The Trans Women's Anti-Violence Project

After enjoying a night of dancing at a Jackson Heights nightclub, Carmen, a Latina transgender woman living in Queens, began making her way home.

At 3 a.m., she started walking down Roosevelt Avenue at 90th Street when a man in a black car approached her.

“He told me, ‘I can take you wherever you want’ and kept insisting ‘get in mami, don’t be afraid,’” Carmen said, in Spanish.

Since she was tired and needed a ride home, Carmen said she proceeded to enter the vehicle and told the man to take her to 77th and Roosevelt Avenue.

But, instead, the man sped in another direction and parked the car on 32nd Avenue.

“He told me that I had to do oral sex on him, but I told him no,” Carmen said. “He said ‘if I pay you or don’t pay you, you should still do it’ and took a police badge out of his pocket.”

Afraid that she would be arrested, Carmen did as the man asked.

“When I finished, he told me to get out of the car,” Carmen said. “The place was dark and deserted. He gave me $20 and told me to take a cab back to Jackson Heights and left me stranded. I felt really powerless, humiliated and used.”

While Carmen had withheld her story from police in fear of retaliation, on Oct. 23, she stood at the Make The Road New York offices in Jackson Heights to make her tale known.

In conjunction with her testimony, the nonprofit organization released a new report that surveyed more than 300 Jackson Heights residents about their experiences with police in the neighborhood.

Findings from the report, titled “Transgressive Policing: Police Abuse of LGTBQ Communities of Color in Jackson Heights,” detailed that of the two precincts governing Jackson Heights, the 110th and 115th, 90 percent of stop-and-frisks conducted last year were made on people of color.

Researchers contend that within the communities of color impacted, Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Bi-Sexual or Queer people of color were particularly targeted.

According to the report, out of all the people who said they had experienced a police stop, 33 percent of non-LGBTQ respondents said that they had been harassed by police in some manner.

By comparison, 51 percent of LGBTQ respondents who had been stopped by police indicated that they had experienced police harassment.

In addition to the stop-and-frisk statistics, the report also asserts that many transgender interviewees reported being profiled as sex workers when they were conducting routine daily tasks in the neighborhood.

“Many of the people living in this neighborhood who are transgender come from another country where they consistently are harassed,” said MRNY spokeswoman Nicole Duyuca. “They should not have to live in fear.”

Like many of the survey’s respondents, Duyuca said that she too is a transgender woman who has experienced harassment by the police.

At the age of 16, Duyuca migrated to New York from Mexico. Seeking to make income in her new city, Duyuca said she began working as a sex worker in Jackson Heights.

Although she no longer engages in prostitution, she recalled one night in 1998 when she had been assaulted by police.

“Two police men picked me up,” Duyuca said. “I thought they were going to take me to jail, but instead they took me to Flushing Meadows Corona Park and forced me to have a threesome.”

Seeking to help others who may be experiencing similar issues, Duyuca said she began working with MRNY.

“We want the policemen to identify themselves and call us by our chosen name,” Duyuca said. “They still call me ‘Mister.’ I am not a ‘Mister;’ I am a woman. All we want is to be respected like everyone else.”

Supported by openly gay Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights), the report’s list of recommendations urge the City Council to pass the Community Safety Act, which includes a ban from profiling and requires officers to announce to stopped individuals they have a right to refuse a search, in addition to providing their rank and reason for a stop-and-frisk.

“The testimonies I have heard are not new to me, unfortunately. Sometimes we in the LGBTQ community think things are getting better, but they are actually getting worse,” Dromm said. “The police have conducted 18,000 incidents of stop-and-frisk in this neighborhood alone between Shea and 69th Street. To me, it is an issue of racial profiling and LGBTQ profiling with a particular emphasis on the transgender community.”

The NYPD did not respond to requests for comment as of press time.

(After enjoying a night of dancing at a Jackson Heights nightclub, Carmen, a Latina transgender woman living in Queens, began making her way home.

At 3 a.m., she started walking down Roosevelt Avenue at 90th Street when a man in a black car approached her.

“He told me, ‘I can take you wherever you want’ and kept insisting ‘get in mami, don’t be afraid,’” Carmen said, in Spanish.

Since she was tired and needed a ride home, Carmen said she proceeded to enter the vehicle and told the man to take her to 77th and Roosevelt Avenue.

But, instead, the man sped in another direction and parked the car on 32nd Avenue.

“He told me that I had to do oral sex on him, but I told him no,” Carmen said. “He said ‘if I pay you or don’t pay you, you should still do it’ and took a police badge out of his pocket.”

Afraid that she would be arrested, Carmen did as the man asked.

“When I finished, he told me to get out of the car,” Carmen said. “The place was dark and deserted. He gave me $20 and told me to take a cab back to Jackson Heights and left me stranded. I felt really powerless, humiliated and used.”

While Carmen had withheld her story from police in fear of retaliation, on Oct. 23, she stood at the Make The Road New York offices in Jackson Heights to make her tale known.

In conjunction with her testimony, the nonprofit organization released a new report that surveyed more than 300 Jackson Heights residents about their experiences with police in the neighborhood.

Findings from the report, titled “Transgressive Policing: Police Abuse of LGTBQ Communities of Color in Jackson Heights,” detailed that of the two precincts governing Jackson Heights, the 110th and 115th, 90 percent of stop-and-frisks conducted last year were made on people of color.

Researchers contend that within the communities of color impacted, Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Bi-Sexual or Queer people of color were particularly targeted.

According to the report, out of all the people who said they had experienced a police stop, 33 percent of non-LGBTQ respondents said that they had been harassed by police in some manner.

By comparison, 51 percent of LGBTQ respondents who had been stopped by police indicated that they had experienced police harassment.

In addition to the stop-and-frisk statistics, the report also asserts that many transgender interviewees reported being profiled as sex workers when they were conducting routine daily tasks in the neighborhood.

“Many of the people living in this neighborhood who are transgender come from another country where they consistently are harassed,” said MRNY spokeswoman Nicole Duyuca. “They should not have to live in fear.”

Like many of the survey’s respondents, Duyuca said that she too is a transgender woman who has experienced harassment by the police.

At the age of 16, Duyuca migrated to New York from Mexico. Seeking to make income in her new city, Duyuca said she began working as a sex worker in Jackson Heights.

Although she no longer engages in prostitution, she recalled one night in 1998 when she had been assaulted by police.

“Two police men picked me up,” Duyuca said. “I thought they were going to take me to jail, but instead they took me to Flushing Meadows Corona Park and forced me to have a threesome.”

Seeking to help others who may be experiencing similar issues, Duyuca said she began working with MRNY.

“We want the policemen to identify themselves and call us by our chosen name,” Duyuca said. “They still call me ‘Mister.’ I am not a ‘Mister;’ I am a woman. All we want is to be respected like everyone else.”

Supported by openly gay Councilman Daniel Dromm (D-Jackson Heights), the report’s list of recommendations urge the City Council to pass the Community Safety Act, which includes a ban from profiling and requires officers to announce to stopped individuals they have a right to refuse a search, in addition to providing their rank and reason for a stop-and-frisk.

“The testimonies I have heard are not new to me, unfortunately. Sometimes we in the LGBTQ community think things are getting better, but they are actually getting worse,” Dromm said. “The police have conducted 18,000 incidents of stop-and-frisk in this neighborhood alone between Shea and 69th Street. To me, it is an issue of racial profiling and LGBTQ profiling with a particular emphasis on the transgender community.”

The NYPD did not respond to requests for comment as of press time.

(Megan Montalvo, Queens Tribune)