with high honors and experience this once-in-a-lifetime event. As the crowd waited for the seniors to walk the stage, the school played a slideshow with portraits of each member of the graduating class. My family eagerly waited to see my portrait, but it never came. The slideshow skipped right past me.
While I have happy memories of celebrating with my family, it still hurts that the school excluded my portrait from the graduation ceremony. But I won’t let the school – or anyone – stop me from choosing to be myself. The school has no right to try to shame me or erase me or my pride. I am looking ahead to brighter times, starting with playing basketball and studying sports management in college.
I am also committed to ensuring that the next student who shows up at the portrait studio is free to choose a tuxedo or a drape for their senior portrait based on who they are, not who the school thinks they should be. That’s why I joined other Harrison County students in fighting back against the School District’s discriminatory actions by filing a Title IX complaint with the U.S. Department of Education. No student should be forced to conform to rigid sex stereotypes to take part in high school, let alone at capstone events like the yearbook and graduation.
You only graduate from high school once. Together with the ACLU and the community that supports my authentic self-expression, we won’t let schools silence, exclude, or erase us for taking pride in who we are and daring to be ourselves.
Donald Trump’s administration initiated a sustained, years-long effort to erase protections for LGBTQ people. This included an effort to “define ‘transgender’ out of existence,” erode protections for transgender students and workers, and weaken access to gender-affirming health care that most transgender people already struggled to access.
While President Joe Biden’s administration reversed much of the Trump-era abuses, just last month on the campaign trail, Trump vowed to dismantle a new Biden administration policy that will offer protections for transgender students under Title IX, a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in education.
The ACLU is prepared to defend the LGBTQ community, including transgender individuals, from a second Trump administration’s anticipated attempts to weaponize federal law against them. Learn more in our breakdown:
The Facts: Trump has promised that, if reelected, his administration will rescind federal policies that prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, and will assert that federal civil rights laws don’t cover anti-LGBTQ discrimination. In addition to rolling back existing protections, a second Trump administration will proactively mandate discrimination by the federal government wherever it can. Lastly, and perhaps most ominously, if Trump returns to the White House, we expect his administration to use federal law – including laws meant to safeguard civil rights – as a cudgel to override critical state-level protections for transgender students and to force state and local governments, as well as private organizations, to allow or even perpetuate discrimination
Why It Matters: A second Trump administration would strip LGBTQ people of protections against discrimination in many contexts, including employment, housing, education, health care, and a range of federal government programs. The Trump administration’s proposed policies would ban transgender people from serving openly in the armed forces and block gender-affirming medical care for transgender people enrolled in federal healthcare programs, such as Medicare. The effects of these cruel – and unconstitutional – discrimination efforts would be devastating, as thousands of transgender people would immediately lose access to needed medical care and the right to live freely without fear. In essence, a potential second Trump administration would seek to erase transgender people from public life entirely by using federal laws – including obscenity laws – to criminalize gender nonconformity.
How We Got Here: The Trump administration was openly hostile toward the LGBTQ community and vehemently opposed the Equality Act, which would have ensured that existing civil rights protections cover sexual orientation and gender identity in the way that they already do for race, disability, veteran status, and more. The Trump administration also blocked basic job protections for LGBTQ people, insisting that employers should be free to fire workers for their sexual orientation or gender identity. The Department of Health and Human Services under the Trump administration also eliminated nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people established under the Affordable Care Act.
Critically, the Trump administration had an enormous impact on the courts, including the Supreme Court. Getting courts to understand the experience of transgender people and the impact of discriminatory policies on their lives was difficult even before Trump reshaped the judiciary. It is that much harder today because of the viewpoints of the judges and justices Trump appointed to the federal courts and Supreme Court.
Our Roadmap: Should a second Trump administration take office, the ACLU will use the courts to affirm that LGBTQ people are protected from discrimination under federal law, to invalidate policies mandating discrimination across the federal government, and to shut down Trump’s expected efforts to weaponize the Constitution and federal laws to require discrimination against LGBTQ people by state and local governments and private entities.
Litigation is not our only pathway to push back against anti-LGBTQ policies. Congress can, and must, use the power of the purse and its oversight and investigative authorities to constrain a second Trump administration’s extreme anti-LGBTQ agenda. The ACLU will aggressively lobby members of Congress who support the transgender community to use the appropriations process, in particular, to hinder Trump’s ability to mandate anti-trans discrimination and weaponize federal law against LGBTQ rights.
The ACLU also has a comprehensive state-level plan of attack. We will advocate for states and school boards to protect LGBTQ students by enacting guidance regarding updating student names and pronouns, and by creating inclusive rules on gender-based activities, best practices for school records, and ways to support transgender students living under a federal government that discriminates against them. We’ll also urge states to support policies that prevent their governments from being complicit in a second Trump administration’s efforts to attack the legitimacy of transgender people in our world. Lastly, we will mobilize public support on behalf of vulnerable children and youth to deter further draconian policies and help reshape the political narrative around transgender justice.
What Our Experts Say: “We have seen the disastrous consequences of a hateful campaign targeting LGBTQ people and their families with discriminatory laws, forcing many from their home states and denying many more the freedom to get the health care they need to live their lives openly, and even to decide what name to go by. We are determined to use every tool at our disposal to oppose any attempt to deny LGBTQ people the freedom to live and love freely and openly.” – Mike Zamore, national director for policy & government affairs
“For four years, President Trump and his administration left no stone unturned in their effort to attack the right of LGBTQ people to live and work as who we are. We fully expect a second Trump administration to go further, weaponizing federal law to override state level protections and mandate discrimination by schools and health care providers nationwide. Regardless of the election’s outcome, we stand ready to fight to uphold the fundamental freedom we are guaranteed by the Constitution to live our lives as we choose.” – James Esseks, director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project.
What You Can Do Today: As wave after wave of extreme measures to criminalize and strip trans people of rights and safety continue, the time to act is now. Tell your members of Congress to protect trans people from discrimination today.
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