Milwaukee police to hide race, gender in reports after LGBT complaints

The Milwaukee police will now hide information about a victim’s race and gender from crime reports after accusations by the trans community that police have “misgendered” some victims.

“It’s a way to preserve the dignity and privacy of all victims,” Heather Hough, Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) chief of staff said last week, Fox News reports. “MPD wants to ensure the best service possible for our entire community.”

The policy change in Milwaukee follows accusations that the police “misgendered” three transgender people involved in three homicides last year.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote that trans activists consider “misgendering” a form of “violence.” 

But the newspaper of record in Milwaukee also said that the policy was “too broad,” and was concerned it “withholds basic information from the public.” 

“[I]f there are concerns about bad information being released, the best remedy is to assure that only solid information is released — not to put up new barriers that make it harder for the public to know what is happening in their neighborhoods and throughout the community,” said editor Greg Borowski.  

The Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council (WFIC), which promotes transparency in government, was also highly critical of the policy change, saying that it’s hard enough to track victims of crimes in minority populations without this further obfuscation.  

“Does the public really not have a right to know if minorities, for instance, are disproportionately victims of crime?” Bill Lueders, president of the WFIC, asked the Sentinel. “Does it not have the right to know if people are being killed because of their gender?” 

Lueders told the Milwaukee newspaper that he knows of no other Wisconsin police department that withholds gender identity information in this way.  

“If they’re struggling to get it right, the answer is to do a better job of making sure their information is accurate and correct, rather than just not putting their information out there in the first place,” he said. 

The new policy comes two months after the Michigan House of Representatives passed HR 4474, which some critics say could criminalize the use of the wrong pronoun.  

Elsewhere, in New York City, the willful use of the wrong pronoun is punishable by civil penalties from $125,000-$250,000 per violation, under Local Law No. 3. 

A recent survey by Redfield & Wilton Strategies found that 44% of American adults between the ages of 25-34 think that “referring to someone by the wrong gender pronoun (he/him, she/her) should be a criminal offense,” said Newsweek.