Profiled by NYPD, Transgendered People in New York Fear Carrying Condoms

[xchrom]

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2013/03/transgendered_condoms.php



Three years ago, Bianey Garcia was on 86th Street in Jackson Heights with her boyfriend. It was late at night, and they were holding hands and kissing. A van slowly pulled up next to them, and they quickly realized it wasn't any regular van: Garcia says that eight police officers got out and pushed her to the ground, and one of them snatched her purse. "Some condoms spilled out," she says, adding that the police officer told her, "You're a fucking prostitute. You're doing sex work." She was not, but was arrested anyway.

Garcia, 23, who has long dark hair and a hesitant smile, is a transgender woman. And her story is hardly unique among transgender people in New York City, who are routinely profiled and wrongfully arrested for prostitution or loitering for the purposes of prostitution, and often plead guilty out of fear of abuse in jail while awaiting their court date. "Even if you don't work in prostitution, they think you are one," says Garcia, now an organizer at Make the Road New York, a community support and outreach non-profit based in the Bushwick area of Brooklyn. "I felt so very scared. I pleaded guilty so I could go home."

This climate of fear has led to many transgender people being afraid to carry condoms at all. Johanna, 36, a transgender woman from El Salvador who was arrested in Jackson Heights in May, 2011, when she waiting for a taxi on Roosevelt Avenue and found carrying condoms, says, "We feel very afraid to carry them." I met Johanna on a recent Monday evening at a neighborhood LGTBQ support group in the Queens led by Garcia, just a few blocks from where both women were arrested. Like Garcia, Johanna is not a prostitute, but still pleaded guilty after her arrest. "Being transgender is hard enough," she says. "It is very hard getting arrested for nothing. Now I am scared when I carry condoms. I am afraid to walk outside, because they will think I am a prostitute and arrest me."

As discussed in my article, New York's Condom Bait-and-Switch, which investigates the practice of condoms being used as evidence in prostitution-related cases in New York City, the public-health effects of the policy are grave. Those who have been targeted by the police, or who know people who have, are so afraid of carrying condoms that they often don't. In a 2012 study by the Sex Workers Project and the PROS Network, a New York City coalition of sex workers, organizers, and service providers, close to half of the participants reported not carrying condoms at some point out of fear of police repercussions. Among participants who identified as either transgender female or another gender identity besides male or female, the rate was a staggering 75 percent.

[gollygee]

1. Carrying condoms is not evidence of being a prostitute

It's evidence of being sexually active, period.

If rich people were being targeted like this, their lawyers would be all over it.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

2. Haven't you heard about NY? Pre-crime is the new happening thing, man.

No pesky Bill of Rights. No need to look for actual criminals doing actual crimes. Just show that Factors A, B and C are statistically significant in Condition X and that's all you need to drop the law hammer on people.

It's totally -- er, totalitarian -- rad, man!

[marmar]

3. Is the NYPD longing for the Pre-Stonewall days?

[Zorra]

4. How awful. Transgender women are probably the most discriminated against group

of people per capita in the world.

If you're LGB, generally you can't be immediately recognized as such.

Transgender women, unless they begin transitioning at a young age, and/or are wealthy enough to purchase the medications and cosmetic surgery that allows them to blend in more easily with cis~others of their gender, are often immediately recognizable as transgender women.

In a way, being transgender is somewhat like being black, I suppose ~

Cold empty bed...springs hurt my head
Feels like ole ned...wished i was dead
What did i do...to be so black and blue

Even the mouse...ran from my house
They laugh at you...and scorn you, too
What did i do...to be so black and blue

I'm white...inside...but, that don't help my case
That's life...can't hide...what is in my face

How would it end...ain't got a friend
My only sin...is in my skin
What did i do...to be so black and blue

(lyrics to "Black and Blue" by Fats Waller and Harry Brooks)

I love this video; the music and performance express the feel even better than the lyrics, IMO

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. Bloomberg's private army is at it again...why anyone here defends him is beyond belief

[xchrom]

6. +1

[Volaris]

7. Yeah, 'cause VICE cops in New York City have NOTHING better to do...

How far is 86th St. from downtown Manhattan? (you know, where the REAL vice crimes are happening)

Pre-Crime, as the above poster put it, is a totally apt description for this. Besides, one would think that even if one WAS engaged in sex work, the carrying of Condoms would be considered LAUDIBLE by the local law enforcement...