In 1969, dozens of police donned riot gear to raid the Stonewall Inn, a bar in New York’s Greenwich Village, whose patrons were notoriously and ostensibly queer. The anticipated outcome of such police presence would have been a show of force from the officers, succeeded either by submission of the patrons, or mild resistance that would be met with physical or sexual violence, degradation, or imprisonment. Infamously, the night at Stonewall ended differently: wearied queer patrons, used to the blatant and sometimes violent animosity of the police rioted, collectivizing against the police officers. While this night is a defining landmark of the queer rights movement, it is moreso the exception than the rule.
Police presence and violence at the hands of law enforcement is inextricable to the history of queer Americans. The role of police, in society, is generally constructed to be a median between maintaining safety of the public and upholding the law. This authority is, inferably, dependent on both societal assumptions we make about public safety, and the laws in place which the police are accountable for enforcing.
As it pertains to the latter responsibility, the duration of modern American history has seen a myriad of laws which prohibit and restrict the freedom of expression, speech and liberty of queer people. There are alarming parallels between these historical laws and modern legislation. Until 1958, the Federal Postal Service had the legal obligation to prohibit the distribution of queer-inclusive content, as well as the right to keep records of individuals soliciting such material (LGBTQ Rights Timeline). This was protected by language which prohibited “obscene, lewd, and/or lascivious” material. Policies like “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (1994 – 2011) furthered this rhetoric, declaring queer identity inappropriate and without place in parlance or the workplace. This verbiage is reflected in bills such as Florida and Georgia’s so-called “Don’t Say Gay” (2022) bills, which would dub discussion of sexual and gender identity as not “age-appropriate [or] developmentally appropriate,” according to the Florida proposition (Understanding Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill). This perpetuates the notion that the discussion of queerness is categorically lewd and inappropriate for mainstream discussion.
Further, bills which prohibited queer parentage and adoption reflect the sentiment behind directives like that of Texan Governor Greg Abbott, who encouraged Texan residents to report parents of trans children to Child Protective Services, thereby likening the support of a queer child to parental abuse. These laws and statements both declare queer families- be it queer parents or queer children- as dangerous, and signify that parents who embrace queerness, are innately abusive or neglectful. Similar new propositions, in states such as Alabama, Missouri, Kentucky, Arizona, Alaska, and Tennessee, would discriminate against young queer people, especially trans women and girls, disallowing them access to resources such as gender-affirming language, spaces congruent with their gender identity, and equal participation in education and extracurriculars. Until the 2020 ruling on Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, it was unclear if Title VII identified queer people as a protected class against workplace discrimination, with individuals being frequently fired and abused in their workplace in accordance to their perceived or actual sexual or gender identity. This decision confirmed that anti-queer discrimination was discrimination on the basis of sex, and yet, this subjugation persists. All of this is to say- the law does not, and has never protected queer Americans. As it pertains to the responsibility of police to maintain public safety, one must question what defines this measure. If we define it in accordance with the law, it is made abundantly clear that the law does not protect queer people, and the police in its enforcement do not protect queer people either.
We must question- why are police invoked in discussions of safety? Is this said safety a guise for protecting queerphobic individuals and institutions at the expense of queer people?
Police have been deployed throughout the the span of history to interrupt the congregation of queer people under the presumption of the threat to the public safety and welfare. Laws which permit this demonize and stigmatize queer people. They delineate that queer people are a threat.
On March 11th, hundreds of Needham High School students and staff congregated outside the building for twenty minutes of mourning for the trans and queer people endangered by anti-queer legislation. Ten community members, including two religious leaders, two town employees, and parents of Needham students planned to congregate on the outskirts of the walkout, to ensure the safety of the transgender students who made themselves vulnerable by centering their voices in public demonstration and to offer a visual display of support. These community members were met not only with emails of discouragement and threats of police deployment, at times even apparently at the expense of the student walkout, but also with four police officers sequestering them away from their children and community. The rhetoric of the walkout was clear-- it was intended to stand in opposition to legislation, not to the high school. But when our own parents-- parents who sometimes, in a world where systemic transphobia render them our only protectors-- are marshaled away from us under the guise of our own safety, it illuminates that this demonstration was unequivocally also against the homophobia and transphobia of Needham and its schools.
While it would be gratuitous to liken Needham High to any of the aforementioned anti-queer legislation or aggression, police were dispatched to marshall parent and community supporters under the guise of protection; there is thus an apparent historical throughline tying Needham to the precedent of using law enforcement to detach queer people from networks of protection. This created a disturbing juxtaposition: the mothers of queer kids, desperate to ensure their children’s safety, were cordoned off from their children by police, whilst cisgender students sexually harassed the crowd, calling for access to the microphone to undermine and triavialize the messages shared, and were unquestionably allowed access.
In conversation with other community members who had declared public and unwavering solidarity and endorsement of the walkout, it was made clear that the school had done what they declared due diligence to discourage community members from attending. The due diligence, it would seem, was emailing reverends, community members, and parents to declare them a safety threat, unwelcome on taxpaying property, while staff from other schools were able to attend what we were frequently reminded was not a school sanctioned event. Moreso, these community members were disallowed access from the transgender and queer adolescents they had for so long been the sole defenders of. The involvement of police proved to us that even if we have gained other allies, social institutions will ensure they cannot protect us or stand with us. In a country which educationally, socially, and legally disenfranchises transgender people, any discouragement of support for queer adolescents is a direct threat to their safety.
Granted, there is a policy component to police involvement. While a general challenge to police in schools is relevant and integral to building safe communities, it is altogether outside the purview of this discussion. However, it is worth questioning whether the policy of police being invoked as a means to bar parents from campus has ever been either advertised or enacted. Clergy member Catie Scudera, a reverend at Needham’s Unitarian Universalist Church, and a community member in attendance, said, in response; “My church has a whole book full of policies we use but once a year… it's one thing having policies, but another when a situation arises when those policies may be required. We need those policies communicated immediately… It’s unreasonable to expect [people] to know.” Further, what happens when these policies are not only non existent from the community conscious, but themselves harmful in nature? Reverend Scedera goes on to articulate precisely why high school is such an important venue for disobedient advocacy: “It would be unfortunate if the message this imparted to the student body was that civil disobedience is not appropriate for them, that now is not the time… when is the time… if you can’t do it in highschool, then why would you ever do it in college, or in your workplace.” Rebecca Young, Needham High parent, states, “Civil disobedience is civic education.” She goes on to echo the calls of trans advocates nationwide, declaring now to be the time most integral for communities to rally around their transgender and queer peers.
In a period so fraught with animus towards the queer and transgender community, it is long past time to critically examine the roles that the law and those who enforce it play in the struggle for queer autonomy and liberation. The law has not defended the integrity of marginalized queer people, and the microcausms of this apathy have footholds even in the allegedly progressive communities of the northeast. So a call to allies: even when your own community discourages you, your instinct to defend and embrace queer youth is right- it is necessary.
Sources:
https://pavementpieces.com/black-queer-community-often-at-odds-with-police/
https://www.them.us/story/queer-people-six-times-more-likely-stopped-by-police
https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/no-cops-pride-how-criminal-justice-system-harms-lgbtq-people
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/2158244015581189
https://www.vox.com/identities/2020/6/23/21295432/police-black-trans-people-violence
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/nyregion/stonewall-riots-nypd.html
https://www.advocate.com/politics/2017/3/01/30-infamous-police-raids-gay-bars-and-bathhouses