The role of police perceptions of gender variation in California police stops: A research note

Abstract

Research showing that transgender people experience disproportionately negative police interactions raise a host of questions about the perceptions of police that guide their decisions and attendant actions. One potential driver of these disparities is whether police perceive a person’s gender as normative or not. Using data derived from California’s Racial and Identity Profiling Act, which requires officers to record their subjective perceptions of every person they stop, we examine how perceived gender relates to policing outcomes. We find that individuals perceived as transgender men and women are significantly more likely to be searched and arrested than those perceived as cisgender men or women, despite being no more likely to be found with contraband during a search. These findings demonstrate that police perceptions of gender are related to interactions and outcomes, and they support arguments that policing can function as a form of queer control, insofar as visibly gender nonconforming individuals are subjected to more invasive forms of policing and punitive outcomes.