A bill pushed through the State Assembly by member Yuh-Line Niou (who represents Lower Manhattan), which aims to repeal an anti-loitering statute that has come to be known by a bitterly ironic name—the “Walking While Trans” ban—was signed into law on Tuesday.
This law nullified by the new measure, section 240.37 of the New York State penal code, was theoretically written to target sex workers, but gave police officers broad discretion to arrest “suspects” (in practice, almost always women or transgender persons, and usually people of color) merely for walking or standing on the street. Officers were also empowered to consider whether, for example, a womanʼs clothing is too revealing, when deciding whether to make an arrest for “loitering for the purpose of prostitution.” While that law remained on the books, many local district attorneys, recognizing its discriminatory impact, decided of their own volition to stop bringing cases based on it.
Ms. Niou recalled the example of seeing a woman in a short, sequined skirt exit the now-defunct China Chalet restaurant on Broadway in the Financial District, and walk to the curb. In less than a minute, an unmarked NYPD van sped over, and officers jumped out, placing the woman in handcuffs. When Ms. Niou identified herself as an elected official and demanded and explanation, the officers told her they had ascertained that the woman was a prostitute simply by the way she was dressed. “She hadn’t approached anybody or even spoken to anybody on the street,” Ms. Niou said. “All she did was walk out of the restaurant.”
“I have watched trans folk get followed by cops, ‘just because,’” she continued. “Doing things cis-gendered people do every day. Waiting for the bus. Walking on sidewalk. Standing at a stop sign, waiting for traffic to pass. And get questioned, arrested. For what? Antiquated laws.”
In signing the repeal into law, Governor Andrew Cuomo said, “the ‘walking while trans’ policy is one example of the ugly undercurrents of injustices that transgender New Yorkers—especially those of color—face simply for walking down the street. For too long, trans people have been unfairly targeted and disproportionately policed for innocent, lawful conduct based solely on their appearance. Repealing the archaic ban is a critical step toward reforming our policing system and reducing the harassment and criminalization transgender people face simply for being themselves.”
In a separate (but related) development, multiple anecdotal reports indicate that trans-phobic militants have been sporadically posting small pink stickers around Lower Manhattan, emblazoned with the words, “Trans Women Are Men, and Most Have a Penis.”
On another front, Ms. Niou has also joined a coalition of elected officials calling on the New York Police Department (NYPD) to investigate and possibly disband the troubled Vice Unit, which has been plagued by allegations of bias and corruption in recent years. Ms. Niou joined a bloc of State and City legislators, who co-signed a December 14 letter calling upon leaders of the State Senate, Assembly, and City Council to convene hearings and open an investigation into the Vice Unit, which enforces laws related to prostitution.
Their letter noted that, “this unit’s actions have cost the city over $1 million settlement fees in false arrests since 2014,” and that, “undercover police have consistently engaged in unethical and deceptive practices, including sexual violence and obfuscating police recordings, in order to earn overtime pay for making these low-level arrests.”
They also allege that, “in majority Black and Latino neighborhoods, police have made three times as many arrests as in whiter neighborhoods. Of the 1,800 people charged with prostitution, 89 percent are non-white, and of the 3,000 accused of attempting to buy sex, 93 percent are non-white, predominantly from Black and Latino neighborhoods, despite surveys with sex industry workers showing that over 65 percent of customers are white.”
This push comes in response to an expose by the highly regarded non-profit investigative journalism organization, ProPublica, published on December 7, which detailed a litany of alleged abuses by the Vice Unit, including sexual assault, false arrest, and a practice of maximizing dubious arrests in order to inflate overtime pay.
In response to this report, the Lower Manhattan-based Legal Aid Society called upon the administration of Mayor Bill de Blasio to, “dissolve the troubled unit immediately and discontinue the use of undercover policing operations targeted at sex work.”
“The NYPD must take a critical look at how its practice of policing sex work has led to corruption and sexual misconduct within its Vice squads,” said Leigh Latimer, supervising attorney of the Legal Aid Society’s Exploitation Intervention project. “It is time for the NYPD to acknowledge that Vice officers engage in unethical and, sometimes, illegal behavior and to ensure that those officers are held accountable for the harm they cause. This unit is beyond repair, and we demand the NYPD dissolve it immediately and terminate undercover policing operations targeted at sex workers.”
Matthew Fenton
