Police departments across U.S. are mandating LGBTQ training

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

58% : Brown, who has worked as a D.C. police officer for 14 years, said she has seen first-hand the value of effective LGBTQ training for law enforcement.
58% : "These trainings can really help get to a place where LGBTQ communities feel comfortable working with law enforcement, and actually enable police to do their jobs better and more safely."
58% : For Cummings, a ground-up transformation of policing in the U.S. is the only way forward for law enforcement.
55% : One of the Williams Institute's key recommendations to help bridge the divide, according to Mallory, is the implementation of LGBTQ sensitivity, diversity and specialization trainings within law enforcement departments.
54% : These incidents -- along with the historically fraught relationship between law enforcement and the LGBTQ community -- have led a growing number of police departments across the country to introduce LGBTQ awareness and cultural competency training for their officers.
54% : "Building on the extraordinary work of law enforcement agencies across this country and right here in New Jersey, we're ensuring that our officers will act in ways that promote the dignity and safety of LGBTQ individuals, whether they are victims, witnesses, suspects, arrestees, or other members of the public," Grewal said in a statement.
53% : A number of law enforcement departments have proactively decided to add LGBTQ programs to their arsenal of training courses.
53% : This pilot program includes learning about best practices in de-escalation for LGBTQ individuals, microaggressions, misgendering and the historical relationship between law enforcement and the LGBTQ community.
53% : The bill requires new recruits to undertake training in five unique areas, including understanding the differences between sexual orientation and gender identity and how these aspects of identity intersect with race, culture and religion, as well as learning appropriate terminology around sexual orientation and gender identity.
51% : California became the first state to introduce mandatory training on sexual orientation and gender identity for incoming police officers, after former California Gov. Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 2504 into law in late 2018.
49% : Mallory said there are currently no federal laws that mandate LGBTQ training for law enforcement offers, but two states -- California and New Jersey -- recently mandated such training.
48% : The relationship between law enforcement and the LGBTQ community has long been strained.
47% : One way this historically fraught relationship between law enforcement and the LGBTQ community has manifested over the past several years is in the decision to ban uniformed police officers from participating in Pride marches.
46% : "A training will help someone learn how to understand the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity, but it's unlikely to really change someone's attitude towards an entire group of people, particularly when that attitude is probably based on centuries of what society has told them to think about someone," he said.
42% : Throughout much of modern U.S. history, police officers were bound to enforce explicitly anti-gay laws -- from local measures outlawing men from "impersonating a female" to the widespread criminalization of same-sex sexual activity.
40% : A 2015 report, co-authored by Mallory, highlights the numerous surveys, court cases and academic studies that document the alleged discrimination and harassment of LGBTQ people by law enforcement.
40% : The National Center for Transgender Equality's 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey found 58 percent of trans respondents who said they interacted with police in the previous year alleged they had been harassed by law enforcement.
35% : "It can happen in subtle ways from being ingrained in some people's heads that somehow same-sex relationships are inferior or should still be criminalized."
32% : There have also been numerous incidents in which LGBTQ individuals said members of law enforcement made disparaging remarks about their sexual orientation or gender identity, according to news reports, lawsuits and academic studies.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.