Wednesday, February 7, 2018
Elvia Diego on Policing Gender Lines
In "Policing Gender Lines", Ritchie makes the point that the police have constantly targeted women, trans, and gender non conforming people. I believe that this is a strong fact that not many hear about because you mainly hear about guys being harassed by police.
Ritchie points out that the police have harassed, have used physical and sexual violence, have arrested and used lethal force against women and gender non conforming people as a way to reify racially constructed gender norms. I believes that when some cops display certain behavior, such as the ones listed above, they are simply trying to punish those that are not complying with socially constructed gender norms or those who are simply seen as less powerful than them. I believe that the way in which the police treats any individual should solely be based on the situation and whether their life is actually in danger. On the other hand they should not feel that they can treat women, trans or gender non conforming people however they want because women are seen as "inferior" to men or because some people may not want to identify with a gender which may cause confusion to some but surely does not call for violent action against them.
I believe that when police are confronted with any sort of individual that isn't dressed "appropriately" for their gender, someone trans or gender non conforming that they automatically think it's wrong and therefore should be punished. There were some examples in the reading that pointed out when a situation like this happens the police tend to say that these individuals were deviant or they had to be prostituting themselves which serves as a way to justify their violent behavior towards them or for even arresting them. The police just wants to assume that they are up to no good so that they have a right to "put these individuals in their place" for not conforming or abiding to socially constructed gender norms. They are suppose to protect people but instead they are signaling individuals out for being trans/gender non conforming and they are reinforcing violence against them.
I found an online article in the New York Times called "Violence Against Transgender People Is on the Rise, Advocates Say". It starts with the story of a 47 year old transgender woman who shot and killed by police because they thought she was a man. This is just one example of many trans individuals who have been killed by police. In the article activist apart of the New York City Anti Violence Project have said that there seems to be a spike of incidents of hate violence, such as the one mentioned above. I like that in the article they mention that transphobia mixes with misogyny and racism because in this class we are discussing how all these things intersect when it comes to women being oppressed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/09/us/transgender-women-killed.html
Since most of the time police doesn't help or even protect women, trans and gender non conforming individuals who do they go to when they are in need of help?
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