Transsexuals suffer police abuse
01 November 2002
The issue of discrimination and abuse against transsexuals has never received much media or campaigning attention, but abusive police conduct against transsexuals is high, as a recent charge lodged against the Hamburg police has revealed. Particularly vulnerable to abuse are undocumented transsexuals who are threatened with deportation. In Hamburg, transsexuals from South America earning their living as sex workers are regularly picked up by police, often by undercover officers, forced to undress at the police station, and then deported for working without papers on a tourist visa (prostitution itself is not illegal in Germany).
At the end of 2001, a transsexual from Ecuador was physically attacked by police in the red light district in Hamburg. When seeking help from two police officers she was taken to the police station, where the officers told her she was illegal and tearing at her clothing and demanded she take her clothes off. They stared at her and ordered her to spread her legs. There are many more cases of police forcing transsexuals to take their clothes off, often without providing translation for those who do not speak German. Others report police officers telling them if they can take nude pictures of them, promising they would save them from deportation, only to be photographed and find themselves in a deportation prison soon afterwards. Many do not bring charges for fear of being imprisoned, where the abuse and danger of being raped is even higher. The Ecuadorian victim has now brought charges against the police officers and her lawyer explains that there are only two circumstances allowing the police to demand that arrested persons to take their clothes off: first, in cases of danger and criminal prosecution, in order to detect drugs or weapons hidden in people's orifices. Secondly, in order to secure evidence, a reason often given when police order the force-feeding of emetics to make people vomit. In December 2001, a Cameroonian died in Hamburg after being force fed emetic on suspicion of drug dealing (see Statewatch vol 11 no 6). In the case of the Ecuadorian, the police only suspected illegal residency, which leaves their conduct unlawful.
However, there still exist a police regulation according to which officers should determine if the genitals of an arrested transsexual were predominantly male or female, in order to establish if a male or female officer should carry out a body check. This recent case raises firstly, the vulnerability of undocumented migrants in relation to abuse from police, employers and/or clients, and secondly, the discrimination against transsexuals and transgendered persons in law and popular practice. In Germany, around 24,000 people born as so-called Intersexuals have had their genitals removed/changed at birth by operation, in order to make them identifiable as male or female, often without their knowledge. The chances of the recent legal proceedings initiated against the police being successful are very low.
Jungle World 4.9.02. German Association for Transidentity and Intersexuality (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Transidentität und Intersexualität e.V.): http://www.dgti.org/