Gays in Policing

Like a number of occupations, policing provides a challenging employment context for the gay population. Some gay officers have experienced not only disapproval and/or discrimination from fellow police officers, but also find that the gay community is hostile toward them as well. This is due, in part, to law enforcement's history of bias toward homosexuals. For example, a number of questions from psychological tests used in the past as part of a police recruit's application process were specifically used to weed out gay men from the field. As a result, gay officers may be closeted at work, and some have even hidden their occupation from peers in the gay community.

The relationship between gay men and women and the policing community has been a tenuous one, with well-documented incidents when police themselves have harassed gays and ignored their victimization. In fact, repeated police brutality toward gay bar patrons ultimately led to the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City—an event that many consider to have sparked the gay rights movement.

Historically, law enforcement employees have been slow to accept gay men and women into their ranks. Similar to the challenges faced by other minorities in law enforcement—including people of color and women—gay men and women have often been deemed unworthy of their profession by their peers. Traditionally considered to be a macho profession, policing values masculine traits such as brawn, aggression, and toughness. Thus, males perceived to exhibit characteristics that conflict with this stereotype have found themselves the subject of ridicule. Similarly, lesbian officers face harassment and discrimination, along with the additional burden of being placed in the precarious position of being expected to perform job duties “like a man,” yet ridiculed if they are too “butch.” Beginning in the late 1970s, as the field of policing evolved to incorporate the idea that police personnel should in some way reflect the communities they served, some police chiefs openly began to discuss the active recruitment of gays.

As of 2003, only 13 states prohibited employment discrimination based on sexual orientation, although many cities and counties invoke ordinances, policies, or proclamations prohibiting such bigotry. Despite the lack of state laws to impede[Page 204] such bias, there is some evidence that the policing community is moving forward in its attempts to eradicate institutional bias. Some local law enforcement agencies not only implement their own antidiscrimination policies, but also actively recruit gay men and women. A small number of departments even provide sensitivity training for personnel when dealing with transgendered officers and residents. In many police departments around the country, gay and lesbian officers are fully integrated members of the agency. In the San Diego Police Department, for example, current research indicates that such integration improved the agency's quality and its responsiveness to the community, and did not have any overall adverse impact on performance, morale, or effectiveness. But issues surrounding gay officers are not limited to acceptance. Health care and death benefits are also important, as was demonstrated in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks, when death benefits to the survivors of gay public safety officers who perished in the line of duty were questioned. On June 25, 2002, President George W. Bush signed the Mychal Judge Police and Fire Chaplains Public Safety Officers’ Benefit Act of 2002. This legislation, which affects gay officers and their same-sex partners, requires that death benefits be expanded to beneficiaries other than spouses, parents, and children. In a similar vein, a number of localities in Florida extend health benefits to officers and their unmarried domestic partners, including same-sex couples. But although gay officers are becoming more accepted in the ranks, prejudice lingers.

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