Instead of providing protection and security, the police in some countries can be perpetrators of violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons. In several countries, police officers have been implicated in physical and sexual attacks on LGBT women and transgender men.[1] According to a 2010 survey by a Turkish LGBT solidarity organization, 89 percent of transgender women had been victims of physical violence inflicted by the police during pre-charge detention. Seventy-seven percent reported experiencing sexual violence from the police as well.[2] Amnesty International reported that nearly all transgender women interviewed in 2011 had been victims in previous years of severe violence perpetrated by the police.[3]

In addition to perpetrating violence against LGBT women, police have been reported as unable or unwilling to assist LGBT victims. For instance, police have demonstrated reluctance to get involved in domestic violence cases against LGBT persons.[4] Hate crimes against LGBT persons have also received limited police response and sometimes resulted in the victims being blamed for the reported crime.[5] Accordingly, police violence and ineffective response cause many LGBT women and transgender men to choose not to report violence to the police.

Government inaction also occurs elsewhere in the justice system. For instance, the failure to criminalize violence against LGBT persons and the punishment of victims along with the perpetrators have resulted in impunity and indifference towards acts of violence against LGBT persons.[6] For example, multiple justice systems have reportedly treated defendants accused of assaulting or killing LGBT people, particularly transgender women, as victims of unwanted sexual advances.[7] Legal redress and reparations to LGBT victims of violence remain limited in many countries.[8]

However, police do not always fail to serve LGBT citizens. In many countries, the police have successfully provided protection at LGBT celebrations and pride parades. In Bulgaria, police arrested 88 people who attempted to attack the country’s first pride parade with stones, bottles, and Molotov cocktails.[9] The 2008 pride parade in Croatia met with little disruption, likely due in part because of the arrest and hate-crime conviction of an anti-LGBT protestor the year before.[10] Many other Eastern European LGBT organizations have reported improved police protection at parades and marches, although the police force is not always large enough to hold back violent protestors. [11]


[1] Human Rights Watch, These Everyday Humiliations: Violence Against Lesbians, Bisexual Women, and Transgender Men in Kyrgyzstan at 21 (2008) (PDF, 49 pages).

[2] Amnesty International, Not an Illness Nor a Crime: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People in Turkey Demand Equality at 12 (2011) (PDF, 50 pages).

[3] Id.

[4] See, for example, These Everyday Humiliations: Violence Against Lesbians, Bisexual Women, and Transgender Men in Kyrgyzstan at 19-21.

[5] See, for example, Soros Foundation-Kazakhstan, Unacknowledged and Unprotected: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People in Kazakhstan at 75-82 (2009) (PDF, 99 pages); Lewis Turner, Stephen Whittle, & Ryan Combs, Transphobic Hate Crime in the European Union at 24-25 (2009) (PDF, 47 pages).

[6] Amnesty International, Crimes of Hate, Conspiracy of Silence: Torture and Ill-Treatment Based on Sexual Identity at 23 (2001).

[7] See, for example, Transphobic Hate Crime in the European Union at 24-25.

[8] Crimes of Hate, Conspiracy of Silence: Torture and Ill-Treatment Based on Sexual Identity at 23.

[9] Human Rights First, 2008 Hate Crime Survey at 138-139 (2008) (PDF, 186 pages).

[10] Id. at 138.

[11] Id. at 138-141.