No, Seeing a Transgender Person is Not a Reason to Call 911
Chase Strangio
ACLU
DECEMBER 8, 2015 | 12:15 PM
https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/no-seeing-transgender-person-not-reason-call-911 (https://www.aclu.org/blog/speak-freely/no-seeing-transgender-person-not-reason-call-911)
""911, what's your emergency?"
There are a lot of situations that may warrant calling 911. But seeing a transgender person is not one of them. But that's exactly what a hotel manager in West Des Moines, Iowa, did when Meagan Taylor and her friend, both Black transgender women, checked into the hotel."
While, we do need to target the assumption that trans = prostitute...another issue is at work here - laws against renting rooms to people you "should have known" were prostitutes. I remember a number (~2000 to 2001) of years ago the police doing a sting where they had women go to hotels and rent rooms, dropping hints that they were prostitutes. The police arrested any hotel clerk that rented them a room. These laws combined with a stereotype that trans = prostitute create a situation where clerks feel like they have to deny us a room or call the police on us.