San Diego Police Announce New Policy for Interaction with Transgender, Non-Binary Persons

Citing a commitment to better meeting the diverse needs of the communities it serves, the San Diego Police Department Tuesday released a new set of policies guiding officer interactions with transgender and gender-nonbinary people, 10News reports.

Key components of San Diego Police Department Procedure 6.34 require that SDPD personnel:

* use visual and verbal cues to become aware of a person's gender identification, accept it and refer to them by their preferred pronouns;

* properly document a person's gender identity in police reports and share that information on a need-to-know basis with other department members to ensure continuity of treatment in subsequent interactions;

* give people who identify as transgender or nonbinary the choice of the gender of the officer who will perform a search on them and ensure that searches of transgender or gender-nonbinary persons are not more invasive than searches of cisgender people;

* follow all department procedures for transporting people who identify as female, including transgender women and the nonbinary, including recording the transport on uniform-worn cameras and notifying a dispatcher of the beginning and ending mileage of the police vehicle used;

* book transgender and nonbinary people into a jail facility that aligns with their preferred identity; and

* make every reasonable attempt to recover medications for the arrestee and take them to the jail facility with their personal property, as missing medications used as part of a person's transition can be life-threatening.