Minneapolis police have revamped their policies for dealing with transgender people in a partnership that advocates say likely will continue to evolve, but shows that the city is taking to heart how all of its citizens are treated.

Police Chief Janeé Harteau said that the new policy was not precipitated by a single incident, but underscores a recognition of the city’s growing transgender population. The new procedures, which call on officers to address people with their preferred names and pronouns, fits in with the department’s mission of “learning and growing and understanding the people we serve,” Harteau told reporters at an afternoon news conference at City Hall.

Hopefully, it will impact the thinking of police departments across the country” in their dealings with transgender people.

--Andrea Jenkins, Transgender Oral History Project, University of Minnesota

This policy means to trans folks a way to be able to let officers know who they are; to be able to say ‘My pronoun is they or them, or she or her or him.’

--Roxanne Anderson, Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition

Harteau said the new policy, authored by department officials with the help of local advocacy groups, lays down addition rules for how officers should handle interactions with transgender people. For example, any search of a (transgender person) that goes beyond a frisk or pat-down “shall be conducted by an officer of the gender requested by the suspect,” the policy reads.

Under the new policy, which went into effect in June, officers are also barred from stopping and frisking someone as a way of determining their gender or “to call attention to the person’s gender expression.” Similar policies have been enacted by police departments in New York and Seattle, which earlier this year unveiled new policy statements that called for transgender suspects who are arrested to be transported alone in a squad car to jail. Minneapolis has a similar provision.

For too long police have treated transgender individuals, without considering their constitutional rights and without considering their transgender status. I think this reflects a new reality in which courts are increasingly recognizing that discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination.

--Teresa Nelson, ACLU

Will this policy answer every question and address every conceivable situation that could arise? Probably not. It is plausible that in the coming years some kind of scenario will unfold where this policy just hasn’t anticipated.

--Phil Duran, OutFront, Minnesota

Mayor Betsey Hodges said that in the wake of an “ugly national climate” of a number of issues — including the treatment of transgender people, the policy sends a message that “they are human beings with rights, and that conversation should end about whether or not that’s true.

We see you, we hear you, you are us and we are you. You are our friends, you are our family, you are our community, you are our neighbors.

--Mayor Hodges