Gay policemen

It seems like many union leaders come in with the best intentions. He's been retired for a while, but he's still very active. Doing so is costly, usually unsustainable, and often met with community suspicion, and it leaves the agency vulnerable to ridicule. A police leader’s proactive efforts in addressing some of these sensitive topics can pay positive dividends that will allow the term “diversity” to be more than just a word.

If they can do that and help the membership, that's great. The officers in the room watched the instructor take to the podium and begin a slow-burning tirade against the police. And with more anti-LGBTQ bills emerging across the country, from laws banning gender-affirming care to those prohibiting teachers from discussing LGBTQ issues, it is little wonder that LGBTQ people remain leery of police.

“If the police are told to uphold a law, and that law goes against you fundamentally as a person,” one of our interviewees told us, “you’re not going to support the police.”

About Us

The Gay Officers Action League (GOAL), is a first-of-its-kind organization that was formed in 1982 to address the needs, issues, and concerns of gay and lesbian law enforcement personnel and has since expanded to a nonprofit tax-exempt civil rights organization.

Another obvious dynamic that occurred during these interviews was that the veteran lesbian officers in 2019, who had been serving “openly” for decades, clearly outnumbered their male counterparts, whose comfort level in serving openly or discussing their sexual orientation, ranged from caution to paranoia.

The officers and supervisors interviewed offered personal stories regarding their experiences in either being “outed” or voluntarily disclosing their sexual orientation to their coworkers.

Yeah.

Police ‘more foe than friend’

Putting all of this together, LGBTQ people are significantly likelier to say they see the police as more foe than friend than non-LGBTQ people.

But this top-level takeaway hides important subtle differences in the data. This reactive methodology leaves the agency defenseless against anti-police stereotypes regarding diversity within its ranks and the community in general.

It doesn’t take a significant portion of a budget or staffing to demonstrate an agency’s awareness and support of its LGBTQ community.

There are a few things that we are working on when it comes to police suicide, but I think the most important thing is just the support from brothers and sisters.

This first-of-its-kind national survey of both LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ people drew on a nationally representative sample of 1,598 people – a gold standard for sociological survey research – followed by in-depth interviews with 59 LGBTQ survey participants.

Obviously, every agency is different depending on its size, geographic location, leadership, and community acceptance; however, several factors were consistent with those who participated in these interviews.

“All it takes is a sincere commitment, internally and externally, to prove to the public that the modern culture within the policing profession is changing in a direction that all members can be proud of.

In January 2024, police officers entered four gay bars in Seattle unannounced, allegedly taking pictures of customers and citing at least one bartender for having an exposed nipple in violation of city policy. For those law enforcement agencies that care enough about these issues to take a firm, proactive public stance on this topic, their burden is lessened because they have already established credibility within the LGBTQ community they serve.
Effective LBGTQ Training
When it comes to productive interactions with their LGBTQ community, the author’s advice to police executives is simple: Don’t wait for a crisis to repair the damage.

These entities perceived this phenomenon as a direct violation of society’s conservative views on morality that had remained virtually unchanged since the Victorian era. Asians reported the highest perceptions of police legitimacy among LGBTQ people, with a 3.6 rating.
Finally, when we asked survey respondents if they would call the police for help if they became victims of a crime, we found that LGBTQ people were less likely to say yes than non-LGBTQ people: 71% compared with 87%.

He's our pension chairman, and he will tell you the exact numbers of our pension and how it works and where the money is invested and how it's done.