At a recent LGBT citizen advisory group meeting, Officer Sharp said training of the entire command staff has taken place and now training of officers and citizen employees will take place through May.
The APD made available the documents and Power Point presentation being used to train officers. Special emphasis is paid to the fact that LGBT people have often faced discrimination and harassment from police in the past. The Stonewall riots are also explained in the training as part of the queer community fighting back against police harassment and as the spark the started the modern gay rights movement.
And while most of the education plan seems fairly proper and empathetic toward the LGBT community, we couldn’t help but be struck that in the definition section of the Power Point presentation, where such words as “sexual orientation” and “transgender” are accurate, the police continue to want to use the word “transvestite.”
