“So Much for Protect and Serve”: Queer Male Survivors’ Perceptions of Negative Police Experiences

Abstract

The author employs a critical queer criminology approach to examine the negative reporting experiences of queer men who have been sexually assaulted. Based on qualitative, in-depth interviews, findings reveal that queer men of color’s perceptions differed based on gender expression with those participants who did not describe themselves as feminine or gender-nonconforming expressing surprise that police officers had disparaged their sexuality. Moreover, White participants differed based on age, as younger White queer men expected the police to provide support, whereas their older counterparts were not surprised by the negative police response. These findings have implications for theorizing the intersections of gender and sexuality with race and age, given that results indicate younger White queer men may now increasingly perceive the police as providing protection. In contrast, gender-nonconforming queer men of color described continual profiling experiences based on their gender presentation and their racial identity.

Keywords

sexual assault queer criminology intersectionality theory racial profiling police brutality

Scholarship focusing on queer men who have been sexually assaulted has frequently drawn attention to their negative experiences with the police (Jackson et al., 2017; Javaid, 2018b; Rumney, 2008). In this article, I use “queer” as an umbrella term for sexual minorities, which includes anyone who does not identify as heterosexual, and examine the perceptions of 21 queer men who had negative police experiences after reporting a sexual assault. In one of the earlier studies on this topic, Abdullah-Khan (2008) found that “many officers are unsympathetic and do not take male rape seriously” (p. 134), whereas Rumney’s (2009) review of this literature indicated that “some police officers and other criminal justice professionals appear to attach to gay men or those they perceive as gay highly questionable assumptions regarding credibility, trauma, and truthfulness” (p. 238). More recent work has similarly revealed that some police officers position queer men’s sexual assault experiences as consensual, often blaming them for the violence and drawing on stereotypical understandings of gay and bisexual men as sexually promiscuous (Jackson et al., 2017; Javaid, 2018a). In this regard, Javaid’s (2018b) research based on interviews and qualitative questionnaires involving police officers has pointed to how “gay male rape victims are often seen as having ‘asked for it’ and are, therefore, blamed for their rape” (p. 762). Overall, this line of scholarship indicates that queer men share some similar experiences with other survivors in their reporting to the police, as other groups such as women and heterosexual men also face victim-blaming responses; at the same time, queer men appear to experience some negative reactions unique to their own social position, informed by overlapping gender and sexuality norms (Anderson & Doherty, 2008; Bernstein & Kostelac, 2002; Gregory & Lees, 1999; Javaid, 2015).

Although this research has provided significant insights into the ways that societal prejudice structures police responses toward gay and bisexual men, little remains known regarding differences among this group of men (Dunn, 2012; Lowe & Rogers, 2017; Tillapaugh, 2017). For instance, this line of scholarship has yet to explore how queer male survivors differ based on race or age in their reporting experiences (Garvey et al., 2017; Hlavka, 2017; Ralston, 2012). Conversely, I focus on age and intraracial differences among queer male survivors’ perceptions, drawing on qualitative, interview-based research conducted with 60 queer men in the United States. In total, 23 of the 60 respondents reported an experience of sexual assault to the police; all 23 participants reported only one experience and the vast majority (21) characterized the police response as negative. This article focuses on these 21 respondents with negative experiences, revealing intraracial differences within the categories of “white queer men” and “queer men of color.”

Research on the effects of race has typically examined interracial differences, as a substantial amount of scholarship has shown, for example, that Black men fear and expect less supportive responses from the police than White men (Braga et al., 2019; Brunson, 2007; Epp et al., 2014). Although studies focusing on these interracial dynamics remain important, exploring intraracial differences is also necessary given that a growing body of scholarship indicates significant variation within racial groups (Gibson & Nelson, 2018; Unnever et al., 2019; Wheelock et al., 2019). Here, findings reveal complex differences among queer men of color based on gender expression and among White queer men based on age. Focusing on intraracial variation, this article details the potential implications of such results for the emerging field of queer criminology (Buist & Lenning, 2016; Dwyer & Tomsen, 2016; Woods, 2014).

Building on scholarship that has explored the role of race in men’s experiences with the police, I argue for a critical criminology approach that considers intersections of race and age with gender and sexuality (Brunson, 2007; Epp et al., 2014). Critical criminology, a theoretical perspective concerned with understanding and critiquing the ways in which the criminal-legal system reinforces social inequalities, has increasingly been employed in studies involving queer populations (Ball, 2016b; Buist & Lenning, 2016; Dalton, 2016). At the same time, some research in this area has noted the degree to which intersectionality—a theoretical orientation that examines the overlap of power structures such as race, class, gender, and sexuality—has often not been employed in this scholarship, despite some notable exceptions (Ball, 2016a; Panfil, 2017; Ritchie, 2013). Intersectionality involves a critical approach toward systems of oppression, such as heteronormativity or institutional racism, exploring their overlap rather than treating them as separate and independent of one another (Crenshaw, 1991; Potter, 2015; Taylor, 2016). Important bodies of scholarship in queer criminology and intersectional feminist criminology have developed, yet here I build on their overlap, arguing that criminological work on queer populations would benefit from incorporating more intersectional analyses (Buist et al., 2018; Ralston, 2012). Indeed, this research reveals that examining queer criminological topics through an intersectional lens can add more nuance to our understanding of these topics by demonstrating the multifaceted ways that power structures shape individuals’ experiences and perceptions.

Although studies of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA) people’s experiences in correctional settings have become a substantial body of scholarship, research in queer criminology has frequently pointed to the marginalization of LGBTQIA issues from dominant criminal justice frameworks (Ball, 2016a; Panfil, 2017; Woods, 2014). In this regard, prevailing criminological approaches, despite some noteworthy examples to the contrary, have typically explored issues such as police brutality and racial profiling without considering gender and sexuality (Dwyer, 2011; Meyer, 2015; Mogul et al., 2011; Ritchie, 2013). Still, considerable evidence suggests that LGBTQIA people of color experience disproportionately high rates of police harassment, particularly those who are transgender or gender-nonconforming (Buist & Stone, 2014; Gibson, 2011; Spade, 2015; Stotzer, 2014). Consequently, this more critical area of research has argued for a “queering” of traditional criminological scholarship, in which gender and sexuality, in addition to race and social class, become understood as central to theorizing on the criminal-legal system (Buist et al., 2018; Dalton, 2016).

This growing body of research in queer criminology has provided important understandings of how racial inequities intersect with heteronormativity, yet less is known in terms of how these intersections operate in the context of policing and sexual assault (Hlavka, 2017; Javaid, 2015; Weiss, 2010). While White queer men have generally been privileged in LGBTQIA advocacy work and scholarship, studies of sexual assault have more frequently focused on women survivors, which has tended to leave unexplored the experiences of groups such as queer men (Abdullah-Khan, 2008; Cohen, 2014; Lowe & Rogers, 2017). Furthermore, queer men of color have not typically featured centrally in the literature on sexual assault, as some work has pointed to their marginalization within this field of study (Garvey et al., 2017; Tillapaugh, 2017). Certainly, research on queer men’s reporting experiences has usually focused on queer men in general rather than on racial differences among them (Jackson et al., 2017; Rumney, 2009). In contrast, in this article, I advance an analysis of queer male survivors that considers intersections of race with gender and sexuality, accounting for similarities and differences among participants of color, as well as White respondents. Exploring differences among queer men of color, this research shows that this group remains far from monolithic in how they perceive negative police experiences, as some of these participants were surprised that officers disparaged their sexuality, whereas others were not surprised.

Along with the differences among queer men of color, this study reveals age differences among White queer men. In this sense, this article adds to theorizing on social change that has occurred in the United States regarding the relationship between LGBTQIA people and the police (Dario et al., 2019; Steele et al., 2018; Stewart-Winter, 2016). Historically, sexual minorities have been broadly associated with criminality, which has resulted in a wide range of policing practices, including, perhaps most famously, bar raids (Buist & Lenning, 2016; Meyer, 2019; Stewart-Winter, 2016). Although such raids have not disappeared, as they have been reported against undocumented LGBTQIA people and other queer people of color, their widespread use has undoubtedly decreased since their zenith in the 1950s and 1960s, when it was frequently illegal for homosexuals to congregate with one another (Daum, 2015; Dwyer & Tomsen, 2016; Mogul et al., 2011). Of course, this criminal-legal approach lasted well beyond the decades after World War II, given that it was not until 2003, with Lawrence v. Texas, that the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated sodomy laws in 14 states (Dario et al., 2019; Spade, 2015).

Although this historical change is usually contextualized as progress, scholarship has pointed to how these developments have primarily benefited LGBTQIA people with race and class privilege (Daum, 2015; Dwyer & Tomsen, 2016; Spade, 2015). That is, these changes are part of, and have contributed to, expanding hierarchies in LGBTQIA communities based on race, class, and gender (Hanhardt, 2013; Meyer, 2016; Russell, 2018). For instance, Hanhardt (2013) has shown that the separation of homosexuality from criminality occurred in part through mainstream gay-rights groups advancing representations of homosexuals as the victims of crime, rather than as criminals. This positioning erected a particular image, one of an upper-middle class, implicitly White, homosexual who was constructed as “deserving” of protection from “dangerous” assailants, who were implicitly coded as low-income people of color (Hanhardt, 2013).

Historically, queer advocacy work has typically constructed the police as an agent of queer oppression, yet a divide began in the 1970s, which has continued until the present, in which some LGBTQIA groups continued to challenge the criminal-legal system while others began to call for greater policing (Hanhardt, 2013; Reddy, 2011; Stewart-Winter, 2016). As such, this history reveals LGBTQIA complicities with expanding mass incarceration, as the separation of predominantly White sexual minorities from criminality came at the cost of expanding punitive measures (Russell, 2018; Stewart-Winter, 2016). Other research has shown that escalating criminalization has harmed not only low-income cisgender, heterosexual people of color but also their LGBTQIA counterparts, who are homeless at disproportionately high rates and frequently subjected to considerable amounts of policing (Gibson, 2011; Mogul et al., 2011; Steele et al., 2018; Taylor, 2016).

These historical changes leave several questions unanswered: Has this changing social context led to generational differences in terms of how LGBTQIA people view the police? Given that LGBTQIA people across generational lines have grown up in different eras, how does this difference shape their understanding of negative police responses? Although my work here can only speak to how this perception operates for queer male survivors, I provide empirical evidence of a potential age difference among White queer men. Previous studies have revealed that LGBTQIA people of color remain exposed to high levels of policing, yet less work has focused on how White queer men differ intersectionally from one another, including based on age (Gibson, 2011; Mogul et al., 2011; Ritchie, 2013). In this article, I argue that such generational differences among White queer men may play a role in structuring alternative perceptions of the police. Indeed, my work here indicates that younger White respondents were the only participants who expected the police to respond supportively. Thus, in drawing attention to the important effects of age and race in structuring queer male survivors’ perceptions, this research demonstrates the value of conceptualizing their evaluations of the police in a more intersectional way.

Method

Data Collection

The data presented in this article are drawn from semi-structured, in-depth interviews conducted in Atlanta and New York City. These two cities were chosen for recruitment to attract a diverse group of participants and a high percentage of Black queer men. To recruit respondents, flyers were placed at a variety of organizations, many of which serve LGBTQIA people of color. The flyer read, “Do You Identify as a Gay, Bisexual, or Queer Man, and Have You Experienced Rape or Sexual Assault Since You’ve Been 18?” Participants contacted the researcher via phone or e-mail; all interviews took place at a location of the interviewee’s choice, and respondents received US$50 for their participation. On the flyer, emphasis was placed on adult experiences of sexual assault to avoid recruiting men who had only encountered childhood sexual abuse, although participants were asked about these experiences as well.

During the interview, with regard to the police, participants were first asked, “How did you go about making the decision on whether or not to contact the police?” If respondents had reported, I first asked, “How did it go, from your perspective?” allowing participants to explain how they felt on their own terms. Respondents were then asked a series of questions about whether the police response surprised them. While a number of specific questions were asked to every participant, these questions were also open enough to allow respondents to guide some of the discussion and describe their own perceptions (Corbin & Strauss, 2015). My positionality as a White gay man in his 30s undoubtedly shaped the degree of comfort that participants felt with sharing their negative police experiences, as younger White queer men appeared particularly forthcoming about these experiences during the interview process. At times, queer men of color, in contrast, appeared to feel apprehensive about how their negative police experiences would be represented by a White gay man, yet I attempted to develop rapport by showing interest in learning as much as possible about negative as well as neutral and positive police interactions.

All of the interviews took place from July 2016 through August 2017. In total, 60 interviews were conducted. Fifteen of the interviews took place in Atlanta, whereas 45 occurred in New York City. The interviews lasted from approximately 1 to 3 hr; the median interview was 97 min. In accordance with the institutional review board of my university, I acquired written informed consent to ensure protection of participants’ identities. To guarantee confidentiality, I have used pseudonyms throughout this article.

Data Analysis

Grounded theory methods were used to analyze transcripts of the interviews, with open, axial, and selective coding employed with the qualitative data analysis program ATLAS.ti (Charmaz, 2014; Miles et al., 2014). A grounded theory approach is particularly useful for developing theory, offering detailed procedural steps for generating categories inductively from the data (Corbin & Strauss, 2015; Mayring, 2004). Following Abrahamson’s (1983, p. 286) guidelines for inductive analyses to begin with researchers “immersing” themselves in the documents, I first read and took notes on all of the transcripts to gain a sense of each individual narrative. Open coding was then employed to identify initial concepts, with line-by-line analysis of the transcripts (Charmaz, 2014; Schreier, 2012). This process of “breaking down” the data yielded many concepts related to participants’ meaning-making processes (Mayring, 2004; Schreier, 2012).

Adhering to Corbin and Strauss’s (2015) suggestion for axial coding, whereby connections, categories, and relationships are made among the concepts generated from open coding, broad axial codes were created, such as “differences among participants of color in their reporting experiences.” Through the process of selective coding, with analysis of the axial codes and the writing of theoretical memos, core categories emerged, as this examination revealed more specific trends in participants’ narratives (Charmaz, 2014; Miles et al., 2014). Some of these core categories resemble the data presented in this article, including “Younger white participants’ surprise at an unsupportive police response” and “Black participants who expected a negative police response but were surprised that their sexuality was disparaged.” After creating these core categories, I analyzed the transcripts again, selectively coding any data related to the categories, in addition to refining and validating the relationships that had been established through the constant comparative method that was utilized throughout the coding process (Corbin and Strauss, 2015; Schreier, 2012).

This data analysis process led to the discovery of three different types of responses regarding surprise: participants who (a) were surprised that the police response was negative and expected a more supportive reaction; (b) were not surprised that the response was negative but were surprised that their sexuality played a role in the negative reaction; or (c) were not surprised by either of these dimensions, the negative response or the disparagement of their sexuality. During selective coding, I discovered that White queer men younger than 40 were the only participants to respond in the first way. This process also led to the discovery that queer men of color differed based on gender expression; that is, respondents of color who described themselves as feminine or gender-nonconforming responded in the third way, whereas those who did not describe themselves as such responded in the second. Of course, a dichotomous understanding of queer men as either feminine or masculine must be avoided, given that imposing such a binary model of gender onto queer men may reinforce heteronormative standards. Still, those participants of color who described themselves as feminine or gender-nonconforming emphasized some challenges and perceptions that their counterparts did not; these differences are outlined throughout this article.

Sample

The demographic characteristics of the 21 participants included in this analysis are shown in Table 1. This information comes from a short questionnaire that respondents completed after the interview, thus reflecting their self-identification. All of these participants are cisgender: 15 self-identified as gay, four as bisexual, and two as queer. Although the larger sample of 60 participants includes five transgender men and two pansexual men, these respondents did not report any of their experiences of sexual assault to the police. In terms of race and ethnicity, more than half of the 60 participants, 37, self-identified as Black or African American, yet only 10 of these participants reported an experience of sexual assault to the police; conversely, nine of the 14 White respondents did so. Thus, White participants were more likely than Black queer men to report to the police, although the latter represent a larger share of the sample.

Table 1.

Demographic Characteristics of Participants, Divided Based on the Results Presented in this Article (N = 21).

Pseudonyms	Age	Sexuality	Race/ethnicity
Black queer men, surprised that the police disparaged their sexuality:
Xavier	26	Bisexual	Black
Vondell	29	Gay	Black
Dannell	41	Bisexual	Black
Jayden	45	Gay	Black
Jontray	58	Gay	Black
Antonne	58	Gay	Black
Queer men of color, not surprised that the police disparaged their sexuality:
Jeremiah	22	Gay	Black
Mendez	27	Bisexual	Black and Latino
Ornell	37	Gay	Black
Juan	47	Gay	Latino
Mateo	56	Gay	Latino
Justin	62	Gay	Black
Younger White queer men, expressed surprise at the negative response:
Charlie	26	Queer	White
Francis	27	Queer	White
Danny	31	Gay	White
Allen	38	Gay	White
Older White queer men, did not express surprise at the negative response:
Zachary	44	Bisexual	White
Chad	48	Gay	White
Sean	53	Gay	White
Melvin	59	Gay	White
Paul	77	Gay	White

Despite this racial difference, all 60 participants in this study had one or more experience of sexual assault, and a majority of these respondents (37) did not report any of their experiences to the police. The most common reason given for not reporting was a concern that the police would not take the violence seriously. Almost half of these participants also spoke about their fear that the police would mock or belittle what had happened to them. The other 23 participants reported one of their experiences to the police; 21 described this experience as negative. On the one hand, a relatively high percentage of participants, over one third, reported a sexual assault to the police. However, most respondents had more than one experience of sexual violence. Given that all of these participants reported only one of their experiences, this percentage of reporting is not as high as it may first appear. At the same time, this still somewhat high rate of reporting suggests that this research may have attracted men with particularly forthcoming dispositions, as participation required respondents to contact the researcher about their experiences of sexual assault. The results presented in this article should be understood in this context, and this study remains limited in that these qualitative findings are not generalizable to queer men more broadly. Nevertheless, given that interview-based research is useful for capturing how respondents create meaning, this qualitative study reveals some nuanced ways that queer men perceived their negative police experiences (Corbin & Strauss, 2015; Miles et al., 2014).

In terms of reporting sexual assault, all but one of these respondents had reported to the police within the last 10 years; all but four had reported within the past 5 years. Consequently, most of these experiences represent relatively recent police interactions. These respondents who reported were also disproportionately those who had been sexually assaulted in the context of a relationship. Certainly, many of these participants spoke about how they would not have contacted the police in a different situation but felt compelled to do so, given the intimate partner violence they were facing. Most of these participants, 16 of the 21, contacted the police to report their experience of sexual assault; the other five respondents contacted the police to report another matter, such as physical abuse or being locked out of their apartment, and then only revealed the assault once the officers were present. A majority of respondents were reporting generally abusive behavior from their partner, as the physical and sexual violence were part of the same relationship, yet a sexual assault is usually what prompted them to contact the police.

In terms of the police response, all of these respondents thought that anti-queer prejudice played at least some role in the negative reaction. Throughout, I refer to this response as their sexuality being “disparaged.” The degree to which participants understood the police as disparaging their sexuality varied, as the negative response did not always involve overt condemnation, but sometimes a subtler lack of support. As a result, these negative experiences should be understood as including a wide range of behavior, from blame and laughter to condescension and accusation. Despite these differences, I have characterized such responses as “disparaging” to reflect respondents’ perceptions, given their view that anti-queer prejudice motivated the negative police reaction.

Throughout this article, I use the phrase “queer men of color” to denote participants who self-identified as belonging to a racial or ethnic minority group. Although the larger project on which this article is based also explores the differences between queer men of color and White participants, this article focuses primarily on the variation within these groups. Indeed, based on data analysis, this research revealed a gender expression difference among respondents of color and an age difference among White participants. I have referred to White queer men above the age of 40 as “older” and those below the age of 40 as “younger.” These categories are meant to reflect age differences found in the sample, and remain grounded in complex debates within LGBTQIA communities and scholarship regarding generational change; this research, for example, has indicated that younger generations of LGBTQIA people continue to experience many forms of profiling and police abuse, even as some important changes have occurred over time (Daum, 2015; Dwyer & Tomsen, 2016; Steele et al., 2018). The “younger” category for White participants roughly correlates with the commonly used generational label of “millennials,” whereas the “older” category comprises “Generation X” and “baby boomer” generations. Of course, these categorizations are imperfect, given that age operates as a continuum more than a dichotomy and differences obviously exist between the generational categories of Generation X and baby boomers. Moreover, although I have used 40 as the separation point for the sake of clarity, the category of “over 40” officially comprises White participants aged from 44 through 77 and “under 40” includes those from 26 through 38. While the findings based on this analysis should be viewed as suggestive rather than definitive given the relatively small number of White respondents in this study, age was nevertheless the most salient factor in shaping the amount of surprise that White participants expressed.

Results

The following section focuses on differences among participants of color regarding their perceptions. First, half of these respondents were not surprised that the police response was negative but were surprised that the officers denigrated their sexuality. These participants had previous experiences in which they had been racially profiled; they did not describe themselves as feminine or gender-nonconforming and did not have any prior police interactions in which their sexuality had been disparaged. Second, in contrast, the other half of queer men of color had past experiences in which the police had denigrated their sexuality or gender expression and thus were not surprised that officers negatively addressed their sexuality in the context of sexual assault. The next section of this article focuses on age differences among White participants, revealing that White queer men older than 40 were not surprised that the police responded negatively, whereas their younger counterparts expressed a considerable amount of surprise that they had not received a more supportive response.

Differences Among Participants of Color

Among the 12 participants of color with negative experiences, police distrust was consistently expressed. All 12 of these respondents explained that they did not trust the police prior to their reporting of sexual assault and that they had been racially profiled by officers in the past. Thus, none of these participants were surprised that the police responded unsupportively. Moreover, these 12 participants all thought that anti-queer prejudice played at least some role in the negative response; most frequently, they described the police as relying on stereotypes of queer men as consistently desiring sex, which reframed their experiences of assault as consensual. At the same time, despite the similarities among these participants, their perceptions also differed in important ways, which I outline in the following subsections.

Black Queer Men Who Were Surprised That the Police Negatively Addressed Their Sexuality

Half of the 12 participants of color were not surprised that the police responded unsupportively, but they were surprised that their sexuality played a role in the negative response. For instance, Xavier, a 26-year-old Black bisexual man, described his surprise succinctly: “I don’t trust the police, but I didn’t expect them to bring my bisexuality into it—that was the surprising part.” Another participant, Vondell, a 29-year-old Black gay man, was raped by a physically abusive man he was dating and then contacted the police. He thought that the officers blamed him for the assault, in part because of his sexuality, as he said, “They were acting like just because I’m gay that I want this to happen and like I’m craving sex 24/7.” Regarding the police response, Vondell explained,

I know the police don’t support people like me . . . I wasn’t surprised that they talked to me in that aggressive way. All of my previous incidents didn’t have anything to do with me being gay, so I guess that part of it was surprising . . . I didn’t think they would bring up my sexuality.

Vondell expressed surprise that the police mentioned his sexuality, given that an officer had never previously remarked on this aspect of his identity. All six of these respondents described a history of racial profiling in which officers had not perceived them as gay or bisexual, at least not to their knowledge. All of these participants were Black and thought that officers in the past had perceived them as Black, implicitly straight, men. They did not describe themselves as feminine or gender-nonconforming and they felt that race was central to their previous police interactions.

The surprise that these respondents expressed arose from a complex interplay of race, sexuality, and gender expression. Antonne, for example, a 58-year-old Black gay man experienced rape in the context of a “hookup” after inviting a man he had met on a gay dating app over to his apartment. After Antonne reported this experience to the police, an officer asked him, “Well, why would you invite him over to your place?” This officer’s response could certainly be directed toward a heterosexual survivor, given that it is consistent with the sort of victim-blaming that many women encounter after they have been sexually assaulted (Lowe & Rogers, 2017; Weiss, 2010). Still, Antonne thought that homophobia was informing the officer’s reaction, as he said, “His whole demeanor was, ‘This is disgusting.’ . . . He hated gay people.” In comparison with his previous experiences with the police, however, Antonne explained that this situation differed:

They [police officers] don’t really think I’m gay when they meet me, they just see me as a Black man, so this was the first time I’ve really had a police officer respond in that way . . . I haven’t had good experiences with the police, but this was the first time that me being gay had anything to do with it, so that part of it was surprising . . . Because I’m masculine, they usually just see me as a Black straight guy.

The cultural association of gender conformity with heterosexuality played an important role here, perhaps leading Black queer men who largely conform to gender norms to be perceived as heterosexual in many contexts. Conversely, these participants thought that their reporting of sexual assault was the first time an officer had known or assumed that they were queer.

Not all of these participants revealed their sexuality to the officers, but they all thought that the police had presumed that they were homosexual or bisexual given the context of the assault, which usually occurred in a relationship or a sexual encounter with another man. Moreover, all of these respondents identifying as Black remains significant here, as these participants all believed that officers in the past had typically devoted attention to their race; this approach toward Black men reflects a larger cultural context in the United States in which Blackness is “marked” as hypervisible and surveilled based on prejudicial assumptions of danger and criminality (Epp et al., 2014; Ransby, 2018; Taylor, 2016). Nevertheless, while officers may profile some Black queer men primarily based on their racial identity, the results presented here, especially when compared with findings in the next subsection, indicate that this experience exists disproportionately for Black queer men who do not describe themselves as feminine or gender-nonconforming.

Queer Men of Color Who Were Not Surprised That the Police Disparaged Their Sexuality

In contrast to the participants introduced in the preceding subsection, six other respondents of color were not surprised that the police negatively addressed their sexuality. For instance, Justin, a 62-year-old Black gay man said, “I expect the cops to be homophobic, so it wasn’t surprising,” and Mendez, a 27-year-old Black and Latino bisexual man, said, “I wasn’t surprised, the cops can be very insulting of my sexuality.” Another participant, Ornell, a 37-year-old Black gay man, explained his reasons for not being surprised in the following way:

No, I wasn’t surprised, I’ve had a lifetime of the police targeting me because I’m a feminine gay man . . . So, them addressing my femininity was just like, “Yeah, I’ve heard this one before, what else you got that’s new?” . . . They’re very disrespectful of my race and my sexuality, so that’s why I don’t trust them to help me no matter what I’m going through.

These participants usually had expectations, informed by their past experiences, that they would not encounter a positive police response and then found their expectations confirmed when reporting a sexual assault. The key difference, however, between these respondents and the Black participants who were surprised that the police addressed their sexuality was that these respondents described a history in which officers had chastised their sexuality or gender expression. These participants varied in their descriptions of their gender presentation, with some referring to themselves as feminine and others describing times their gender nonconformity had been policed. Despite this variation, all of these respondents described past experiences in which they felt that they had been profiled based on their gender expression, as well as their race. Such experiences typically involved some version of a “stop-and-search.” Ornell, for example, described a police officer in the past who would refer to him as an “AIDS monkey,” among other disparaging names, in the small town where he was born and raised. This officer also arrested Ornell on a variety of nonviolent charges.

When describing the reasons for his arrest, Ornell detailed a process whereby the “cops would pat me down for no reason” and “take me down to the station for disorderly conduct.” Ornell had similarly encountered such profiling since moving to New York City, as he underscored that officers have targeted him in part due to his gender nonconformity:

They see that I’m wearing something queer . . . My ripped jeans, my earrings, and they think that’s a sign that I’m up to no good and shouldn’t be walking the streets. So that’s where the searching and the taking me down to the station comes in.

The assumption that Ornell may be “up to no good” can arise from a host of prejudicial attitudes toward Black queer men, including not only stereotypes around crime and drug use that the police may ascribe to Black, heterosexual cisgender men but also negative ideas around sex work that the police may be particularly likely to assign to Black LGBTQIA people (Buist & Stone, 2014; Gibson, 2011). To be sure, Ornell described several occasions when officers found a condom on him and then brought him to the police station for questioning about sex work. More broadly, gender nonconformity also remains associated with “disorder” and is often punished based on discriminatory assumptions that it leads to disarray (Mogul et al., 2011; Ritchie, 2013).

Given his past experiences of being profiled and arrested, Ornell said that he “would never call the police for help.” His experience of sexual assault happened when living with an abusive ex-boyfriend; once, when the two of them were arguing, a neighbor called the police. Similar to Ornell, four of the six participants in this section did not contact the police to report sexual assault, but then revealed this experience once the officers were present. The friend of another participant called the police and two respondents only contacted law enforcement because a former partner had locked them out of their apartment. Here, Ornell said that he explained to the officers that he had been fighting with his partner over a sexual assault. Ornell described a process whereby the officers “turned it into a joke,” which included statements such as, “You’re sitting here wearing earrings, and you expect us to take you seriously?”

For gender-nonconforming queer men, the negative responses they encountered often involved ridiculing their gender expression. Indeed, these participants typically argued that the more gender-nonconforming they appeared, the more likely they were to be harassed by the police. For instance, Juan, a 47-year-old Latino gay man, repeatedly drew attention to his gender nonconformity throughout the interview, explaining that “the police are disrespectful because I walk a certain way and dress a certain way . . . If I get really decked out, that’s when they’ll be the most disrespectful.” Juan’s experiences of sexual assault occurred in the context of a relationship in which a former partner had physically abused him on a regular basis and forced him to have anal sex on two occasions. After Juan called the police at one point when he was being physically abused and locked out of his apartment, he told the two officers that his partner had also raped him twice, which one of the officers responded to by asking, “Don’t you guys like rough sex anyway?” Juan interpreted “you guys” to mean gay men, as this question reframed his experiences of assault as consensual and drew on sexualizing stereotypes of gay men. When asked whether he was surprised by this response, Juan reflected on his past experiences:

No, it wasn’t surprising, I’ve never really had a positive experience with the police, except for maybe if I just have to ask for directions or something . . . They can tell that I’m feminine from the way I talk and then they get this attitude of, “Oh, he’s one of these smart ass queens.” . . . I wasn’t surprised so much as angry at myself for not trusting my gut, and not calling them. But what are you supposed to do when someone is hitting on you, wailing on you?

Juan regretted calling the police and wished that he had followed his instincts not to do so, as he described experiencing some fear before reaching out and then felt as if these concerns had been confirmed when the officers responded unsupportively. Similar to the Black participants who expressed surprise, respondents of color such as Juan had largely negative police experiences in the past.

Still, while Black participants who expressed surprise at the police disparaging their sexuality described a history of being profiled solely based on their race, these respondents who were not surprised by this matter typically emphasized that race, sexuality, and gender expression varied in importance depending on the interaction. Another participant, Jeremiah, a 22-year-old Black gay man, explained that “there are some situations [with the police] where my sexuality plays more of a role and some situations where my race does.” When asked how he makes this determination as to the role of racism and homophobia, he said,

I can’t pinpoint it as “Oh, in this case it’s all about this, or in this case it’s all about that,” but it’s just something that I know in my bones—like I can tell when it’s more about one of those things than the other, but it’s usually about both.

Jeremiah also explained that he was not surprised by the unsupportive police response given his past experiences: “No, I wasn’t surprised. I’ve seen the police be very rude about my sexuality in the past—that’s why I didn’t want them there in the first place.” Black participants, regardless of gender expression, generally described their past experiences as leading to some hesitancy to reach out to the police; these respondents, after all, were less likely to contact law enforcement than White participants. Nevertheless, while racial profiling may figure most predominantly in police interactions for Black queer men who primarily conform to gender norms, participants such as Jeremiah viewed the police as hostile to their queer identity as well as their racial identity.

Age Differences Among White Participants

Similar to the participants of color described in the previous subsections, all nine White respondents with negative police experiences thought that anti-queer prejudice played at least some role in the unsupportive response. In contrast to queer men of color, however, some White participants expected the police to respond supportively. In this section, I show that White participants’ perceptions differed based on age. In particular, although the five White respondents older than 40 were not surprised by the negative police response, the four White queer men younger than 40 expressed a considerable amount of surprise.

White Queer Men Who Expressed Surprise at the Unsupportive Police Response

White queer men younger than 40 were the only participants in this study who expressed surprise that the police responded negatively to their reporting of sexual assault. For instance, Charlie, a 26-year-old White queer man, said, “I didn’t expect them to be that rude,” and Allen, a 38-year-old gay man, said, “I didn’t think they would be blaming me like that.” Another participant, Danny, a 31-year-old White gay man, experienced intimate partner violence from an ex-boyfriend who had raped him 4 times during their 7-year relationship. During one of these violent experiences, Danny called the police, which prompted two officers to come to his apartment. He described their response in the following way:

They were just very condescending, like I was wasting their time or something. When I told them that he raped me in the past—“Well, you can’t rape the willing.” One of them said that to me . . . I thought they would be like, “What can we do to help you?” but that was the furthest thing from their minds. It was very un-policeman-like—like, so much for “protect and serve.”

Participants across racial lines confronted these pathologizing and sexualizing notions, yet Danny’s reaction differed from that of queer men of color and White gay men older than 40. Indeed, he expected a more supportive response from the police—“what can we do to help you?”—and contextualized their approach as “very un-policeman-like,” given that it was not consistent with an oath to “protect and serve.” This construction of an unsupportive reaction as “un-policeman-like” relies on an understanding of the police as typically supportive; none of the participants of color or White respondents older than 40 made such statements. In stark contrast to Danny, participants of color were not surprised that the police responded negatively, given their experiences in the past. This finding is consistent with previous research revealing that men differ across racial lines in their understanding of law enforcement as providing “safety” or support—a perception that remains disproportionately associated with Whiteness (Braga et al., 2019; Epp et al., 2014).

At the same time, younger White participants typically had negative police experiences in the context of sexual assault, which suggests that their Whiteness did not shield them from an unsympathetic response. These negative experiences may be attributable primarily to the challenges confronting queer male survivors or to the challenges facing sexual assault survivors more broadly (Lowe & Rogers, 2017; Weiss, 2010). Nevertheless, these results may also reflect a larger trend whereby younger White queer men expect to encounter a supportive police response, while, at least when reporting sexual violence, experience a negative reaction.

Understanding these perceptions necessitates not only accounting for aspects such as race but also considering the historical context in which these participants were raised. Another White respondent, Francis, a 27-year-old White queer man, described calling the police after he had been raped by a man who spiked his alcoholic drink with a date rape drug. During the interview, he described the police as blaming him for the violence, as one of the officers told him “you should be more careful who you drink with.” Francis explained his surprise at this response:

I was surprised by that, because I don’t know anyone who has had something like that happen, so it was just surprising that here I am in the middle of this thing I only see on TV . . . I thought they would be nicer.

Francis expected a more supportive police response because he did not know anyone who had negative experiences; he also did not have any undesirable experiences of his own with the police, prior to this incident. To be sure, his positioning of this negative response as something “I only see on TV” indicates the degree to which Francis, as well as individuals in his social networks, had not encountered such a reaction. Undoubtedly, this anticipation of a positive, or at least not entirely negative, police response cannot be separated from Francis’s Whiteness. Still, given that White respondents older than 40 did not respond in this way, his perception can also be understood in relation to his age.

These participants who were younger than 40 were born no earlier than the late 1970s; two were not born until the 1990s. Thus, they grew up in a context in which they either were very young during Ronald Reagan’s administration and the AIDS crisis or were not alive at all during this time. Regardless of their relationship to the 1980s, these participants came of age at a time in which they were not experiencing the anti-gay discrimination prevalent in the 1950s and 1960s, some of which was enacted by the police, or much of the activism into the 1970s that developed in response to police violence (Hanhardt, 2013; Stewart-Winter, 2016). Obviously, these forms of violence continued into the 1980s and beyond as well, with particularly aggressive policing directed toward queer men during the AIDS crisis and toward gay and bisexual cruising zones, as well as LGBTQIA sex workers, continuing to occur to the present day (Daum, 2015; Mogul et al., 2011; Spade, 2015). However, younger White queer men’s responses need to be contextualized relative to the social change that has transpired since the 1970s, in which mainstream gay-rights groups have increasingly forged alliances with the police, thereby creating a climate in which young White gay and bisexual men may be viewing the police more favorably than in the past (Dwyer & Tomsen, 2016; Hanhardt, 2013).

White Queer Men Who Did Not Express Surprise at the Unsupportive Police Response

White respondents older than 40 differed from their younger counterparts in that the former did not express surprise at a negative police response. For instance, Chad, a 48-year-old White gay man said, “I wasn’t surprised at all,” and Zachary, a 44-year-old White bisexual man said, “It wasn’t surprising to me in the least.” Similarly, Melvin, a 59-year-old White gay man, described an experience in which he was stabbed by a man in a park, whom he was performing oral sex on; when the police showed up at the hospital, Melvin explained that they laughed when he described what happened. He contextualized this negative response in relation to his experiences with the police during the 1980s, when extensive homophobic hysteria existed with regard to the AIDS crisis:

In the eighties, the police used to go to these places where gay men would have sex and rough us up. I saw this guy I had sex with get his face pounded in by two cops . . . So, I know what police brutality looks like. I didn’t really expect them to be any better these days, but this was just proof of that.

Unlike White respondents younger than them, White queer men older than 40 often referred to histories of police brutality against LGBTQIA people. Most of these respondents had also either experienced such violence themselves or heard about it happening to someone they knew. Of course, the time period that these respondents referred to varied depending on their age. Another participant, for example, Paul, a 77-year-old White gay man, mentioned bar raids that he had experienced during the 1950s and 1960s and said that these experiences “taught me not to trust the police.” Similar to Melvin, Paul’s negative police experience involved officers laughing when he described a sexual assault, only this time in the context of a relationship. Paul was also not surprised by this unsympathetic police response, as he said, “I should have been surprised, but I wasn’t . . . [Being] a young gay man in the sixties taught me that I should never be surprised by them.”

While younger White queer men typically explained that they did not know anyone with negative police experiences, their older counterparts had more frequently been targeted by the police when they were young or, if not, they had grown up in a context in which White queer men were more often subjected to routine policing. Consequently, such generational divides indicate that White queer men may be increasingly understanding themselves as less susceptible to negative police experiences. Younger White queer men expected a more sympathetic response, raising questions not only about historical change but also about which groups of queer men feel protected by the police and which groups continue to feel vulnerable to harassment.

These age differences, taken together with the differences among queer men of color, suggest that scholarship on LGBTQIA people’s perceptions of the police could benefit from examining aspects beyond race and sexuality, including age and gender expression. Still, in comparing the experiences of these older White participants with those of queer men of color, race becomes an obvious and important factor for understanding queer men’s interactions with the police. Outside of their recent experience of reporting sexual assault and confronting a negative response, most White queer men older than 40 did not have another negative police encounter in over a decade. In contrast, queer men of color had continual experiences of racial profiling and, at times, had more interactions in which the police had disparaged their sexuality or gender nonconformity. As a result, although this article has focused primarily on intraracial differences, variation across racial lines also remains important to consider.

Discussion and Conclusion

In previous studies focusing on men’s negative experiences with the police, Black heterosexual and cisgender men have typically received the most attention (Braga et al., 2019; Brunson, 2007; Epp et al., 2014). While this group continues to encounter disproportionately high rates of violence from the police, other research indicates that queer men of color also experience these responses at an elevated frequency (Dwyer, 2011; Spade, 2015; Steele et al., 2018). In this study, the experiences of Black queer men who did not describe themselves as feminine or gender-nonconforming were relatively similar to some dominant understandings of racial profiling, as police officers in the past had profiled this group based on their Blackness but had not disparaged their sexuality. Conversely, participants of color who described themselves as feminine or gender-nonconforming detailed past profiling experiences in which they had been targeted based on their gender expression as well as their racial identity. Thus, when considering this group’s challenges, a more intersectional understanding of how they are profiled remains necessary, as the phrase “racial profiling” does not account for how race, sexuality, and gender presentation simultaneously shaped many of their experiences.

An intersectional approach would draw attention to such experiences, which have frequently been marginalized from mainstream U.S. media coverage of police brutality (Ransby, 2018; Taylor, 2016). This emphasis should be contextualized as seeking not to replace or disrupt the focus on Black heterosexual and cisgender men’s experiences, but to expand understandings of racial and queer injustice to include the perspectives of gender-nonconforming LGBTQIA people of color. To be sure, some participants of color’s experiences revealed not that they were first racially profiled and that their sexuality or gender presentation then subsequently became disparaged, but that their gender expression played an instrumental role in the profiling from the very beginning. An intersectional queer criminology that centers, rather than marginalizes, these experiences would help to underscore the role of gender and sexuality, as well as race, in policing practices and the criminal-legal system more broadly.

In this study, although age differences were not found among participants of color regarding their perceptions of the police, results revealed a significant generational divide among White queer men. Obviously, this study suffers from a few limitations in terms of its broader implications, given that these data are not generalizable and are in need of support from more quantitative work. Still, these qualitative data reveal some complexities based on age. Undoubtedly, younger White participants expressed surprise at unsupportive police responses because they did not typically have previous negative experiences. At the same time, unlike their older counterparts, younger White queer men may no longer be growing up in a context in which they are encouraged to view the police as working against their interests. While older White participants expressed distrust of the police and understood themselves as potentially vulnerable to police harassment, White respondents younger than 40 did not articulate these perspectives. This finding is consistent with research that has emphasized social change regarding LGBTQIA advocacy work toward relying on, rather than challenging, punitive approaches (Hanhardt, 2013; Reddy, 2011; Russell, 2018). This scholarship, however, has usually focused on the social costs of this shift for LGBTQIA people of color, most of whom cannot depend on the police to rectify their challenges, and often end up being arrested at higher rates when criminalization increases (Gibson, 2011; Spade, 2015; Stotzer, 2014).

While it remains important to emphasize such effects on LGBTQIA people of color, less work has explored how White queer men may now be helped, or harmed, by law enforcement. On one hand, my work here indicates that younger White queer men may be increasingly viewing the police as a source of protection, with little of the skepticism that previous generations expressed more frequently. Russell (2018) has referred to “carceral pride,” in which police officers are now included in LGBTQIA events such as gay pride parades; such historical changes may have resulted in greater feelings of trust in law enforcement for a relatively narrow segment of LGBTQIA people, such as younger White gay men. This shift reflects theorizing around homonormativity, in which hierarchical divisions among LGBTQIA people have expanded considerably over the last several decades, with White, cisgender gay men benefiting substantially more from these changes than other, less privileged LGBTQIA people (Hanhardt, 2013; Spade, 2015). If the findings here reflect larger trends, then serious challenges exist for LGBTQIA work that hopes to resist punitive strategies, given that younger White queer men may now disproportionately view increased criminalization as offering them greater safety.

On the other hand, despite the support that younger White queer men expected to receive, results revealed that White participants, including those who were young, usually encountered a negative police response. The implications of this finding suggest that the police may not provide as much “protection” or support for younger White queer men as they expect, at least in the context of sexual violence. As a result, great potential resides for critical queer criminology in this disjuncture between the assistance that younger White participants expected to encounter and the unsupportive reaction that they actually experienced. Queer criminological approaches must avoid frameworks that position White gay and bisexual men’s negative experiences as worthy of greater attention than those of LGBTQIA people of color. However, it also remains imperative to highlight the many contexts in which queer men across racial lines do not receive a supportive police response. Queer men’s experiences will undoubtedly differ across racial lines in these contexts as well, yet queer criminology can compel a greater number of younger White queer men to become aware of the degree to which the police historically have not served their interests and may continue to respond unsupportively in a variety of contexts.

Although this study revealed age effects for White participants but not for queer men of color, future research remains necessary to explore age differences among queer men of color, as well as differences in gender expression among White queer men, in their perceptions of the police. Age differences were not found for queer men of color because, regardless of age, this group tended to have negative police experiences in the past and then expected a possibly unsupportive response in the context of sexual assault. This finding may reflect larger trends, or more representative future research may reveal greater age differences among queer men of color. Nevertheless, these results point to the continuance of negative police experiences among relatively young queer men of color. Of course, among the 12 men of color in this article, 10 identified as Black and three as Latino (one identified as Black and Latino). Thus, these results cannot account for the experiences of other racial minorities, such as Asian and Native American men, pointing to the need for future research to explore their experiences and perceptions.

Regarding White queer men, I can only speculate as to the reasons that those who were younger did not have any prior negative experiences with the police. The neighborhoods in which younger White queer men lived did not appear to leave them exposed to routine policing, given that they described only rarely interacting with the police. For White queer men, social class and gender expression will undoubtedly play an important role in shaping police interactions, yet younger White participants, even those who grew up in poorer neighborhoods or who described themselves as feminine or gender-nonconforming, did not have the extensive history of profiling experiences that the younger queer men of color described.

While the White queer men in this study generally had negative police experiences in the context of sexual assault, it is also possible that this group of men would have received a more supportive response if the form of violence they had experienced was different. Previous research suggests that the police, as well as media discourse, tends to take seriously forms of public, street violence enacted against White gay men, given that this violence is consistent with the “stranger danger” framework that the criminal-legal system routinely prosecutes (Gibson, 2011; Hanhardt, 2013; Spade, 2015). Even in my previous research, White gay men who experienced stranger-based forms of violence on the street typically encountered supportive police responses (Meyer, 2015). Consequently, future research should be particularly attuned to the various forms of violence that White queer men experience and how such contextual differences may shape their experiences with the police. In short, it remains essential for queer criminology to continue to draw attention to who benefits and who is harmed by a continued LGBTQIA reliance on the criminal-legal system. This scholarship would also benefit from continuing to examine power structures beyond sexuality. Indeed, this research has revealed that not only race and sexuality but also age and gender expression remain important factors in queer male survivors’ perceptions of the police. A queer criminology that more fully accounts for intersectionality would facilitate a better understanding of this group’s interactions with the police, revealing the complex ways in which privilege and disadvantage operate across various contexts and remain implicated in multiple power structures.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Alberto McKelligan Hernández and Bailey Troia, in addition to the three anonymous reviewers, for their incredibly valuable feedback on earlier versions of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research has been supported by the University of Virginia Summer Stipends in the Humanities and Social Sciences.

Author Biography

Doug Meyer is an assistant professor of Women, Gender & Sexuality at the University of Virginia. His research focuses on social inequality and violence against LGBTQIA people, which includes his book, Violence against Queer People: Race, Class, Gender, and the Persistence of Anti-LGBT Discrimination, published with Rutgers University Press. His work has appeared in Gender & Society, Sociology, Critical Criminology, and Sexualities, among other journals.

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