![Sample our Area Studies journals, sign in here to start your access, latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5922/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Area-Studies.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Using field notes collected from participant observation of Australian police officers training to work with the transgender community, the current research builds on previous work examining social identity theory (Tajfel, 2010) to explain how one training program implemented to educate police about transgender people challenges police culture. This research determines that police culture, training procedures, and stereotypes of gender are equally influential on police perceptions of all transgender people. Overall, the results indicate that negative police perceptions toward police training reforms strengthen in-group identity of police, and negative out-group perceptions of transgender people.
Notes
1. See the Australian and New Zealand Policing Advisory Agency at http://www.anzpaa.org.au/.
2. Unlike PCSOs in the UK who have limited powers as stipulated under the Police Reform Act 2002.
3. In Australia, the general duties of an operational police officer typically include providing policing services to the community by protecting life and property, preserving peace and safety, preventing crime, and upholding law in a manner that has regard for the public good and rights of individuals (see www.afp.gov.au).
4. Equality and diversity training for police services in the UK has been transformed, as with much else in policing, by recommendations made in the 1999 Macpherson Inquiry report into the racist murder in London in 1993 of a young Black man, Stephen Lawrence.
5. The Lawrence Enquiry was the official report published in 1999 of an inquiry into the death of Stephen Lawrence that was led by Sir William Macpherson and presented to the British Parliament by the Secretary of State for the Home Department by Command of Her Majesty.
6. Although many terms are used to describe people of diverse sex or gender identities, in the Australian state where the research was conducted, transgender is a commonly applied umbrella term used to refer to people whose expression of gender identity is not necessarily linked to their sex (Australian Human Rights Commission).
7. In accordance with the ethics agreement, the exact location and name of the Australian based police organization has been deidentified.
8. At this time the Australian census does not record transgender identification; therefore, data regarding gender identity status and geographical location is unavailable.
9. None of the participants were PLOs.
10. The ethics agreement regarding deidentification of participants prohibited me from intentionally exploring the individual identities of police officers. As such, how individual identities could shape in-group/out-group perceptions of transgender people was not included in this study. It was impossible to obtain statistics on the sexuality of police officers in the police organization more broadly; therefore, a comparison of the participants’ demographics in relation to other police officers in the organization was not possible.
11. In Australia, police training programs regarding minority groups such as the Indigenous community, the Asian community, and the LGBT community are often collectively managed under police initiative programs, usually implemented under community safety and crime prevention strategies.
12. As previously stated, it is acknowledged that the idea of “male” in terms of male gendered notions of behavior is not a linear concept but one marked by issues of nationalism, race, sexuality, and embodiment. However, previous research examining male gendered notions of behavior and police have typically referred to White maleness, heterosexuality, and masculinity (see Holdaway, Citation1983, Citation1991; Raganella & White, Citation2004; Walker & Katz, Citation2002).
13. It should be noted that although other Australian states and cities have different terms for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and intersex community (such as gay and lesbian or queer), the terminology used in this research to identify members of this diverse community is based on the Australian Human Rights Commission (Citation2012) definition of the community. Intersex people are individuals with congenital differences that cause atypical development of their chromosomal, gonadal, or anatomic sex. It is recognized that the intersex category is a complex group, with many intersex females lacking a second X chromosome (two XX sex chromosomes being the norm) and many intersex males having an extra X chromosome (one X and one Y sex chromosome being the norm).