You may not have heard of the “Walking While Trans” law, but it’s a discriminatory statute that has aggressively been used to arrest and detain trans folks.
The existing law allows police officers to act based on what they may deem as suspicious or law breaking. These subjective regulations put trans women, specifically trans women of colour, at risk.
The law, officially named the Loitering for the Purpose of Prostitution law, was established in 1976. It is believed that many of the arrests occurring across New York, targeting trans men and women, fall under the category of “loitering for the purpose of prostitution.” In 2018, The Bronx Times revealed that arrests for loitering for prostitution spiked 120 percent in one year.